Pharyngula

Posted by: The Science Pundit | December 29, 2007 8:28 PM

I've never understood the appeal of Ron Paul.

Who supports him?

Republicans who are against the war! Who else?

Posted by: Abbie | December 29, 2007 8:39 PM

I really hope that the Ron Paul mania is driven by his positions on the War On Terror/Drugs. I think people love him because of that, and kind of excuse the crazy libertarian shit. I'm sure those selling points are used by libertarians to dupe otherwise smart people into supporting such a wacky candidate.

As much as I would love to be out of Iraq and have a sensible drug policy, Ron Paul is not the way. Thankfully he has no shot.

Posted by: silence | December 29, 2007 8:42 PM

His actual supporters seem to be John Birch Society types, neo-nazis, neoconfederates, and deluded techies who are somehow blind to whom they're jumping into bed with.

Posted by: MAJeff | December 29, 2007 8:45 PM

Brace yourself for an invasion of Paul defenders.

There must be something like an internet bat signal that tells them all where to gather. They are organized, I'll give 'em that.

Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 29, 2007 8:51 PM

Ron Paul is popular because he is against waterboarding, personally suffered from second-hand smoke, was circumcised, and can prove the existence of God in 89 ways by denying global warming and having sex with squid. Oh yeah -- and abortion.

The comment count has to make it to at least #200 or PZ feels unloved. Just doing my part.

Posted by: uknesvuinng | December 29, 2007 8:54 PM

Should we start a pool on what post number the first Paul apologist will appear? I call #14.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 29, 2007 8:54 PM

I would never support Ron Paul if he had an actual chance of winning. That being said, the message his campaign has come to be associated with is an important. So I support him in raising the issues about our runaway militarism, the war on drugs, etc. But I'll never be able to bring myself to support him for actual public office when he advocates lunacy like a return to the gold-standard and eliminating just about every public sector function adopted since the turn of the century.

Posted by: No More Mr. Nice Guy! | December 29, 2007 8:57 PM

Scary as Ron Paul is, his zealots are even scarier. I am deeply suspicious of any candidate that provokes that level of mouth-foaming fanaticism.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 29, 2007 9:00 PM

"Can anyone tell me what does the "war on drugs" consists of?"

For starters, in consists of no knock warrants, mandatory minimum sentencing laws, drug informants about about a bazillion other violations of civil liberties and invitations to law enforcement corruption. That and the insane policy of locking people up for voluntarily ingesting certain substances.

Posted by: Dan | December 29, 2007 9:15 PM

People like Ron Paul because they hate politicians - all of them - and both of our political parties. He's got so little political savvy going for him it's actually a positive asset, because it makes him look human and rational.

Enthusiasm for Ron Paul is, in reality, a direct outgrowth of hating everyone else in our politics.

Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 9:18 PM

Ron Paul is just one festering pustule on the Republican ticket. The whole field is fecund.

Uh, fecund?

Posted by: G Felis | December 29, 2007 9:22 PM

And whatever institutions and actions constitute the "war on drugs," the consequences are abundantly clear: The United States of America, "home of the free," has a documented per capita prison population than any other country in the world.

WOO HOO! We're Number One! We're Number One!

(If anyone missed the sarcasm in that cheer, please go have some sort of neurological work-up. You ain't right in the head.)

Posted by: shiftlessbum | December 29, 2007 9:25 PM

Who supports Ron Paul? According to Rack Jite, in addition to the core group of bat-shit crazy libertarians and "racist organizations, right-wing militias, NRA Life Members, and above all, those who hate paying taxes so much it should scare the Hell out of you", much of his surge is due to the intertubes in a Dean-like webroots campaign. And THAT means his support comes from "stupid ill informed clueless children". Twenty-somethings who can't or won't think for themselves. The DUH Generation. Best description of the current crop of young-uns I've seen. More apt than "Me Generation" and not as stupid as "X-Generation".

Posted by: Dan McKinley | December 29, 2007 9:30 PM

If you want to see the kind of wingnuts that support him, go here, I'm sure dozens will show up shortly:

http://politics.reddit.com/info/644m4/comments

Posted by: independent | December 29, 2007 9:37 PM

I can tell you why he's popular, but you probably still won't get it.

Libertarianism ISN'T when a few corporations use government power, tax loopholes, and subsidies to reduce competition and set the national agenda. Libertarianism ISN'T an invitation to unlimited polluting, it respects property rights and allows you to sue someone who trashes your land or air (rather than allowing polluters to hide behind EPA loopholes).

You may see the government and imagine its holding us back from anarchy. I see a government that protects the ones who are dumping toxins in our rivers and even rewards them with contracts and tax cuts. Maybe you see the income tax and think its progressive, because that's what they call it in school. I look at the actual effective rates and I realize its the poor and middle class who are paying the most while the investors walk away with a stack of cash from their tax lawyer's office.

Libertarians have the same goals as many liberals. The only difference is that we trust normal people like you and me to achieve the progressive society. Liberals think some government ruling-elite is the best way to achieve that. I'm waiting for a shred of historical proof that a government created a free, prosperous, and fair society by taking more power and wealth from its people.

Posted by: Mike | December 29, 2007 9:46 PM

I thought the same thing, then I actually started looking at his [Paul] voting record and what his campaign promises were. I think he may be the real deal: honest. That makes a lot of difference to me.

I don't agree on all the issues he supports (I'm pro-choice for instance) but you have to remember, he won't try to push his personal agenda through the way GWB has done.

He really truly is a constitutionalist and will work with the Congress. And I think we all know the Congress will soften or totally dismiss some of his more extreme Libertarian ideas.

I'm voting for him simply to bring a little truth, honesty and integrity back into politics.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 29, 2007 9:48 PM

@ Dan McKinley,

Viewing that thread as it is, I'm thinking they need to find a way to idiot proof Reddit comments.

Posted by: Abbie | December 29, 2007 9:49 PM

ibertarians have the same goals as many liberals.

Yeah, like dismantling the Department of Education. And repealing Roe v Wade. Lots of liberals gunning for that.

Posted by: Tswift | December 29, 2007 9:55 PM

It seems to me that a lot of the internet support for Ron Paul (basically his entire base) stems from a misunderstanding of him. They see some issues that they agree with, his position on the war, his views on drugs, that they don't really understand where he's coming from, and the reasons behind his positions. I have a friend who is an intense Ron Paul zealot, and every time I point out some of the crazy things Paul does, he just says "Well, I don't agree with that." I am a proponent of free thinking, but when you basically disagree with the majority of your candidate's actions/positions, there's a problem. I mentioned that Ron Paul's policies would not be feasible in America, it would ruin the country, and my friend claimed that it was alright, because Congress wouldn't implement too many of his policies anyway. Pretty scary to think that we would elect a President, relying on the fact that he's going to be ignored.

Posted by: independent | December 29, 2007 10:01 PM

Yeah, like dismantling the Department of Education. And repealing Roe v Wade. Lots of liberals gunning for that.

Well, the Dept. of Education - does it help? Have our students become better informed over the last 20 some years of its existence? We both want better education, but we disagree on how to achieve it. I think it has to be local, and you can't expect a great result from any top-down system homogenized for 300,000,000 people.

We could completely abolish the federal government, and there would still be state and local governments - the ones who actually fund the vast majority of the schools, hospitals, police, and roads. Federal libertarianism isn't anarchy, and it doesn't preclude local liberalism and community-based socialism.

If anything, the federal government has become the major roadblock to any state or local progressive policy.

Posted by: Mrs Tilton | December 29, 2007 10:02 PM

Lookit, there's nothing hard to understand here. Paul is by far the most palatable of the Republican candidates. Which is like saying that anthrax is by far the most desirable of the fatal bacterial diseases.

On a couple of (fairly big) points, Paul is OK, or at least not actively a madman. But there are lots of other points, and there Paul's take varies between unsatisfying and abominable. So: mad props, Ron, for the few limited points where you set yourself apart from the rest of the Republican pack by being a human; but still and all, don't expect our votes.

Posted by: Josh | December 29, 2007 10:08 PM

I definitely don't want Paul to be president, but he's playing a crucial role in the next election. We need him, quackery or not, to take votes from the fascists like Guiliani and Romney. We know he's not going to get the republican nomination, but you can bet your tentacles he's not gonna sit out the election. Things will work out even better if Huckabee does the same, since he'll take some of the fundy vote away from the Republifascists.

Posted by: Joe Cooper | December 29, 2007 10:08 PM

Since you asked, I'm one of the people who supports Ron Paul.

I am an atheist, a software developer, writer, entrepreneur, and a (gasp!) libertarian. I don't agree with everything Ron Paul stands for, of course, but I believe he is an honest man in a den of thieves (who is now, thankfully, well-armed with plenty of cash to keep the liars and thieves at bay through the rest of the campaign).

To get specific about where I disagree, I think his position on abortion is distinctly un-libertarian...but I trust him to not overstep the bounds the constitution imposes on the President on this issue or any other (unlike any of the other frontrunner candidates in either party). I also know his position on abortion is an informed one--he has performed abortions in his ob/gyn practice to protect the life of the mother. He is not a knee-jerk jackass making pronouncements from a position of ignorance, and I can respect his views while disagreeing with them. Unlike the Huckster or Romney.

I also don't like his immigration stance...but I do think he's right when he says that Americans will become less afraid of immigrants (legal or otherwise) when the economy improves, and I can't help but agree that as long as we have a system of entitlements that is broken badly by non-contributing users, like Welfare, public education, the medical system, etc., a lax approach to illegal immigration can't work. I'd rather fix the problem at its source than blame immigrants for every problem in America, but that discussion has been put off the table by both Republicans and Democrats.

Now that the negatives are out of the way, let's talk about the positives:

Ron Paul voted against the war in Iraq. Every time. From the beginning. He spoke against it, from the beginning, in clear and certain terms. He was a lonely voice of sanity in a nation whipped into an ideological fervor based on lies and misdirection. Hillary Clinton either took an active role in the deception, or was foolish enough to fall for it. All of the other front runners who had the chance to speak against the war failed to do so.

Ron Paul brings up interesting and useful questions about the economy and the Federal Reserve practices that gave us the current credit crisis. I don't know enough to know if returning to the gold standard is wise (I lean towards not, but that may be uninformed bias), but I do know that we need to be talking about our monetary policy in a serious way. It is clearly broken and being used to fund an unconstitutional war with the bill made out to our kids and grand kids. If that doesn't piss you off, we're unlikely to agree on anything.

Ron Paul has never voted for an unbalanced budget. Continuing the theme of writing checks the current generation can't cash...we've been running a massive deficit since Clinton left office, and that's a disaster waiting to happen. No one else is talking about this problem, and no one has a record of voting for only balanced budgets.

In short, we have a crapheap of candidates to choose from, or Ron Paul. I don't have to agree with everything he says to know that I'd rather have him in charge than Hillary, Rudy, Mitt, the Huckster, Barack, McCain, or Edwards.

Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 10:10 PM

Paul is OK, or at least not actively a madman.

I quite disagree. I even disagree that he's the most palatable of the Repubs -- I would prefer opportunist flip-flopper Romney over demented fuckwit Ron Paul, Iraq war or no Iraq war.

Posted by: jeff | December 29, 2007 10:13 PM

Let me also remind libertarians of something rather important. I'm older than many here, and am from the deep South. Do you think it would have been "OK" for the Feds to have kept out of the South, as Dr. Paul suggests? If, as you claim, you revere the US Constitution, then you're not a Pauline Libertarian, because, you would agree with me that Federalizing the National Guard was the only way to enforce the Constitution...or, what, should full-US citizens (blacks) have been more patient with State's Rights and the invisible hand?

Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 10:14 PM

If anything, the federal government has become the major roadblock to any state or local progressive policy.

Gee, what is it about the federal government of late -- say, the last seven years -- that might have caused that?

Posted by: Moses | December 29, 2007 10:18 PM

Well, the Dept. of Education - does it help? Have our students become better informed over the last 20 some years of its existence? We both want better education, but we disagree on how to achieve it. I think it has to be local, and you can't expect a great result from any top-down system homogenized for 300,000,000 people.

Actually, the answer is "yes." Actual peer-reviewed, solidly-grounded studies have clearly demonstrated that if you stratify educational performance by income level of the parents, there is no difference between Public and Private Schools.

So the solution isn't destroying public education, but raising the wealth of all Americans. So they have the resources (time and money) to invest in their children's education. Instead of working 12-hours a day and not being able to provide essential tools, like computers, printers, reference materials, etc., because they can barely afford food.

We could completely abolish the federal government, and there would still be state and local governments - the ones who actually fund the vast majority of the schools, hospitals, police, and roads. Federal libertarianism isn't anarchy, and it doesn't preclude local liberalism and community-based socialism.

If anything, the federal government has become the major roadblock to any state or local progressive policy.

Posted by: independent | December 29, 2007 10:01 PM

Bullshit. If the Federal Government didn't hold many of the "Red States" accountable, they'd not be anywhere near to where they are now. And even then, they're still suffering from a hundred years of neglect and institutionalized racism.

Imagine Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, etc., if they were allowed to have their way with curriculum. Already weak states, the kids would come out knowing nothing about important subjects like biology and astronomy. As it is, those schools tend to spend more money on football than science.

Posted by: truth machine | December 29, 2007 10:19 PM

I can tell you why he's popular, but you probably still won't get it.

Yeah, if we disagree it must mean we don't understand.

Libertarians have the same goals as many liberals. The only difference is that we trust normal people like you and me to achieve the progressive society.

You forgot to mention CEOs.

Posted by: MAJeff | December 29, 2007 10:20 PM

A group that collectively sees the state as either useless or a profit center should not be put in charge of it.

Posted by: katura | December 29, 2007 10:25 PM

a friend of mine recently posted a choice Ron Paul rant regarding the LA riots that astounded me:

www.nizkor.org

"Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.... Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer."

Posted by: Troy | December 29, 2007 10:30 PM

I think his position on abortion is distinctly un-libertarian

The big-L Libertarian party is riven on this issue, since it's a civil rights issue about the "unborn" with no clear moral answers.

Posted by: Torquewrench1969 | December 29, 2007 10:45 PM

In my opinion, the people who support Ron Paul are the ones who refuse to believe that the federal government is here to take care of it's citizens.

They seem to believe that people can care for and generally govern themselves. And that the responsibility of the federal government is to provide a safe environment for them to do so.

If people are scared of actually being fully responsible for themselves and their children, then we need to re-evaluate the whole reason America was formed in the first place..

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 29, 2007 10:55 PM

btw when Paul says this:

This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

he's absolutely right that many morons in this country will indeed come to an unfair, but entirely unavoidable (in their warped minds) conclusion about what caused the riots in LA.

that he puts this up as something to be lauded is sick.

Posted by: Samuel | December 29, 2007 11:00 PM

Thank FSM! I should have known you'd know better than to drink the Ron Paul Kool-Aid, PZ.

If you're looking for a positive change in government, minus all the crazy, I'm recommend you check out Dennis Kucinich. He's on the same page as Paul about ending the drug war and that whole chest-thumping nation-destroying thing, while also standing for a woman's right to choose, repealing the PATRIOT Act, and abolishing the death peanalty, for starters. I'm voting for him, at least.

Posted by: kb9aln | December 29, 2007 11:29 PM

Ron Paul can probably best be described as a pure, balls-to-the-walls Republican.

Money is his master and blissful ignorance his mistress.

Plain and simple.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 29, 2007 11:35 PM

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Libertarianism is philosophically incompatible with atheism, at least the right wing libertarianism tradition Paul comes from. The whole tradition is based around the Lockean arguments about liberty and the state of nature and property, and every single one of these arguments is based on scripture, every one. The liberties of the libertarian have a purely religious basis as does the argument for property. Of course there are other arguments for liberties, like Mill's argument for free speech in On Liberty, which don't derive from scripture.

I'm rather sympathetic to the Anarchist arguments against government, but those are generally based on wholly different principles than libertarianism.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 29, 2007 11:44 PM

Why does everyone equate illegal immigration with legal immigration?
If we don't agree with the immigration laws we should change them, but until that time they are changed we should enforce the existing laws and take measures to prevent illegal immigration (and bust businesses which support that illegal activity).

Why should unjust laws be followed? I get extra sick of the hypocritical libertarians who refuse to let others, you know the brown masses, have liberty on the grounds that they will just vote it away.

Posted by: aletoledo | December 29, 2007 11:49 PM

I said this on another scienceblog already and it's disappointing to see this now on a blog I have come to enjoy for it's reasoned thought.

The positions listed here are not a real analysis about his political positions and purely a superficial look at a few things before dismissing him outright. I suppose the idea of voting for a Republican was already dismissed by many here and they were just looking for an excuse to to bother themselves too much. People criticize him for things like his view on abiogenesis (evolution) and then put forward Kucinich who believes in UFOs. Please that is not how you pick a leader!

If anyone wants to consider his ideas and positions seriously, they first need to drop the idea that he's a libertarian. He himself will tell you that it was a mistake for him to have changed parties for that one year and now people point to that almost exclusively. For people that want to think they are reasoned and fair in their assessments, take a few hours to educate yourself on what traditional liberalism is about (not libertarianism, but liberalism).

You see, Paul is a traditional liberal and if you compare his position to a liberal/capitalist then you'll see he is not a libertarian. He's never ever said that he wants zero government, his positions have always been to have a federal government as outlined by the Constitution. That is not a zero government position. On top of that he advocates for the states to take over governing their local people, that again is not libertarian position because it is the constitutional position.

I believe that most people reading this blog have no intention to ever vote Republican. You can pretend for a minute that you considered it, but the fact is you never researched the topics at all and based your judgments on fluff. It's a democracy so pick your leader based upon what hairstyle he has or what tie he wears, but don't be so hypocritical to pretend that you actually read a book on the subject of constitution law or liberal governance.

Posted by: Djur | December 29, 2007 11:54 PM

Huh, I knew a lot of Paul's more amusingly deranged proposals, but I didn't know he's actually in favor of abolishing lex soli. Now that's amazing.

Posted by: MAJeff | December 30, 2007 12:05 AM

I believe that most people reading this blog have no intention to ever vote Republican.

You say that as though it's a problem. Why would we vote for a party whose positions are antithetical to our own? I'm not speaking for everyone, but a lot of us consider the positions of that party to be fairly repulsive. Why would we vote for the standard bearer of those positions?

Posted by: Mark S. | December 30, 2007 12:11 AM

>Should we start a pool on what post number the first Paul apologist will appear? I call #14.

Did anyone pick #29?

Posted by: noodlesoup | December 30, 2007 12:14 AM

Maybe we should leave the false insinuation that Ron Paul is a neo-Nazi to the Fox News staff and neo-Cons who are enraged that Ron Paul isn't a warmonger like all their other puppies. I'm not a Ron Paul supporter but it is apparent that he is aware that most of his ideology would never pass into legislation. Personally, I would rather live in an America that rejected torture and militarism and if that meant eliminating the Department of Education, so be it. Don't delude yourself; if you live in a society that tortures and 'disappears' people you don't live in a free society. Of course, it's unlikely that Ron Paul will be the GOP candidate and thus we need to ask why the vitriolic attacks and false smears. I assume the Republican Party elites hate that Ron Paul has a platform that exposes the other Republican candidates as totally insane thugs.

In a perfect world both political party candidates would be anti-torture, anti-war, and uninfluenced by supernatural fantasies but the best I can hope for is an anti-torture anti-war candidate who believes in space aliens (Kucinich) and an anti-torture anti-war candidate who has a record of not pandering to the neo-Con and Bushite warmongers but rejects biological science and has a goofy unworkable ideology (Ron Paul). Realistically, we will be probably be offered the choice of a Vichy Democrat and a Republican who is a totally insane dictator wannabe. With only one or two exceptions, I do not expect any of the Democratic candidates if elected President to ever prosecute the crimes of this administration; we will never see a single CIA agent or Blackwater contractor who was involved in sadistically torturing people prosecuted nor will any Bushite be prosecuted for any crime. The Vichy Dems will want to "heal the nation" and leave the door open for the next Republican torturer-in-chief to be enabled by his minions "following orders" without fear of prosecution.

By the way, is it correct that Bill Clinton authorized rendition during his term in office? What is Hillary's opinion on Bill's use of extraordinary rendition and will she also engage in rendition as a clandestine method of torture if she is elected President? We all know that Hilary will continue the Empire-Hegemony use of the military. I'm really getting sick of "Vote for Uday, he's not as bad as Qusay" and I suppose that is where the Ron Paul supporters are coming from.

Posted by: Bert Chadick | December 30, 2007 12:16 AM

Libertarian Paradise? Lets see.... There must be a Libertarian Paradise somewhere in the world.
No national empire.............Somalia
No taxes............................Somalia
No environmental laws......Somalia
No public schools..............Somalia
Everyone has a gun...........Somalia
No welfare.........................Somalia
No National Health Plan.....Somalia
Unfettered market economics......Somalia

It looks like Ron Paul is running for the president of the wrong country.

Posted by: aletoledo | December 30, 2007 12:21 AM

@ Ichthyic

Educate yourself on the difference between the US version of liberalism and what traditional liberalism is all about.

@ MAJeff

"I'm not speaking for everyone, but a lot of us consider the positions of that party to be fairly repulsive. Why would we vote for the standard bearer of those positions?"

Because there is an older form of the Republican party that is summed up by Goldwater. The neocons are scum and that I believe is how you hate. The Goldwater style republican you might actually like. With Paul the Republican party might actually kick the neocons out. Look at the recent Fox News controversy and see that the neocons truly few that they will lose power.

Read the book "The Big Con" by Jonathan Chait, if you want to learn more about the neocon menace.

@ coathangrrr

You're right, Paul is a fool when it comes to evolutionary theory. What about his economic and political theory? Do you really want a president that puts the nation further into debt and war, but admits that we descended from apes?

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 12:22 AM

I do trust Paul to be fair and honest, which means that if he is wrong, he is that much likelier to listen to reason and to be accountable to the people

well, here's a check for you:

find any time where Paul has openly admitted he was wrong about something, corrected himself, and then advocated the corrected position.

then you have hard evidence to support your faith in his ability to listen and adjust his position based on reason.

if you can't find any examples, or, even find counterexamples...

Posted by: lacrimose | December 30, 2007 12:28 AM

I find it hard to believe that people would vote for Paul based on the assumptions that he would not force his views upon us and that he would work through Congress. I would like to remind you all that a lot of people thought about GWB in the same way in 2000 and look where that got us.

Posted by: wildlifer | December 30, 2007 12:32 AM

Why should unjust laws be followed? I get extra sick of the hypocritical libertarians who refuse to let others, you know the brown masses, have liberty on the grounds that they will just vote it away.

What's "unjust?" That are fucking borders aren't wide open?

Posted by: wildlifer | December 30, 2007 12:35 AM

our*

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 12:35 AM

Do you really want a president that puts the nation further into debt and war, but admits that we descended from apes?

false dichotomy, and you know it.

Posted by: MAJeff | December 30, 2007 12:44 AM

Because there is an older form of the Republican party that is summed up by Goldwater.

I'm a registered Democrat whose political leanings are toward a social democratic model (and who thinks the Civil Rights Act was a pretty good thing). There are pretty much zero Republicans with whom I'm going to agree on such issues, particularly those from the Goldwater branch.

You're not going to convince me. It's really not worth your effort.

Posted by: aletoledo | December 30, 2007 12:49 AM

@ Ichthyic

So you want to vote now for the guy with the best label applied to his name? Just pull the Democratic lever and forget learning the positions then. Do they even use a lever anymore, maybe it's just a touch screen that says "whatever the Democrats want".

As for your question about why Paul had an entry removed from the wikipedia page on Classical Liberalism, well wikipedia is editable by everyone. If you want the reference to him there to prove a point, just give me a minute and I'll edit it back on there.

As for the idea of finding a reference to him working with others to formulate a compromise, do you want the opinion of a Democrat like Kucinich to show you his faith in Paul's ethics?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/02/kucinich-wants-to-hook-up_n_75000.html

Posted by: DB | December 30, 2007 12:56 AM

i said functional liberals, IOW, ones that still exist.
Classical liberals still exist, they just call themselves "libertarians", "minarchists" or other terms, so that you're not confused. Toledo a little mixed up on this point as well, as classical liberalism is not the intellectual precursor of what we call liberalism today.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 30, 2007 12:58 AM

I have no particular brief for Ron Paul. But he has a coherent political philosophy, something that PZ and his acolytes lack. What's the message here? Support Hillary because she's a woman? Support Barack because he's 50% African? Support John Edwards because...OK, you got me there. Channeling fetuses?

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 1:01 AM

What's the message here? Support Hillary because she's a woman? Support Barack because he's 50% African? Support John Edwards because...OK, you got me there. Channeling fetuses?

*looks at previous posts in this thread....*

nope, nothing like that in this thread.

*looks at previous threads for the last 3 months....*

nope, not there either.

you're imagining things again, Gerald.

did you take your meds this morning?

you know how cranky you get when you don't take your meds.

Posted by: Gerard Harbison | December 30, 2007 1:04 AM

He's pro-choice, genuinely anti-corporate (that's why the corp whore media is doing its level best to dismiss his chances, he scares them badly, as he's made his living kicking their asses), and he's the only major candidate who is talking about poverty, and what we can do to help those who need a hand.

BWAHAHAHAHA!

It's just a shame he worked for that hedge fund.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 1:09 AM

something sure smells like "old fart" here.

trying to drum up visits to your pathetic blog again, Gerald?

or just feeling like you want to play masochist again tonight?

Posted by: Colugo | December 30, 2007 1:17 AM

There is always a "pissed off at the system" candidate. As symbolic protest candidates, they tend to attract a variety of seemingly disparate political factions. They often act as spoilers; Perot was Bush I's spoiler and Nader was Gore's spoiler (and if Buchanan hadn't run, Bush II would have had enough electoral - electoral, mind you - votes to win even without Florida). If Paul runs in the general as an independent he may be the GOP's spoiler, but the GOP will probably lose '08 whatever Paul does.

Prediction: Clinton or Obama sworn in on January '09. Edwards? Not a chance. He won't be veep either.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 1:31 AM

I grew up with a principled Left. I miss them. I doubt I'd agree with them, much, but I could respect them.

right, so that's why you sided with the "principled" right?

phht.

enough with your moronic judgements. look in a mirror, fool.

that said, have fun making a martyr of yourself.

for those that don't already know, or haven't guessed the obvious, Gerard is a hard-core rethuglican who happens to NOT be a creationist, and does indeed support good science, (when it suits him to do so and doesn't appear to violate his particular rethuglican ideology).

ask him what he thinks of the field of Sociology for some laughs.

with that, I leave the floor to you, Gerard.

Posted by: Candy | December 30, 2007 1:40 AM

I gather Gerald has been around before. I also gather there is not much point in engaging him. Just as well, the Land of Nod beckons.

Prediction: Clinton or Obama sworn in on January '09. Edwards? Not a chance. He won't be veep either.

Well, Colugo, only time will tell. I'm predicting Edwards will take Iowa. Hopefully he will come out with enough momentum to really get moving nationally, despite the press insistance that it's Clinton all the way. Obama is certainly the lesser of those two evils. I don't have a whole lot against him, as centrist Dems go. He's certainly got a nice, tight organization here in Iowa, and surrounding oneself with good people is a hopeful sign where presidential material is concerned. (See Bush for an example of not being surrounded by good people.) As a fairly hard core leftist I'm never happy with any of the candidates, and it's always a question of getting the ones who are least likely to start dumb-ass wars,cut off the social safety net for the poor, and let sick people croak in the street. I'd move to Europe if I could, believe me.

Posted by: Christianjb | December 30, 2007 2:01 AM

Ron Paul is in part popular because he's against American imperialism and also because he's the only candidate who's not paid for by corporate America.

I don't agree with him on anything except his anti-imperialism, but that alone is enough for me to prefer him over any other Republican candidate and several Democrat candidates.

I'm not a Ron Paul supporter, but I can see the advantages of electing someone who's not hell bent in dragging us into a third world war or in favor of spending 20 million dollars an hour to continue our venture in Iraq.

Posted by: Monado | December 30, 2007 2:03 AM

You'd think that starting the Great Depression would be enough to give isolationism and restrictive trade practices a bad name.

Posted by: Matt | December 30, 2007 2:04 AM

I'm still sort of confused about why choosing what I want to do with my money and choosing what I want to do with my body is so repulsive to liberals/conservatives? I mean, can't I choose to give money to charity on my own (secular charities) instead of having the government force me to give money to religious institutions, like it does now? Can't I choose which substances I put in my own body, as opposed to its current policy of throwing everyone in jail for their own victimless action? Our current government is a huge fan of that.

Oh, whats that? You support the legalization of drugs? Well by all means, point me to the Democrat with the stones big enough to support that position! I'd vote for a candidate who I disagreed on every other position if he just legalized drugs.

Ron Paul is the worst candidate out there, except for every other power-mad psychopath in the running in the democratic and republican parties. I won't switch to the republican party(blech) to vote for him in the primary, but if he wins their ticket I'll probably vote for him in the general election.

Posted by: Troy | December 30, 2007 2:49 AM

Matt, you'll get arrested for smoking pot at home for the same reason you'll get ticketed for driving sans seatbelt . . . our society has collectively decided, via our democratic representatives, that the global cost of limiting freedom in this two areas is outweighed by the collective gains thereby.

free markets to channel those private vices into public virtues

meaningless drivel.

I'm a left-libertarian in that I believe we should pursue individual freedom to the greatest extent possible, but tone back the freedom dial to any extent that is a reasonable mitigation of market failures, tragedies of the unmanaged commons, etc etc.

libertarianism, as all undilited anarchism, inevitably devolved into the one dollar one vote of the company town and banana republic.

If we all started from equal positions in life, or were all able to choose our parents before birth, this would not be a problem, but from what I've gathered only the geolibertarians have any idea among the libertarians of how to actually organize a socio-economic system with any potential of achieving sustainable and trans-generationally just functionings.

Posted by: bernarda | December 30, 2007 3:15 AM

dsk 121 - "with Democrats and Republicans both intent on increasing government intrusion into the lives of those whom government is supposed to serve rather than control"

As if the "free" market and honorable private companies would not do such a thing. Just ask Microsoft, Google, insurance companies, telecom companies, and so on.

"with Microsoft and Google both intent on increasing company intrusion into the lives of those whom company is supposed to serve rather than control"

Posted by: Krystalline Apostate | December 30, 2007 3:21 AM

Colugo:

They often act as spoilers; Perot was Bush I's spoiler and Nader was Gore's spoiler

Posted by: Troy | December 30, 2007 4:02 AM

Steve, I match your profile:

"well-compensated (though still very middle class)"

too. The internets are filled with little-L libertarian technocrats who are pleased with their rise in the world and wonder why everyone beneath them are such lazy handout-grubbing slackers.

The problem, Steve, is that we all cannot be overpaid technocrats in this society. Somebody's gotta do the fungible drudge jobs like teaching our kids, cleaning our workplace, rotating our tires, fronting the shelves at the supermarket, etc etc.

These jobs, by their low barriers to entry and competition, will never yield a "living wage" in a free market economy.

Private charity to maintain a functioning and just society, where everyone has a relatively equal shot at becoming and remaining a productive member of society, is a pipedream, and an inefficient one at that.

The present system in this country blows, but there is a lot -- both good and bad -- we can learn from other big-government systems in Old Europe.

Laissez Faire free marketeerism will end in abject poverty of progress as hereditary Rentiers living off the productive enterprise of labor in the natural state of company-town plutocracy. We saw this movie already in the 19th century.

Like you, I'd, personally, probably do well in this dystopian libertarian paradise. However, I have no great expectation that this system would prove superior to eg. European social democracy in the long term. The issue of transgenerational concentration of wealth --power -- is the achilles' heel of libertopia.

Posted by: LiberalForPaul | December 30, 2007 4:03 AM

Because he's against the war, exposes the other Republican candidates' warmongering, and will widen the split in the Republican Party between neo-cons and paleo-cons.

When the Establishment Republicans throw Ron Paul under the bus, they'll also for a generation lose the votes of all the apathetic and independent voters Paul has energized.

By splitting the Republican Party, Paul will also loosen the grip of the "centrist" (i.e, conservative, corporatist, DLC, DINO) Democrats, who use fear of election of neo-con and theocrat Republicans to get the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to reluctantly contribute to and vote for right-wing Democrats like Hillary and DiFi and Lieberman, rather than supporting true progressives.

As a liberal atheist Darwinist, I see all of these things as good, and so I've contributed to and support Ron Paul's candidacy. I don't want him as president, but I love him as a candidate.

Posted by: mikmik | December 30, 2007 4:28 AM

No man has reason to raise his hand against another if he is happy. (anonymous?)

I protect my individual rights by protecting the rights of others. I have the most freedom to choose when everyone also has the same freedom of choices.

I worship the mind and individuality, but I cannot exercise my desires freely if by doing so someone else is suffering or lacking, for they will try to take from me, or hate me.

Isn't the path to my ultimate freedom only accomplished through equality?

Isn't the path to ultimate expression of my being only accomplished, not as an individual, but, with all individuals as our society?

My person is paramount above all else. How do I realize my full potential and freedom of expressing who and what I am? How do I ensure I am bestowed with my full rights to act as I please?

Not alone. I am fine with libertarianism if everyone realizes that everyone has to be full individuals. But I highly doubt that will happen in the Utopian fantasy that people will freely choose to help others, if they have the choice. That is putting the cart in front of the horse.

Reminds me of trickle down economics, hey? LMAO, that is exactly the idea of libertarianism; give individuals free rights and no responsibilities and they will somehow take care of the less fortunate by choosing to be responsible for them.

Yeah, right.

(It is too early, I don't make much sense, need coffee)

Posted by: Arnaud | December 30, 2007 4:51 AM

I'd love to comment but being in the process of re-reading Ken Macleod's Fall Revolution series, I cannot possibly be fair and balanced on libertarianism...

Posted by: Russell | December 30, 2007 5:11 AM

Heavens to Orwell, this is reading scarily like a Rush Limbaugh call in : >90% Two Minute Hates.

Posted by: LeeLeeOne | December 30, 2007 6:25 AM

FROM PZ: "So, please, whoever you are: don't renew my subscription to that awful magazine ..."

To PZ: Allowing ourselves to read something that makes us uncomfortable brings self-education. REASON causes me actual physical discomfort; more often, it angers me enough to lose sleep.

I agree with you, this subscription should not be renewed for you, personally.

However, I propose that this subscription should be made available or donated to your local PUBLIC library.

This serves a multitude of interests. First, the PUBLIC library is supported by taxes (something Libertarians abhor). Second, individual subscriptions, which financially support REASON, would be unnecessary. If you wish to stay on top of the information, without actually purchasing a subscription, then visit your local PUBLIC library (I do this, and often). Thirdly, if you attend to the information available at your local PUBLIC library, you are taking responsibility for your own self-education. Yes, it's a pain to go to a library only to find the specific reference unavailable because it is being utilized by another reader. I look at this as a positive though. It means perhaps someone, somewhere is becoming self-educated. I then go look for other points of potential interest while at the library, and more often than not, I find other sources of information readily available.

Information is the key. If we have personal ideals firmly embedded and information is readily available to either reinforce those ideals or challenge them, we are being responsible. If we are "fence-sitters" and this information causes us to attend more seriously to one side or the other. Again, we are being responsible.

As an educator yourself, I am sure this is what you ultimately desire; for everyone to take control of their own
"self-education" above and beyond what you teach and demand in your classroom.

I personally am wholly grateful for PUBLIC libraries. I have chosen to access my local PUBLIC library for my self-education; and as such, I try to ensure that I do my part to support this educational endeavor. Citizens of many countries, counties, states, cities, etc., are not so fortunate.

Education is the key, but self-education is the more important key.

So back to the initial point, I beg whomever deems PZ worthy of receiving a personal subscription to REASON perhaps should rethink their point and instead donate this subscription to their local PUBLIC library, or actually take the physical copies received and donate them to their local clinic, hospital, nursing homes (yes, a lot of minds are sharp in nursing homes and they can be "vocal"), colleges, etc., (find your own worthy donation point).

As I have tried to instill into my children for many a decade, education (most importantly, self-education) is never lost. But it can be wasted when we choose to not self-educate.

Posted by: LeeLeeOne | December 30, 2007 6:33 AM

I beg forgiveness for any typo's or omissions which may appear in my previous post. I'm on-call, the client who beeped with "urgency" has not yet shown up in the ER, and I am just plain tired.

Posted by: Sebastian | December 30, 2007 7:28 AM

I think Ron Paul isn't the best option, but he beats the rest of the republicans by a mile. Would you rather have Huckabee or Guliani? I don't think so.
I mean, there is no way the income tax will be dismantled completely, nor will the federal reserve be abolished. He will be tempered by the republicans and democrats (checks and balances and all that).

My point is this: If we're going to have a republican in office, I'd rather have one who's "hands off" than someone who's "hands on". Ron Paul won't grab people from their homes and put them in secret interrogation rooms in Egypt, or Guantano Bay, while the rest of the Jack Bauer wannabes can't wait to show us how tough they are.

Of course, at the end of the day we would be better off with the democratic candidate.

Posted by: tz | December 30, 2007 9:02 AM

Why are atheists afraid of liberty? And for that matter democracy.

You have the totalitarian dictatorship of the supreme court impose your school curriculum. This is neither local freedom, nor even democracy to vote on it.Much less simply provide obviously better arguments. Our planet is obviously not on the back of a giant turtle, but we must make sure the kiddies never hear this view.

Abortion, equality of the races (what was the subtitle of Darwin's work again?), Some but not other behavior (sodomy v.s. smoking), no freedom, no vote, just imposed dogma. And that is the way you want it.

Lysenko must have his Stalin. He too wouldn't like to live in Ron Paul's America. Part of the party elite. Privileged. Feared more than respected. Well paid out of the state's coffers.

(oh yes, and it isn't stealing when you do it via a proxy with a badge?).

In the latest encyclical, BXVI points out that freedom is the freedom to do evil. But that freedom is a good in itself.

Under Ron Paul, you would be perfectly free - even more free than you are now, except you could not deny that freedomto others. Your petty dictatorship and tyranny would be gone. People would be free to say "non servium" to your system. You would have your throne, but your "ex cathedra" pronouncements would be judged on their merits, not because you had a constabulary ready to taser those who disgreed.

Posted by: Scott | December 30, 2007 9:11 AM

Aside from the fact that he's a Republican and the country really couldn't survive another Republican presidency, the thing that really makes me dislike Ron Paul is a a pretty poisonous racist and gets a huge chunk of support from neo-nazis, the Klan, and the pro-terrorism Patriot movement.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 30, 2007 9:26 AM

And libertarians are not anarchists. Anarchist abolition of the state takes the form of creating other institutions whereas libertarians have a purely negative view of liberty. Also, anarchists oppose the state because it is the method of oppression of the poor, women and people of color. Libertarians need government because without it there is no one to enforce property rights.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 30, 2007 9:37 AM

You have the totalitarian dictatorship of the supreme court impose your school curriculum.

Do you know what totalitarian means?

Posted by: mikmik | December 30, 2007 9:59 AM

tz said:

Why are atheists afraid of liberty? And for that matter democracy.
- and
Under Ron Paul, you would be perfectly free - even more free than you are now,
- and
except you could not deny that freedomto others

2. Under RP? Abortion, religion, etc????? Free????? How about if you are poor or mentally or emotionally or physically handicapped?? What are you free to do then? Beg? Free to listen to you tell them they should get off their asses and get a job? It is fucking fine and dandy to justify selfishness when you think everyone is just a victim of their choices and could do better if they wanted to, but that sure the f*** isn't reality, is it??

3. See answer number two. Also, what exactly is freedom? Freedom to do certain things, freedom from certain things, WHAT???
You blabber about freedom, but do you insist that everyone gets to be free; free to choose what they want to do? And free from inequality, poor health, poor finances, lack of opportunities, deranged parents, natural disaster, etc??

I live in Canada, and I sent money to Katrina relief. Did you? Did enough people? Almost everyone could afford a little bit, many could afford a lot, but how many even bothered?
Do you think people would change from greedy self centered animals to altruistic and understanding saints just because taxes and laws were stricken, and that they would suddenly decide to contribute to everything that was needed to make society function cohesively?
Equally? Because if it wasn't 'equally' that they all contribute, then someone is paying more than their share and I'll insist that almost everyone will want to pay less than their share if not nothing at all.

Posted by: Jim | December 30, 2007 10:06 AM

It's a big collection of people patting each other on the back about how the government knows better than we do how to spend our money, or is more virtuous in doing so.

Liberal models of government do not seem to me to be sustainable--they require an ever-increasing amount of taxes that sink as much money into bureaucracy (or more) as goes to the actual problems they are intended to address.

The Soviet Union collapsed under its own economic ruin, caused both by the unsustainability of its economic model as well as its insistence and pursuing empire. I find it impossible to believe that people cannot see that the U.S. is going down the same road.

Paul isn't perfect--he sure as hell isn't as he has been portrayed in this thread, but he's far from perfect--but what he does bring is a consistent voting record that would help right the ship now that the major candidates all endorse more and bigger government.

This white supremacist stuff is pretty ridiculous. There was one flap with a newsletter some time ago, and denied rumors that he attends white supremacist meetings. I think people want to make mountains out of these because it makes it easier to write him off (he's not polling that great anyway) rather than have to analyze the reality of the consequences of current major-candidate policies.

But go ahead, keep patting each other on the back for mischaracterizing Paul and libertarianism and how right you are for what a terrible person he is.

Posted by: bernarda | December 30, 2007 10:27 AM

There are always some clowns who criticize Kucinich as Mayor. But Kucinich was fired by the banks because he wouldn't sell them municipal electrical system. So they canceled the city's credit.

Kucinich had guts. He was even the object of assassination attempts because of his resistance to the banks and the industrialists. Who do you like better? The banks or Kucinich.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20sRFPAbDQw

Kucinich's critics don't have near the cojones he has.

Posted by: Kristjan Wager | December 30, 2007 10:48 AM

Liberal models of government do not seem to me to be sustainable--they require an ever-increasing amount of taxes that sink as much money into bureaucracy (or more) as goes to the actual problems they are intended to address.

The Soviet Union collapsed under its own economic ruin, caused both by the unsustainability of its economic model as well as its insistence and pursuing empire. I find it impossible to believe that people cannot see that the U.S. is going down the same road.

If you think that the Soviet Union ran a liberal model of government, you are more ignorant than you appeared at first.

Also, going way back to the claim that Ron Paul is a classic liberal, I think it's worth to point out that one of the major things classic liberals opposed, were capitalism, since they believed that it went against free trade. Hardly sounds like Ron Paul, does it? They also opposed state religion (and monarchy).

Speaking as a liberal in the European sense, which has some similarities with libertarianism, though with the added benefit of being rooted in the real world, I see little of my stances represented in Paul's nationalistic, xenophobic world view. Wanting to shut down free trade, movement across borders, and the womens' right to choose, flies against everything that European liberalism stands for, and what most Libertarians claims to represent.

Of course, he is also a grade A moron when it comes to economics, but there he at least represents himself correctly.

Posted by: DSKS | December 30, 2007 11:18 AM

bernarda #127

"As if the "free" market and honorable private companies would not do such a thing. Just ask Microsoft, Google, insurance companies, telecom companies, and so on."

I admit my post was lengthy, but if you had read it you would know that this comment wasn't necessary. Classical liberalism is a direction on the political compass, and like any direction, the extremes tend to be unpalatable. However, my argument was only that the current state of politics lies a little too far towards statism to be healthy (in both the US and my home country, the UK). A Democrat watching the chaos unleashed by the current Republican administration over the last 8 years should be well aware of the fact that empowered government might sound like a peachy idea when one's own team is in power, but it can be very uncomfortable when the Other Guy has the reins.

Posted by: John C. Randolph | December 30, 2007 11:42 AM

PZ,

It's interesting to note that you're in 100% agreement with Charles Johnson from Little Green Footballs in your opposition to Ron Paul. Perhaps you would like to reconsider.

Now, as for some of the charges you've made against him:

1) He is a non-interventionist, not an isolationist. A non-interventionist wants to bring American troops home rather than keep them stationed in 700 bases around the world. An isolationist would also want to erect high tariff barriers to foreign trade, which is something he has consistently opposed.

2) The nazis may *wish* that he was one of them, but wishing doesn't make it so. See here:

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/racism/

Show me any nazi who ever agreed with "Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism".

3) As for the federal reserve and sound money, we have twice before in our history abolished central banks, and Jefferson and Jackson both had very good reasons for doing so. The central banks then, like the federal reserve today, were transferring wealth from the general population to the financial cartel through manipulation of the credit and currency markets. There's no more reason to sanction a monopoly on banking services than on any other industry.

When it comes to fiat currency, we have had two previous examples of paper money that were abolished in favor of a return sound money. The first was the continental dollar, the failure of which is the very reason that we have the gold and silver clause in the constitution, and the second were the civil-war era greenbacks, which were phased out over several years following the war. It's far from impossible to restore our money to a sound basis, we have done it twice.

Now, as it happens, there are two issues where I disagree with him, but he's got my vote for one main reason: he understands economics, and will work to defuse the time bomb we're living with today. The mortgage crisis is nothing compared to the problems we'll have if the dollar drops 40% and corporations start defaulting on their debts. That would trigger a world-wide depression, as all the foreign currencies that are pegged to the dollar crash right along with us.

-jcr

Posted by: Blake Stacey | December 30, 2007 11:49 AM

Looking at this comment thread, I have to ask one question:

Is Scott Adams a Ron Paul supporter?

That would just be. . . so perfect. You've got the whole "the purpose of the Universe is to make me rich" Oprah-Chopra-woo which Scott Adams has going on, which synergizes so well with the "I have the liberty to get rich, and you have the liberty to starve" complex (Asimov's definition of libertarianism). And then you have all those cubicled technocrats, reading Dilbert and puffing about how far they've pulled up their own bootstraps. Perfect, I tell you!

164 comments so far here, and 614 when PZ lambasted Adams (hey, there's some interesting numerology going on there). Come on, let's go rarin' for the thousand-comment thread!

Posted by: John C. Randolph | December 30, 2007 11:59 AM

" pleased with their rise in the world and wonder why everyone beneath them are such lazy handout-grubbing slackers."

Project much?

Something I keep seeing in liberals who rail against us libertarians is a baseless assumption that we hold others in contempt. Truth to tell, I see a hell of a lot of disparagement of poor people from liberals, who presume that poor people will never succeed without government interfering in their lives.

-jcr

Posted by: J | December 30, 2007 12:07 PM

Read this article from a Cleveland free weekly paper for a Cleveland-centric view of Kucinich. The people who know him best aren't very enthusiastic about him, and I think it's likely he won't be reelected next time.

For those who don't know much about Kucinich's past, your biggest surprise will be that Dennis was a master of racial politics.

http://www.clevescene.com/2007-12-05/news/the-king-of-spin/

Posted by: speedwell | December 30, 2007 12:09 PM

Frankly, I can hardly bring myself to vote at all. I'm disappointed in every candidate. We can choose any of them, and then we can pick holes in them for two hundred comments. Which of you is voting for a flawless candidate who perfectly exemplifies your ideals and your hopes for a better country? Who is PZ voting for?

I'm also disappointed in anyone who has substituted faith in the saving power of the government for faith in God. It's even worse. Governments exist, and the evidence is against their ability to bring about the just society.

Posted by: wildlifer | December 30, 2007 12:25 PM

There are more possible options than our current laws and open borders. And what is unjust is a great many aspects of our immigration law.

Hardly. If we didn't allow any immigration at all, one might be able to argue that was "unjust." But there's no moral imperative that demands we allow it.

Posted by: cureholder | December 30, 2007 12:39 PM

#122: It will likely come down to a Huckabee/Obama showdown in November, with Obama winning in a landslide.

Okay, but in addition to whatever Huckabee/Obama activity you're describing here (debate? chess? big-time wrestling?), there also will be a presidential election in November 2008. While these two are off having a "showdown" of some kind, the actual Republican and Democrat nominees will be vying for the presidency.

Posted by: WJZ | December 30, 2007 12:42 PM

Ah, yes. PZ posting on politics is like Clinton lecturing on biology. PZ, painfully uninformed bloviation is for the cable news channels and politically-focused blogs.

Posted by: jeffk | December 30, 2007 12:56 PM

And it's not greedy to suggest that I should be able to decide what I want to do with my money. It's mine, not yours.

This, here, is the crux of libertarianism. It sounds so simple, so appealing, but it presupposes that the system is within a light-year of fair, which it is not. Your money is only "yours" in the most naive sense. It comes at a fantastic cost to our environment, and a hard-working and poor underclass. To imagine yourself in a vacuum where you truly "earned" every dollar you have is just silly and ignorant. With or without government involvement, it's still all tied together - our lifestyles are supported by people who are systematically exploited.

Every time I start thinking about the outcomes of a libertarian government, I get chills down my spine. I'm picturing going up to the BWCAW go to canoeing and having to pay a $100 entrance fee to a logging company, only to find that there's a McDonald's on Angleworm Lake now. Leaving every decision up to individual profit is a sick recipe for a miserable world fifty years from now.

Posted by: Kevin Klein | December 30, 2007 12:59 PM

I see PZ has learned a few things from the creationists he so detests, namely how to construct a fine straw man argument. He opens with his definition of libertarianism as:

...that reactionary political movement that seeks to elevate greed and selfishness as a ruling principle

Which is a fine way to dismiss out of hand anything valuable that libertarians might have to say. Of course if he bothered to do some research (another failure he shares with creationists), he might have found a better definition of libertarianism, such as this one from Wikipedia:

The central tenet of libertarianism is the principle of liberty, namely individual liberty. To libertarians, an individual human being is sovereign over his/her body, extending to life, liberty and property. As such, libertarians define liberty as being completely free in action, whilst not initiating force or fraud against the life, liberty or property of another human being.

Call me crazy, but that seems like a rather fine principle by which a society of people can agree to live with one another. PZ and many of his sycophants seem to pretend that libertarianism is only defined by the first prong ("completely free in action") and ignore the second ("not initiating force or fraud against the life, liberty, or property of another human being").

My suspicion is that they ignore the second part because they don't agree with it. Just look how many times you see recurrences in the comments of ideas like "greed is bad", "tax the rich", and "stop the evil corporations". Clearly it is OK to initiate force against the liberty and property of another as long as the other is someone you don't like.

In the libertarian view, neither greed, wealth, nor economic power are inherently "good" or "evil". In fact it affirms our right to be greedy, amass wealth, or accumulate power (or conversely to be lazy, go broke, or just subsist). It is only when the actions expressed by those motives detract from others' life, liberty or property that the force of government should be used to prevent or limit them.

But enough of Libertarianism 101. The point is, the double standard to which PZ holds himself (did I mention the oh-so-clever "fecal sludge" argument?) compared to the creationsts he despises is rather unflattering. And the blind parroting of his perspective by the commenters here is scarily reminiscent of an ID blog.

Oh, and I'm not a Ron Paul supporter either. I find him just as nutty as you do.

Posted by: truth machine | December 30, 2007 1:12 PM

In my opinion, the people who support Ron Paul are the ones who refuse to believe that the federal government is here to take care of it's citizens.

People who favor their opinions over evidence are stupid.

Posted by: WJZ | December 30, 2007 1:13 PM

WJZ,
everyone is allowed to blog on politics. Politicians do not have a monopoly on ideas about how to organise society better. Opinions of scientists and freethinkers do matter to many and it is most welcome that there are some politically engaged scientists like PZ.
History shows that intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, historians usually have more foresight on these matters than traditional politicians.

Posted by: negentropyeater | December 30, 2007 12:53 PM

I agree. The best adjustments to a zeitgeist usually come from outsiders. But, in reference to PZ, I disagree. It's hypocritical for him to accuse libertarians of being politically uninformed and self-indulgent when he is politically uninformed and self-indulgent. If he wants a certain standard of responsibility, it must be applicable across the board and to himself.

Posted by: CalGeorge | December 30, 2007 1:18 PM

It's mine, not yours.

Perfect.

Posted by: Doug S. | December 30, 2007 1:23 PM

I support Ron Paul for the Republican nomination, but in the general election, I'll pick any Democratic candidate over him.

Yes, Ron Paul is a nut, but I'd vote for the ghost of Barry Goldwater before I'd vote for any of the "mainstream" Republican candidates, all of whom seem to be determined to continue the failed and disturbing policies of a morally bankrupt administration.

Posted by: truth machine | December 30, 2007 1:26 PM

I have no particular brief for Ron Paul. But he has a coherent political philosophy, something that PZ and his acolytes lack. What's the message here? Support Hillary because she's a woman? Support Barack because he's 50% African? Support John Edwards because...OK, you got me there. Channeling fetuses?

Moron.

Posted by: Colugo | December 30, 2007 1:28 PM

negentropyeater: "History shows that intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, historians usually have more foresight on these matters than traditional politicians."

Professional intellectuals - including scientists - have a terrible track record of flocking to the extremist fads of their eras even more readily than politicians - whether Social Darwinism, Spiritualism, eugenics, Fabianism, Bolshevism, Third World revolutionary romanticism, and so on. Intellectuals tend to be on the leading edge of political, artistic, and social movements, including noxious and fanciful ones. Politicians, on the other hand, are beholden to establishment elites and constituents and so are more reluctant to take edgy positions. They may adopt such views, but history shows that intellectuals typically arrive there first. I am certainly not saying that politicians are a group to accorded special trust either.

This has nothing to do with PZ Myers, who is a fairly typical Wellstonian progressive and not an extremist. My point is that, collectively, academics and other intellectuals are not a group whose political judgments ought to be given more credence nor trust by virtue of their professional status alone. Scientific judgments regarding their specific area of expertise, sure. So biologists should be broadly heeded on evolution, climatologists on climate change, etc. But that's all that their professional status ought to get them.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 30, 2007 1:45 PM

As for the federal reserve and sound money...

James, I hardly think that a currency system which is almost universally recognized by economists as immensely deflationary deserves to be called "sound money". Gold-bugs keep forcasting an economic collapse due to fiat currency, but 60 years without a depression or bank panic still compares favorably to the times when such things were ubiquitous.

Posted by: Heterocronie | December 30, 2007 1:47 PM

Despite my disagreements with my liberal/left friends, I generally feel like we all want to live in the same kind of prosperous, free, secular, benevolent world - even if we disagree on the best way to get there.

With Ron Paul, I get the sense that although we might agree on the importance of limited government..the worlds we would want to live in are very different.

Secular libertarians who support Paul should give some serious thought to the Ron Paul quotes that Logician referred to.

Posted by: TomK | December 30, 2007 1:55 PM

Ron paul is right about drugs, terror and that switching from gold was a bad idea.

However, he is very dangerous.

Posted by: DLB | December 30, 2007 1:58 PM

Like you, I'd, personally, probably do well in this dystopian libertarian paradise. However, I have no great expectation that this system would prove superior to eg. European social democracy in the long term. The issue of transgenerational concentration of wealth --power -- is the achilles' heel of libertopia.
Transgenerational transfer of wealth was the entire point of primogeniture, but that isn't a common practice in the modern world. With a more even distribution among descendents, fortunes get diluted as the number of heirs accumulates.

In any case, libertarians aren't concerned with economic equality, which is as much a fantasy any dream of perfect individual freedom. The goal of free market economics is not to divide the pie more evenly, but to enlarge the pie. It matters little to me if someone's slice is bigger than mine, so long as the absolute quantity of pie I get improves over time.

Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 30, 2007 2:00 PM

I'm participating in the republican primary and am supporting Ron Paul the fiscally conservative anti-war candidate. Which of the Republican fascist war mongers would you PZ suggest is a better alternative in the Republican primary?

Freethinkers like ourselves don't want to the religious to use government to impose religious morality on us, but isn't taxing us to death for an enlarged government a way of imposing your morality on me?

What I would suggest is that you take a careful look at the actual fiscal record of your party from at least the time of Nixon on, as opposed to its rhetoric.

Posted by: truth machine | December 30, 2007 2:02 PM

It's interesting to note that you're in 100% agreement with Charles Johnson from Little Green Footballs in your opposition to Ron Paul.

They are also in 100% agreement in their opposition to space invaders from Mars.

Perhaps you would like to reconsider.

Perhaps you would like to become intelligent.

Posted by: freelunch | December 30, 2007 2:08 PM

Ron paul is right about drugs, terror and that switching from gold was a bad idea.

Gold is just a talisman that some worship.

Money is the same whether it be cowrie shells, gold or paper.

The best recent critique of gold bugs is Terry Pratchett's Making Money.

Posted by: truth machine | December 30, 2007 2:09 PM

It's always nice to read through the emotional and largely irrational tirades directed against libertarianism here. Clearly most of you have already made up your minds about libertarians and your hatred is obvious. I find it sad that Pharyngula is supposed to be a science blog, and yet comments on peer-reviewed research usually number less than a dozen, while any chance to bash libertarians easily draws >100 comments.

Poor narcissist baby.

Posted by: truth machine | December 30, 2007 2:14 PM

I see PZ has learned a few things from the creationists he so detests, namely how to construct a fine straw man argument. He opens with his definition of libertarianism

It's not a definition, moron, it's a characterization.

How you libertarians do go on about how misunderstood you are. But we understand you better than you understand your intellectually dishonest narcissistic selves.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 30, 2007 2:18 PM

Hardly. If we didn't allow any immigration at all, one might be able to argue that was "unjust." But there's no moral imperative that demands we allow it.

If the immigration policy existed in a vacuum then you might be right, but it does not. There are a lot of arguments in favor of the view that we do have a moral imperative to allow immigration

Shelly Wilcox, Immigrant Admissions and Global Relations of Harm

Joseph H. Carens, Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders

I could cite more, but your assertion that we have no moral imperative is probably based on a incomplete understanding of the issue.

Posted by: negentropyeater | December 30, 2007 2:27 PM

First, the key problem of trustworthiness of government doesn't get solved by reducing its ambit.

Second, in a world where more and more resources will be limited and consumtion will have to be controlled one way or another, I sincerely don't see how libertarianism will reduce the disparities in capital distribution between the richest and the poorest (which has been increasing again over the last generation) and improve global welfare. It will just increase global tensions.

We are not living an epoch where there are huge untapped territories to discover, populate and conquer, like in the past 300 years of American history... The age of the "American dream" is gone.

Posted by: Stephen Wells | December 30, 2007 2:30 PM

Those weren't huge untapped territories anyway. There were, after all, people living there.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 30, 2007 2:32 PM

"The issue with paper is that it allows the institution running the mint to inflate the supply at will, and this is Paul's issue with fiat currency."

This "issue" is necessary for anti-recessionary action. A gold standard is difficult to inflate, but is insanely deflationary, leading among other things to liquidity traps. We've been able to avoid bank panics and depressions for the last several decades primarily because we have adopted a fiat currency system.

Posted by: truth machine | December 30, 2007 2:32 PM

leave you here to bask in the glory of calling me a baby.

Typical whiny libertarian takes no responsibility.

Posted by: jfatz | December 30, 2007 2:35 PM

Found this entirely amusing:

http://litbrit.blogspot.com/2007/11/rational-actors-libertarian-fte.html

Posted by: Mikko Sandt | December 30, 2007 2:37 PM

Wow - this blog really is going downhill with its comment section. Clueless left-wing idiotarians praising PZ's misguided views on matters such as the economy as if he were the Pope. How do you guys think you differ from your Redstate/LGF counterparts? You don't. Your morality is no better and your science is just as lacking as theirs.

Posted by: cooler | December 30, 2007 2:44 PM

Mikko you are a despicable denier for lending any sort of support for Paul, you are a hateful anti semite for not openly condemning Paul. anyone that in anyway appeases or mitigates the actions of this madman is a anti semitic denier, read my post above to see why. There is no excuse for this and we should all band together to condemn this nazi madmans supporters.

Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | December 30, 2007 2:47 PM

Oh goody, I knew it was only a matter of time before loony tunes cooler showed up.

Posted by: freelunch | December 30, 2007 2:53 PM

216/226.

Yes, gold is relatively rare, but that is not what made it into money. Gold is money because people say so. Remember that even if the country doesn't debase the coinage, you can still introduce inflation and deflation into an economy with gold as money if you allow banks to lend. As the ratio of lent money to the base supply increases, you have inflationary pressure, as it decreases, you have deflationary pressure and the aforementioned liquidity trap.

Posted by: wildlifer | December 30, 2007 2:55 PM

If the immigration policy existed in a vacuum then you might be right, but it does not. There are a lot of arguments in favor of the view that we do have a moral imperative to allow immigration

Shelly Wilcox, Immigrant Admissions and Global Relations of Harm

Joseph H. Carens, Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders

I could cite more, but your assertion that we have no moral imperative is probably based on a incomplete understanding of the issue.

I could only access the abstract of the second article. It seems to be some one-world government utopian screed which holds us responsible for the crimes/behavior of other nation states.

Posted by: negentropyeater | December 30, 2007 2:57 PM

People like Mikko Sandt believe in the sanctity of free-markets and have stopped thinking about economics and politics 30 years ago. And they claim anybody who doesn't understand it is misguided... and a communist.
Wonder who is indoctrinated ?

Posted by: bernarda | December 30, 2007 3:13 PM

dk 224, apartheid israel is not a part of the U.S. It is not a state, even though israelis seem to think it is. The U.S. has no obligations to israel and Americans have no interest at all in supporting israel.

I think that Paul is useless reactionary, but his opposition to the Iraq war is exactly right and, if as you say, he opposes aid to apartheid israel, he is exactly right on that too. No aid and no trade with apartheid israel.

dk, when you talk about imaginary "anti-semitism" that is an application of Godwin's law. Anyone who talks about "anti-semitism" is the same as someone who talks about nazism. Frankly, who cares what israelis like you think, especially someone like you who knows nothing,

"the same Mossad that bravely got vengeance on the despicable mad arabs that kidnapped the Israeli olympians? "

The Mossad is the Gestapo. I thought that israelis thought that they were western democrats, but no. They seem to engage in illegal assassinations and they even murdered innocent people. Anyway, who were those athletes but israeli military terrorists. You israelis really have a double standard.

Posted by: Stanton | December 30, 2007 3:31 PM

Anyway, who were those athletes but israeli military terrorists.

Posted by: mikmik | December 30, 2007 3:55 PM

I said in #155: You blabber about freedom, but do you insist that everyone gets to be free; free to choose what they want to do? And free from inequality, poor health, poor finances, lack of opportunities, deranged parents, natural disaster, etc??

I live in Canada, and I sent money to Katrina relief. Did you? Did enough people? Almost everyone could afford a little bit, many could afford a lot, but how many even bothered?

Not one fucking libertarian has answered.
- - -
Quote "But go ahead, keep patting each other on the back for mischaracterizing Paul and libertarianism and how right you are for what a terrible person he is.
Posted by: Jim
Done, except the mischaracterizing part. It is his character, thats why it is so easy to do a good job.
- - -
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | December 30, 2007 10:48 AM
You hit the nail on the head. :-)
- - -

Okay, I see something here. You fucks that support either RP as the best alternative and a damn fine example at that, to the pure libertarians....
You argue against every other thought the way you stereotypically represent fantasy of what libertarianism would be. You use definitions of liberal, or social, or worse, but made of straw. How pathetically boring.

Can we get some realistic shit here?
- - -
Truth to tell, I see a hell of a lot of disparagement of poor people from liberals, who presume that poor people will never succeed without government interfering in their lives.
Posted by: John C. Randolph
Did you read my goddamn posts? I said you would say that, HA FUCKING HA! Poor, disabled, etcetera.
Oh yeah. If you hear these things so much, you could easily give quotes, I imagine.
So, you see? I doubt that do hear these things with all my heart, because I have never seen that generalization from anyone but you scarecrows.
- - -
Okay, i won't do this anymore, there is far to much bullshit from the simpletons=pure libertarians.
Why do I say it - because you still do not talk about anything besides money, and what you should be able to do with yours.

Do any of you tightwads have a meaning for individuality, and, not just your rights, but the freedom to express them?

I will say it again: Ron Paul is not a libertarian, in fact he is very far from what one is.
Very far.

He is a religious freak. He is a pro lifer (good as pacifist, bad as anti-abortionist)
He is a walking contradiction.

Yet you imbeciles say he is consistent.

Been there, done that, give it the fuck up. There is not one idiot from the rebugnats that is close to being sane, let alone admirable.
Prolly no dems, either. That is another debate.

Posted by: John C. Randolph | December 30, 2007 4:13 PM

"The issue with paper is that it allows the institution running the mint to inflate the supply at will, and this is Paul's issue with fiat currency. "

There's a bit more to it than that. There's also the fact that every fiat currency in history has been used to finance the expansion of government. If we were getting taxed in an open and aboveboard fashion for the cost of the Iraq war, would we put up with it?

Inflation is an insidious and deceptive means of taxation, and we shouldn't allow it.

-jcr

Posted by: Troy | December 30, 2007 4:19 PM

You forgot to state by what right you have taken away my freedom

Lawrence vs. Texas case examines the constitutional threshholds the "Statists" must pass in order to tell you and me what we can and cannot do.

I tend to disagree with the pot prohibition because I think the damage risk -- costs -- to society is overblown. I do not disagree with seatbelt laws since these are a very reasonable and minimal mitigation to the societal costs we incur collectively operating motor vehicles and every State dollar spent cleaning up after dumbasses who didn't buckle up is a dollar lost to more productive purposes.

I'll note all of the dissenters in the Raich case (with whom I agree with) were Republican appointees and are gone now.

In my personal philosophy, the role of the Feds should be to guarantee liberties not restrict them, subject to their commerce-clause powers, which is significant because our country is more effective when it is one, from 50 rather than 50 states in conflct with each other.

Anyhoo, I agree to some extent with the Paulistas that the Feds have to much centralized power but think the Paulists / Federal Society / States Rights people ignore the backstop powers that the Feds should have to protect individual liberty from local encroachment.

Posted by: John C. Randolph | December 30, 2007 4:20 PM

"He wants to cut off all aid to Israel? "

Yes, and to the Arab dictatorships that threaten them, too.

The upshot is that Israel would lose 1/3 as much money as the Arabs. Without the US taxpayer to prop them up, the Arabs would have to reconsider their relationship to the strongest economy in the region, wouldn't they?

Peace with Israel has been very good for Jordan, and that's a lesson that other Arab countries can ignore as long as we subsidize them.

-jcr

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 30, 2007 4:33 PM

So, you're of the school every problem in the world is the United State's fault and your solution is to let them all move here through unchecked immigration (conclusion based on you referencing an article advocating globally open borders). Fucking brilliant.

Yes, when I said that we affect events outside our border I obviously meant that everything is the fault of America. In addition I assume that you think we are not responsible for things that we have clearly done, like the case of agent orange in Vietnam. It doesn't need to be that the U.S. has cause every problem or no problems, we can have caused some problems.

The article referenced, the Carens article, since you said you read that abstract, in fact does not argue for what you claim it does. Its arguments doesn't even mention the actions of the U.S. in regards to immigration. The reason I assumed you had read the abstract for the Wilcox is that her article does make that claim and the abstract of the Carens article has nothing to do with what you say it does. Ultimately, the point is that you clearly don't know what you are talking about and prefer to make claims that I've said things I haven't. Like,

I'm sure you'll also want to take more of my wages so as to pay on the interest charged us on the money we would have to borrow from the group of international bankers who own the Fed, so we could support such an altruistic [sic] enterprise.

Not sure how this is at all derived from what I said earlier, but obviously if I support one position you disagree with I must support every position you disagree with.

Posted by: speedwell | December 30, 2007 4:42 PM

I live in Canada, and I sent money to Katrina relief. Did you? Did enough people? Almost everyone could afford a little bit, many could afford a lot, but how many even bothered?

Not one fucking libertarian has answered.

Was I suppose to answer? I live in Houston. The whole city was involved in taking in, housing, and feeding refugees. The apartment complex I live in, as well as others around here, bore the strain of accepting displaced people into our communities. The company I work for has a number of branches in the affected area, and we all pulled together to help the people working at those branches and their communities. I myself am the daughter of a political immigrant who escaped Hungary during the revolution, and our family has sponsored political refugees from time to time--this experience helped me understand the plight of the Katrina refugees and to help them as I could. My extended family has fallen on hard times and I am short on cash, but when the opportunity has presented itself, I have helped locate private charity assistance and donated food and time. This is not the sort of thing I go around congratulating myself about, jerkwad, but since you asked point blank and made an unseemly row about it, I'm telling you. Happy now?

Posted by: speedwell | December 30, 2007 4:44 PM

"...supposed...." And the crack about "Not one fucking..." was supposed to be part of the quote. Goddammit, I hate typos.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 30, 2007 4:46 PM

It's a stupid smear -- expectable from aletoledo, but surprising that coathangrrr accepted it.

Yeah, it was a bit dense of me. I should have thought about it as I've seen UFOs as well; but I'm not a huge Kucinich fan anyway, I think he is wasting time and resources trying to win elections when they could better be spent organizing for real change.

Posted by: mikmik | December 30, 2007 4:53 PM

No one wants to take your wages, we want you to give your fair share. You owe 10 trillion dollars. Payment is voluntary?
You just got the first taste of being bailed out from UK banks, Canadian banks, and THAT WAS ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY ON THEIR.OUR PARTS.

You think you just get to pay that 50 billion back if you 'feel like it'?

We could let the US die. That is our(the rest of the world's)choice.
We would suffer somewhat, but you would be fucking broke. You are fucking broke - every single person over the age of one day is in hock for 30,000 - 80,000 dollars.
Sure, you should push libertarianism. Now is a good time for it. You better be prepared to sink taxes, at least I will give you that, sink taxes into debt repayment instead of military and corporate welfare, and your rich bitches that get 100,000,000 dollar severance packages for being CEO and screwing up the company, they will go along with that.

I know everyone that makes minimum wage will contribute to paying off your sorry assed debt.

Yeah, you deserve individual rights, right at this time, don't you?

Cut taxes, then we will see if enough of you idiots will contribute enough to buy your way out of desperation and into freedom.

Oh yeah, you cannot emigrate to Canada, or anywhere else.

MoFos. RP is the answer, of course.

You guys better get your shit together VERY fast.

You have the momentary luxury of waxing eloquent about philosophical ideals.

Momentary.

Told you to get real, still no takers. Reconcile libertarianism with reality, reconcile RP with libertarianism.

Not done, is it.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 30, 2007 5:07 PM

I don't think he's trying to win elections, I think he uses that as a vehicle to be heard and for pushing other candidates leftward on the issues. As for organizing, I don't think he has the right skill set.

I really don't see the candidates being pushed leftwards by Kucinich, he would have to be a real threat to have that sort of effect. You could plausibly argue that if he was threatening to run third party then it might work, but not within the primary because then they only need to tack left during the primary.

With the organizing, I didn't really mean he should be organizing, just that the resources of the people supporting him could be better spent on organizing.

Posted by: Mikko Sandt | December 30, 2007 5:17 PM

Mikmik:
"free to choose what they want to do?"

In a free society, who's stopping you?

"And free from inequality"

Hah hah hah hah! You're twisting words and their meanings like an Orwellian. You may as well argue that a man who cannot stand ice cream cannot truly be free until he's free from seeing people eat ice cream.

"poor health"

Poor health is usually a result of choice.

"poor finances"

In a free society, no one forces anyone to be poor.

"lack of opportunities"

Lack of skill, in other words. Has got nothing to do with freedom.

"deranged parents"

A poor excuse to fail in life.

"natural disaster, etc??"

Nature is not a person.

Posted by: coathangrrr | December 30, 2007 5:29 PM

In a free society, no one forces anyone to be poor.

Did you really just say that? That is quite possibly one of the stupidest things I've heard in a long time. If you have capitalism you will have poor people, that's not just a historical fact, it is how the system is suppose to work. Unless you are one of those anti-capitalist libertarians.

"free to choose what they want to do?"

In a free society, who's stopping you?

This, in a nut shell, illustrates the problem inherent in libertarian views of freedom. It need not be a 'who' that is stopping you, nor are all infringements upon people's rights based on individual action they are often structural. Of course individualist ideologies fail to understand or even account for group dynamics beyond simple individual interactions.

Posted by: wildlifer | December 30, 2007 5:36 PM

Yes, when I said that we affect events outside our border I obviously meant that everything is the fault of America. In addition I assume that you think we are not responsible for things that we have clearly done, like the case of agent orange in Vietnam. It doesn't need to be that the U.S. has cause every problem or no problems, we can have caused some problems.

Did I miss something? Wasn't there a war which involved at least five other entities? Why is it only the U.S., in your opinion, that shoulders all the blame? You appear to support Ron Paul here in non-interventionalism. Or perhaps it's the Bush Doctrine of the exportation of democracy at gun-point you support? I can't tell. Surely if we "fixed" these nations, people wouldn't be fleeing them, but that causes them to flee anyway ... Or perhaps you just sit in your arm-chair throne and blather.

The article referenced, the Carens article, since you said you read that abstract, in fact does not argue for what you claim it does. Its arguments doesn't even mention the actions of the U.S. in regards to immigration. The reason I assumed you had read the abstract for the Wilcox is that her article does make that claim and the abstract of the Carens article has nothing to do with what you say it does. Ultimately, the point is that you clearly don't know what you are talking about and prefer to make claims that I've said things I haven't. Like,

Actually JSTOR allowed me to read the first page of the Carens article as well. And it supports the title: Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders. He challenges the right of nations to "point guns" at illegal invaders, after appealing to the sympathies of the reader with descriptions of Guatemalans crawling through sewers to get here.

Not sure how this is at all derived from what I said earlier, but obviously if I support one position you disagree with I must support every position you disagree with.

No, but what is obvious is that you've not thought through the implications of your position(s). But it "feels good," so it must be right. But hey, we can get rid of factory farms and destroy entire ecosystems and species to grow all the soybeans needed to feed six billion and growing. But wait a minute, we can't torture soybeans by putting them through a combine. Incoherent indeed.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 5:42 PM

In a free society, no one forces anyone to be poor.

Did you really just say that?

heh, that WAS pretty damn humorous alrighty.

for those watching, now you know why there is automatic knee-jerk rejection of libertarians. because they often say things exactly like that.

you hear it enough times, you automatically begin to reject libertarians as a group out of hand.

those who feel that there are rational and sane libertarian arguments should really put their foot down hard on the ignorant who claim to be libertarians, but say REALLY stupid things like the above.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 6:01 PM

Now we could easily feed the whole world of six billion people.

and yet we don't.

that should have given you pause, but doubtless you will construe it as somehow being the fault of not everybody being "free to do as they wish".

so, where does this ignorant claptrap come from?

i rather think it comes from a rationalization over guilt at not really being able to individually do much of anything about the problems the world faces, so instead one abdicates responsibility to "if the world were just so, everybody would be happy".

it's a lazy excuse to ignore the world as it actually is, in favor of some imaginary utopia that has never, nor will ever, exist.

there were lots of people that thought, once upon a time, that a pure democracy was a great idea too.

unfortunately history has shown it doesn't work for long, and the people like Mikko who claim to be libertarians have never bothered to actually find out why that is.

I'd suggest some basic lessons in game theory, to start, but I know it to be hopeless, based on having seen the exact kind of statements Mikko is making many times before.

Posted by: Steve Husted | December 30, 2007 6:34 PM

I think it's pretty funny that people are lambasting Libertarianism with made-up stories that the "corporations will take over!" And we'll have stuff like Enron happen. Oops, Enron (and all the other corporate scandals) already happened without Libertarianism. And so did Valdez. And so did Microsoft crushing competitors and keeping antitrust cases in court without settlement for years and years. Et al.

Hey, let's all blame the Libertarians for Wal-Mart's and Martha Stewart's Asian sweatshops! Because we know sweatshops are only byproducts of Libertarianism!

All of this sans Libertarianism.

In fact, most of the things you dread happening under Libertarianism are actually happening today. Not all, but lots of them.

If you take the time to learn about them, what Libertarians (and a lot of Objectivists, though they have some key differences) believe is that the market will correct itself. OF COURSE you will have greedy people with sweatshops. OF COURSE you will have corruption. Etc., etc. People are people and you'll have that under any system. Libertarians believe the market will correct for that just like it does today - but without the government stepping in and changing your diaper for you.

As for claims that people aren't inherently good without the government forcing you to be - you live in a sad, sad world. This is the same crap argument that "morals come from God" and only being good when the invisible sky deity (a.k.a. Big Brother) is watching. (anecdotally, the street cameras in London have done nothing to reduce crime or increase capture of criminals - in fact, crime is UP since installing those 150,000 cameras)

And if you believe that you need increased regulation and more government control, the invisible monkey on my shoulder has been whispering some really evil things to me (that only I can hear, of course) about cramming ITS values down YOUR throats.

All hail Lord Shoulder Monkey!

Posted by: James Hanley | December 30, 2007 6:37 PM

Well, I'm so far down the list here, probably no one will see this (hey...thanks for looking!)

As a political scientist, I'd like to point out something that should be obvious. Being a biologist in no way makes one particularly qualified to comment on most political ideas, anymore than being a political scientist (albeit one who studies evolution of human behavior) makes me qualified to comment on most biological ideas.

That just to lead-in to this: PZ, while the nutjob libertarians are the most vocal and noticeable, libertarianism is not inherently about greed and selfishness.

Check out R. J. Rummel's Death By Government as a starter, perhaps. He more than amply illustrates that governments (particularly, of course, though not--unfortunately--quite exclusively) are by far the worst killers known to man. Excluding wars, governments in the 20th century killed over 150 million people--mostly their own citizens.

Then move on to a political economic analysis (perhaps href="http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw1.html"> Hayek's "The Use of Knowledge in Society"), or Buchanan and Tullock's Calculus of Consent, as a starting point for understanding why governments--even the well-intentioned and non-evil ones--can rarely avoid wasting resources.

I could recommend more, but I'm sure I've already taxed the patience of anyone who's read this far. Let me just say that equating libertarianism as a political philosophy with Ron Paul is like equating biochemistry with Michael Behe.

I personally don't care how you vote (after all, I am a libertarian :) ), but please stop making the assumption that you understand libertarianism just because you know what Ron Paul stands for.

Posted by: Bryson Brown | December 30, 2007 6:48 PM

ad 178:

I don't think 'hatred' is the right word, though there's certainly some vigorous criticism of libertarianism here. What else would you expect? Libertarians (of whatever stripe) are radical utopians; they show little regard for the limits of market mechanisms and the actual record (in terms of opportunity and well-being) of various actually implemented forms of government.

The notion that something like Nozick's 'minimal state' (which limits its interference to protection of private property and contract rights) could provide reasonable opportunities for children and sufficient guarantees against abuse of power that we would all be better off under its aegis is a bizarre fantasy-- and even Nozick retreated from the minimal state in his discussion of 'communities', which are free to do all the restrictive, collectivist things that 'states' can't.

The evidence is clear that levels of happiness, median welfare, education, and successful social action against large-scale problems (like public health and global warming) are highest in the democratic socialist states of Northern Europe-- Sweden's growth matches the U.K.'s, while achieving much lower rates of child poverty, teenage pregnancy and other social ills (and accepting refugees from Iraq in large numbers). The U.S. spends a greater proportion of GDP on health care than any other developed nation, yet it achieves overall health care outcomes that are about on a par with Cuba's.

Despite this, it's far more popular in the U.S. to fantasize about eliminating any role for the state in welfare, education and health care: a model that leads, wherever we see it in practice, to conditions familiar in failed states-- gated communities, armed private guards, high levels of crime, violence and corruption, immense privilege for the wealthy, oppression of political voices seeking change...

Utopian fantasies are a common thread in American politics, including various forms of theocracy, libertarianism and neo-conservative statism. The evidence of history suggests you'd do better to pay attention to what's succeeded elsewhere. But for the light of the world, the city on the hill, the only true democracy (all conceits that seem widely popular in the U.S.) learning from others' successes is, it seems, inconceivable.

Posted by: Ken Cope | December 30, 2007 6:54 PM

If you take the time to learn about them

We did, thank you. Libertarians and Objectivists are just another pair of cults with some overlap in membership.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 6:57 PM

I think it's pretty funny that people are lambasting Libertarianism with made-up stories that the "corporations will take over!"

somebody needs a history lesson.

suggest you see re:

United States, pre depression era.

your laughing is more like the braying of a jack-ass.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 7:00 PM

The poor in Great Britain today are substantially better off than even the richest of 500 years ago in almost every metric.

LOL

you've never actually BEEN poor, have you.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 7:07 PM

All of this sans Libertarianism.

oh? please do define the ideals of Libertarianism for us again, and then show us the evidence of how this arose out of the opposite of those ideals, please.

you rather seem to be missing the point.

crime happens even with laws in place, btw. would you suggest that because crime still happens, we should therefore simply remove the laws?

like i said, if there are REAL libertarians out there, they should be stomping on your neck right about now...

but strangely, just like with moderate religious adherents failing to vigorously attack creationist nutters, we see no "real" libertarians coming here to knock down the utter inaninities spouted by those claiming common cause with libertarians.

why is that, I wonder?

only one of two reasons i can figure:

-there are no "real" libertarians, just a bunch of historically ignorant morons.

-they somehow feel more kinship with nutters than with folks conversant in history, sociology, and economics, and so refuse to speak up when nutters choose to speak as libertarians.

so, if there are any libertarians who aren't complete nutters...

what is the answer?

why aren't you stomping on these idiots that make you look so bad?

hell, even many moderate religious folk have finally started to stand up and knock the creationists.

where are the "rational" libertarians?

Posted by: DLB | December 30, 2007 7:24 PM

you've never actually BEEN poor, have you.

My father grew up in a two room shack, on land his family didn't own, with no power or running water. There was no doctor attending his birth or the injuries he incurred working on the farm. And work on the farm he did, every single day growing up. My sister once asked him how he could stand it, being so poor. His answer, if I recall, was "I didn't know I was poor."

There is really only one poverty - poverty of the belly, poverty of the freezing cold. If you have what you need to live, what's left is just a poverty of want, envy and jealousy. I think that our entire concept of poor in the first world has become horribly distorted.

That is not to say that there are not terrible injustices perpetrated against people in our country with less money and power, but these injustices are less economic than social, coming out of such brutal experiments as the War on Drugs.

Posted by: ichthyic | December 30, 2007 7:26 PM

Do they think that it adds anything, even humor to the discussion?

do you think concern trolling adds anything to the discussion?

Posted by: BlueIndependent | December 30, 2007 7:30 PM

I would take pains to remind the Ron Paulites that even if hell froze over and Dr. Paul found himself at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue late in the third week of 2109, he would likely face an only mildly sympathetic judiciary, and a hostile Congress (which is projected to become increasingly Democratic), both of which have equal powers. His cabinet would surely be quite interesting (would he even bother to form one?), given he's not big on any form of leadership so long as it's in government.

All the pants-creaming about how the good doctor would somehow set everyone free from the supposed shackles they're in now would hit some serious blockades on the way to the books, and he would end up likely as ineffectual as Bush on many things (social security for one). I truly don't understand what level of sheer oppression the libertarians here seem to be suffering under, but in spite of Bush this place is one of the freest on the planet (counting down the seconds until I have egg on my face on that one), and it's also perhaps the most ethnically diverse and integrated. These are all realities that came about through mass public action under a government formulation that allowed for it. They did not occur because Ayn Rand picked up a torch and everyone gazed in awe.

I also hasten to point out that the US government was founded by some of the most intellectual, entrepreneurial, wealthy and well-read individuals in human history. Yet, for all their flaws they still created the best government humanity has yet been offered. I don't know the entire back history of libertarian thought, but I would think several rough tenets existed prior to the Continental Congress (I'll have to look this subject up). If anyone would've taken them into account it would have been our forefathers, who borrowed what they felt was best from everybody.

Posted by: Andrew | December 30, 2007 7:33 PM

"do you think concern trolling adds anything to the discussion?"

Just because I rarely post doesn't make me a troll. You might want to look up what a concern troll is first and then point out where in my comment I acted like one.

Posted by: mikmik | December 30, 2007 7:34 PM

i will con you out of your most precious possessions. That is your choice.
Caveat emptor.

Posted by: DLB | December 30, 2007 7:41 PM

nope. if anything, agricultural practices are more efficient now than they ever have been. otherwise, why did you think we could feed 6 billion to begin with, eh? I never asked why we CAN'T feed that many, I asked why we DON'T.
Agricultural practices are more efficient than they have ever been in the first world, but we don't have starvation issues in the first world, we have an obesity problem. In the parts of the world where starvation is still an issue, say, east Africa, farming and grazing methods have changed in two thousand years, and in many places are responsible for the spread of the Sahara desert. As to why we don't - politics, logistics, apathy - you can come up with a million reasons. Why did the United States intervene in the Balkans, but not Rwanda? The question is an interesting investigation into human nature and world politics, but it goes off on a bit of a tangent.

and how would libertarianism and free market economies solve that exactly, eh?

You do realize that even big-L Libertarians do not believe that "free market" is the answer to every question, don't you? It's just an economic policy. Like physics, it doesn't tell you what god to worship, or how to put on your pants. And like physics, it produces great things like the transistor, and horrible things, like the hydrogen bomb. The advantage of the free market, like science, though, is that it PRODUCES, something that the static economic systems that dominated much of human history have failed to do.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 7:43 PM

One will get that a lot around here for not agreeing with the group consensus.

show me where it is used in that fashion, and I will show you it being used incorrectly.

Because everytime I exude the slightest whiff of even a small L libertarian idea, the only direct responses are attacks that I am personally greedy, self-centered, ignorant, poor-hating, have my own wealth and don't want to share, have never been poor and lack compassion.

BS.

I asked you, if you consider yourself to be a well-educated libertarian, who is rational and actually knowledgeable of history, why you aren't attacking the idiocies displayed in this very thread.

your response was that YOU were attacked for things you thought were rational.

so then, you will let the morons speak for you because you felt hurt by not being able to express yourself more clearly?

congratulations, that makes you no better than the "moderates" who fail to stand up to creationists and defacto let creationists define terms and arguments for them, because they fear criticism of their own ideas.

so, which is it then? is your defense bullshit, or just a pathetic cry for victimhood?

care to retract and try again?

Posted by: Andrew | December 30, 2007 7:52 PM

To Ichthyic

"so then, you will let the morons speak for you because you felt hurt by not being able to express yourself more clearly?"

Am I the moron? where in my comments would you get the impression that I am moron? I was reading trough the comments and noticed a practice where by some posters were telling Libertarians that, not only were their political opinions moronic but that they weren't true libertarians for not being evil enough.

I would call myself a Libertarian, I think Ron Paul is a joke of a man, and in all honesty I would never vote for a Libertarian candidate as they all seem crazy to me. If that makes me a moron then fuck it I accept that.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 7:57 PM

Agricultural practices are more efficient than they have ever been in the first world [oh, have you even looked to verify that? (that's rhetorical, btw - i know you haven't)], but we don't have starvation issues in the first world, we have an obesity problem.

AND a starvation problem. or don't you think there are people going hungry in the US, or europe, or australia, etc. as we speak?

have you ever considered that I was hoping you might grasp the problem is one of distribution and not efficiency?

of course not.

*sigh*

the more I see, the more I tend to get to the same knee-jerk rejection of self-proclaimed libertarians as PZ.

haven't heard a single good, well supported argument from someone claiming a libertarian position, that indicated even basic knowledge of history, in this country, let alone others; or even a freshman college level understanding of economics, sociology, or even politics.

Libertarianism, like pure democracy and communism, HAS been tried before, many times, and has failed miserably every time.

it's like those professing it to be a grand idea have never even bothered to examine whether it's been tried before, or tried to comprehend why they failed.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 8:03 PM

Just because I rarely post doesn't make me a troll. You might want to look up what a concern troll is first and then point out where in my comment I acted like one.

was your comment a meta comment, or did it add substance to the subjects at hand?

the answer is no, your comment did not add anything substantive, did not try to address any issue other than decrying the behavior of those posting in the thread.

suggest you look up the definition of concern troll yourself sometime, as you obviously haven't the slightest clue what it means.

Posted by: DLB | December 30, 2007 8:09 PM

if you believe that, then how on earth do you reconcile it with your earlier statement, which was quite silly considering.

I think it's pretty self evident. Just ask the question "How do you know if you are poor?"

Well?

There's certainly an absolute poverty, when you need something - food, shelter, clothing - and you can't get it, or get enough of it. If you have this kind of poverty, you know it unquestionably. But isn't there also a relative poverty, the kind that comes from comparing your own circumstances with those of others? If my father grew up surrounded by people who lived in similar houses, all without power and water, why would he have felt particularly poor? Isn't there a kind of poverty that comes from looking at your tarpaper shack, and the landowner's big white mansion, and feeling the difference? What about the poverty that comes from sitting at a red light in your Toyota, and having a Ferrari pull up next to you?

Isn't this poverty just another name for envy? Doesn't "economic justice" then simply become taking from people that have simply because you want what they have? If someone who has fewer material possessions than you breaks into your house and steals your entertainment system, is that economic justice?

It may be that in a thousand years, our descendants look back at the brief, impoverished lives of the richest among us with pity (in the same way that I would never change positions with the richest noble in 1008 A.D.) Or, they make look back with envy at the food and shelter available to the poorest Americans. But either way, much of it is going to be relative.

Much of the sentiment I have been reading here falls along the lines of "sock it to the bad, greedy rich" and "give it to the good, suffering poor." But there are good rich people, and bad poor people. An economic system that can look into a man's soul, and determine whether he deserves to live in the big white mansion or the tarpaper shack is far more of a fantasy than the perfectly free market.

Posted by: lylebot | December 30, 2007 8:16 PM

Liberal: You believe X, you're a moron

Libertarian: Actually I don't agree with X at all, you might want to do some more research.
Liberal: I know what Libertarians believe and you're a moron, so there.

What I see is more like this:
Liberal: You believe X, you're a moron.
Libertarian: If you did some research, you would see that we believe X, not Y.
Liberal: Uh, yeah, I know. That's what I said. And I completely disagree with X.
Libertarian: You just don't get it!

It could be that Paul supporters are going to vote for him simply because any time they share their political opinions they get treated much the same way most of you, including PZ have treated them. Paul may be a lying douche, but many people would rather cast a "fuck you" vote then have people like you telling them what they believe and calling them morons.

Posted by: Mike from Ottawa | December 30, 2007 8:24 PM

"I'm waiting for a shred of historical proof that a government created a free, prosperous, and fair society by taking more power and wealth from its people."

I don't feel like wading through 300 posts to ensure I'm not repeating, but apparently 'independent' who wrote the above has never heard of countries like the USA, Canada or pretty much any of the advanced industrialized countries. These countries have done best with major government interventions into all sorts of fields. What 'independent' won't find are prosperous, stable countries that provide a reasonable standard of living for almost all their population and that are run on libertarianism.

Libertarians, like creationists, just _know_ they're right, so they have no need to consider actual evidence.

Posted by: DB | December 30, 2007 8:30 PM

oh, have you even looked to verify that? (that's rhetorical, btw - i know you haven't)
Don't be an asshole. We are at close to peak production per unit of land utilized for most crops, of course, with yearly variations due to mother nature.

AND a starvation problem. or don't you think there are people going hungry in the US, or europe, or australia, etc. as we speak?
have you ever considered that I was hoping you might grasp the problem is one of distribution and not efficiency?

Of course there are malnourished people in the first world (although for reasons generally much more diverse than in the third world). And the problem is very much one of distribution.

Posted by: Andrew | December 30, 2007 8:31 PM

"Do you not see how petty, vindictive, misdirected behavior like this could sink the whole Libertarian ideal?"

I agree a spite vote is wrong, I don't support it but it is possible that many of Paul's supporters could carry that ideal. I would never vote for a libertarian candidate and I consider myself a libertarian. I guess what I mean is that I don't trust myself with power let alone Ron Paul, or any of the dems or cons.

I don't normally get involved with politics, I prefer to stick to science and skepticism forums because politics always end up in ridiculous posts on both sides. I decided to speak up on this blog post because the treatment of libertarians comes across with this real vicious hatred. I would have probably left my comment as it was and I actually appreciate your response because there was an attempt to show me problems with mine. But I carried on because of the trolling accusation.

Posted by: Ichthyic | December 30, 2007 8:33 PM

I bet 'ol Cale is just ripping his hair out right now, watching "libertarianishians" unintentionally demolish his favorite political and social platform.

it is times just like this that I do miss him.

Posted by: mikmik | December 30, 2007 8:38 PM

Let's pretend. Let's pretend that everyone agrees with us, or that we can convince them to.

Let us fucking pretend our ideas are so important and obvious.

I did that on heroin. What is your excuse to do it now, i wonder.

Then, a fucker aks you for change at the corner. You are polite because you haven't any.
He don't believe you, motherfucker. He kid is cold, he is sick for moneies.

Tell him he has a choice, that he chooses to be in that situation. Tell him he has placed his starving family there, they all chose it.

I fucking dare you to tell it. You will get hurt very bad, you will get robbed, and you will get ridiculed.

There is free choice downtown. In fact, that is the most free market society in the world.

Let us travel there, you insipid and naive libertarians.

Let us do it. I can survive there, I can make friends. I am not like them, but I am smart enough to not get my head kicked in, if I act a certain way.

Come with me and show them your freedom of individual choice.

You do not know humiliation, you have no idea.

You are free from that shit. You get gov't to free you from that shit.

You think freedom is just an idea? You fucking tell that to my friend with HIV that was raped by his daddy, and never can get a job.

Let's think liberty and it will happen.

Vote RP. All will be taken care of.

Posted by: DLB | December 30, 2007 8:43 PM

I don't feel like wading through 300 posts to ensure I'm not repeating, but apparently 'independent' who wrote the above has never heard of countries like the USA, Canada or pretty much any of the advanced industrialized countries. These countries have done best with major government interventions into all sorts of fields.

The problem is that in the modern world, a country is no more an isolated economy than a city. It may not be that the first world has such great policies. It's more likely that much of the working class for, say, Norway, simply lives in southeast asia. You might as well be saying "Why can't Detroit get it together like Ann Arbor." The first world safety-net is subsidized by the third world poor in a tremendous variety of ways, from agricultural tariffs to money policy.