The Apostles of Ron Paul
How does a 72-year-old conservative Texas congressman become the hottest thing in online politics? Ask the techies, hippies, tax haters, and war protesters who believe that only Ron Paul can save America from itself.
In July, Paul flew to Silicon Valley to speak at the Mountain View headquarters of Google. He spun through the Googleplex, past the life-size Tyrannosaurus rex and the corporate organic garden and into an auditorium overflowing with workers balancing laptops on their knees. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and John McCain had appeared here, but none had drawn a comparable crowd, nor as many questions—or manifestos—emailed in advance from Google staffers. "When John McCain and Hillary Clinton were standing up ready to stamp their approval on the Patriot Act, you're one of the people in Congress who said, 'No, absolutely not,'" a worker who'd flown from Seattle told Paul during the Q&A. "And that really impressed me." There was a webcast, and a rockumentary; Bill Dumas, Paul's official videographer and a member of the band Blonde Furniture, provided the soundtrack's chant, "If you Google Ron Paul...," an homage to the idea that all you need to know about Paul is on the Internet. A few weeks later YouTubers produced a Ron Paul rap ("Yeah we know our Homeland Security and fema / Just look at how they protected us from Hurricane Katrina"), and then a Ron Paul folk ballad, a synth-pop track, and a riff on the Scarecrow's "If I only had a brain."
By then, roughly 10 percent of Paul's donations over $200 were coming from tech workers. No business sector has raised more for Paul; in Google's hometown, Paul logs more contributions than all the Republican front-runners combined. He has garnered links to his donation page from a broad array of websites—troublingly broad, in fact: In November, he refused to return a contribution from avowed white supremacist Don Black, or to block the donation link from Black's website. McBride's favorite, dailypaul.com, has more daily viewers than the official John Edwards website (albeit according to the notoriously skewed Alexa ratings).
This is all the more remarkable because, though tech wealth has historically supported libertarian causes, the industry's money in recent years has shifted to buying political firepower in the major parties. For example, since the 1990s, McBride's libertarian-inclined boss, Intuit founder Scott Cook, has more than doubled his donations to Republicans and Democrats, giving the maximum last year to mainstream politicians such as Mitt Romney and Harry Reid.
Still, the romance of libertarianism endures for Silicon Valley's rank and file. Scott Loughmiller, a partner in a six-man dot-com startup in San Carlos, says he has converted all his coworkers to the Paul credo. "You can argue all you want, and they did for a month," he said, "but eventually they caved, because you have to give in to logic." Paul's name shows up hand-stamped on dollar bills, emblazoned on freeway banners, and on roads across the valley via a big white delivery truck known as the Liberty Van. In August McBride changed his voter registration from "Decline to State" to "Republican" so he could vote for Paul in the primary.
In the techie brain, self-interested antigovernment leanings—many Valley libertarians are furious about the investor-protection rules of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law they blame for driving Wall Street IPOs to London—cross-pollinate with the yearning for a reassuringly Cartesian political philosophy. "Techies think of life as like code," says Peter Leyden, a Democratic strategist and former editor of the Valley's original libertarian-leaning tech bible, Wired, "so you just find where the bug is and fix it." Capitalism and democracy are seen as self-regulating systems that bureaucrats can only screw up. And Paul is the only candidate who understands these killer apps. "What the other candidates say isn't backed by rational thoughts or facts," McBride contends.
Libertarian Theology
Libertarianism might be a simple ideology, an aversion to big government in all its forms, but don't tell that to libertarians: "Like any movement of any size," says Nick Gillespie, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason, "it is an endless operation of trying to figure out more and more ways in which people who agree on 99.9 percent of everything can really hate each other's guts."
Anarcho-Capitalists: The most radical of the lot, they want to abolish government entirely (though, unlike regular anarchists, they do support private property rights). "The state acts like a band of thieves and killers," explains Lew Rockwell, the best-known exponent of this strain. "The private sector doesn't do that."
Minarchists: Archrivals to the anarcho-capitalists, they support a minimalist version of government: Let the state handle roads, policing, and defense—but nothing more. Many, including Ron Paul, view the Constitution as the ultimate minarchist document.
Cosmopolitan Libertarians: Term used by the minarchist editors of Reason to describe their embrace of world citizenship and deride rivals as hayseeds
Economic Libertarians: Worship free-market absolutists like Milton Friedman
Hippie Libertarians: Worship freedom-loving freaks like Larry Flynt
Religious Libertarians: Worship deities of their choosing, care about politics primarily as it affects religious freedom. In 17th-century England they were Puritan Roundheads. In 21st-century America they're Mormons.
Gold Bugs: Advocate a return to the gold standard, or some equivalent, as a way to diminish the fiscal powers of the state; dismiss foes as "inflationists"
Objectivists: Followers of philosopher Ayn Rand who love morality tales, hate anarchy, and endorse a scorched-earth foreign policy. If "flattening Fallujah to end the Iraqi insurgency will save American lives," Ayn Rand Institute director Yaron Brook has written, "to refrain from [doing so] is morally evil."
Neolibertarians: Libertarian neocons; big supporters of the Iraq War
Paleolibertarians: Old-schoolers who despise the neolibertarians for selling out to the system. Also think atheism is overrated.
Technolibertarians: Extropians, transhumanists, sci-fi-fans, they strive to transcend humanity's meat-puppet limitations and take self-determination to the final frontier.
South Park Conservatives: Find their politics articulated in a show created by two avowed libertarians; a seminal episode follows a race for school mascot between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Which, says Reason's Gillespie, "pretty much sums up how most libertarians approach politics."
Paultards: Blogosphere dis for those who annoy the online masses by relentlessly shilling for their man in comment threads, polls, and social networking sites
—J.H.
In fact, McBride believes Paul's reasoning is so ineluctable, written words aren't sufficient to convey its force. His dvds, culled from clips such as the Google talk and handed out door to door around the Valley, capture Paul in all of his charismatic equipoise. "He just doesn't get emotionally charged," McBride says. "He's very rational. And you can't always pick that up in an article you are reading. So I think hearing him speak, seeing him speak, can be more influential, more powerful. And people don't like to read anyways."
Chants filtered through the second-floor windows of a San Francisco hotel where Paul was giving a speech on fiscal policy at a fundraising breakfast last summer. An hour later the candidate hit the street with an entourage of video bloggers. "The whole city is out here," a woman pronounced. Paul shook McBride's hand before disappearing into a thicket of placards. It was the first time McBride had met his idol, and for several minutes he remained frozen on the curb, fumbling to buckle his camera case. "That was a rock-star arrival," a stubbly hipster in a golf cap remarked. "Oh, bigger than that for me," McBride gushed.
Paul ambled with a slight hunch across the trolley tracks of Market Street and through the Financial District towing a block-long tail of supporters displaying irony mustaches, man purses, and antiwar banners. "Google Ron Paul!" someone shouted. McBride offered passersby copies of his dvd. ("If you'd told me six months ago that anything would have motivated me to do something like this, I would have told you you were out of your mind," he later emailed me.)
At the Palio d'Asti restaurant on Sacramento Street, McBride, wearing a ringer T and no jacket, flashed a $500 ticket and walked into Paul's fundraising lunch. He picked a mostly empty table at the back and pulled out his iPhone, replying to emails from fellow Meetup members who sat at the next table. Then he switched to camera mode, walked over to Lew Rockwell's table, and wordlessly snapped a photo. "There are a lot of iPhones here," he told Chris Nelson, a squeaky-voiced computer programmer at our table. "I've been keeping an eye out for them," Nelson said. "Yeah," McBride confided, "I noticed Lew Rockwell was taking photos with his."
When the chef brought out plates of Texas wild boar (a Ron Paul special), talk turned from tech to politics. "Isn't there a whole lot of hope here?" Nelson asked. Paul had a lot of "mainstream support," agreed McBride. Then the two got in an argument over whether government ever had a role to play—Nelson thought it might be needed to stop global warming, but McBride believed a strict interpretation of private property rights (you can't pollute my land) would be more effective. "Money is the root of all evil," McBride said, "but it's also the solution to everything—economics rules everything. It's a macro science."
Just then Paul stood up to speak. His voice was faint. He began by describing himself as the mere servant of a grassroots revolution. He claimed to lack the moral and legal authority to govern, which was why he would abolish most of the federal government. "Some people will say this won't work," he said. "They say we need government; if we didn't have it, it would be total chaos. But it would be the opposite: In some places, we would have more government, but it would be self-government. People would have the responsibility of taking care of their own lives."
The crowd heartily applauded, though what Paul meant by self-government wasn't exactly clear. McBride lingered as Paul disappeared for a radio interview; when he reemerged, McBride snapped photos for other Meetup members who'd been unable to afford the entry fee but were now politely queuing up to greet Paul. There, in line, was Nanette LaVogue, a professional "hauntress" with blue hair, and a delegation of medicinal-marijuana advocates who wanted to give Paul an abalone shell. ("It's still legal tender in Norway!")
But eventually McBride moved in to chat. "Nice to see...meet you," Paul said, and McBride delivered the statement he'd composed earlier that day, in all its haiku purity: "I just want to thank you for your hard work and courage." Then he backed away with a beatific smile.
Later McBride explained why he hadn't tried to talk further: He already knew what his hero would say on just about any topic. Libertarianism, he glowed, "is the only place where the answers to all questions have actually been resolved."
biznesschic,
good question
As a lefty libertarian it highlights the major difference I have with the Paul campaign- the privileging of state's rights over federal power where basic personal rights are concerned- such as racial discrimination and the decision to end a pregnancy.
The main problem I have with your question is the role the federal government is assumed to play in ending discrimination. Segregation didn't end because a politician or a bureaucrat decided to end it- it ended because people like Rosa Parks and Dr. King and thousands of others put their life on the line and governmental regulation followed. The mechanism of the civil rights movement was the boycott- a great example of "market forces" in politics if there ever was one.
Now if the federal government had not put teeth into the people’s demands by enforcing anti-discrimination laws, would the tide have rolled back? Perhaps, which is why I'm uncomfortable with the hard-line state’s rights position.
I think personally though this gets at why I call myself libertarian. I look at moments in history like the Civil Rights movement and see people organizing from the grass roots to effect change. Any progressive law coming from our government had similar origins. Left to it's own devices government is just as likely to enforce cruel prejudices as any greedy business.
How long are we going to go on reviving events of racism that took place so many years ago? What is owed to you for something that happened to another person 40 or 50 years ago? It's embarassing that it happened, especially that it happened here in the US where people came to be free. Nobody can change the past. Go live your life. Move on. Let the past go so you can live your life free, not be improsoned by what happened to another person. Maybe I'm naive thinking that it's that simple, but to be it seems that racism would be dead if people would stop resuscitating it. Let it go! DNR!!
Oh... let me once again explain this to a Ron Paulilte--who has no conception of the Gilded Age and why certain regulations were put in place before the Bush debacle:
Banks were regulated by the FDIC, meaning that for each loan that a bank issued, a percentage of cash reserve must be present on the balance sheet to guarantee the loan. The Bush Administration laxed these rules, so that fly by night lending agencies took liberties of these rules. The end result, fly by night lending agencies "bundled" these loans and sold them to banks (for a fee) who in turn bundled these loan and sold them on the stock market as blue chip stock. This is the "free market system" at work. I have no problem with this however, wall street is looking for a "bail out". The market did not work in this situation and is looking to the Feds to avert a financial meltdown. Capitalism has survived only because socialism has always been around for a bail out.
biznesschic, give it up, will ya? What year did the grievance you are bewailing take place? The country has come a long way since that time. You want to decide the 2008 elections on circumstances of the 1950's? What do you want? Reparations? Step back and take a look at what is taking place today. The Patriot Act is kind of like a color blind Jim Crow law. EVERYBODY loses their rights. Apart from Ron Paul, every other candidate for President seems ok with that. Are you?
Bkmcbryd or whatever!
It truly concerns me if someone running for the president of the United States believe that the policies enforced 50 years ago that ensured the equality of me and my family should have been left up to states that considered me second class citizens. Get over it? Tell that to my qualified children who may go for a job interview, only to be denied because of the color of their skin?
biznesschic, you might want to ask why in the 1950's 70% of black children lived in 2-parent homes while today the figures is 17%.
Federal government welfare programs destroyed black families by forcing fathers out of the home.
And the federal "war on drugs" further attacks the black community by locking up a high percentage of young black males, further diminishing their status in and value to the community, while black women forge ahead and become more highly educated and successful, continuing the cycle of single-parent homes.
Ron Paul would end the "war on drugs" and would seek to diminish the destructive aspects of the welfare state.
Do you remember the Montgomery bus boycott? Which is better: working and fighting for one's rights or having the federal government declare one's race a "protected class" in perpetuity? I would prefer to fight for myself, even if success took much longer. Are you really happy with what the federal government has done "for you"?
It makes no sense to put faith in government at the federal level while criticizing it at state level (Jim Crow laws). It's all government. The only difference is that when the federal government makes a bad law, there's no escaping it. At least with a bad state law you can move to another state.
In 1997 some men immigrated from Ethiopia to America, "land of the free", in Portland Oregon where they wanted to start a taxi company to serve the poorer part of town. Portland government shut them down. Read about it here:
http://www.cascadepolicy.org/pdf/env/transit.htm
Explain to me again how government helps these people?
Racism is best eliminated by personal relationships between people. It's slow, but sure. Even in the '60's it was the freedom marchers who did the heavy lifting.
Good article by the way. One quibble with the Venn diagram: libertarians don't really like NAFTA. Just like Ron Paul says, it's nothing but government-managed trade, a benefit for big corporations. Libertarians want free trade, that is, government stays out of it entirely.
Ah Richard...
I was wondering when this conversation was going to regress into the ill's of some other poor black sole on drugs with no father figure, which is totally removed from the Constitution. What I want to know, is Dr. Paul going to uphold the tenants of the civil rights legislating that ensures equal protection under the law?
Paul:
It is a sorry state of the union which shares the same constitution, that a person would have to move to get due process under the law. That's a great stump speech for Dr Paul to use. Why don't you suggest that to him so he can be assured not to win the presidency to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!
There is no question in my mind that the artificial manipulation of the price of money by the Federal Reserve created the problems that we are currently facing in the mortgage market. Ask yourself how Alan Greenspan and the board of Fed governors has any clue what the real 'price' of money is? How is it possible for a small group of people to ever know the demand for money in such a massive system. Considering that the dollar has enjoyed status of global reserve currency and the fallacy of their prowess is even more obvious. The purchasing power of the US dollar has declined over 90% since the creation of the Fed in 1913. In recent years the money supply has been growing double digits which explains why prices of nearly everything not imported from China have been growing year after year after year well above the inflation numbers quoted by the government figures which are manipulated to make the picture look better than reality. Education is another great example of how well intentioned government intervention has dramatically driven the price up. Government guaranteed student loans that are artificially subsidized by a 3rd party (government) have driven the costs of education up dramatically. The universities are thrilled that they can continue to raise prices year after year but the students who now have to borrow $100K to finance an education are getting the shaft, not to mention the folks ineligible for student aid who have to pay the ever higher prices. Before the government was involved, universities themselves offered low interest loans to the students who needed aid and as a result, it wasn't in their interest to constantly raise the prices because it would put their loans at risk. People that think that government controlled healthcare is going to provide 'free' healthcare and improve the system are fooling themselves. Ask yourself why, if universal healthcare is going to be so great for consumers, that the pharma and managed care companies are spending tons of money lobbying for this to happen. Look at who they support financially in the presidential race. Also, if you look at the stock prices of the major defense companies you will see that investors are quite convinced that despite the Democrats are favored to win the White House, the wars will not be ending. If Ron Paul surprises in New Hampshire and Iowa and looks like he will win the nomination watch those stocks get hammered. Follow the money. The big corporate interests are NOT lined up behind Ron Paul and it isn't because they don't think he can win. It's because they don't WANT him to win. The federal government is a tool for the powerful interest lobbies to have laws written that benefit them over others. That is not a free market. Our foreign policy is neo-mercantilism gone wrong.
biznesschic - I'm still not getting why you think that Ron Paul who believes in a strict interpretation of the Constitution and also believes that our natural rights are bestowed upon us by our creator, and not by government, wouldn't uphold the tenants of equal protection under the law? I am voting for him because I believe he will fiercely defend those natural rights of every citizen far better than anyone in the field. His platform is based on the defense of liberty and fighting against government oppression and coercion.
To biznesschic: I know that you've already received about a dozen replies to your queries, but here I go again. Discrimination only hurts the discriminators on the free market. The segregation on buses and trains was created and enforced by the government, not by the market. It is not the government which saved people from the horrors of discrimination, it was the government that was the cause. Thomas Sowell makes this quite clear: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4457
And while it shouldn't matter, Dr. Sowell is black (I dislike the term African-American), and he personally lived through the era of racial discrimination. Unlike just about all other people in America he actually has some economic education, with which to understand the issues.
Also as a black man here in America (though of course my admitting that shouldn't make my words any more authoritative than the facts that I convey) and at the same time a far more radical libertarian than Rep. Paul could ever be (anarchist, countereconomist, agorist, etc.), I have all conviction that market forces and non-violent social actions would destroy all forms of discrimination in society, be they racial, sexual, age based, or what have you.
I'm not going to continue with my criticism of your first post (there's much to say), but I sincerely hope you take the time to think about this stuff with an open mind. Don't immediately take the narrative that the state is/was the savior in the situation. Your interpretation of history is simply flawed, but it is exactly what I'd expect to be the dominant view in an America more dedicated than ever to membership in the cult of the benevolent, omnipotent state.
I also agree with many other posts that point out that the so called 'war on drugs' has severely impacted the minority communities the most in this country. Over 1MM black men are in prison in this country, that is ridiculous. The amount of non-violent drug offenders in prison is ludicrous and it has unquestionable torn apart millions of families and communities. We don't treat alcoholics like criminals unless they break common law. Why do we lock up drug addicts? It is a vicious cycle that must be addressed and the sooner the better. Another reason why Ron Paul has my vote.
I will also point out that Ron Paul changed his stance on Federal Death penalty from being a supporter to being against it because he recognized that minorities were disproportionately being sentenced to death and due to issues within the criminal justice system so many mistakes were being made and minorities were so disadvantaged that it was and is immoral to maintain the death penalty. I think that is a very good, real world demonstration of how Ron Paul defends equal protection under the law for all citizens and recognizes the shortcomings that inevitably still exist and thus is against a policy that unfairly sentences too many people to die that, if they were white, may not have received such a sentence.
Well it depends. Private entities have a right to discriminate as they see fit, seeing as the government shouldn't be forcing them to provide use of their private property, any more then they should force them to allow someone into their homes.
On another note, the public bus lines should not have been eligible to discriminate, seeing as they were run by the government, and therefore were open to anybody who was under said government's jurisdiction. Private entities can discriminate, private entities can.
Since it was a public bus, she had every right to go to the government for a redress of grievances. If it had been a private bus line, she would have had no right to demand use of someone else's private property if they didn't wish to grant usage to her.
Furthermore, yes, I do believe that market forces would have brought about change. When there is enough money at stake, doing good can become profitable. For instance, things like the Montgomery Bus boycott were effective consumer movements that affected change.
The Federal government only has the right to intervene in cases where Federal laws are being broken. If the state is breaking it's own laws, then the victims take their case to the state court, and then the supreme court. People need to not jump the chain of command, or the higher forms of government will obtain power that does not belong to them.
Giving government power, even to do good, is still giving it more power.
I do agree with 50% of Dr Paul is saying. I do agree with state rights as it pertains to gun control laws and marriage etc., however, Dr Paul has not been scrutinized by the media and has to answer a lot of questions. Particularly, his memos of 1992 & 1998. If his positions on Civil rights (allowing states to set their own standards) stands unabated, would be ammunition for the main stream media. The question that I raised about my mother is valid because it is phased in human terms. If his answer is similar to what I read on this blog, his candidacy is doomed and his supporters have thrown money down a rat hole. Mr. Paul has attracted right wing hate groups in which he needs to denounce immediately. If he fails to do so, I don't see him as a viable candidate for president of these United States.
there is no "civil rights" amendment. What indeed are you blathering about?
Eh Jack, if you are going to show your ignorance, please do it on the Fox News blog.
Biznesschic:
Listen to this interview where he talks about support from white supremacists and how he does not want it!
http://libertymaven.com/audio/ronpaul-983wowfm-iowa-12172007.m3u
How market forces would have responded to the Separtate but equal
Biznesschic, I am a 51 year old black male. I am old enough and have experienced the jim crow your grandmother faced. In 1962 which I was a child of seven, I went down South to visit my grandma. And Yes I had to go to the back of the bus when we crossed the Maxon Dixon line. I remember because it was my first trip to another state and I wanted to sit in the front so I could see EVERYTHING! So I have experienced it and while not as bad as your grandmother it was humilating.
How would the free market dealt with the situation? The free market would have dealt with the situation in this way. Too expensive! To have separate but equal would mean you would have to buy two of everything. Yes The colored faculities in general were poorer quality, older, dirtier but it still meant the bus company would have to pay for four sets of bathrooms One white ione black, one for the males, one for the females, Two lunches counters again for the black and whites, and laxt have the driver busy making sure no blacks cheated which took away time from watching his driving or taking less time to reach your destitation and thereby having a shorter schedule.
Now I don't know if you ever ran a business but if you had you know you have to watch every penny. You simply cannot afford to buy two of everything or have delays to make sure you treat the blacks separte but equal.
Hell, if jim crow wasn't enforced by the government you can bet some budget conscious manager would scrap it almost immediately.
You might wonder wouldn't you have jim crow still because white customers would prefer it? That is a possiblity but the first business to break it would have a huge competative advantage More customers and lower costs. Sure you would have a few bigots who wouldn't want to sit where the colored sit but this would be counter balanced by the increase number of blacks and the whites who wanted to get someplace fast and did want the driver wasting time playing musical chairs games saying you blacks sit here and you whites sit here.
Also it was a free maarket tactic that ended jim crow. It was not the power of the federal government but the power of boycott.
Knowing how constitutional Ron Paul is, he would say that the Civil Rights laws would be unconstitutional but he would still be a friend to black people. He is a big admirer of Martin Luther King and the stance he took on civil disobence. Instead of civil rights law he would promote the use of boycott - a free-market solution which did in fact end Jim Crow on the buses.
The reason the federal government took credit for ending Jim Crow was the US was trying to fill the void left by the collaspe of the English Empiire. But it was competing with the Russians. People in other countries would say: Why should we trust the US? Look how you treat your own colored people? Lynching, Jim Crows and more. We know you call us chinks, Coolies, ragheads, and so know you think of us as colored people too and probably treat us just as bad.
Their answer was We ain't treating our blacks like this any more. We passed a law call the Civil Rights Act. So you can trust us. "We're from the government and we're your friends"
But a factor you are not considering: Jim Crow was the past. Where Ron Paul would or wouldn't do is not important.
The question is what would Ron Paul do in the Present that would help Blacks now. The thing he would do is end the Federal Drug laws because they are uinconstitational and pardoned those convicted. The drugs laws as they are now, affects 3 of of 4 black. 3 out of 4 black have been arrest, are in jail or probation or in some way affected by the drug laws. And while the 50's and earlier were extremely harsh on blacks, (my grandfather and uncle were lynched) 3 out of 4 blacks weren't criminals then.
He definitely has no plans to bring back Jim Crow.
His promising to end the unconstitutional drug wars is the second reason I am supporting him. His promise The Iraq war is the first. He will not have written on the grave of many black men Here lies a black man who die fighting the yellow, brown red or black man for the white man.
I hope this answers you question
By the way, I hope eveyone will forgive my typos and misspelling in the previous message. I was tired. But let with Ron Paul, it is not how the message looks (In Ron Paul case, he doesn't look Presidential like Fred Thompson) or how neat it is but the message itself.
TO biznesschic: You got an answer, but you seemed to be more intent on just arguing with people. You argued with people in a range of 12 hours. Why? For what purpose?
I give you -1.
Now hear this. All Ron Paul supporters are hereby ordered to turn in your copies of "Catcher In The Rye"
biznesschic,
Jim Crow laws were an attempt to sidestep the constitution with the idea of "seperate but equal". The idea was floated for a long time and was not addressed by the federal government due to other issues during reconstuction and other more precieved pressing issues. As the laws became more and more blantent, and the public awareness of the huge injustice that "seperate but equal" did not work as advertised and was in truth denying a group of people equal protection of freedom, the federal governement steped in and overturned the laws and retuned to the way the constituion was written in the 14th ammendment.
Its is very unfortunate that such terrible things occured (and in too many cases still do), however your origional question is a little flawed...
The market was not what created the problem, the political establishment created the problem as a tragic compromise during reconstruction and so enforced the rules onto the market.
Only by returning to the constitution did the laws get removed and freedom was reasserted.
Ron Paul supports this same practice, to overturn laws that have distorted the constitutions message and make it again the guiding principle in all govenment decisions despite whatever political well meaning or excuse.
I hope this helped.
@ Biz
I hear questions like these all the time and it saddens me that so many focus on long dead or stagnant issues that block progress for the A.A. community today. Yes civil rights is important and we have to remember our history but we also need to move forward with the fresh issues that challenge us today.
Is Jim Crow still alive? Will the next President be able to end social security/restart jim crow/ban abortion in every state? No. Is Ron Paul gonna order the buses to segregate? No. Is the Civil Rights Act gonna get repealed? No.
These are not the issues the A.A. Community needs to be focused on in this election we need to focus on
1. Iraq War - Our brothers are dying in Iraq for a pointless war that needs to end now.
2. Inflation - Our homes, jobs, and savings are being undermined for white bankers on wall street. The gov. steals our money with one hand and then gives it to us in welfare with the other and THEN to add claims we are lazy for needing the welfare. We don't need welfare we need to keep our goddamn money.
3. Drug War + Death Penalty. ~ 50% A.A. male incarceration rate needs to stop now. So many brothers in jail causes most of our family and job problems.
These are just a few of the things we need to work on and Ron Paul
Too long have Democrats pandered to our community but never really changed things. Where has that got us? We don't need the programs we need them to get off our backs and let us empower ourselves. We need to stop listening to the fear coming out their mouths and stand up for our community.
biznesschic, in a Libertarian society, your grandmother would not have to have waited long.
You can't cherrypick history. Well, you can, but you will remain ignorant.
There were two major obstacles to the "market forces" you speak of at that time. First, as LB stated, the government wasn't libertarian and was the source or at least the supporter of many such regulations.
Second, market forces work best when people have freedom of choice over their resources. First off, "public transportation" though probably sacred and beloved by most readers of this site, does not grant much individual choice. Second, African Americans had been handicapped due to their enslavement and subsequent oppression in their ability to obtain resources with which to use in the excercising of "market forces" which are really just individual decisions as consumers vote with their resources.
Actually, the real question to me is not, how long would she have had to waited, but the question is, after having the Feds swoop in, did they really just increase the resentment of the racists and oppression of minorities and cause it to fester?
Think about how much your economic ties with others make you see past your differences whereas when you are forced to interact in ways you wouldn't prefer, people get on your nerves. If African Americans had the freedom to choose and the resources with which to choose, not only would they have equality, but people's minds would have been changed.
How the oppressed would obtain the resources to compete on an equal footing is another story, and I'll give you a hint, a libertarian society would have handled that too, this time on the employment end.
Now, you may think it's just great to force "racists" to do stuff, and not care about changing their minds, but this is not the path to true, long-term, resentment-festering free reconciliation.
I actually disagree with the pro-NAFTA item in the Venn diagram being within the Libertarian circle. It is not clear to me that NAFTA represents free trade, but, rather managed trade. There is certainly a lot of disagreement with its features among, say, Rothbardian libertarians of the LewRockwell.com circle. With regard to biznesschic's concerns, I would say that libertarians and Ron Paul supporters (and Ron Paul) didn't write the Jim Crow laws. Your mother should not have waited at all. I would be proud as an American if she protested, along with many others, her treatment in New Orleans. I know many men and women who protested in Birmingham and in Houston. Freedom is not free, but carries a terrible price in blood and lives. State of Louisiana had no rights, only powers, and only such powers as indicated in the federal and state constitutions. Federal government intervention should not have been necessary; like with Katrina, relying on the Federal government is not often wise. Nobody waits for market forces because everyone is a market force. Don't like what the market is offering? Join in with a new product. Start a bus service, or a "jitney bus" or a car pool. The trick to enjoying the market economy is in taking the initiative.
I've already given a philosophical answer. Here's another thing I've been thinking lately. I wasn't alive, and to prove it would basically be Ph.D. level work, which I don't have time for. So, it remains a theory.
Basically, the premise is this; How could the Federal Government really do anything without popular support? So, people say the Feds were the savior when it comes to Civil Rights, one of the few "big wins" for the Feds, which remains one of its only rallying cries. As in, "We can't have freedom, we'd have Jim Crow again!" "We can't stop locking up these functional drug users, and all these African Americans, because we'd have Jim Crow all over again!" We can't stop having these wars and sending minorities to die to protect the interest of the rich, we'd have Jim Crow all over again!" Anyway, back to the premise. If the government can't really accomplish anything without at least tacit support from the populace, then all the government did was ride the wave of change and take the credit when what was happening was a change in society that would have inevitably resulted in equality. Keep in mind that despite being one of the most diverse countries, the United States deals relatively well with our racial relations compared to most of the rest of the world. And, going back to my philosophical answer, I also theorize that had history run its course, without Federal government grandstanding, strongarming, and extorting, we'd probably be even further along on the equality trend than we are today.
Lastly, let me leave you with this mind-blower. Was the Civil War necessary? Without it, how long would the slaves have had to waited to be freed? Sadly, we'll never know. But, I'd venture that, in hindsight, considering the loss of life and economic destruction of the south where most of the slaves would have scrape out their "newly free existence", it is reasonable to explore the alternatives. And, maybe if war was avoided, then slavery would have been relinquished voluntarily, much like it was in most of the rest of the world, and we wouldn't have had all the resentment and oppression in the years that followed, culminating with Jim Crow onto today. Now, getting revenge on the eeevilll Southerners may be highly satisfying to some, but it creates its own problems.
So, you've gotten lots of answers. Maybe you just never asked the right people before. Some are more satisfying than others, but I hope to leave you with the idea that a lot of us do think pretty deeply about these issues. You may not agree with many of them, but I think you have to admit that there are a lot of reasoned positions.
biznesschic- Ron Paul would not leave this issue to the market, thats an issue of the constitution. He, like most of his supporters would say to report it to the police and congress. When that failed to bring change there would be only one path for her to take, the one prescibed by Abraham Lincoln- "If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution." -Abraham Lincoln
Live free or die.
Not on topic, but I find it interesting. I just saw that New Jersey will now "ban" the death penalty. That trips me out. The state imposes the death penalty. Whey they cease forcing it, they ban it.
Maybe it's just semantics, but maybe it speaks to the mindset of many people that everything begins and ends with the rulemakers. That which isn't imposed must be banned.
With regard to the civil rights question: was it the Civil Rights act of 1964 that gave your African American mother the freedom to sit on the bus as an equal, or was it Martin Luther King's Civil Rights Revolution that gave her that right?
People frequently confuse cause and effect, and politicians are never in front of 'ideas whose time has come'.
While Dr. Paul is personally pro-life, he favors each state deciding its own abortion laws, not the federal government.
Also, I would characterize his stance as anti-ILLEGAL-immigration as opposed to anti-immigration. There is a big difference.
In a way, I'm glad that the Jim Crow issue hasn't died, as I feared that I got here too late to add to it. For the record, I'm a Canadian Ron Paul sympathizer.
I have one word for "biznesschic": jitneying. Had there been a free market, there would have been boycotts combined with informal transporation arrangements: paid carpooling.
Of course, it wasn't a free market at the time. Any rich African-American - and there were some back then - would have shied away from financing a parallel bus company because he'd (back then, it almost certainly would have been a 'he') remember how Preston Tucker was shafted by the Big Three through the securities laws. Jitneying would have been shut down, because of the laws.
The above explains, in a nutshell, why the not-quite-free market couldn't have availed your mother that well. Any free-market effort on her behalf would likely have been destroyed through interventionist laws.
If the 'information bomb' you've read has piqued your interest, you may want to check out the writings of William Alston (at LewRockwell.com) and Roderick Long. The former is an African-American writer, and the latter is a left-libertarian.
Wow, I went to bed and you guys are still worshiping the Prophet. I will try to answer each of you:
Kirk: Correction, not my Grandmother, but my mother ALSO experienced Jim Crow. My Grandmother was treated much worse. By the way, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? The Federal Government didn't enforce Jim Crow laws--States did while the Feds stood idly by. And for your info, here is a nice little statement by Mr. Paul on how he feels about the color of your skin:
Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and commented, “If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.”
Paul also wrote that although “we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.”
Hope that you don't rob anyone on your way to the voting booth!
Of course, the Federal Government should have intervened. That’s Ron Paul’s message. One of the major functions of the Federal Government is to protect our rights from our own government’s harrassments--and worse. Dr. Paul correctly believes that our Constitution was instituted to protect us from the government. If you will read the Bill of Rights and Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, you will see that.
In the case of your mother, our government failed her, as it did so many others. Ron Paul believes in free markets, but he also believes that the government has the function of protecting us from all enemies, domestic (which often includes our own government) as well as foreign. Protection of our freedoms, not aggression and coercion, is government’s function. If you’ll Google Ron Paul, you’ll read what he stands for. Don’t listen to those ignorant people who don’t understand freedom and denigrate Ron Paul without truly knowing him as a man of honesty and integrity.
Friend of Liberty:
NOT! You seem to want to take away my Liberty to debate on this site! Unless I just woke up in Jonestown Guyana, I will continue to blog--thank you very much!
biznesschic: Where did you read that nonsense about Dr. Paul? Please cite the reference!
Pax252:
I totally agree--however, I heard Dr. Paul on Bill Mahr stating that he felt that the Civil War should not have been fought. He is a constitutionalists, however, I have do have concerns about his position on "state rights". He has written comments which I find offensive and racist. He has not been challenged on this by the media and I am interested to hear his explanation on these matters.
Sorry to answer Roberts questions before a lot of others, but here it is:
196 words
24 May 1996
CongressDaily/A.M.
English
Copyright (c) 1996 National Journal Inc.
A 1992 political newsletter by former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, included portrayals of African-Americans as inclined toward crime and lacking sense about political issues, the Houston Chronicle reported Thursday. Paul, a former Libertarian Party presidential candidate who defeated Democratic-turned-Republican Rep. Greg Laughlin in the March primary, in November will face Democratic attorney Charles (Lefty) Morris, whose campaign is distributing Paul's writings. Under the headline "Terrorist Update," Paul reported on gang crime in Los Angeles and wrote, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be." About blacks in Washington, D.C., Paul wrote, "I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." Paul said Wednesday that his comments came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time," and that he opposes racism.
In later newsletters, Paul wrote that lobbying groups who seek special favors are evil, and that "by far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government."
***
Texas
Newsletter by Paul attacked
Associated Press
329 words
24 May 1996
San Antonio Express-News
English
(Copyright 1996)
A 1992 newsletter by Republican congressional candidate Ron Paul highlighted portrayals of blacks as criminally inclined and lacking sense about top political issues.
Reporting on gang crime in Los Angeles, Paul commented: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
Paul, a Surfside obstetrician who won the GOP nomination in the 14th District runoff by defeating incumbent Rep. Greg Laughlin, said Wednesday he opposed racism.
He said his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time."
Paul's Democratic opponent, Charles "Lefty" Morris, said many of Paul's views were "out there on the fringe" and that this fall voters would judge his commentaries.
Morris' campaign distributed selected writings by Paul this week.
Paul, a former congressman and one-time Libertarian presidential nominee, said allegations about his writings amounted to name-calling by the Democrats.
He said he'd produced the newsletter since 1985 and distributes it to an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers.
Writing in his independent political newsletter in 1992, Paul commented about black men in the nation's capital.
Citing statistics from a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia, Paul concluded in his column:
"Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."
"These aren't my figures," Paul said this week. "That is the assumption you can gather from" the report.
He also wrote: "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."
Paul continued that politically sensible blacks are outnumbered "as decent people."
biznesschic: In other words, what you're saying is that Dr. Paul's words were taken out of context. And if you don’t believe that Black teenagers are “unbelievably fleet-footed,“ how do you explain the fact that Blacks seem to dominate in track and field races, and that Black Africans seem to dominate in marathon races? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be proud of the achievements of Blacks in certain sports, yet in another context deny this reality! As to Israel’s lobby, as a 74 year old Jew, I can only agree with Dr. Paul. Israel’s lobby is the strongest lobby in Washington, and promotes the well-being of Israel to the detriment of American taxpayers who fund Israel’s protection (At the same time we fund the protection of Israel’s enemies--what hypocricy and insanity!). Israel is a prosperous nation with enough atomic weapons to defend itself without U.S. taxpayers footing so much of their bill..
Funny that you would totally ignore the part about:
"blacks as criminally inclined and lacking sense about top political issues
If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male
I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." "These aren't my figures (then whose?)
Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action".
Yet you make the asinine statement that black men are fast because they win relay races?????. Sorry to expose your emperor as having no clothes, I will give you some time to digest the fact that your prophet did indeed harbor some pretty extreme racist views. Which is why I am concerned: will he indeed uphold the tenants of the Constitution for all Americans!
Ray!
What African American Community???? Statements like that to someone from another country would lead them to believe that all black people in American live on a mountain in Utah! We are no longer monolithic. I personally do not need a savior to led me to the promise land. With hard work, along with Federal laws enacted to ensure my civil liberties, I have done quite well!
Andrew:
Amazing--My civil liberties are not as important as the affect it had on white racist resentment, not being able to practice their racism! Brilliant, you should become an political strategist for Dr. Paul
To Biznesschic --
-
I tried to answer your question on how the free market would act to Jim Crow. My answer was there wouldn't be Jim Crow because it would be too expensive and you would get boycotts.
Yes your mother and grandmother experienced Jim Crow and it was bad. So did mine and I bet it was just as bad or worse. Unless you had, in my mother case her brother lynched and in my father case his father. The question is have YOU experienced Jim Crow? I have! I doubt I'll experience it again and I don't think you'll experience it. Rasicm Yes, Jim Crow No.
Which leads me to your second point, Is ron Paul racist?
For several reasons I don't think he is. First he a politician and in the public eye and smart enough to know you don't want to make any statement that could be constuctioned as racist, sexist, or whatever in this day of political correctness.
Second, I believe while Ron Paul didn't say anything racist unless you get to be in the public eye, (And I am starting to) you won't believe how many people will out and out lie and tell people you said something that was immoral or racist or wrong to say but you never did say it but quoted as saying it. This seems to be the case here
However I will give you benefit of doubt. Let's say Ron Paul did actually say Blacks are thugs and criminals and it wasn't a mis-quote. Does that matter?
No for this reason. People change.
As an example, Take George Wallace. If there was an out and out racist he was it. Yet in the end of his life he change and had a black running mate in his last campaign. If he could change from being a racist so could Ron Paul. So don't look at Ron Paul and say he was a racist in the past. Take a look at him now and what his program of freedom will do for blacks. He wants to end the drugs laws. That will get a lot of blacks out of jail and keep them out of jail. Part of the reason I think so many blacks are in jail is with the street smart they have and business sense, if they were allow to compete head to head in the business world in the numbers we have in jail, They would wipe the floor up with wimpy white executives.
If you or anybody want to talk about my experience with Jim Crow, lynching racism or other matter or why I support Ron Paul and why other blacks shoud as well, you can email me at workingkirkatyahoo dot com.
Change the "at" to "@" and the "dot" to "."
From Ron Paul's website on Life & Liberty:
"In Congress, I have authored legislation that seeks to define life as beginning at conception, HR 1094."
"I am also the prime sponsor of HR 300, which would negate the effect of Roe v Wade by removing the ability of federal courts to interfere with state legislation to protect life. This is a practical, direct approach to ending federal court tyranny which threatens our constitutional republic and has caused the deaths of 45 million of the unborn."
That seems clear enough to me. He wants the Federal government to leave social policy and law to the states.
Since I am pro-life I would rather the Congress pass H.R. 1094 recognizing life as beginning at conception. There is no need for a Constitutional amendment since the Constitution already spells out government's obligation to protect the individual's right to life, and this includes the life of the unborn child. Roe vs. Wade made this same point in the judgment decision of the majority.
Dr. Paul recognises the divisive nature of this issue and wishes people to understand the meaning of freedom under the law. You cannot have freedon without the rule of law. This law, as recognised by the founders, is the so-called natural law, the moral law imprinted in human nature. From this law are derived all the natural rights of man. Since the law is imprinted in human nature the origin is the Creator, Natur's God as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Of course with the development of evolutionary theory and the modern scientific notion that man is descended from the primate species, this idea of natural law and nature's God is no longer valid. Therefore the Constitution has no meaning for the evolutionist since the foundations of that document are undermined scientifically by this theory, although not as far as I know, legally. If you believe in evolution you cannot believe in the Constitution. The two ideas are incompatible.
Jim:
2 years after Katrina, market forces has stepped in to make New Orleans a state of the art city, envy of the world!
Market forces did change the system. It was the boycott of the busing system that created a financial strain on the city that caused them to change their policies.
