For those of you who have been following Ron Paul, before you watch the below clip, take a minute and think about what Congressman Paul would do as President.
Okay, so it is not hard to understand Ron Paul's plan. It would be to reduce government in almost every way possible. It's probably as coherent a plan as is out there at this stage of the Presidential race. Have you, for example, heard a more detailed from Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry?
Now listen to the nonsense in this interview from Katherine Mangu-Ward of Koch supported Reason Magazine, especially the second half.
With libertarian friends like this, who needs statists?
All the Koch supported people are just plain evil. Ron Paul is without a doubt the most libertarian presidential candidate since at least Grover Cleveland, and the supposed libertarian types like her are attacking him?
ReplyDeleteThey are exposing themselves for what they truly are, just like the media. It has to really drive the koch brothers crazy with how austrian econ, ron paul, and sites like lewrockwell.com have just exploded in popularity!
Gary Johnson is more coherent than Ron Paul? Really? Did they even watch the debate Gary Johnson took part in? I thought he did awful.
ReplyDeleteI give credit to Reason for being a part of what helped get me into a libertarian mindset, but they tremendously disappoint me sometimes. If you're actually for liberty, why on earth would you help fuel the propaganda that he can't win?
As Murry Rothbard said, reason isn't anti-state because they recognize it as evil, they just happen to have a utilitarian belief that we'd be better off without most of it.
Anyone who subscribes to Reason and who also supports Ron Paul should unsubscribe to them. If that is they way they want to play it, they cannot have my money or my attention. PERIOD.
ReplyDeleteDay 1) Give the orders to begin bringing our troops home from the 900 bases overseas, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.
ReplyDeleteDay 2) Give the orders to the Attorney General to end the war on drugs. Maybe even presidential pardon everyone jailed for dealing, using, and importing drugs. (My hope, he hasn't said this.)
Day 3) Abolish the TSA, Department of Homeland Security, End wiretapping and warantless searches, Close gitmo.
Day 4) Audit the Federal Reserve. Return Gold and Silver to legal tender.
I could continue on, but it's too easy. :)
I was surprised by the admittion on Fox News by the other lady that this country and even the republican electorate are becoming more and more against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How difficult is it to order generals to plan an immediate withdrawal of troops.
ReplyDeleteHow difficult is it to veto asinine bils from Congress?
How difficult is it to renounce past executive orders?
Getting lots of other things done that require Congress to pass bills or modify the Constitution might be more difficult, but that's the same for any president.
Katherine Mangu-Ward is only on TV now because of the resurgence of libertarianism sparked by Ron Paul's 2008 campaign. Now that's she's had a taste of the spotlight, she's spouting typical "conventional wisdom" -- wow.
We live in extraordinary times. We're almost certainly in for a wild inflationary ride over the next 1-2 years, and there are lots of other economic uncertainties that make the future even more impossible to predict than it is normally. Katherine Mangu-Ward's prognostications notwithstanding, Ron Paul can very well win this race.
Katherine Mangu-Ward is a jackass.
At this point, i think the only person worth a damn at Reason is probably Nick Gillespie. Unless i've missed him bash Ron Paul too, but i don't recall him ever doing that. The rest of them i've seen exposing themselves as a bunch of fauxbertarians at one point or another.
ReplyDeleteThe thing with these beltway hacks is, they actually do support voting, which makes it all the more bizarre that they dump on the only guy that comes close to being a true libertarian.
They are revolting. Either vote Ron Paul or don't vote at all.
Wow. I like a good bit of the content Reason produces, but that was some Hannity-esque political hackery from Mangu-Ward. Just awful. I can't see how any political observer could consider Michele Bachmann a libertarian candidate. Yet there it is.
ReplyDeleteI accept that libertarians are varied and opinionated enough that not all of us are 100% on board with Paul's platform. And I accept that, should he become president, he'll do things in office that disappoint me; just the nature of the job. But let's be honest: Paul would be the most liberty-friendly president anyone living has ever seen. Even if you can't agree with everything he says, that much is glaringly obvious.
What is that girl smoking.
ReplyDeleteI distinctly remember the good Dr. writing an article that appeared in Lewrockwell.com going through everything he would try to do as president, step by step. He was even humble in his presentation and of the fact that he can do only so much without the support of congress. This girl is just trying to strike up ire among libertarians and make a name for herself. I hate people like that
That drivel by Mangu-Ward ranks up there with some of the more irrational things said about Ron Paul recently. Beyond merely disagreeing in typical statist fashion, she utters falsehoods that are from a different universe.
ReplyDeleteThe Koch machine must be more than desperate to use her.
I'm first and foremost so happy to see a complete female conversation. I don't want to bring it up to shine the light on gender, however this just filled my heart with joy how unnoticeably female it was. Also, I'm sad to see the "unelectable" words come out of Katherine's mouth...
ReplyDeleteGod, that ugly smirk. What the hell is with all the beltway libtards? Are they seriously THIS desperate to curry favor that they'll sabotage the ONLY libertarian candidate to be doing this well, like the previous poster said, since the 19th century??
ReplyDeleteThe Koch vs. Rothbard/Paul/Rockwell feud has been going on for decades and the creation of the LvMI sealed the deal.
ReplyDeleteWenzel,
ReplyDeleteOkay, so it is not hard to understand Ron Paul's plan. It would be to reduce government in almost every way possible.
Can you enumerate some of the ways that Paul could possibly reduce government? Can he go in and start single-handedly striking down laws and dismantling departments? Will the rest of the government and the political class go along with this guy throwing a monkey-wrench in their works like that? What happens to Ron Paul in the event of a "terrorist attack" or other dramatic, national event on his watch. Etc.
Those are the things I'd like to understand better. What are the mechanics here, what can a Paul presidency actually, "practically" accomplish? Forget whether or not it's realistic to imagine him actually making it into the White House, I am trying to understand if it's realistic to expect him to be at all "effective" once he is there. Something tells me Congress and the Supreme Court, not to mention the humongous federal bureaucracy, are not going to sit by idly and watch Ron Paul undo all the cages and shackles and booby-traps they've worked so hard to build.
Thoughts?
Truth - Ron Paul, the intellectual godfather of the tea party.
ReplyDeleteThis fact should be a Red Flag to all Americans - The media has shaped the election.
They do not deny shafting Ron Paul. Instead they state over and over "Ron Paul will never be President." - on a piece explaining why the media is shafting Ron Paul.
What happened to we report, You decide?
Cancel your subscription to Reason magazine. Their sr. editor takes you for a fool.
I've had my share of doubts whether the political establishment would ever LET him win.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't doubt that if he DID win, he'd do - or try to do - what he's said he would. Why wouldn't he? He's been saying the same things for the last thirty years when it cost him something to say it. Why would he stop when it would HELP him (and us)?
Seems to be a lot of circular thinking among the critics - "he can't win because he won't really be able to do anything in power...and he can't do anything because he'll never win..."
That was pretty bad, the slanted nonsense of Katherine Mangu-Ward. I have read Reason magazine before, I don't think I will ever again.
ReplyDeleteTaylor Conant said, "I am trying to understand if it's realistic to expect him to be at all "effective" once he is there."
Imho, I think you're not trying hard enough and you may need to read a bit more.
"... in the event of a "terrorist attack"..."???
Perhaps you should watch a few of his interviews too?
And, understand one thing, it's the use of local resources by local People which respond to "other disasters"... the Federal response mucks things up.
Wondering HOW is certainly valid, I'd just be happy to see someone that is willing to TRY and Ron Paul seems to be the only one who would...
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, WizarDave, that most self-respecting libertarians canceled their Reason subscriptions many years ago. It's been clear they've been a libertarian-lite organization for a couple of decades now.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the late great Harry Browne. I voted for him whenever I could.
ReplyDeleteThe president's first day in office
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=517
You MUST read this.
Taylor Conant,
ReplyDeleteHe would abolish the TSA. He would abolish the Federal Department of Education. He would dramatically reduce funding of Homeland Security and work towards abolishing that department as well. That would take more time than the above two though.
He would pull our troops home. He would then reduce the military budget. He would repeal legal tender laws. These are all direct quotes he has given in response to what specifically he would do in office.
Just these few actions that I recall off the top of my head seem to be much more likely to result in a smaller government than whomever else is President.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteOk my above comment totally ignored the point of your post. Sorry about that. Yes you are right he would most likely encounter serious resistance. As to how specifically these actions get done, I honestly don't know. I just like the chances of them getting done in a Tea Party surging political climate with Ron Paul as president. Short of waiting for "the state to implode upon itself" as many anti-voting anarchists preach about, I don't see a better chance at effecting smaller government out there.
Another thing about the "he won't be president" comment is that you could, with high probability, say that about any of the candidates. Any given candidate -- outside of Barack Obama -- has a relatively small probability of being the next president, yet someone will be the next president if there are no extreme catastrophes. I don't think either Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, or Michelle Bachmann will be the next president. However, when you lump them together and say one of them may be the next president, the probabilities obviously rise (but I think even lumped together, it is well less than 50% probability that one of them will be the next president).
ReplyDeleteShort of the actual Rapture, I don't see any single event that helps Romney, Bachmann, or Perry become president. Possibly an event could raise their probability as a group by lowering Obama's probability, but nothing helps them individually. For one thing, there just isn't that much difference between them for a world event to help one of them individually.
However, I can foresee lots of possible events in the next 6 months to one year that could catapult Ron Paul to a frontrunner and give him a very high probability of election. There are some things, like a muslim terrorist attack on U.S. soil, that could hurt him, but in large there are far more things -- both economically and foreign-policy related -- on the horizon that could help him than hurt him.
A Ron Paul presidency would be quite the spectacle. I'm not even talking about the part where he brings the troops home.
ReplyDeleteThe mainsteam media is all against him, and it will remain that way even if he landed in office. They would distort, spin, lie; all with the goal to make everything Ron Paul does and says look like failure/idiocy. It would be an unrelenting storm of attacks on everything about him.
Hell, we might even see an impeachment where they forcibly remove him from office for some scandal, real or imaginary.
Getting the presidency would just be the beginning. If he gets it, it's full-on crisis mode.
It'll be something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHf5OqwXEFo
Start at the 1:00 point in the video. It's Eddie Murphy so there will be cursing.
Go over to YouTube and read the comments on this video and then go the Reason's page there and read those. I wonder if they will need a tourniquet to stop the hemorrhage of shooting themselves in the foot on this video?
ReplyDeleteAs C-in-C, I assume he could redeploy troops to a more defensive and money saving posture. Even if he did nothing else different from Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, etc., that would be worth voting for him.
ReplyDelete@Taylor Conant: As Commander in Chief, he will have control over the disposition of U.S. forces. For God's sake, Obama ATTACKED Libya without even telling anyone, let alone getting authorization. Paul can certainly order them home.
ReplyDeleteAnd if elected, he'll have at least half of the electorate behind him, which will put pressure on the other two branches. As President, he sets policy and priorities for all federal agencies. He can order federal law enforcement to stop going after nonviolent offenders and concentrate on violent offenders, for example. He'll also have two years control of the bully pulpit to contrast his efforts with the efforts of establishment politicians.
Dr. No will use the veto pen for nearly all bills that come to him. Most bills do not pass both chambers with a veto-proof majority, so Dr. No can bring federal legislation to a near stop.
In short, President Paul can do a hell of a lot.
It is apparent that the Republican/Democrat way has not gotten us anywhere but BANKRUPT!
ReplyDeleteMaybe we need a different theory?
On her Facebook page, Katherine Mangu-Ward lists here email here:
ReplyDeletekmw@reason.com
I guess in the context of the interview, she was interviewed for her opinion? So she can say who she thinks can win or not win?
But in fact she's saying, as a reporter, it's okay not to cover Ron Paul, because we know he can't win. That's outrageous.
If Ron Paul is so unelectable, why does the establishment media openly lie and distort about top tiers candidates? Would they go through so much trouble to 13-floor him if in fact he is unelectable? The establishment media needs to downplay his wins, distort his results precisely because he's winning so many polls. Unelectable?
ReplyDelete(T)Reason magazine will always have a special place in my heart. It was an issue of the mag in my college POBox from the previous user that started me on the road to anarcho-libertarianism.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I haven't read an issue (or more than one or two articles) in over a decade, once I found Lew Rockwell and Mises.
That c*^t from the video just shows how faux-libertarian they are. Ron Paul is the most liberty-friendly, "free minds and free markets" presidential candidate in modern history, and for her to dismiss him is disgusting. I hope that this shameful episode is the final nail in their coffin and they have to cease publication.
As much as it pains me, since I'm sure millions of libertarians have been created by exposure to their magazine, their current Kochian slant has ruined their reputation. Good riddance.
Dale Fitz
@Taylor --
ReplyDeleteEven a constitutional president wields enormous power. Paul can, in effect, immediately end the drug war by ordering the attorney general to refrain from prosecuting drug cases. Though the president cannot abolish departments without congressional approval, he can determine how those departments are run or not run. He could issue an order immediately suspending all TSA nonsense at the airports. Like Andrew Jackson, he could argue that the president is obligated to uphold the Constitution and therefore cannot carry out unconstitutional laws (virtually all of them). He could immediately order the various bureaucracies to stop harassing businesses with burdensome regulations. Though he couldn't shut down the Fed without congressional approval, he could appoint someone to the Fed who would not inflate.
Easiest of all, as commander in chief in a time of war, he could immediately order all the troops home.
Would President Ron Paul face immense pressure from the establishment? Of course! He always has, and never has he caved or even given an inch. I believe in Ron Paul. Certainly, the establishment would do everything in its power to depict President Paul as a dangerous kook, but so what? That's what it does now. It hasn't stopped Ron Paul yet. The establishment might try to kill him, but an assassination would be too obvious.
If the President does not wish to execute a law whether he believes it unjust or unconstitutional, he does not have to. The only reason for separating executive and legislative branches in the first place is for the President to be able to resist Congress at any time (vetoes can be overridden and only offer one chance per bad legislation, hence they do not complete the theory of separation of powers).
ReplyDeleteTaylor:
ReplyDeleteI'd think veto and pardon would be his main thing.
Paul actually said on RT that he would pardon all non-violent drugcrimes from jail.
ReplyDeleteadam kokesh was also pissed off at tha reason magazine girl. I noticed other staffers from reason also try to push Johnson. something is wrong here.
The Koch brothers must be in disbelief that despite pouring who knows how many millions into organizations like Cato, George Mason Econ, and Reason mag that Austrian econ and Ron Paul are now the face of libertarianism in america.
ReplyDeleteThat just shows how powerful ideas are -- far more so than money.
Though I support Ron Paul's candidacy, I must say that Stefan Molyneux's respectful disagreement with the Paulians doesn't deserve to be lumped with Mangu Ward's dismissal of them.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/5-j9LBCmM3c
I'll watch that Lila. SMoly's a little too smug for me sometimes, but I'm sure it's worthwhile. I sent an email to ManguWard, and her reply was that (T)Reason has a whole web section devoted to Ron Paul, blahblahblah, but never addressed her own behavior in the interview. Disingenuous, but I just let her slide. Apparently she's gotten a LOT of flack for it.
ReplyDeletePer the Cato/Boaz post this afternoon (19Aug) and the snark about LVMI, I've tried to give Cato/Reason the benefit of the doubt- they ARE a very visible force for exposing people to liberty- but their love of power and proximity to it makes me doubt how deeply their love of liberty really is. It must gall them that an Austrian is the current public face of libertarianism!
Dale Fitz
@Lila,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link.
I think the mistake Molyneux makes, however, is the same one Mangu-Ward makes. They both ignore foreign policy and assume that vast cutting of social services is the only option on the table, an option bound to end badly.
ReplyDeleteWhat Paul COULD do, and given his steadfast antiwar position we have no reason to think he will not do, is to put empire on the chopping block.
The government could pay its lawfully contracted obligations if that happened. And it's not IMPOSSIBLE for it it happen with Paul.
However, ending empire is IMPOSSIBLE with any other candidate.
The choice is that simple.
While Molyneux is correct in a deeper sense, the fact is he is NOT correct when he says that no attempt to reign in the state from within has ever worked.
Many monarchs have changed course drastically, rejecting aggressive war at the heights of their powers - King Ashoka at Kalinga was one.
OK, maybe monarchies aren't the most suitable examples. Isn't it true that countries under enlightened despotism did better than countries under absolute tyrannies?
Even if the effects were temporary and were rolled back farther down the road, it's not correct to say that the quality of the politician makes no difference.
There is nothing in Ron Paul's history that makes it likely he would support overnight roll-back of all social provisions, especially ones that the government obligated itself to perform. This is the only circumstance in which I could see nation-wide rioting erupt.
If, instead, he would expose the vast boondoggle that the military-intel complex has become he could cut it back - especially as he would have tremendous support for it from the population.
People are waking up to the fact that they are the patsies of the war machine. If their choice is between
EITHER
ending perpetual war and becoming financially viable (if not solvent)
OR
persisting in a counterproductive foreign policy AND becoming the financial pariah of the world,
I think it won't be that difficult a choice to make.
ms. mangu-ward, you are a disgrace to journalism. that Reason would permit you to represent them, and by extension the many of us who are subscribers and readers, concerns me.
ReplyDeleteyour smirking dismissal of the man who has done more for small government in his life than 100 Reason magazines puts you with the rest of the mental midgets that populate the MSM. Reason Magazine...you are known by the company you keep. you are squarely now in the company of hacks.
mike in san diego