I hope that someone puts a camera upriver (and down) and does a year or two long time lapse of the area recovering after. I love to see nature reclaim shit.

I have a certain sympathy for Libertarian ideas, and I like the way Mr. Paul states his opinions without all the obfuscating sentimental baggage we get from most pols. But I also have many reservations. Here are couple of examples.

The thing that worries me about Libertarians promoting nuclear energy is that that I assume they mean a 100% unregulated nuclear industry. It seems dangerously naive to assume that the small circle of people in charge of any given plant would have any free-market motivation at all to embrace the extra expense of safely disposing of the nuclear waste. They are more likely to find ways to justify to themselves that a "sweep it under the carpet" type solution will be just fine so long as they maintain the right to collect the profits at the end of each year. Then, after many years of neglect, with all the profits having been spent and the perpetrators safely retired, we get permanent radio active disaster areas popping up all over the place. I don't see how the free market is going to help at all at that point. There is no profit associated with cleaning up nuclear disaster areas and with no taxes and no government, I don't see who is going to volunteer for the dangerous, dirty hard work that pays nothing.

I am also not necessarily convinced that simply allowing everybody to keep as much money as they can earn is even the best possible solution even for the very people who imagine they would benefit most from such a policy. It *seems* obvious that if I have, for example $20,000 more in my bank account than I would otherwise have, then I am better off as a result. But that $20,000 is really nothing in relation to the national economy. It will not enable me to, for example, fix the problems created by toxic nuclear waste dump that just happened to burst open upriver from my home town after a recent storm. Imagine also that EVERYBODY has that extra $20,000. We'd all think it stupidly obvious that we are all better off. But many people are likely to spend it in ways that may make both my and their lives much worse. Again, to a degree that the extra 20k in our accounts cannot compensate for. For example, if everybody living in my town suddenly received enough of a tax break, then we might all celebrate by buying a car rather than continuing to cycle or bus to work. But in fact, everybody might actually be worse off because of the extra traffic, smog and loss of exercise. With all the new traffic, it might actually take longer to get to work--even for those who continue to take buses--but everybody would just sit in their cars anyway damning the traffic like it was uniquely everybody else's fault; no amount of extra money or tax breaks will get them there faster. So, time again to dust off that old cycle (also an example of an alternative to burning fossil fuels, but hardly a comprehensive solution to the problem.)

I think capitalism (i.e., the free market) works because it is fundamentally based on the assumption that all people are greedy, lazy, selfish and stupid. Exceptions to this are rare enough that the system winds up working acceptably well, or at least out competing alternatives attempted until now. People go to work because they realize that they are forced to if they want to eat and show off or whatever and so long as it seems like they are adequately compensated for their efforts, they consider the situation tolerable and think they are "free". Everybody might secretly prefer to be poets rather than janitors, but the free market ensures that bad poetry doesn't pay very well, thereby ensuring that we don't end up with a 100% population of layabout poets and we can all avoid starving to death. Fine. On average, everything looks good. But as soon as someone is permitted to accept inherited privilege or wealth, we are looking at an exception to the free market. This person has profited without regard to contribution or ability and is therefore just as much a violation of the free market as is a welfare recipient (otherwise, the much more popular target of free-market cheer leaders). I would argue that this person is in fact a more dangerous aberration to the system than the welfare recipient because it frees him or her (let's call her "Paris") to apply influences to society that are out of proportion to her ability, compassion or understanding of the consequences. It also lets her not care if everything goes to shit because she will always have enough money to buy a house far away from whatever problems she produces (through nuclear waste mismanagement, for example) and even her own private army to fight off the malcontents when they come knocking. Once the Libertarians have knocked down all government and regulations, how are we to deal with Paris? Do we all deserve to suffer because of our poor choice of birth parents?

Ron Paul is also anti-choice on the abortion issue. Hardly a Libertarian opinion. I suppose that's why he left the Libertarians to join the Republicans.

I'm all in favor of closing all the military bases and bankrupting most the defense industry, though.

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