TRN's title was "Ron Paul says it's time to end the empire".

but besides current US foreign policy, the military industrial complex, and its inevitable collapse?
they discuss paul's treatment by his own party, the domestic policy difference between libertarians and democrats, mccain's choice of palin, climate change, nuclear power, pollution, genuinely free markets, and hemp!
my15minutessays...

personally, i was glad he touched on what i summarized above as, "the domestic policy difference between libertarians and democrats".

blankfist & i, a few others, have mentioned it every once in a while, but i thought congressman paul summarizes it well here. and if anyone has questions about the reasoning behind it, real-world consequences, etc, i'd be happy to expound as needed.

NetRunnersays...

^ I'd love to hear a realistic appraisal of the effect withdrawing all of our troops from all foreign nations would have.

I like the idea, I'm just not convinced it's practical or safe.

Assuming we do it, what then?

Do we pursue bin Laden in any ongoing capacity?

Do we concern ourselves with nuclear proliferation? If so, what actions do we take to prevent it?

Do we honor treaties like NATO?

Do we continue to sell arms to other countries?

my15minutessays...

cool. good q's, runner.

>Do we pursue bin Laden in any ongoing capacity?

fuck yes! and to a greater capacity than would appear to have been ongoing.
assuming he hasn't simply died of renal failure, i'd suppose that's best accomplished by a seal team or a cruise missile.

>Do we concern ourselves with nuclear proliferation? If so, what actions do we take to prevent it?

sure. but we don't have US troops in 130 other countries, to deter nuclear proliferation there.
personally, i'd start by reducing our own stockpile, down to merely enough to destroy the planet 17 times over. that oughta' make everyone a little less nervous about the need for their own.

>Do we honor treaties like NATO?

most libertarians advise against the idea of signing treaties at all. if i'm a reasonably friendly guy who minds my own business, you won't feel threatened by me. you won't need me to sign a piece of paper that promises it, and i won't need one from you.
and think about what it means to everyone else, if we do sign. all our neighbors, that we haven't promised not to attack...

>Do we continue to sell arms to other countries?

nope. DoD weapon contracts should be sealed bids, from US manufacturers, for exclusive manufacturing rights, that will not be extended to any other nation.

that's the quick versions. what would your answers be?

NetRunnersays...

^ Ya missed the biggest of the bunch, though I didn't frame it in the form of a question: What is the likely impact around the world from withdrawing those troops from 130 different nations?

I'm sure some would probably have little to no effect, such as closing bases in Germany, while others I could easily see destabilizing a region, like the removal of troops from South Korea.

I would love to see a comprehensive analysis, because I tend to think we aren't just deploying troops around the world for no reason at all (or just to fund defense contractors -- we have better excuses than that).

I agree with your answers, though I would note you didn't directly answer my question about NATO; that's an existing treaty. Would we seek to withdraw from it?

Also, what should we be doing specifically about Iran?

volumptuoussays...

"The free market is very protective of the environment."
-
Yeah, Exxon Mobil really super awesomely cares about the environment!


"We do know a source of energy that's cheap and clean and that's nuclear energy"
-
Yeah, nuclear waste is super-duper clean!



I'm totally voting for Ron Paul.

my15minutessays...

>> ^NetRunner
^ Ya missed the biggest of the bunch, though I didn't frame it in the form of a question...

probably why i didn't treat it as one. as originally phrased, i thought you were just making a preamble to your questions.
S Korea, sure. different situation, and you'll typically find wiggle room there among libertarians, myself certainly included.
but yeah, main point being, most would be like Germany. hard to justify, yet never a choice offered to the american people.

and yes, i'd not only want to withdraw, but i would want to talk to everyone in NATO about the idea of simply disbanding it, for the reasons i mentioned. what's NATO there for, without the mighty USSR/Warsaw Pact in opposition? is it now the Everyone But Russia club?

>Also, what should we be doing specifically about Iran?

how about, not float the idea of invading them every other weekend, just to feel tough? then we could stop pretending that it wouldn't mean a draft. what has iran done, that anyone here should be willing to kill or die for?
i'd treat iran like any other neighbor on this planet, near or far. trust, but verify.

MINKsays...

i have never been in a fight, but some of my friends have.

strangely (or should i say obviously) only the big tough friends get in fights.

even more strangely (or should i say obviously), every fight i have witnessed has been based on social protocols rather than purely on force.

anyway, upvote for hemp. anything the oil guys don't like is probably a good thing at this point.

wazantsays...

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.

NetRunnersays...

>> ^my15minutes:

I like your answers, and I'm all for that set of policies.

I'd also point out, Obama's policy on Iran is essentially what you describe, even if his rhetoric on the topic has started sounding "tough" in the last 6 months, since he was getting beaten up for wanting to "just talk" with a "terrorist regime committed to acquiring a nuclear weapon".

He's still saying diplomacy is the answer, even if he spends more time talking about an absolute resolve to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

I think the grassroots/netroots of the Democratic party are in sync with the Libertarian grassroots on foreign policy. The Democrats are currently preoccupied with Iraq, Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, but I've often wondered why NATO wasn't dissolved in the 90's too, and I know the grassroots was always against Reagan's weapons buildup, and Bush's anti-missile buildup.

@wazant, Libertarians can justify making abortion illegal by granting human rights at conception, the way Republicans do. Then it's a straightforward case of upholding prohibitions on taking a life.

I'm curious, is there a split amongst Libertarians over abortion?

MINKsays...

nobody said "unregulated nuclear power"

the libertarian principle is that you can't fuck up someone else's life, therefore nuclear power stations must have safety checks and dispose of the waste safely in very expensive underground bunkers. That is true with or without a libertarian government.

I am not totally libertarian, i have a little bit of commie in me somewhere, but anyway, i get annoyed when people say "WAAAHH!! WHAT IF NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS WERE UNREGULATED!!!"

the commie in me knows what happens when you have a "regulated" nuclear power station and diffused communal responsibility so that some doofus can be put in charge of the safety checks, Homer Simpson style. Boom.

the problems i have with libertarian economics are more that there are areas of human existence that are incompatible with pure supply and demand, and those areas should be regulated and supported "unfairly". Otherwise you end up with hyper efficient cheese factories, heavily armed private militias, and no good music or education beyond that which is directly useful to industry.

my15minutessays...

>> ^NetRunner:
> I'd also point out, Obama's policy on Iran is essentially what you describe, even if his rhetoric on the topic has started sounding "tough"... He's still saying diplomacy is the answer...


yeah, i did generally get that vibe, so i didn't hold it against him. among the easiest ways to get the right fired up, is by implying your opponent is a pansy. so, their debate is 7 guys trying to out-butch eachother about how many more gitmo's they'd open, and doing their best to drown out paul.
sounded to me like obama was just trying to preempt some of that nonsense, by saying yes, there are circumstances under which i'd use force, but only as a last resort. and only in a decisive action, that gets the job done and gets the fuck out.

>I'm curious, is there a split amongst Libertarians over abortion?

very little. the vast majority consider it just like any other social issue, and are liberals. pro-choice.
here's the official platform of the libertarian party: http://www.lp.org/platform

"Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration."

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