Fuck Ron Paul

[Sweejak]

I'm looking for details to the bill also, but it's boring me to tears, besides I got ensnared here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaff ... /ron-paul/

Yeah America is different, but we all live in places that are subject to something, no? The Netherlands have no choice. It has to be a question of degrees and odds. Where I live I'm subject to tornados, what are the odds? It's different than building on the side of a known unstable cliff or in a known flood plain, repeatedly and for something like a status gratifying grand view. People will almost always pitch in to help, it's a great thing to see, unless they can't get thru the security gates.

[Joe Hillshoist]

That rolling stone article was a crock.

One thing that doesn't add up, if RP is against the North American Union and NAFTA, and is for deregulation on a huge scale.

Perhaps he isn't the corporate stooge he appears to be. Then again ...

The real issue for me is would he close Pine Gap and North West Cape?

Thats the true test of his desire to remove US imperialism from the world, to an aussie anyway.

In Australia we have perhaps the biggest volunteer organisations in the world. Local bush fire brigades.

Over the last 10 years the level of govt (state govt, not federal) interference has increased, basically in regulation. The qualifications of people in the brigades are now enforced. You have to be trained to a certain level. You have to follow certain procedures, and to be honest, the number of dead fireys has dropped despite the last 10 years being the worst for bush fires in our history, (well Australia's history, what happened before whitefellas got here is not that well known.)

Our funding comes from govt, and we decide how its spent on a local level. We are subject to a little interference, stuff all really.

Despite the stupidity of some people, (ie where they live and how poorly they control fuel loads on their property) there is no one we won't protecxt. Provided the crew is safe, thats always the highest priority. But once they have been through a serious fire once, people usually do what they can to reduce their personal risk. Serious fires are scary. Fireballs a hundred metres wide can jump kilometres at a time on a bad day in the right terrain. I have seen tornados of fire about 50 feet wide and a couple of hundred high myself, and from only about 100 metres away.

Where possible people will leave home and travel up to 1000 miles to fight fires in terrible conditions ($0 degree c +) at great risk for no pay, often at the cost of regular, paid work or running their own businesses.

Perhaps we are lucky, in a country the size of mainland USA (less Alaska) we have 20 million people. That means that beaurocracy and "big government" can't get too big, or it'll get top heavy and fall over. And if you live outside of the cities people know they have to rely on each other when they need help. If something like FEMA tried that bullshit in Australia it wouldn't work cos its easy to get national media attention for such things. Fuck ups occcur but not bullshit on the FEMA scale.

Do things like that exist and work in the US?

One of my issues with libertarianism, and what RP seems to represent (perhaps gets unfairly portrayed as representing?) is that institutions like volunteer bush fire fighting would be difficult if not impossible. When compared to private bush fire fighting organisations, (well paid ones anyway, maybe some are publically funded), in my experience the volunteers always do a better, more thourough job. Perhaps cos cost and profit are not an issue.

[Sweejak]

Do things like that exist and work in the US?

Yes indeed, out of the cities mostly, but here too regulations are stifling and increasing as the security industrial complex expands. Sadly what were once actual COOPs are now entrenched old boy networks. Here locally the response to Katrina was pretty intense, you can go search for some of the Katrina posts on this forum. I know people who went, Camp Casey pulled up stakes and went, my wife volunteered, the musicians of Austin put on a huge benefit:

http://homepage.mac.com/kaaawa/Polly_Ti ... bum76.html

I'm new to Libertarianism, I did join a forum once but it was all ism's and theories.

I think Paul requires a close look to avoid knee jerking reactively to what he represents. I think Paul would be all for volunteer fire fighting and I have to assume he'd be happy to shut down Pine Ridge.

Some of what he says sounds just like what we all have heard before and I don't think anyone here wants. The question is whether he is representing a true course while our reactions are to a hijacked ideal.

Terminology problem? A ruse? I'm not sure.

Spooner's link (the other thread I think) was good reading.

[11:11]

Do things like that exist and work in the US?

One of my issues with libertarianism, and what RP seems to represent (perhaps gets unfairly portrayed as representing?) is that institutions like volunteer bush fire fighting would be difficult if not impossible

Yes, they do. We have federal, state, and local government, as well. All Ron Paul is saying is to follow our Constitution, and keep power and control as close to the people (local) as possible.

There is concerted effort to misrepresent Ron Paul on the issue of trade. GATT, CAFTA, NAFTA, the WTO have NOTHING to do with the kind of trade he's talking about. These are highly regulated treaties, with mountains of law behind them. Those who like to obfuscate, imply those treaties are some sort of unregulated commerce, which couldn't be further from the truth. The NAFTA treaty is 35,000 pages long! Our fucking congress didn't even read it, they just passed it. These treaties usurp our US laws and state laws, which is where Ron Paul wants the power returned. Where I live, in Michigan, Toronto dumps it's garbage, because globalist treaties have tied the hands of local government. Our state has tried to stop it, but Canada and the US (federal) government say we can't.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Pine Gap, sweejak, Pine ridge was something else. It led to the incarceration of Leonard Peltier, in highly dubious circumstances. He's been in gaol for 30 years, and should be released and compensated.

He's a political prisoner, but thats another thread.

Pine Gap is a US communication base in central Australia, NW Cape is a massive antenna array near Exmouth on the west coast of Australia. Both suck and are highly dubious.

I heard people in Austin did some awesome efforts re Katrina. Good on youse.

And I appreciate what you say about libertarianism. I first got exposed to it, when RAW went on about the "Guns and Dope" party, but never really took it to heart cos some of the stuff that goes with it has a nasty taste.

11.11

I am well aware of the OECD, WTO, NAFTA, GATTs, FTAs and the horror they hold. I actually helped stop GATTs v1, the MAI, back in the 90s, along with hundreds of others here and thousands, possibly millions around the world.

If he is against those treaties thats a good thing.

I am not against government regulation, just for the sake of it. I think its a good thing in many cases, especially when it comes to employment standards and a whole variety of health and safety issues. (As an old hard core anarchist i think i'm mellowing and opening my eyes.) Those agreements undermine government regulation at local, state and federal levels.

By regulation I mean sovreignty, the right to make decisions about what happens in the jurisdictions they are responsible for.

[Sweejak]

Yes, Pine Gap is what I meant. I just watched a film about John Trudell, I recommend it.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Trudell_In ... rkid=90529


on edit:
Austin benefitted in a sad way from Katrina in that a lot of the musicians, and cooks too, settled in the area. From as far as I can tell it was really a national effort to help during Katrina, worldwide too, but didn't W refuse German relief planes? Right. Not to mention the reports of FEMA cutting communication lines.

I guess the other thing to be cognizant of is how much of Paul's power is mere reaction to the travesty of BushCo.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I guess the other thing to be cognizant of is how much of Paul's power is mere reaction to the travesty of BushCo.

Yeah, good point.

[Spoonerian]

Sweejak, I'll bet you Ron Paul would pardon Leonard Peltier and a lot of other people. I haven't heard him discuss pardons, but that's one of the things the LP Presidential candidates always pointed out they could use single handedly for good purposes if elected. And there's no question that he'd dismantle all of the military installations in Australia and the rest of the world. That's one of his main bullet points that he repeats often.

I saw him on CSPAN a few nights ago taking questions from a crowd on specifics and I was pretty impressed with his answers. He doesn't come across like a raving anarchist like I and a lot of other anarchists do, but I think he understands all of the hard-core anarchist underpinnings of the libertararian philosophy probably better than most. He came into the movement in the 1970s and he seems heavily influenced by the people that Roderick Long highlights in the article that you mention--Rothbard, Spencer, and even Spooner: http://www.mises.org/story/2099

Back a few months ago when a tax-resister/federal marshall stand-off was in the news, reporters were asking him questions about it to try to trip him up and make him look like a kook, and I heard RP respond 2 different times by talking about civil disobedience in general and mentioned how people like Lysander Spooner was instrumental in defying the government with the Underground Railroad in the 19th century abolitionist movement.

And speaking of Leonard Peltier and resistance to the Feds--when RP won the Libertarian Party nomination in 1988, RP's main opponent for the LP nomination was American Indian Movement activist Russell Means who was involved in the Pine Ridge incidents that ended with Peltier in prison.

[orz]

Reasons to vote for Ron Paul:

* He is so committed to a gold standard for currency that he compulsively salivates and becomes painfully erect in the presence of gold.
* He has never voted for any bill that spends taxpayer money, that asks taxpayers for money, that contains the word "money", or that contains any combination of the letters "m" "o" "n" "e" or "y".
* He uncontrollably throws up at the sight of the government spending money and has certainly never lived off a monthly check paid by the taxpayers.
* He is so committed to American sovereignty that he has twice sponsored a bill requiring all school-children be taught about Freddy the Free-trade Dragon, a friendly dragon that patrols U.S. borders and eats anyone who attempts to leave or enter the country, and also anyone who joins international diplomacy organizations, and also anyone who can spell the name of any country that needs more letters than U, S, and A.
* Close your eyes and picture that crazy home-schooled kid who lived next door and your mom made you invite him to your birthday party and he started crying when your mom put on Power Rangers because he didn't want God to hate him for being near the devil's box. Now picture that kid's dad. Now imagine that kid's dad had like a billion YouTube videos about him. Ok, now that you're already thinking about Ron Paul, you might as well vote for him.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/pr ... blican.php

[Sweejak]

RP's main opponent for the LP nomination was American Indian Movement activist Russell Means who was involved in the Pine Ridge incidents that ended with Peltier in prison

.

Jones: I know you'd get rid of the BIA, but would you get rid of the reservation system (without moving American Indians off reservation land)?

Means: The Libertarian Party had a party platform that all claims by Indian people would be settled for existing government surplus land, and that would be the end of it; then they'd be on their own. We'd exist as sovereign nations, as protectorates of the United States government, but economically they'd be on their own. And, I pushed for that. And so all claims, all treaty violations would be taken care of, and there'd be no other recourse except in courts of law. Some would fail, some would succeed.

http://www.geocities.com/robertofotografie/

[Spoonerian]

The old LP platform is hard to find on the internet now. The newer platforms have been dumbed down. Here's the Indian Rights plank that Means helped draft in 1988 that remained in force up until a few years ago I think:

http://patriotpost.us/histdocs/platform ... r.996.html

AMERICAN INDIAN RIGHTS

The major factors underlying the unconscionable plight of America's Indians may be summarized as follows:

(1) the unresolved complexity of dual national citizenship;

(2) the attrition of reservation lands and abridgement of Indian rights to remaining properties;

(3) the subjugation of individual Indians to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal governmental authority; and

(4) various federal commitments to provide the tribes with health, education, and welfare benefits "forever" in exchange for expropriated lands.

We favor the following remedies, respectively:

(1) individual Indians should be free to select their citizenship, if any, and tribes should be allowed to choose their level of autonomy, up to absolute sovereignty;

(2) Indians should have their just property rights restored, including rights of easement, access, hunting and fishing;

(3) the Bureau of Indian Affairs should be abolished and tribal members allowed to decide the extent and nature of their government, if any; and

(4) negotiations should be undertaken to exchange various otherwise unclaimed and unowned federal properties for any and all remaining governmental obligations to the tribes.

We further advocate holding fully liable those responsible for any and all damages which have resulted from authorization of, or engagement in,resource development on reservation lands, including damages done by careless disposal of uranium tailings and other mineral wastes.

[11:11]

Jones: I know you'd get rid of the BIA, but would you get rid of the reservation system (without moving American Indians off reservation land)?

Means: The Libertarian Party had a party platform that all claims by Indian people would be settled for existing government surplus land, and that would be the end of it; then they'd be on their own. We'd exist as sovereign nations, as protectorates of the United States government, but economically they'd be on their own. And, I pushed for that. And so all claims, all treaty violations would be taken care of, and there'd be no other recourse except in courts of law. Some would fail, some would succeed.

And, of course, the "social justice" left would never tolerate that! Why, how could they force their will upon those who need their "protection" and superior racist solutions (welfare - working hard to keep you poor!)? What about the "right to an education" (forced government mind control), "public health" (fuck YOUR way), vaccinations (our paranoia must be visted upon your immune system) and those nasty cigarettes they insist on selling? Where is the control!

[theeKultleeder]

And, of course, the "social justice" left would never tolerate that! Why, how could they force their will upon those who need their "protection" and superior racist solutions (welfare - working hard to keep you poor!)? What about the "right to an education" (forced government mind control), "public health" (fuck YOUR way), vaccinations (our paranoia must be visted upon your immune system) and those nasty cigarettes they insist on selling? Where is the control!

Am I out of my mind? Can I have a second opinion here?

Does any of what is quoted above make sense?

[Sweejak]

11:11, I follow what your saying, and I bitch about nanny state regulations often myself, but I think there are plenty of allies on all sides and the lower you go down the fissures and the closer you get to actual people the less differences you find.

I consider US treatment of Indians America's 'original sin'.

There was a different way.(the Salon link is dead)
http://homepage.mac.com/kaaawa/iblog/C1 ... index.html

Bush on tribal sovereignty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi49tvs8jp8

Link fixed
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/int/20 ... index.html

[11:11]

Means > libertarian > freedom for Indians > no control freaks interfering in their lives > SOVEREIGN - all things hated by big government advocates. No more BIA to "manage" a formely free people.

Indians > tribal > the ultimate model of local control, of, for and by The People.