@GeeSussFreeK there's a lot in here I like and agree with. Just going to randomly interject some thoughts I had as I read it:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

[Ron Paul] is an advocate of declaring war, not the president just going in willy nilly. We can never really answer the question of if a particular war is good or not morally for every person at once, but we don't want to leave that moral choice in the hands of one man for no good reason other than self defense.

But Congress declared the wars that Ron Paul, as one man, wants to end. Paul's adherence to the constitution is selective on quite a wide range of topics, this one included.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
That is one of the major dangers I see in Statism is when you outsource responsibility, you usually don't relegate much thought to it. The plumber fixes my pipes, I don't concern myself with how they work.

Except that's not "statism," that's division of labor. Specifically the kind that is the cornerstone of a market economy.

As an aside, you need to just remove the word "statism" from your vocabulary. No one is an advocate of "statism" -- statists only exist in the imaginations of right-wing ideologues.

Case in point, you're specifically talking about markets and the kind of "rational self-interest" inherent in the "free" market gospel of the right, but somehow think it's something entirely the opposite, even though your example is a purely market-based example.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Likewise, when you place all sorts of powers in agents hands, you tend to concern yourself with the goings ons...till they break. I think a Statism and Libertarianism have the same net effect if the people don't take an active concern in all forms of domestic affairs.

Right, like investment banking.

Liberals/social democrats/European socialists are united in saying what you're saying: the system will never work unless people take their responsibility as citizens seriously.

From where I sit, it's the right who are saying the opposite. They say "freedom" is defined by how completely you can abdicate your civic duties. You should never have to worry about anyone or anything that doesn't directly relate to your own direct personal interest.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I think that Statism markets might have a higher entropy, though, because it invokes an active outsourcing of all matters of life to agents. While that could work if you are always haggling your agent to make sure he is doing his best, and not up to shenanigans, why not just cut out the middleman and keep up with the basic concern yourself?

Agreed, once I correct the label.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I think the idea of the Democracy is starting to fail, not because of some flaw in it that wasn't already widely known, but the culture we find ourselves in. For a Democracy to exist in a healthy way, each citizen has to see his role as a citizen to provide enrichment for the body politic. In this way, the Wests focus on individual rights and Libertarian ethics sorts of causes entropy on this notion. We would much rather be watching a movie, or some other form of playboy recreation, then running down to our local City Council and partake of our duty (not only to others, but ourselves).
I don't mean to ramble, but I wanted to make that point, that it doesn't matter if you are a federalist, or a anti-federalist. If your voting body is poor in intellect, will, and a toxic cultural environment, then no matter of political philosophy will save you. I think Jefferson foresaw that this entropy, and the saying, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." comes from; that things have to get really bad enough for us to actually care about democracy for it to work again for us, and more importantly, us for it.

I totally agree with this, and it's very well put to boot.
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Sometimes, dare I say most times, it is actually better to let those whom are convicted on the goodness of something to take the risk themselves and not try and hedge everyone in with them.


I don't really want to wade into the debate about Libya in particular (I think it was all shades of grey, and what we did was neither commendable nor reprehensible), but I will point out that it seems you're expressing the very abdication of civic duty you were condemning a few paragraphs before.

It's exactly the same attitude people have about their pipes -- they don't think they should have to think about them unless it's creating a problem for them directly. Either that's their inalienable right to liberty that we're morally obligated to respect, or that's the apathy that's causing our whole world to crumble around us which we're morally obligated to condemn.

I think I've made it clear which one I think it is.

>> ^Grimm:

RP wants to end all the needless wars. If any war is worth fighting then he would only require that Congress "declares war" as it is outlined in the Constitution.


Exactly, I think that would answer some of @bcglorf 's hold up on isolationism. Like isn't so black and white, especially on matter of war. Which is why he is an advocate of declaring war, not the president just going in willy nilly. We can never really answer the question of if a particular war is good or not morally for every person at once, but we don't want to leave that moral choice in the hands of one man for no good reason other than self defense. My like the recent stop to the SOPA legislation due to pressure from the outside, the same kind of pressure could of been used to help in Libya..but only if the supporters of that action could sway enough people to support that decision...just like a democracy should. And I don't think hiding behind things like NATO or the US should undermine our Presidents responsibility to us, he works for us first after all. Like in most questions of this nature, there isn't really a right or wrong when the action is taken or not taken in the most strict sense...only what was the most supported.

I think it is a little, in that light, to say that we couldn't declare war on the Libyan government. We are just so used to the President going to war for us, that we have basically abdicated our responsibility in this area. That is one of the major dangers I see in Statism is when you outsource responsibility, you usually don't relegate much thought to it. The plumber fixes my pipes, I don't concern myself with how they work. Likewise, when you place all sorts of powers in agents hands, you tend to concern yourself with the goings ons...till they break. I think a Statism and Libertarianism have the same net effect if the people don't take an active concern in all forms of domestic affairs. I think that Statism might have a higher entropy, though, because it invokes an active outsourcing of all matters of life to agents. While that could work if you are always haggling your agent to make sure he is doing his best, and not up to shenanigans, why not just cut out the middleman and keep up with the basic concern yourself?

I think the idea of the Democracy is starting to fail, not because of some flaw in it that wasn't already widely known, but the culture we find ourselves in. For a Democracy to exist in a healthy way, each citizen has to see his role as a citizen to provide enrichment for the body politic. In this way, the Wests focus on individual rights and Libertarian ethics sorts of causes entropy on this notion. We would much rather be watching a movie, or some other form of playboy recreation, then running down to our local City Council and partake of our duty (not only to others, but ourselves).

I don't mean to ramble, but I wanted to make that point, that it doesn't matter if you are a federalist, or a anti-federalist. If your voting body is poor in intellect, will, and a toxic cultural environment, then no matter of political philosophy will save you. I think Jefferson foresaw that this entropy, and the saying, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." comes from; that things have to get really bad enough for us to actually care about democracy for it to work again for us, and more importantly, us for it.

But more to @bcglorf 's point on genocide, and cowardice. I don't think it is fair to say cowardice when your only course of action is making more widows and orphans. And more importantly, it is an entirely different thing for some president to commit you to that course of action without any "due process", in this case, a declaration of war. I don't think it is cowardice, persay, to not want to kill someone that doesn't want to kill you, and might have a legitimate claim to kill the person they want to kill. But that is neither here nor there, a moral question that most likely will never see commonly, the point is, that each of us should have a voice in the action we collectively have to take, action or inaction. The benefit of defaulting to inaction is that it doesn't stop someone morally convicted like yourself to fund operations of support for whatever side. That is why I usually side with Libertarian answers for complicated issues, sometimes, you don't need one answer for everyone. Sometimes, dare I say most times, it is actually better to let those whom are convicted on the goodness of something to take the risk themselves and not try and hedge everyone in with them.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^artician:
I'm so curious to why people reject that notion. Is it purely fear of other religions and cultures? Are that many americans actually for invading other countries? I've never encountered that state of mind before, at all. From my experience most people are pretty quick to equate War with Evil.

I have a theory that most Americans know pretty much what we're doing. The fight between the indoctrinated (both the right and the left) is actually a fight about how we should go about doing what we're doing in the world. Indoctrinated Democrats have no problem with bossing other countries around and getting our way, we just have to be nicer about it and do it carefully so that we at least LOOK like we're good. Whereas the indoctrinated Republicans believe we are "Special" and should not only do it but do it with complete disregard for what ANY else thinks or says.
This is just a theory based on what I've seen from what our presidents do. Democratic presidents aren't any better on war crimes than Republican presidents. They just seem to be in the business of trying to tell everyone they're being nice and when they have to do something awful it's all the other countries fault.
I mean look at Bush and Obama...Bush locked up people indefinitely and said they deserved it and he does it because they're they enemy. Obama doesn't bother he just assassinates them. If Bush assassinated more like Obama he'd come out and take full credit and say it was AWESOME that he was doing it...Obama not so much, more hand wringing and deflection.
This is also helped along by the media who play their role well. It's just a theory but I like it.


Wow Yogi, we agree on something .

I think your view is pretty much bang on. The only difference between Dem. and Rep. presidents is the reasons they give for acting purely in their own self interests(which very often coincides with making decisions that are in America's self interests).

Where I disagree with Ron Paul's conclusion is about what the answer to all this should be. I don't for a second believe Ron Paul would be any different than all those before him. Instead of selfish wars he'd maybe follow the course of selfish isolationism. Take the recent example in Libya. America had two selfish options, go in or don't. Not going in would mean keeping the President's hands clean and money in America's pocket, and Ron Paul insists that what he'd have done. It also would have meant leaving thousands of Libyan civilians to Gaddafi's death squads. It would mean a Libya still ruled today by Gaddafi, with a newly subdued and less numerous population.

I don't see a clearly white/black obvious ethical choice in most geopolitical decisions, it's always messy. The Iraqi's that hate America the most(the Sadrists) don't hate them for all the things that America did to them, but for America's failures to act. The hate America for it's failure to push into Baghdad in the first Gulf War. In lieu of that they want revenge on the Sunnis. They want to commit their own eviction of all Sunni's from Iraq, or in it's stead to kill them for what Saddam had done with their aid. Was America wrong to stick around in Iraq after evicting Saddam and trying to stand in the middle, stopping a civil war driven by revenge against the Sunnis?

Ron Paul and Chomsky are generally agreed on minding our own business is the only ethical choice. It's hard to make that argument for Libya. It's impossible to make that argument for Rwanda. There are situations in our world were the ethical choice IS to go to war and stop something even more evil than war inherently is. What Ron Paul and Chomsky understand though is that no matter how grave the evil you oppose, your actions will create people who hate you for interfering. War makes it inevitable that your own forces will commit crimes against innocents, and their families will hate you. Ron and Chomsky conclude that means never get involved, I call that cowardice and insist there are situations that demand paying that price and coming to the aid of our fellow man when faced with terrible evils like genocide. In theory, every signatory nation to the convention on genocide agrees with me on this point too.

Here is -- or used to be -- the entire interview: link.

(top reddit comment) SixBiscuit 368 points 5 hours ago*

Predicting an Iraq war in April 2002 was not exactly difficult or limited to Ron Paul. The rest of the video has a certain amount of horoscope logic to it.

>> A major war... the largest since WWII.

Nope. Iraq is in no way larger than Vietnam even. -- http://www.lies.com/wp/2006/11/05/us-deaths-in-iraq-vs-vietnam-the-handoff/

>> The Karzai government will fail and US involvement will end in Afghanistan

Nope. -- http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/03/us-afghanistan-election-idUSTRE6320X220100403

>> An international dollar crisis will dramatically boost interest rates in the United States

Nope. -- http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/fed/key-interest-rates.asp

He is completely off on the scope of what he predicted. The video is manipulative. I'd really like to see a Paul supporter write these out and back them up.

For instance crude oil did shoot up to record highs but not because of an oil embargo. Does he get credit for predicting that? He's half right. Oil shot up because of instability in the region and speculation, not an embargo.

What about what he's left out. If he had such clever predictive powers why isn't Iran mentioned? Iran filling the power vaccum Iraq's destabilization left is something that could have been easily predicted but he doesn't.

Saying that the Arab Spring was the Islamic fundamentalist overthrowing their government is mischaracterizing what happened. Yes Islamic fundamentalist may end up in power in Egypt and Libya but they were not the instigators of the uprisings.

No doubt Ron Paul along with Hunter S. Thompson and a lot of people knew going into Iraq was a terrible fucking idea and would lead to ruin. That doesn't make him some sort of Cassandrian prophet. It means he was one of the few elected officials brave enough to speak out against it. Which is admirable but it hardly makes him alone. Powell believed it was a terrible idea at the time as well but was too chickenshit to stand up and stop it.

>> ^marbles:

You know who's the biggest fan of socialism? Corporations.
You wanna punish those evil "capitalists"? Make them actually have to compete in a real free market instead of lobbying congress for special interests. Let them suffer the consequences of leveraging their business with 30 to 1 bets. Hold government accountable for colluding with them and giving them trillions in free "loans" to manipulate the market. Hold government accountable for ignoring and refusing to go after banking fraudsters, the same fraudsters that are "donating" millions to election campaigns and special slush funds for government officials.
Socialism always has and always will be a deception. On multiple levels. You give power to one group of people (government) to plunder from another and you think this group of people is going to be fair?
And if any government around the world does practice something closer to true socialism (like Libya for example), then we're going to bomb the shit out of you. And all you so-called progressives will be leading the cheer for it.


There is never a "free market" and "free maket " as a saying is redundant and useless people use it all the time to counter socialisum but it makes no sense.

for example say you removed governments from the markets compleatly and just let market forces dictate everything , who do you think would win out ? the people with the most money would and the people with the most money would use that money to advertise more and more so regardless of the actual value of there product or service they would still make money.

the deregulation of the markets is specifically what lead to the sub prime fiasco , and ethor way raw consumption based capitlosum is fundimentaly floored when there are finite resources and ultimately things have to be managed by what makes things better for people and not whats the most profatable thing to do.

I would be intrestead to know what you would define as "free market" because I'm prity sure that people using the term "free market" in reality mean highly regulated capitlisum but with the regulation coming from the general population and scientific consensus instead of what we have now where the regulation comes from cooperate interest.

If that's the case you are basically talking about a socialist society with capitlisum balted on not a "free market" capitlist society.

I'm sorry, but didn't Obama just recently ignore the Constitution and congress, and go to the UN for permission to wage war in Libya? So the UN authorizes the terror bombing of a sovereign country that kills 1000+ civilians for "humanitarian" purposes and this is ok? The UN violates it's own charter and lets NATO install a regime of rebel terrorists as Libya's government and the politician that has a problem with the UN is a whack job?

You statist clowns are unreal.

You know who's the biggest fan of socialism? Corporations.

You wanna punish those evil "capitalists"? Make them have to actually compete in a real free market instead of lobbying congress for special interests. Let them suffer the consequences of leveraging their business with 30 to 1 bets. Hold government accountable for colluding and giving them trillions in free "loans" to manipulate the market. Hold government accountable for ignoring and refusing to go after banking fraudsters, the same fraudsters that are "donating" millions to election campaigns and special slush funds for government officials.

Socialism always has and always will be a deception. On multiple levels. You give power to one group of people (government) to plunder from another and you think this group of people is going to be fair?
And if any government around the world does practice something closer to true socialism (like Libya for example), then we're going to bomb the shit out of you. And all you so-called progressives will be leading the cheer for it.

That totally looked like Libya, Chad, and Syria.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

We're debating why we were attacked by a handful of radical folks
Pht - I can answer that in one word. Isreal. Next?
...whether or not our military engagement, specifically since WWII, has been productive in any measurable way...
Productive to who and in what way?
You see - to a leftist - your question is unanswerable. Like Ron Paul, leftists view any military intervention by the United States as unproductive. By their very natures it is literally impossible to supply a leftist with any response that they will find satisfactory. Leftists come from a particular philosophy and perspective that disallows the word 'productive' to be used in the same sentence as 'American military engagement'. Heck to this day there are leftists who even question whether the US should have gotten involved in WW1 or WW2 or not.
Other people with other perspectives are not quite so closed-minded about whether or not a military action was 'productive' or not because they allow other definitions of 'productive' to be satisfied. But to a Proglibdyte, ANY US military action is viewed as unproductive.

Bollocks. I'm a socialist and I firmly believe that not only was America right to get involved in WW2, it was right to get involved in Libya recently.

Typical "rightist" attitude. You can't see any nuance or context. The left opposed Americas intervention in Vietnam, in Iraq and guess what? They turned out to be fucking right. Hell, I don't even remember that much left wing opposition to gulf war 1, other than the likes of Bill Hicks pointing out the ridiculous position you were in was largely of your own making.

As for "American exceptionalism", the USA had some grand ideals, and should be commended for that. But the reason it occupies the place it does in the world today is down to geology (it was rich in natural resources) and geography (America has never had a strong belligerent neighbour). So really, more down to good luck than good management.

one of the leaders of the Libyan insurgents was a taliban. Nobody disputes this.
Cenk fail.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=taliban%20in%20libya&source=web&cd=11&ved=0CHUQFjAK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2F8301-250_162-57328103%2F
cain-suggests-taliban-running-libya%2F&ei=y8_OTsCZCqTz0gH3o_AM&usg=AFQjCNFkctF5GXLoJ8lR9H3LlfsY3zv_fg&sig2=0jiIQUBIfqV9VR-Nwy5N3w&cad=rja

Yay, more bullshit from a professional bullshit spinner. Denying the fact that there was a popular uprising in Egypt and Libya, and is one currently in Syria is downright lying. I am not surprised that RT, a channel often criticised for being biaised and promoting conspiracy theories, would try to undermine the support for the popular uprising by spreading lies about it: Russia is backing Assad just as they are Ahmadinejad and his nuclear projects. It's all a part of global politics, just like when the US backed the Taliban against the Russian invasion during the cold war.

I really wanted to sift this video but the uploader blocked embedding for it. It's from October 27th and and he talks about the Occupy movements, Libya, as well as the history of social movements in general.
http://vimeo.com/31305132

In reply to this comment by Trancecoach:
It's too bad that this talk preceded the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and the onset of the Occupy movement in the U.S. and abroad. Would have been interested in hearing his response to the implications of these events.

>> ^TheJehosephat:

I agree with Rachel Maddow, there is no way Herman Cain is NOT a performance artist


That Sacha Baron Cohen. He really had me going this time.

It's too bad that this talk preceded the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and the onset of the Occupy movement in the U.S. and abroad. Would have been interested in hearing his response to the implications of these events.