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QuoteKasich, Christie make the cut for prime-time Republican debate
WASHINGTON | BY JOHN WHITESIDES

Republican Governors Chris Christie and John Kasich on Tuesday grabbed the last spots on stage next to front-runner Donald Trump and seven others in the first prime-time presidential debate, winning a potentially valuable head start in exposure.

Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and five others in the crowded 2016 Republican field were left out of Thursday's televised 9 p.m. EDT debate by host Fox News, which invited the top 10 candidates in an average of five recent opinion polls.

The leftover candidates will appear in a separate forum outside of the spotlight at 5 p.m. EDT on Thursday, leaving them fighting to win attention and prove to voters and donors they have a legitimate shot at the nomination.

At center stage in prime time will be Trump, the real estate mogul who has shot to the top of Republican polls, flanked by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the top three finishers in the poll average.

Also making the cut were former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Governors Christie of New Jersey and Kasich of Ohio.

Shuffled to the earlier forum were Perry, Santorum, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former business executive Carly Fiorina, former New York Governor George Pataki and former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.

Those candidates deemed not ready for prime time at the Cleveland debate tried to stay positive.

"I look forward to answering questions on Thursday in Cleveland," Fiorina said in a statement. Perry said on Twitter he looked forward to the forum "for what will be a serious exchange of ideas and positive solutions to get America back on track."

Fox's decision to limit the participants created weeks of anxiety for those on the bubble. It also was criticized by some Republicans as unfair given the number of candidates bunched in the low single digits, well within the margin of error of most polls.

Fox said Kasich, the last debate qualifier, averaged 3.2 percent in the polling. Perry, the first one out, averaged 1.8 percent.

Fox said it used polls conducted by Bloomberg, CBS News, Fox News, Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University, the five most recent national polls using standard methodology.

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson; Editing by Sandra Maler, Eric Beech and Leslie Adler)

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 04, 2015, 10:36:28 PM
Trump will agree to withdraw if the other 9 candidates agree to go on his show to determine the winner.

Quote from: Zanza on August 05, 2015, 12:33:14 PM
Which of the other ten do you think is a worse candidate than Perry, Tim?

About the only thing I know about Perry is that he couldn't even name the three federal agencies he wanted to abolish four years ago...

Quote from: crazy canuck on August 05, 2015, 12:40:27 PM
Shouldn't there be a separate Perry thread?

Quote from: Zanza on August 05, 2015, 12:33:14 PM
Which of the other ten do you think is a worse candidate than Perry, Tim?

About the only thing I know about Perry is that he couldn't even name the three federal agencies he wanted to abolish four years ago...

Quote from: Zanza on August 05, 2015, 12:33:14 PM
Which of the other ten do you think is a worse candidate than Perry, Tim?

About the only thing I know about Perry is that he couldn't even name the three federal agencies he wanted to abolish four years ago...

Quote from: Zanza on August 05, 2015, 12:33:14 PM
Which of the other ten do you think is a worse candidate than Perry, Tim?

About the only thing I know about Perry is that he couldn't even name the three federal agencies he wanted to abolish four years ago...

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 01:55:58 PM
Ted Cruz is a lot smarter than Perry.  Much more dangerous for that reason but I wouldn't call him a worse candidate

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 01:55:58 PM
Ted Cruz is a lot smarter than Perry.  Much more dangerous for that reason but I wouldn't call him a worse candidate

Quote from: Razgovory on August 05, 2015, 02:11:48 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 01:55:58 PM
Ted Cruz is a lot smarter than Perry.  Much more dangerous for that reason but I wouldn't call him a worse candidate

Cane toads are smarter then Perry, and probably more dangerous.  Ted Cruz Donald Trump lacks discipline.  He's a bomb thrower with no respect for protocol.  If he goes to high the GOP will crush him for his impudence.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 05, 2015, 02:20:32 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 01:55:58 PM
Ted Cruz is a lot smarter than Perry.  Much more dangerous for that reason but I wouldn't call him a worse candidate

But Ted Cruz says so many dumb things. Either he is dumber than his biography or he is a complete fraud GOP primary candidate. Neither answer is reassuring.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 02:28:29 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 05, 2015, 02:11:48 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 01:55:58 PM
Ted Cruz is a lot smarter than Perry.  Much more dangerous for that reason but I wouldn't call him a worse candidate

Cane toads are smarter then Perry, and probably more dangerous.  Ted Cruz Donald Trump lacks discipline.  He's a bomb thrower with no respect for protocol.  If he goes to high the GOP will crush him for his impudence.

edited

Quote from: Zanza on August 05, 2015, 12:33:14 PM
Which of the other ten do you think is a worse candidate than Perry, Tim?

About the only thing I know about Perry is that he couldn't even name the three federal agencies he wanted to abolish four years ago...

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 02:29:17 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 05, 2015, 02:20:32 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 01:55:58 PM
Ted Cruz is a lot smarter than Perry.  Much more dangerous for that reason but I wouldn't call him a worse candidate

But Ted Cruz says so many dumb things. Either he is dumber than his biography or he is a complete fraud GOP primary candidate. Neither answer is reassuring.

Fixed

Quote from: Norgy on August 05, 2015, 06:13:15 PM
Which ones are not Kochsuckers?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 05:07:52 PM
Pretty clear that his entire political career to date has been with an eye to building a national brand.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 05, 2015, 07:35:56 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 05, 2015, 05:07:52 PM
Pretty clear that his entire political career to date has been with an eye to building a national brand.

And what a brand he has built.

Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on August 06, 2015, 10:27:24 PM
You guys suck. That was some good entertainment.
Also:

Jeb looked and sounded wooden. I bet he'll drop in the polls after this - very uninspiring.
Walker wasn't much better, but got softball questions.
Rubio appeared and sounded presidential.
Trump is teflon. Nothing sticks.
Kasich is moderate, thoughful, and well-spoken. He's doomed.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 06, 2015, 09:59:28 PM
Did anyone besides bob watch this thing?

QuoteFrom Trump on Down, the Republicans Can't Be Serious

This was, according to many commentators, going to be the election cycle Republicans got to show off their "deep bench." The race for the nomination would include experienced governors like Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, fresh thinkers like Rand Paul, and attractive new players like Marco Rubio. Instead, however, Donald Trump leads the field by a wide margin. What happened?

The answer, according to many of those who didn't see it coming, is gullibility: People can't tell the difference between someone who sounds as if he knows what he's talking about and someone who is actually serious about the issues. And for sure there's a lot of gullibility out there. But if you ask me, the pundits have been at least as gullible as the public, and still are.

For while it's true that Mr. Trump is, fundamentally, an absurd figure, so are his rivals. If you pay attention to what any one of them is actually saying, as opposed to how he says it, you discover incoherence and extremism every bit as bad as anything Mr. Trump has to offer. And that's not an accident: Talking nonsense is what you have to do to get anywhere in today's Republican Party.

For example, Mr. Trump's economic views, a sort of mishmash of standard conservative talking points and protectionism, are definitely confused. But is that any worse than Jeb Bush's deep voodoo, his claim that he could double the underlying growth rate of the American economy? And Mr. Bush's credibility isn't helped by his evidence for that claim: the relatively rapid growth Florida experienced during the immense housing bubble that coincided with his time as governor.

Mr. Trump, famously, is a "birther" — someone who has questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States. But is that any worse than Scott Walker's declaration that he isn't sure whether the president is a Christian?

Mr. Trump's declared intention to deport all illegal immigrants is definitely extreme, and would require deep violations of civil liberties. But are there any defenders of civil liberties in the modern G.O.P.? Notice how eagerly Rand Paul, self-described libertarian, has joined in the witch hunt against Planned Parenthood.

And while Mr. Trump is definitely appealing to know-nothingism, Marco Rubio, climate change denier, has made "I'm not a scientist" his signature line. (Memo to Mr. Rubio: Presidents don't have to be experts on everything, but they do need to listen to experts, and decide which ones to believe.)

The point is that while media puff pieces have portrayed Mr. Trump's rivals as serious men — Jeb the moderate, Rand the original thinker, Marco the face of a new generation — their supposed seriousness is all surface. Judge them by positions as opposed to image, and what you have is a lineup of cranks. And as I said, this is no accident.

It has long been obvious that the conventions of political reporting and political commentary make it almost impossible to say the obvious — namely, that one of our two major parties has gone off the deep end. Or as the political analysts Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein put it in their book "It's Even Worse Than It Looks," the G.O.P. has become an "insurgent outlier ... unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science." It's a party that has no room for rational positions on many major issues.

Or to put it another way, modern Republican politicians can't be serious — not if they want to win primaries and have any future within the party. Crank economics, crank science, crank foreign policy are all necessary parts of a candidate's resume.

Until now, however, leading Republicans have generally tried to preserve a facade of respectability, helping the news media to maintain the pretense that it was dealing with a normal political party. What distinguishes Mr. Trump is not so much his positions as it is his lack of interest in maintaining appearances. And it turns out that the party's base, which demands extremist positions, also prefers those positions delivered straight. Why is anyone surprised?

Remember how Mr. Trump was supposed to implode after his attack on John McCain? Mr. McCain epitomizes the strategy of sounding moderate while taking extreme positions, and is much loved by the press corps, which puts him on TV all the time. But Republican voters, it turns out, couldn't care less about him.

Can Mr. Trump actually win the nomination? I have no idea. But even if he is eventually pushed aside, pay no attention to all the analyses you will read declaring a return to normal politics. That's not going to happen; normal politics left the G.O.P. a long time ago. At most, we'll see a return to normal hypocrisy, the kind that cloaks radical policies and contempt for evidence in conventional-sounding rhetoric. And that won't be an improvement.

Quote from: Syt on August 07, 2015, 05:30:41 AM
Mr. Trump, famously, is a "birther" — someone who has questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States. But is that any worse than Scott Walker's declaration that he isn't sure whether the president is a Christian?

Quote
Mr. Trump's declared intention to deport all illegal immigrants is definitely extreme, and would require deep violations of civil liberties. But are there any defenders of civil liberties in the modern G.O.P.? Notice how eagerly Rand Paul, self-described libertarian, has joined in the witch hunt against Planned Parenthood.

Quote from: derspiess on August 07, 2015, 08:59:59 AM
Krugman writes an opinion piece attacking the GOP -- shocking!

Quote from: lustindarkness on August 07, 2015, 09:17:20 AM
You know what would have made the debate more entertaining? If all the GOP candidates combined into a mega transformer giant robot and it stomped Hillary in the middle of the stage.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 07, 2015, 12:34:50 PM
On foreign policy at various points the candidates stated that they would or would have gone mano-a-mano with ISIS, Al Qaeda, Assad, Iran and "terrorists". Put it together and the US would be somewhere in the middle of Syria at war with every single faction.

Quote from: DGuller on August 07, 2015, 12:35:07 PM
Man, Rand Paul took quite a drubbing.  I personally fall squarely on the side of Paul when it comes to surveillance, and I think people like Christie are dangerous and despicable.  But damn, he got taken to the woodshed there (and then got stepped on by Trump as he was writhing on the ground spitting out his teeth).

Quote from: alfred russel on August 07, 2015, 01:13:55 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 07, 2015, 12:35:07 PM
Man, Rand Paul took quite a drubbing.  I personally fall squarely on the side of Paul when it comes to surveillance, and I think people like Christie are dangerous and despicable.  But damn, he got taken to the woodshed there (and then got stepped on by Trump as he was writhing on the ground spitting out his teeth).

Not as bad as his father did on Morton Downey Jr:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCxDrfs4GtM

Quote from: DGuller on August 07, 2015, 01:26:49 PM

How did he look bad, other than by the fact that he even appeared on such a trashy show?  I didn't watch the whole thing, though.

P.S.  After watching the first minute of this video, I googled Morton Downey Jr to see if he managed to avoid lung cancer.  Predictably enough, he didn't.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 07, 2015, 12:34:50 PM
On foreign policy at various points the candidates stated that they would or would have gone mano-a-mano with ISIS, Al Qaeda, Assad, Iran and "terrorists". Put it together and the US would be somewhere in the middle of Syria at war with every single faction.

Quote from: derspiess on August 07, 2015, 01:48:22 PM
Surprised how many people tuned in to watch last night.  I missed it because it was empanada night at my favorite brewery :Embarrass:

Quote from: lustindarkness on August 07, 2015, 01:53:10 PM

Quote from: derspiess on August 07, 2015, 01:48:22 PM
Surprised how many people tuned in to watch last night.  I missed it because it was empanada night at my favorite brewery :Embarrass:

One good empanada is better than all the candidates put together. :thumbsup:

Quote from: derspiess on August 07, 2015, 01:55:27 PM

Quote from: lustindarkness on August 07, 2015, 01:53:10 PM

Quote from: derspiess on August 07, 2015, 01:48:22 PM
Surprised how many people tuned in to watch last night.  I missed it because it was empanada night at my favorite brewery :Embarrass:

One good empanada is better than all the candidates put together. :thumbsup:

These were fried empanadas, though.  They were still great, but I prefer baked.

Quote from: Barrister on August 07, 2015, 02:00:09 PM
You've gone full-on Spic on us Spicey. :cry:

Quote from: celedhring on August 07, 2015, 02:21:46 PM
Maybe baked empanadas should be made part of the Republican platform?

Quote from: celedhring on August 07, 2015, 02:21:46 PM
Maybe baked empanadas should be made part of the Republican platform?

Quote from: DGuller on August 07, 2015, 01:26:49 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 07, 2015, 01:13:55 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 07, 2015, 12:35:07 PM
Man, Rand Paul took quite a drubbing.  I personally fall squarely on the side of Paul when it comes to surveillance, and I think people like Christie are dangerous and despicable.  But damn, he got taken to the woodshed there (and then got stepped on by Trump as he was writhing on the ground spitting out his teeth).

Not as bad as his father did on Morton Downey Jr:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCxDrfs4GtM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCxDrfs4GtM)

How did he look bad, other than by the fact that he even appeared on such a trashy show?  I didn't watch the whole thing, though.

P.S.  After watching the first minute of this video, I googled Morton Downey Jr to see if he managed to avoid lung cancer.  Predictably enough, he didn't.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 07, 2015, 06:41:07 PM
He said that if we e legalized drugs then that would get rid of all the drug dealers, which doesn't make a lick of sense.  If legalized the sale of drugs then people wouldn't stop selling them.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 07, 2015, 06:41:07 PM
He said that if we e legalized drugs then that would get rid of all the drug dealers, which doesn't make a lick of sense.  If legalized the sale of drugs then people wouldn't stop selling them.  He also claimed that fewer people would take drugs if they were legal, which doesn't seem very likely either.  That certainly was not the case with Prohibition which did reduce the amount of alcohol consumption.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 07, 2015, 08:16:24 PM
I'm never sure what crazy people think.  He made two statements one both likely false, that doesn't bode well for his argument.

Quote from: derspiess on August 07, 2015, 11:00:59 AM
Camille did a nice little write-up on all the debate participants: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-john-kasich-won-813657

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 07, 2015, 09:15:06 AM

Quote from: Syt on August 07, 2015, 05:30:41 AM
Mr. Trump, famously, is a "birther" — someone who has questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States. But is that any worse than Scott Walker's declaration that he isn't sure whether the president is a Christian?

Yes. It is a verifiable fact. Only Obama himself (and perhaps God) knows if Obama is a Christian

Quote from: Martinus on August 08, 2015, 03:13:05 AM

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 07, 2015, 09:15:06 AM

Quote from: Syt on August 07, 2015, 05:30:41 AM
Mr. Trump, famously, is a "birther" — someone who has questioned whether President Obama was born in the United States. But is that any worse than Scott Walker's declaration that he isn't sure whether the president is a Christian?

Yes. It is a verifiable fact. Only Obama himself (and perhaps God) knows if Obama is a Christian

Is your point that Walker is crazier than Trump then? Because your explanation suggests Walker knows Obama's and God's mind - whilst Trump only knows some fact that could be wrong.

Quote from: Martinus on August 08, 2015, 04:03:22 AM
yeah right. He is essentially calling Obama a liar - it is a classic loaded question.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 08, 2015, 06:32:29 AM
Donald Trump commenting on tough questioning by a female panelist during the debate: "You could just see the blood coming out of her eyes. The blood coming out of her...wherever."  :shutup:

I think this is the comment that really hurts Trump. If not, I guess nothing will, and I look forward to his AARs from summits involving Angela Merkel.

Quote from: Martinus on August 08, 2015, 03:21:34 AM
I think Paul (or, more likely, Raz) is confusing two points on drugs. One is legalisation of soft drugs and removing the income therefrom from the hands of organised crime.

The other is decriminalisation of possession (but not selling) of hard drugs and national rehab programs - which, as Portugal example proves, indeed reduces drug consumption long term.

QuoteThere is little reliable information about drug use, injecting behaviour or addiction treatment in Portugal before 2001, when general population surveys commenced. Before that, there were the indicators on lifetime prevalence amongst youth, collected as part of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD), and some other (less reliable) data available through the EMCDDA.[16]

Thorough studies on how the various efforts have been implemented were not conducted. Thus, a causal effect between strategy efforts and these developments cannot be firmly established.[11] There are, however, statistical indicators that suggest the following correlations between the drug strategy and the following developments, from July 2001 up to 2007:

    Increased uptake of treatment.[11]
    Reduction in new HIV diagnoses amongst drug users by 17%[17]
    Reduction in drug related deaths, although this reduction has decreased in later years. The number of drug related deaths is now almost on the same level as before the Drug strategy was implemented.[11][17] However, this may be accounted for by improvement in measurement practices, which includes a doubling of toxicological autopsies now being performed, meaning that more drugs related deaths are likely to be recorded.[18]
    Reported lifetime use of "all illicit drugs" increased from 7.8% to 12%, lifetime use of cannabis increased from 7.6% to 11.7%, cocaine use more than doubled, from 0.9% to 1.9%, ecstasy nearly doubled from 0.7% to 1.3%, and heroin increased from 0.7% to 1.1%[17] It has been proposed that this effect may have been related to the candor of interviewees, who may have been inclined to answer more truthfully due to a reduction in the stigma associated with drug use.[18] However, during the same period, the use of heroin and cannabis also increased in Spain and Italy, where drugs for personal use was decriminalised many years earlier than in Portugal [18][19] while the use of Cannabis and heroin decreased in the rest of Western Europe.[20][21]
    Drug use among adolescents (13-15 yrs) and "problematic" users declined.[18]
    Drug-related criminal justice workloads decreased.[18]
    Decreased street value of most illicit drugs, some significantly.[18]

Quote from: DGuller on August 08, 2015, 11:49:04 AM

I think that a Trump syndrome is much like a Ron Paul syndrome.  Once someone is hooked, then any negative evidence about their candidate only reinforces the belief that Trump is the right candidate, or just something to be swept up as "well, he's not a perfect human being, but he says what needs to be said".

Quote from: alfred russel on August 08, 2015, 02:59:43 PM
That comment was really crass. Ron Paul always came across as something of a gentleman.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 08, 2015, 06:32:29 AM
Donald Trump commenting on tough questioning by a female panelist during the debate: "You could just see the blood coming out of her eyes. The blood coming out of her...wherever."  :shutup:

I think this is the comment that really hurts Trump. If not, I guess nothing will, and I look forward to his AARs from summits involving Angela Merkel.

Quote from: Fate on August 08, 2015, 09:17:44 PM
Misogyny plays well with old white males.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 08, 2015, 06:32:29 AM
I look forward to his AARs from summits involving Angela Merkel.

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 08, 2015, 04:17:37 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 08, 2015, 06:32:29 AM
Donald Trump commenting on tough questioning by a female panelist during the debate: "You could just see the blood coming out of her eyes. The blood coming out of her...wherever."  :shutup:

I think this is the comment that really hurts Trump. If not, I guess nothing will, and I look forward to his AARs from summits involving Angela Merkel.

There's been some backlash. He got uninvited from some conservative forum event.
http://news.yahoo.com/gop-candidates-ride-debate-momentum-redstate-activists-065328361--election.html (http://news.yahoo.com/gop-candidates-ride-debate-momentum-redstate-activists-065328361--election.html)

Quote from: garbon on August 09, 2015, 09:21:25 PM
He said he meant nose and ears. :rolleyes:

I think he should have doubled down and said yes you geniuses managed to figure out that I meant menstruation, some women are crazy when that happens.

Quote from: garbon on August 09, 2015, 09:21:25 PM
He said he meant nose and ears. :rolleyes:

I think he should have doubled down and said yes you geniuses managed to figure out that I meant menstruation, some women are crazy when that happens.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2015, 09:57:19 PM
Women don't menstruate from their eyes.  It's clear to me he was going for some kind of pyscho banshee metaphor, not a woman on the rag.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2015, 09:57:19 PM

Women don't menstruate from their eyes.  It's clear to me he was going for some kind of pyscho banshee metaphor, not a woman on the rag.

Quote from: DontSayBanana on August 09, 2015, 10:33:40 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2015, 09:57:19 PM
Women don't menstruate from their eyes.  It's clear to me he was going for some kind of pyscho banshee metaphor, not a woman on the rag.

Well, this is where his "know-nothing" image hurts him.  He can't maintain that image and still be expected, at least in the eyes of the media, to be competent in the anatomy of menstruation.

Either way, the fundamental problem I see with his comment is that, let's face it, Fox made him a viable candidate, and in attacking Megyn Kelly, he went after one of the most public faces of Fox.  It's a classic example of "got too big for his britches."  In one fell swoop, he just proved to every potential backer that he absolutely fails at politics (which is as much about the perception as the reality of the situation).

Quote from: alfred russel on August 09, 2015, 11:45:35 PM
and fox is a part of the establishment.

Quote from: Tonitrus on August 09, 2015, 11:45:10 PM
Trump really just loves to give his opinion of individuals he encounters.

Heck, most of the amusement value in electing him President will be his commentary on various world leaders.  :P

Quote from: Monoriu on August 10, 2015, 01:08:29 AM

Quote from: Tonitrus on August 09, 2015, 11:45:10 PM
Trump really just loves to give his opinion of individuals he encounters.

Heck, most of the amusement value in electing him President will be his commentary on various world leaders.  :P

As I said, I can't wait for President Trump to visit Beijing  :lol:

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2015, 09:57:19 PM

Quote from: garbon on August 09, 2015, 09:21:25 PM
He said he meant nose and ears. :rolleyes:

I think he should have doubled down and said yes you geniuses managed to figure out that I meant menstruation, some women are crazy when that happens.

Women don't menstruate from their eyes.  It's clear to me he was going for some kind of pyscho banshee metaphor, not a woman on the rag.

Quote from: garbon on August 10, 2015, 04:48:28 PM

Except that bleeding eyes is known as metaphor for angry disgust (as we have here). Someone bleeding from eyes, nose and ears isn't a sign of a psychotic person - more just a person suffering from internal hemorraghing.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 10, 2015, 05:00:27 PM

Quote from: garbon on August 10, 2015, 04:48:28 PM

Except that bleeding eyes is known as metaphor for angry disgust (as we have here). Someone bleeding from eyes, nose and ears isn't a sign of a psychotic person - more just a person suffering from internal hemorraghing.

Which is why I find it plausible he got stuck and wasn't referring to what people think he was referring to. He was on some rant on CNN and this was in the middle of the rant. Maybe he said she was bleeding from her eyes, and then wanted to add to it, but when he got to the point to add the next body part realized the metaphor he was going for really stopped with the eyes, so he just said "wherever" and moved on.

Quote from: DGuller on August 08, 2015, 03:16:25 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 08, 2015, 02:59:43 PM
That comment was really crass. Ron Paul always came across as something of a gentleman.

Except for the racist screeds written under his name.  But in any case, the point is that whatever the faults are, and they don't have to be the same, they do not cause existing adherents to drop their support (at least not right away).

Quote from: Valmy on August 10, 2015, 07:42:02 PM
I know once somebody says something objectionable at some point in their lives they are evil forever and...wait isn't that the very thing you are usually on my side about?

Quote from: Monoriu on August 10, 2015, 10:30:48 PM
I don't get one thing.  What exactly is Donald Trump's plan to make the US great again?  I am too lazy to dig it up and I must have missed it.

Quote from: DGuller on August 10, 2015, 08:35:36 PM

Quote from: Valmy on August 10, 2015, 07:42:02 PM
I know once somebody says something objectionable at some point in their lives they are evil forever and...wait isn't that the very thing you are usually on my side about?

I don't really think negatively of Ron Paul because of the racist writings, though maybe I should.  There are other reasons why I have much disdain for him, chief among them his willingness to adopt Putin's propaganda talking points in order to advocate isolationism.  That's pretty despicable, even if he's dumb enough to actually believe it.

But back to newsletters, I just find it very hard to believe that Ron Paul knew nothing of the filth being published under his name.  And it's not exactly a bad joke or two posted on Twitter;  it was calculated race-baiting to promote his political fortunes.  And he never took real responsibility for it, he was just brushing it off every which way until people just moved on.  This kind of behavior is a lot more difficult to forgive.

Quote from: Savonarola on August 10, 2015, 03:33:58 PM
I was in Colombia again last week.  The Colombians call Trump "El Maduro de Los Estados Unidos."

He should try to win the Hispanic vote with that: Donald Trump un caudillo norteamericano

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 02:27:26 AM
There has been a strong element of racism in libertarian ideology.  Murray Rothbard was a racist and the flagship magazine of Libertarianism in the US, Reason, was pro-apartheid.  I can't say in Ron Paul himself was a racist, but he had no problem courting them.

Quote from: DGuller on August 10, 2015, 08:35:36 PM
There are other reasons why I have much disdain for him, chief among them his willingness to adopt Putin's propaganda talking points in order to advocate isolationism.  That's pretty despicable, even if he's dumb enough to actually believe it.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 08:38:35 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 02:27:26 AM
There has been a strong element of racism in libertarian ideology.  Murray Rothbard was a racist and the flagship magazine of Libertarianism in the US, Reason, was pro-apartheid.  I can't say in Ron Paul himself was a racist, but he had no problem courting them.

I think that's a reasonable take on it.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 08:38:35 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 02:27:26 AM
There has been a strong element of racism in libertarian ideology.  Murray Rothbard was a racist and the flagship magazine of Libertarianism in the US, Reason, was pro-apartheid.  I can't say in Ron Paul himself was a racist, but he had no problem courting them.

I think that's a reasonable take on it.

Quote from: DGuller on August 10, 2015, 11:29:21 PM
I'm still convinced that Trump is not serious about this.  I don't know what his angle is, whether it's a practical joke or a Clintons' trojan horse, but it's something other than a serious campaign.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 12:16:01 PM
No it isn't.

It isn't even a little bit reasonable.

It is, in fact, almost exactly the opposite of reasonable. It is demonizing, dishonest, and basically exactly what is wrong with political discourse - the attempt to define those who disagree with you as having views they categorically deny and in fact are almost exactly the opposite of the views they actually do have.

Quote from: Valmy on August 11, 2015, 12:27:20 PM
Maybe. But he is retired now and his son wasn't involved with the newsletters. Paul's views are radical enough that I think one can attack him easily enough without that one incident.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 12:33:09 PM

Quote from: Valmy on August 11, 2015, 12:27:20 PM
Maybe. But he is retired now and his son wasn't involved with the newsletters. Paul's views are radical enough that I think one can attack him easily enough without that one incident.

I agree, but we're talking about his coming across as a gentleman.  He may have outgrown these newsletters now, but they don't paint him in that good of a light regardless.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 12:25:12 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 12:16:01 PM
No it isn't.

It isn't even a little bit reasonable.

It is, in fact, almost exactly the opposite of reasonable. It is demonizing, dishonest, and basically exactly what is wrong with political discourse - the attempt to define those who disagree with you as having views they categorically deny and in fact are almost exactly the opposite of the views they actually do have.

There aren't a lot of politicians who openly admit to having once courted racists, so categorical denials don't have much value.  Ron Paul doesn't really have a good plausible explanation for his newsletters;  it's either bigotry, extreme reckless aloofness, or cynicism.  I think cynicism is the most reasonable explanation in his case.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:08:16 PM
I am not talking about Paul, but about the generalization that it is "reasonable" to paint libertarians in general as racists and supporting of apartheid.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 01:30:03 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:08:16 PM
I am not talking about Paul, but about the generalization that it is "reasonable" to paint libertarians in general as racists and supporting of apartheid.

Okay, I see it now.  I was just commenting on the last sentence that concerned Paul.

That said, I do also agree with the other parts, especially if you pay attention to the tense.  Libertarians now may be associated with young males that overestimate their intelligence and understanding of the world, but until that became a big thing, a large portion of libertarians wanted less government because it began to infringe on their freedom to discriminate.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:08:16 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 12:25:12 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 12:16:01 PM
No it isn't.

It isn't even a little bit reasonable.

It is, in fact, almost exactly the opposite of reasonable. It is demonizing, dishonest, and basically exactly what is wrong with political discourse - the attempt to define those who disagree with you as having views they categorically deny and in fact are almost exactly the opposite of the views they actually do have.

There aren't a lot of politicians who openly admit to having once courted racists, so categorical denials don't have much value.  Ron Paul doesn't really have a good plausible explanation for his newsletters;  it's either bigotry, extreme reckless aloofness, or cynicism.  I think cynicism is the most reasonable explanation in his case.

I am not talking about Paul, but about the generalization that it is "reasonable" to paint libertarians in general as racists and supporting of apartheid.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:49:51 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 01:30:03 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:08:16 PM
I am not talking about Paul, but about the generalization that it is "reasonable" to paint libertarians in general as racists and supporting of apartheid.

Okay, I see it now.  I was just commenting on the last sentence that concerned Paul.

That said, I do also agree with the other parts, especially if you pay attention to the tense.  Libertarians now may be associated with young males that overestimate their intelligence and understanding of the world, but until that became a big thing, a large portion of libertarians wanted less government because it began to infringe on their freedom to discriminate.

Yeah, that is just as much bullshit as anything Raz has said.

"A large portion"? How large? Apparently large enough that you are ok with making conclusions about people who ONLY identify as "libertarian" and their views on race and racism.


Evidence? Survey? Data? Anything?

Absent some kind of actual evidence, I am pretty sure this is just your desire to believe something about those you don't agree with, and not much intellectual integrity on your part to constrain what you wish was true to just things that you actually have evidence for...

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:49:51 PM
Yeah, that is just as much bullshit as anything Raz has said.

"A large portion"? How large? Apparently large enough that you are ok with making conclusions about people who ONLY identify as "libertarian" and their views on race and racism.


Evidence? Survey? Data? Anything?

Absent some kind of actual evidence, I am pretty sure this is just your desire to believe something about those you don't agree with, and not much intellectual integrity on your part to constrain what you wish was true to just things that you actually have evidence for...

Quote from: Caliga on August 11, 2015, 12:18:30 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 10, 2015, 11:29:21 PM
I'm still convinced that Trump is not serious about this.  I don't know what his angle is, whether it's a practical joke or a Clintons' trojan horse, but it's something other than a serious campaign.

:yes:  I think it's the latter.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:49:51 PM
Yeah, that is just as much bullshit as anything Raz has said.

"A large portion"? How large? Apparently large enough that you are ok with making conclusions about people who ONLY identify as "libertarian" and their views on race and racism.


Evidence? Survey? Data? Anything?

Absent some kind of actual evidence, I am pretty sure this is just your desire to believe something about those you don't agree with, and not much intellectual integrity on your part to constrain what you wish was true to just things that you actually have evidence for...

Quote from: Caliga on August 11, 2015, 02:13:04 PM
*shrug* There are racists in both the Republican and Democratic parties too, but that doesn't make them 'racist' parties.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 02:19:34 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 01:49:51 PM
Yeah, that is just as much bullshit as anything Raz has said.

"A large portion"? How large? Apparently large enough that you are ok with making conclusions about people who ONLY identify as "libertarian" and their views on race and racism.


Evidence? Survey? Data? Anything?

Absent some kind of actual evidence, I am pretty sure this is just your desire to believe something about those you don't agree with, and not much intellectual integrity on your part to constrain what you wish was true to just things that you actually have evidence for...

Ooh, it's Berkut in heat again.  I guess it's that time of the year where you build up yourself up by attempting to tear down other people.  Go fuck yourself, I refuse to dignify this with a substantive response.

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 11, 2015, 02:58:36 PM
Presumably, if you want to be a racist, you'll pick an ideology that allows you to do so. Whether that makes the one you pick a racist one is another question, but still.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 02:53:44 PM
There has been one candidate for president that was really libertarian--Barry Goldwater.

I ask you to review the states he carried, and the year of the election, and reflect if this was just a coincidence.

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on August 11, 2015, 03:08:12 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 02:53:44 PM
There has been one candidate for president that was really libertarian--Barry Goldwater.

I ask you to review the states he carried, and the year of the election, and reflect if this was just a coincidence.

He got votes for opposing the Civil Rights Act, but the reasons he had for doing so differed from most of those voters.

A fascist may side with libertarians nationally to be able to oppress locally, but that doesn't make him a libertarian.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 03:13:26 PM
How would you distinguish the two?

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:03:19 PM


RIght, of course you refuse to dignify your bigotry and intellectual dishonesty with a substantive response - you know there isn't one you could provide.

Is asking for evidence for your claims "tear down other people"?

More so than accusing an entire group of being racist without any evidence at all?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2015, 09:57:19 PM

Quote from: garbon on August 09, 2015, 09:21:25 PM
He said he meant nose and ears. :rolleyes:

I think he should have doubled down and said yes you geniuses managed to figure out that I meant menstruation, some women are crazy when that happens.

Women don't menstruate from their eyes.  It's clear to me he was going for some kind of pyscho banshee metaphor, not a woman on the rag.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:03:19 PM
Is asking for evidence for your claims "tear down other people"?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 11, 2015, 03:22:26 PM
It's not clear to me what he meant to say either then or a bunch of other times during the debate.  Based on observation there seems to be little evidence that a lot of mental processing goes on before words exit his mouth.  That's the appeal.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 03:23:40 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:03:19 PM
Is asking for evidence for your claims "tear down other people"?

Asking by an unprovoked attack?  Most definitely.  So go fuck yourself, I have grown very tired of you and your shtick.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 03:23:40 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:03:19 PM
Is asking for evidence for your claims "tear down other people"?

Asking by an unprovoked attack?  Most definitely.  So go fuck yourself, I have grown very tired of you and your shtick.

Only when my demand for actual evidence to justify rampant bigotry is aimed at you and your bigotry - otherwise, I am sure my "schtick" is just fine with you.

You are the one making an onerous and revolting claim about people who would, had you the integrity and simpel courtesy to ask them, vehemently deny your characterization. It is telling that when challenged you refuse to provide ANY evidence for you claim, and instead pretend to be offended by the demand, and start spewing vulgarities instead of responses.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 02:53:44 PM
There has been one candidate for president that was really libertarian--Barry Goldwater.

I ask you to review the states he carried, and the year of the election, and reflect if this was just a coincidence.

Quote from: Valmy on August 11, 2015, 03:02:12 PM
Man it was all but unanimous in Mississippi LOL

Barry Goldwater William Miller           Republican   356,528   87.14%
Lyndon Johnson Hubert Humphrey   Democratic   52,618   12.86%

You don't see stuff like that outside of DC these days.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 03:30:39 PM
Okay, you got me.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 03:32:00 PM
If you kept black people from voting, I think you would see similar votes today in some places. Maybe not quite as extreme, but close. Some southern states come in consistently ~55%ish republican, but they are like 40% minority. By race, they are very polarized.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 03:13:26 PM
How would you distinguish the two?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 11, 2015, 03:31:28 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 02:53:44 PM
There has been one candidate for president that was really libertarian--Barry Goldwater.

I ask you to review the states he carried, and the year of the election, and reflect if this was just a coincidence.

The LBJ states were anti-Semitic.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 03:30:39 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:27:14 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 03:23:40 PM

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:03:19 PM
Is asking for evidence for your claims "tear down other people"?

Asking by an unprovoked attack?  Most definitely.  So go fuck yourself, I have grown very tired of you and your shtick.

Only when my demand for actual evidence to justify rampant bigotry is aimed at you and your bigotry - otherwise, I am sure my "schtick" is just fine with you.

You are the one making an onerous and revolting claim about people who would, had you the integrity and simpel courtesy to ask them, vehemently deny your characterization. It is telling that when challenged you refuse to provide ANY evidence for you claim, and instead pretend to be offended by the demand, and start spewing vulgarities instead of responses.

Okay, you got me.

Quote from: Valmy on August 11, 2015, 03:52:26 PM
You sure? Because they like to point out that the Holocaust was a result of Statism.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 04:03:52 PMHas libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 11, 2015, 04:23:13 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 04:03:52 PMHas libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

I doubt it. Who has ever put one of them in charge of anything?  :lol:

Quote from: Habbaku on August 11, 2015, 04:30:44 PM
We all know how much of a racist he was.

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 04:33:34 PM

Quote from: Habbaku on August 11, 2015, 04:30:44 PM
We all know how much of a racist he was.

:rolleyes:

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 04:27:04 PM

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 11, 2015, 04:23:13 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 04:03:52 PMHas libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

I doubt it. Who has ever put one of them in charge of anything?  :lol:

Gary Johnson was a two-term governor.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 04:37:22 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 04:27:04 PM

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 11, 2015, 04:23:13 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 04:03:52 PMHas libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

I doubt it. Who has ever put one of them in charge of anything?  :lol:

Gary Johnson was a two-term governor.

I went climbing with his daughter :)

Gary Johnson climbed all the seven summits (the highest mountain in each continent).

Quote from: Barrister on August 11, 2015, 04:42:25 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 04:37:22 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 04:27:04 PM

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 11, 2015, 04:23:13 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 04:03:52 PMHas libertarianism actually accomplished anything?

I doubt it. Who has ever put one of them in charge of anything?  :lol:

Gary Johnson was a two-term governor.

I went climbing with his daughter :)

Gary Johnson climbed all the seven summits (the highest mountain in each continent).

People go to Antarctica to climb mountains?

Quote from: derspiess on August 11, 2015, 04:34:45 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 04:33:34 PM

Quote from: Habbaku on August 11, 2015, 04:30:44 PM
We all know how much of a racist he was.

:rolleyes:

Huge racist.  Used to be a Republican FFS.

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 04:13:02 PM
Please Raz, quit being so proud of yourself. You of course provided no evidence at all - anyone can click on any of the articles you linked, and see that to whatever extent Reason magazine "supported" Apartheid (and casting it in those terms is grossly dishonest), it was in opposition to the threat of Communism, not out of any love for racism. And the one article I bothered to read made that 100% crystal clear, and in fact decried the treatment of blacks rather clearly.

Links to articles are not evidence  - you have to actually pull the statements from the articles that support your claim. Citing an entire article that isn't even about racism doesn't cut it.

Quote"I regret the fact that honest, law-abiding blacks cannot own property in or near white cities, but I realize that without this restriction separate development will fail — and with it the capitalist system in South Africa."I regret the fact that honest, law-abiding blacks cannot own property in or near white cities, but I realize that without this restriction separate development will fail — and with it the capitalist system in South Africa.

Quote"As all libertarians should know, unlimited democracies tend towards totalitarian systems, with the rulers competing with each other to control the political machinery. Some years ago, the whites realized that a democracy may deteriorate into a dictatorship in the 'wrong' hands—especially when those hands have the wrong color to boot."

Quote from: Berkut on August 11, 2015, 03:49:24 PM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 11, 2015, 03:31:28 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 02:53:44 PM
There has been one candidate for president that was really libertarian--Barry Goldwater.

I ask you to review the states he carried, and the year of the election, and reflect if this was just a coincidence.

The LBJ states were anti-Semitic.

Libertarians are holocaust deniers.

Well, a lot of them anyway. At least in the past. Most of them.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 11, 2015, 04:50:22 PM
Really it doesn't matter why they supported race based discrimination and disenfranchisement.  They did.

Quote from: Barrister on August 11, 2015, 04:42:25 PM

People go to Antarctica to climb mountains?

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 11, 2015, 05:23:40 PM
Suffragettes were also notorious racists who supported eugenics.  Conclusion: oppose feminism and the woman's right to vote.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 11, 2015, 05:35:55 PM
DG also has Raz on ignore?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 11, 2015, 05:53:37 PM
There's nothing at all about the core libertarian belief that individual freedom is the highest good and should be as unconstrained as possible that leads inevitably to racism.

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 11, 2015, 07:32:50 PM
Also Carly Fiorina's record as a CEO isn't exactly the thing you want on your resume. But she seems to be doing pretty well in Iowa.

Quote from: Valmy on August 11, 2015, 07:58:16 PM
They want somebody who will run the government like a business, it does not have to be a successful business.

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 11, 2015, 07:32:50 PM
Also Carly Fiorina's record as a CEO isn't exactly the thing you want on your resume. But she seems to be doing pretty well in Iowa.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 11, 2015, 09:41:11 PM
If you want a CEO type to be president, she may be the best bet. It is unlikely you are going to get a really top tier one to run.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 11, 2015, 05:53:37 PM
There's nothing at all about the core libertarian belief that individual freedom is the highest good and should be as unconstrained as possible that leads inevitably to racism.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 11, 2015, 05:23:40 PM
Suffragettes were also notorious racists who supported eugenics.  Conclusion: oppose feminism and the woman's right to vote.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 11, 2015, 05:53:37 PM
There's nothing at all about the core libertarian belief that individual freedom is the highest good and should be as unconstrained as possible that leads inevitably to racism.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 04:01:01 AM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 11, 2015, 05:53:37 PM
There's nothing at all about the core libertarian belief that individual freedom is the highest good and should be as unconstrained as possible that leads inevitably to racism.

I'm not sure that is the core belief of libertarianism.  The core belief appears to be freedom from government, particularly federal government.  Freedom from starvation doesn't seem to be big on their to do list.  Freedom from discrimination isn't big on their list either.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 05:25:46 AM
That's what makes the Reason magazine's support of Apartheid so strange.

Quote from: Valmy on August 12, 2015, 08:02:40 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 05:25:46 AM
That's what makes the Reason magazine's support of Apartheid so strange.

Berkut said it was about anti-Communism but I am not familiar with Reason magazine and I have not read any of their articles from 30 years ago so I don't know what their rational was. Kind of hard to comment without that.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 03:51:36 AM
besides the Pro-life lobby makes a very big thing of how Margret Sanger was a racist.

Quote from: Martinus on August 12, 2015, 04:24:04 AM
Well, as I said, libertarianism is about freedom from government action - it is not about freedom from negative social or biological phenomena. So, I would presume libertarianism would be against government-sanctioned racism (e.g. apartheid) but it would also oppose government actions aimed at combating racism.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 12, 2015, 10:37:51 AM

Quote from: Martinus on August 12, 2015, 04:24:04 AM
Well, as I said, libertarianism is about freedom from government action - it is not about freedom from negative social or biological phenomena. So, I would presume libertarianism would be against government-sanctioned racism (e.g. apartheid) but it would also oppose government actions aimed at combating racism.

The kind of libertarianism that Raz is freaking out about -- Libertarianism with a capital "L" -- is variant that emphasizes individual rights to private property as against the state as the highest liberty value.  So while government sanctioned racism may be a bad thing in theory for such people, it is secondary to the existential threat of socialism.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 12, 2015, 10:15:08 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 03:51:36 AM
besides the Pro-life lobby makes a very big thing of how Margret Sanger was a racist.

Which is a crappy argument that ought not be emulated.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 03:05:51 PM
Couple of things.  Time and scale should be considered.  The Women's Suffrage movement was enormous and happened about a hundred years ago, so naturally there would be some racism.  The libertarian thing is quite small, and the racism I'm talking about is from 1970's to the 1990's.  So theorists and politicians being racist are a bit more relevant since they make up a larger portion of libertarians and it occurs in a period where this sort behavior becomes taboo.  I think everyone who wrote on women's suffrage when it was an issue is dead.  People like Lew Rockwell and Charles Murray are still alive.

Quote from: garbon on August 12, 2015, 03:35:35 PM
So if someone who spouts racist things say they have black friends/are not racist, we should just believe that? When did racism get a religious exemption? :wacko:

Quote from: garbon on August 12, 2015, 03:35:35 PM
So if someone who spouts racist things say they have black friends/are not racist, we should just believe that? When did racism get a religious exemption? :wacko:

Quote from: garbon on August 12, 2015, 03:43:55 PM
Why would it be worth one's time to act like racist views are ratio.al points up for debate?

Quote from: Barrister on August 12, 2015, 03:13:56 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 03:05:51 PM
Couple of things.  Time and scale should be considered.  The Women's Suffrage movement was enormous and happened about a hundred years ago, so naturally there would be some racism.  The libertarian thing is quite small, and the racism I'm talking about is from 1970's to the 1990's.  So theorists and politicians being racist are a bit more relevant since they make up a larger portion of libertarians and it occurs in a period where this sort behavior becomes taboo.  I think everyone who wrote on women's suffrage when it was an issue is dead.  People like Lew Rockwell and Charles Murray are still alive.

Raz, I find this kind of "hidden agenda" political debate to be completely futile.

You can't know what's in another man's soul.  You can't know whether Ron Paul, or Murray Rothbard, or whomever, is truly a racist or not.  That's a matter of their own beliefs.  Short of being able to read people's minds, you can't know what someone thinks.  Even if someone says at one time something explicitly racist, it may not reflect their current beliefs, or they may have had some other motive for doing so.

What you're trying to do is read the tea leaves - go looking through scattered writings and ancient speeches to attempt to determine a person's motives.  I find it's much better instead to take people at their word, and criticize them for things their actual policy positions, and what they say they actually believe in.  After all for Libertarians it's not hard to find plenty of substantial matters to criticize them for!

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 05:09:06 PM

Quote from: Barrister on August 12, 2015, 03:13:56 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 03:05:51 PM
Couple of things.  Time and scale should be considered.  The Women's Suffrage movement was enormous and happened about a hundred years ago, so naturally there would be some racism.  The libertarian thing is quite small, and the racism I'm talking about is from 1970's to the 1990's.  So theorists and politicians being racist are a bit more relevant since they make up a larger portion of libertarians and it occurs in a period where this sort behavior becomes taboo.  I think everyone who wrote on women's suffrage when it was an issue is dead.  People like Lew Rockwell and Charles Murray are still alive.

Raz, I find this kind of "hidden agenda" political debate to be completely futile.

You can't know what's in another man's soul.  You can't know whether Ron Paul, or Murray Rothbard, or whomever, is truly a racist or not.  That's a matter of their own beliefs.  Short of being able to read people's minds, you can't know what someone thinks.  Even if someone says at one time something explicitly racist, it may not reflect their current beliefs, or they may have had some other motive for doing so.

What you're trying to do is read the tea leaves - go looking through scattered writings and ancient speeches to attempt to determine a person's motives.  I find it's much better instead to take people at their word, and criticize them for things their actual policy positions, and what they say they actually believe in.  After all for Libertarians it's not hard to find plenty of substantial matters to criticize them for!

Can we tell if Murray Rothbard or Ron Paul are truly libertarian?  If we go by the idea that we can't know what's truly in a man's soul then anything they say is questionable.  Sure, they said libertarian things in the past, but is Ron Paul at this very moment a libertarian?  Am I to doubt that you are Patriotic Canadian because you aren't saying so at this very moment?  This line of argument is absurd.  My argument that the libertarians courted racists actually comes from the arguments that Reason magazine made about Ron Paul's Newsletters.  That people like Lew Rockwell (who they claimed wrote Ron Paul's newsletters), was deliberately trying to court "social conservatives", by using racist language.  They called this "Paleolibertarianism".

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 04:01:01 AM
I'm not sure that is the core belief of libertarianism.  The core belief appears to be freedom from government, particularly federal government.  Freedom from starvation doesn't seem to be big on their to do list.  Freedom from discrimination isn't big on their list either.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on August 11, 2015, 04:21:22 AM

Quote from: Savonarola on August 10, 2015, 03:33:58 PM
I was in Colombia again last week.  The Colombians call Trump "El Maduro de Los Estados Unidos."

He should try to win the Hispanic vote with that: Donald Trump un caudillo norteamericano

Donald Trump
Un pueblo, una patria, un caudillo
Better. :)

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 12, 2015, 05:28:24 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 04:01:01 AM
I'm not sure that is the core belief of libertarianism.  The core belief appears to be freedom from government, particularly federal government.  Freedom from starvation doesn't seem to be big on their to do list.  Freedom from discrimination isn't big on their list either.

If we're going to rehash the old negative/postive rights thing, we might as well break out the soda/pop map.

Quote from: garbon on August 12, 2015, 03:35:35 PM
When did racism get a religious exemption? :wacko:

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 06:08:02 PM
I'm quite aware that Libertarians only recognize certain rights.

Quote from: garbon on August 12, 2015, 04:18:01 PM
Fair and yeah I've no desire to exchange views if what I'm getting in return is racist commentary.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 05:09:06 PM

Quote from: Barrister on August 12, 2015, 03:13:56 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 03:05:51 PM
Couple of things.  Time and scale should be considered.  The Women's Suffrage movement was enormous and happened about a hundred years ago, so naturally there would be some racism.  The libertarian thing is quite small, and the racism I'm talking about is from 1970's to the 1990's.  So theorists and politicians being racist are a bit more relevant since they make up a larger portion of libertarians and it occurs in a period where this sort behavior becomes taboo.  I think everyone who wrote on women's suffrage when it was an issue is dead.  People like Lew Rockwell and Charles Murray are still alive.

Raz, I find this kind of "hidden agenda" political debate to be completely futile.

You can't know what's in another man's soul.  You can't know whether Ron Paul, or Murray Rothbard, or whomever, is truly a racist or not.  That's a matter of their own beliefs.  Short of being able to read people's minds, you can't know what someone thinks.  Even if someone says at one time something explicitly racist, it may not reflect their current beliefs, or they may have had some other motive for doing so.

What you're trying to do is read the tea leaves - go looking through scattered writings and ancient speeches to attempt to determine a person's motives.  I find it's much better instead to take people at their word, and criticize them for things their actual policy positions, and what they say they actually believe in.  After all for Libertarians it's not hard to find plenty of substantial matters to criticize them for!

Can we tell if Murray Rothbard or Ron Paul are truly libertarian?

Quote from: DGuller on August 11, 2015, 06:02:36 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 11, 2015, 05:53:37 PM
There's nothing at all about the core libertarian belief that individual freedom is the highest good and should be as unconstrained as possible that leads inevitably to racism.

No, there isn't.  Although if there is an existing discrimination problem, the theory that under libertarian rule it will be solved by economic disincentives to continue discriminating is perched solidly in la-la-land.

Quote from: Marty
You could say that libertarianism - like communism or anarcho-syndicalism - is one of those systems that work well on paper when you assume human beings not acting like selfish prejudiced assholes. That is rarely the case.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 12, 2015, 06:15:37 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 06:08:02 PM
I'm quite aware that Libertarians only recognize certain rights.

I'm equally aware that progressives like to proclaim a right to anything they want to have.

Quote from: Barrister on August 12, 2015, 05:09:59 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 05:09:06 PM

Quote from: Barrister on August 12, 2015, 03:13:56 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 03:05:51 PM
Couple of things.  Time and scale should be considered.  The Women's Suffrage movement was enormous and happened about a hundred years ago, so naturally there would be some racism.  The libertarian thing is quite small, and the racism I'm talking about is from 1970's to the 1990's.  So theorists and politicians being racist are a bit more relevant since they make up a larger portion of libertarians and it occurs in a period where this sort behavior becomes taboo.  I think everyone who wrote on women's suffrage when it was an issue is dead.  People like Lew Rockwell and Charles Murray are still alive.

Raz, I find this kind of "hidden agenda" political debate to be completely futile.

You can't know what's in another man's soul.  You can't know whether Ron Paul, or Murray Rothbard, or whomever, is truly a racist or not.  That's a matter of their own beliefs.  Short of being able to read people's minds, you can't know what someone thinks.  Even if someone says at one time something explicitly racist, it may not reflect their current beliefs, or they may have had some other motive for doing so.

What you're trying to do is read the tea leaves - go looking through scattered writings and ancient speeches to attempt to determine a person's motives.  I find it's much better instead to take people at their word, and criticize them for things their actual policy positions, and what they say they actually believe in.  After all for Libertarians it's not hard to find plenty of substantial matters to criticize them for!

Can we tell if Murray Rothbard or Ron Paul are truly libertarian?  If we go by the idea that we can't know what's truly in a man's soul then anything they say is questionable.  Sure, they said libertarian things in the past, but is Ron Paul at this very moment a libertarian?  Am I to doubt that you are Patriotic Canadian because you aren't saying so at this very moment?  This line of argument is absurd.  My argument that the libertarians courted racists actually comes from the arguments that Reason magazine made about Ron Paul's Newsletters.  That people like Lew Rockwell (who they claimed wrote Ron Paul's newsletters), was deliberately trying to court "social conservatives", by using racist language.  They called this "Paleolibertarianism".

I tried.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 06:34:25 PM
Have you ever thought about trying with out wild hyperbole and abusive language?

Quote from: Barrister on August 12, 2015, 05:09:59 PM


I tried.

Quote
Ron Paul doesn't seem to know much about his own newsletters. The libertarian-leaning presidential candidate says he was unaware, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, of the bigoted rhetoric about African Americans and gays that was appearing under his name. He told CNN last week that he still has "no idea" who might have written inflammatory comments such as "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks"—statements he now repudiates. Yet in interviews with reason, a half-dozen longtime libertarian activists—including some still close to Paul—all named the same man as Paul's chief ghostwriter: Ludwig von Mises Institute founder Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr.

Financial records from 1985 and 2001 show that Rockwell, Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982, was a vice president of Ron Paul & Associates, the corporation that published the Ron Paul Political Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report. The company was dissolved in 2001. During the period when the most incendiary items appeared—roughly 1989 to 1994—Rockwell and the prominent libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard championed an open strategy of exploiting racial and class resentment to build a coalition with populist "paleoconservatives," producing a flurry of articles and manifestos whose racially charged talking points and vocabulary mirrored the controversial Paul newsletters recently unearthed by The New Republic. To this day Rockwell remains a friend and advisor to Paul—accompanying him to major media appearances; promoting his candidacy on the LewRockwell.com blog; publishing his books; and peddling an array of the avuncular Texas congressman's recent writings and audio recordings.

Rockwell has denied responsibility for the newsletters' contents to The New Republic's Jamie Kirchick. Rockwell twice declined to discuss the matter with reason, maintaining this week that he had "nothing to say." He has characterized discussion of the newsletters as "hysterical smears aimed at political enemies" of The New Republic. Paul himself called the controversy "old news" and "ancient history" when we reached him last week, and he has not responded to further request for comment.

But a source close to the Paul presidential campaign told reason that Rockwell authored much of the content of the Political Report and Survival Report. "If Rockwell had any honor he'd come out and I say, 'I wrote this stuff,'" said the source, who asked not to be named because Paul remains friendly with Rockwell and is reluctant to assign responsibility for the letters. "He should have done it 10 years ago."

Rockwell was publicly named as Paul's ghostwriter as far back as a 1988 issue of the now-defunct movement monthly American Libertarian. "This was based on my understanding at the time that Lew would write things that appeared in Ron's various newsletters," former AL editor Mike Holmes told reason. "Neither Ron nor Lew ever told me that, but other people close to them such as Murray Rothbard suggested that Lew was involved, and it was a common belief in libertarian circles."

Individualist-feminist Wendy McElroy, who on her blog characterized the author as an associate of hers for many years, called the ghostwriter's identity "an open secret within the circles in which I run." Though she declined to name names either on her blog or when contacted by reason, she later approvingly cited a post naming Rockwell at the anonymous blog RightWatch.

Timothy Wirkman Virkkala, formerly the managing editor of the libertarian magazine Liberty, told reason that the names behind the Political Report were widely known in his magazine's offices as well, because Liberty's late editor-in-chief, Bill Bradford, had discussed the newsletters with the principals, and then with his staff. "I understood that Burton S. Blumert was the moneybags that got all this started, that he was the publisher," Virkkala said. "Lew Rockwell, editor and chief writer; Jeff Tucker, assistant, probably a writer; Murray Rothbard, cheering from the sidelines, probably ghosting now and then." (Virkkala has offered his own reaction to the controversy at his Web site.) Blumert, Paul's 1988 campaign chairman and a private supporter this year, did not respond to a request for an interview; Rothbard died in 1995. We reached Tucker, now editorial vice president of Rockwell's Mises.org, at his office, and were told: "I just really am not going to make a statement, I'm sorry. I'll take all responsibility for being the editor of Mises.org, OK?"

The early 1990s writings became liabilities for Paul long before last week's New Republic story. Back in 1996, Paul narrowly eked out a congressional victory over Democrat Lefty Morris, who made the newsletters one of his main campaign issues, damning them both for their racial content and for their advocacy of drug legalization. At the time, Paul defended the statements that appeared under his name, claiming that they expressed his "philosophical differences" with Democrats and had been "taken out of context." He finally disavowed them in a 2001 interview with Texas Monthly, explaining that his campaign staff had convinced him at the time that it would be too "confusing" to attribute them to a ghostwriter.

Besides Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, the officers of Ron Paul & Associates included Paul's wife Carol, Paul's daughter Lori Pyeatt, Paul staffer Penny Langford-Freeman, and longtime campaign manager Mark Elam (who has managed every Paul congressional campaign since 1996 and is currently the Texas coordinator for the presidential run), according to tax records from 1993 and 2001. Langford-Freeman did not respond to interview requests as of press time. Elam, president of M&M Graphics and Advertising, confirmed to reason that his company printed the newsletters, but said that the texts reached him as finished products.

The publishing operation was lucrative. A tax document from June 1993—wrapping up the year in which the Political Report had published the "welfare checks" comment on the L.A. riots—reported an annual income of $940,000 for Ron Paul & Associates, listing four employees in Texas (Paul's family and Rockwell) and seven more employees around the country. If Paul didn't know who was writing his newsletters, he knew they were a crucial source of income and a successful tool for building his fundraising base for a political comeback.

The tenor of Paul's newsletters changed over the years. The ones published between Paul's return to private life after three full terms in congress (1985) and his Libertarian presidential bid (1988) notably lack inflammatory racial or anti-gay comments. The letters published between Paul's first run for president and his return to Congress in 1996 are another story—replete with claims that Martin Luther King "seduced underage girls and boys," that black protesters should gather "at a food stamp bureau or a crack house" rather than the Statue of Liberty, and that AIDS sufferers "enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

Eric Dondero, Paul's estranged former volunteer and personal aide, worked for Paul on and off between 1987 and 2004 (back when he was named "Eric Rittberg"), and since the Iraq war has become one of the congressman's most vociferous and notorious critics. By Dondero's account, Paul's inner circle learned between his congressional stints that "the wilder they got, the more bombastic they got with it, the more the checks came in. You think the newsletters were bad? The fundraising letters were just insane from that period." Cato Institute President Ed Crane told reason he recalls a conversation from some time in the late 1980s in which Paul claimed that his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for The Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, anti-Semitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto until it folded in 2001.

The newsletters' obsession with blacks and gays was of a piece with a conscious political strategy adopted at that same time by Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard. After breaking with the Libertarian Party following the 1988 presidential election, Rockwell and Rothbard formed a schismatic "paleolibertarian" movement, which rejected what they saw as the social libertinism and leftist tendencies of mainstream libertarians. In 1990, they launched the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, where they crafted a plan they hoped would midwife a broad new "paleo" coalition.

Rockwell explained the thrust of the idea in a 1990 Liberty essay entitled "The Case for Paleo-Libertarianism." To Rockwell, the LP was a "party of the stoned," a halfway house for libertines that had to be "de-loused." To grow, the movement had to embrace older conservative values. "State-enforced segregation," Rockwell wrote, "was wrong, but so is State-enforced integration. State-enforced segregation was not wrong because separateness is wrong, however. Wishing to associate with members of one's own race, nationality, religion, class, sex, or even political party is a natural and normal human impulse."

The most detailed description of the strategy came in an essay Rothbard wrote for the January 1992 Rothbard-Rockwell Report, titled "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement." Lamenting that mainstream intellectuals and opinion leaders were too invested in the status quo to be brought around to a libertarian view, Rothbard pointed to David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for an "Outreach to the Rednecks," which would fashion a broad libertarian/paleoconservative coalition by targeting the disaffected working and middle classes. (Duke, a former Klansman, was discussed in strikingly similar terms in a 1990 Ron Paul Political Report.) These groups could be mobilized to oppose an expansive state, Rothbard posited, by exposing an "unholy alliance of 'corporate liberal' Big Business and media elites, who, through big government, have privileged and caused to rise up a parasitic Underclass, who, among them all, are looting and oppressing the bulk of the middle and working classes in America."

Anyone with doubts about the composition of the "parasitic Underclass" could look to the regular "PC Watch" feature of the Report, in which Rockwell compiled tale after tale of thuggish black men terrifying petite white and Asian women. (Think Birth of a Nation crossed with News of the Weird.) The list of PC outrages in the February 1993 issue, for example, cited a Washington Post column on films that feature "plenty of interracial sex, and nobody noticing," a news article about black members of the Southern Methodist University marching band "engaged in mass shoplifting while in Japan," and a sob story about a Korean shop-owner who shot a black shoplifter and assailant in the head: The travesty is that Mrs. Du got five years probation, and must cancel a trip to Korea.

The populist outreach program centered on tax reduction, abolition of welfare, elimination of "the entire 'civil rights' structure, which tramples on the property rights of every American," and a police crackdown on "street criminals." "Cops must be unleashed," Rothbard wrote, "and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error." While they're at it, they should "clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares?" To seal the deal with social conservatives, Rothbard urged a federalist compromise in their direction on "pornography, prostitution, or abortion." And because grassroots organizing is "plodding and boring," this new paleo coalition would need to be kick-started by "high-level, preferably presidential, political campaigns."

The presidential campaign Rothbard and Rockwell supported in 1988 was Ron Paul's run on the Libertarian Party ticket. In 1992, they were again ready to back Paul, until Pat Buchanan convinced the obstetrician to withdraw and back his conservative challenge to then-president Bush. "We have a dream," Rockwell wrote in that same January 1992 edition of RRR, "and perhaps someday it will come to pass. (Hell, if 'Dr.' King can have a dream, why can't we?) Our dream is that, one day, we Buchananites can present Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the liberal and conservative and centrist elites, with a dramatic choice....We can say: 'Look, gang: you have a choice, it's either Pat Buchanan or David Duke.'"

Carol Moore, a left-libertarian activist who opposed Rothbard, Rockwell, and Paul at the late 1980s Libertarian conventions that led to the paleo split, theorizes that the defeat made them bitter. "They had a tendency to be anti-PC," Moore told reason, "and it was really stepped up after they lost. They were really angry and not that funny."

They are less angry these days. Visitors to LewRockwell.com or Mises.org since 2001 are less likely to feel the need for a shower. One can almost detect what sounds like mellowing in Rockwell's reflections on the high and heady paleo days, unburdened by ominous warnings of the looming race war. Nowadays the fiery rhetoric is directed at the "pimply-faced" Kirchick, "Benito" Giuliani, and the "so-called 'libertarians'" at reason and Cato.

But perhaps the best refutation of the old approach is not the absence of race-baiting rhetoric from its progenitors, but the success of the 2008 Ron Paul phenomenon. The man who was once the Great Paleolibertarian Hope has built a broad base of enthusiastic supporters without resorting to venomous rhetoric or coded racism. He has stuck stubbornly to the issues of sound money, "humble foreign policy," and shrinking the state. He wraps up his speeches with a three-part paean to individualism: "I don't want to run your life," "I don't want to run the economy," and "I don't want to run the world." He talks about the disproportionate effect of the drug war on African-Americans, and appeared at a September 2007 Republican debate on black issues that was boycotted by the then-frontrunners. All this and more have brought him $30 million-plus from more than 100,000 donors; thousands of campaign volunteers; and the largest rallies he's ever spoken to, including a crowd of almost 5,000 in Philadelphia.

Yet those new supporters, many of whom are first encountering libertarian ideas through the Ron Paul Revolution, deserve a far more frank explanation than the campaign has as yet provided of how their candidate's name ended up atop so many ugly words. Ron Paul may not be a racist, but he became complicit in a strategy of pandering to racists—and taking "moral responsibility" for that now means more than just uttering the phrase. It means openly grappling with his own past—acknowledging who said what, and why. Otherwise he risks damaging not only his own reputation, but that of the philosophy to which he has committed his life.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 06:30:10 PM
Without ability negative rights are meaningless.  A man floating in the middle of the ocean may have the right to a free press, but since he lacks the ability to do anything his rights are meaningless.

QuoteEric Dondero, Paul's estranged former volunteer and personal aide, worked for Paul on and off between 1987 and 2004 (back when he was named "Eric Rittberg"), and since the Iraq war has become one of the congressman's most vociferous and notorious critics. By Dondero's account, Paul's inner circle learned between his congressional stints that "the wilder they got, the more bombastic they got with it, the more the checks came in. You think the newsletters were bad? The fundraising letters were just insane from that period." Cato Institute President Ed Crane told reason he recalls a conversation from some time in the late 1980s in which Paul claimed that his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for The Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, anti-Semitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto until it folded in 2001.

The newsletters' obsession with blacks and gays was of a piece with a conscious political strategy adopted at that same time by Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard. After breaking with the Libertarian Party following the 1988 presidential election, Rockwell and Rothbard formed a schismatic "paleolibertarian" movement, which rejected what they saw as the social libertinism and leftist tendencies of mainstream libertarians. In 1990, they launched the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, where they crafted a plan they hoped would midwife a broad new "paleo" coalition.

Rockwell explained the thrust of the idea in a 1990 Liberty essay entitled "The Case for Paleo-Libertarianism." To Rockwell, the LP was a "party of the stoned," a halfway house for libertines that had to be "de-loused." To grow, the movement had to embrace older conservative values. "State-enforced segregation," Rockwell wrote, "was wrong, but so is State-enforced integration. State-enforced segregation was not wrong because separateness is wrong, however. Wishing to associate with members of one's own race, nationality, religion, class, sex, or even political party is a natural and normal human impulse."

The most detailed description of the strategy came in an essay Rothbard wrote for the January 1992 Rothbard-Rockwell Report, titled "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement." Lamenting that mainstream intellectuals and opinion leaders were too invested in the status quo to be brought around to a libertarian view, Rothbard pointed to David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for an "Outreach to the Rednecks," which would fashion a broad libertarian/paleoconservative coalition by targeting the disaffected working and middle classes. (Duke, a former Klansman, was discussed in strikingly similar terms in a 1990 Ron Paul Political Report.) These groups could be mobilized to oppose an expansive state, Rothbard posited, by exposing an "unholy alliance of 'corporate liberal' Big Business and media elites, who, through big government, have privileged and caused to rise up a parasitic Underclass, who, among them all, are looting and oppressing the bulk of the middle and working classes in America."

Anyone with doubts about the composition of the "parasitic Underclass" could look to the regular "PC Watch" feature of the Report, in which Rockwell compiled tale after tale of thuggish black men terrifying petite white and Asian women. (Think Birth of a Nation crossed with News of the Weird.) The list of PC outrages in the February 1993 issue, for example, cited a Washington Post column on films that feature "plenty of interracial sex, and nobody noticing," a news article about black members of the Southern Methodist University marching band "engaged in mass shoplifting while in Japan," and a sob story about a Korean shop-owner who shot a black shoplifter and assailant in the head: The travesty is that Mrs. Du got five years probation, and must cancel a trip to Korea.

The populist outreach program centered on tax reduction, abolition of welfare, elimination of "the entire 'civil rights' structure, which tramples on the property rights of every American," and a police crackdown on "street criminals." "Cops must be unleashed," Rothbard wrote, "and allowed to administer instant punishment, subject of course to liability when they are in error." While they're at it, they should "clear the streets of bums and vagrants. Where will they go? Who cares?" To seal the deal with social conservatives, Rothbard urged a federalist compromise in their direction on "pornography, prostitution, or abortion." And because grassroots organizing is "plodding and boring," this new paleo coalition would need to be kick-started by "high-level, preferably presidential, political campaigns."

The presidential campaign Rothbard and Rockwell supported in 1988 was Ron Paul's run on the Libertarian Party ticket. In 1992, they were again ready to back Paul, until Pat Buchanan convinced the obstetrician to withdraw and back his conservative challenge to then-president Bush. "We have a dream," Rockwell wrote in that same January 1992 edition of RRR, "and perhaps someday it will come to pass. (Hell, if 'Dr.' King can have a dream, why can't we?) Our dream is that, one day, we Buchananites can present Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the liberal and conservative and centrist elites, with a dramatic choice....We can say: 'Look, gang: you have a choice, it's either Pat Buchanan or David Duke.'"

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 08:41:47 PM
But he didn't abandon Ron Paul.  He is the guy they fingered for writing Ron Paul's newsletters and had and maintains a fairly close relationship with the man.

QuoteThe presidential campaign Rothbard and Rockwell supported in 1988 was Ron Paul's run on the Libertarian Party ticket. In 1992, they were again ready to back Paul, until Pat Buchanan convinced the obstetrician to withdraw and back his conservative challenge to then-president Bush. "We have a dream," Rockwell wrote in that same January 1992 edition of RRR, "and perhaps someday it will come to pass. (Hell, if 'Dr.' King can have a dream, why can't we?) Our dream is that, one day, we Buchananites can present Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the liberal and conservative and centrist elites, with a dramatic choice....We can say: 'Look, gang: you have a choice, it's either Pat Buchanan or David Duke.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 12, 2015, 07:53:52 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 06:30:10 PM
Without ability negative rights are meaningless.  A man floating in the middle of the ocean may have the right to a free press, but since he lacks the ability to do anything his rights are meaningless.

I confess I had not considered the difficulties encountered by people floating in the middle of the ocean.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 12, 2015, 08:44:44 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 08:41:47 PM
But he didn't abandon Ron Paul.  He is the guy they fingered for writing Ron Paul's newsletters and had and maintains a fairly close relationship with the man.

You bolded this:

QuoteThe presidential campaign Rothbard and Rockwell supported in 1988 was Ron Paul's run on the Libertarian Party ticket. In 1992, they were again ready to back Paul, until Pat Buchanan convinced the obstetrician to withdraw and back his conservative challenge to then-president Bush. "We have a dream," Rockwell wrote in that same January 1992 edition of RRR, "and perhaps someday it will come to pass. (Hell, if 'Dr.' King can have a dream, why can't we?) Our dream is that, one day, we Buchananites can present Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the liberal and conservative and centrist elites, with a dramatic choice....We can say: 'Look, gang: you have a choice, it's either Pat Buchanan or David Duke.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 08:48:19 PM
A person in the middle of the ocean is a hypothetical.  He is not bound by governments so he is theoretically free, but since he has nothing and his position is extremely precarious he cannot enjoy the freedoms in any meaningful way.  A person without the material means to exercise a right doesn't actually have that right.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 08:50:43 PM

Yes, but Paul was producing the racist newsletters at the time, so if Rockwell wrote them as Reason claims he still had to been working for Paul.  The whole point of the strategy was not to create a new form of libertarianism, it was bolster the ranks of libertarianism with rednecks.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 12, 2015, 08:55:26 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 08:48:19 PM
A person in the middle of the ocean is a hypothetical.  He is not bound by governments so he is theoretically free, but since he has nothing and his position is extremely precarious he cannot enjoy the freedoms in any meaningful way.  A person without the material means to exercise a right doesn't actually have that right.

What material means are required to speak, or to practice religion?

Quote from: DGuller on August 12, 2015, 09:01:40 PM
Substantial ones, if you don't live in subsistence economy.  You can't really speak or practice religion if your employers or potential employers would really insist on you not doing so.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 12, 2015, 09:06:55 PM

Quote from: DGuller on August 12, 2015, 09:01:40 PM
Substantial ones, if you don't live in subsistence economy.  You can't really speak or practice religion if your employers or potential employers would really insist on you not doing so.

Not really sure how that relates to the positive "rights" Raz has been talking about.

Quote from: DGuller on August 12, 2015, 09:09:25 PM
It relates directly.  You don't really have rights if you simply practically cannot take the material hit for exercising them.  You may have them on paper, but practically speaking your reality is no different from someone who doesn't have those rights on paper.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 09:41:09 PM
Do you really have be a jackass all the time Berkut?

Quote from: DGuller on August 12, 2015, 10:04:43 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 09:41:09 PM
Do you really have be a jackass all the time Berkut?

He just really, really hates it when people try to read into other people's intentions.

Quote from: garbon on August 12, 2015, 04:18:01 PM
Fair and yeah I've no desire to exchange views if what I'm getting in return is racist commentary.

Quote from: Berkut on August 12, 2015, 11:03:50 PM
We've had this discussion before - there is a big difference between judging what the intent of an individual is based on their posts, and deciding that it is perfectly fine to assume that entire groups of people have views that you know they would deny based on their inclusion in some group that you have ideological disagreements with - but you know that as well, of course.

QuoteYou should really stop assuming things about what people think, know,  or intend

QuoteIn my case anyway, I don't know about others, since I only know what I myself know, mean, or intend.

QuoteWhich I know is exactly what your intent is

Quote from: Berkut on August 13, 2015, 12:05:16 AM
I suppose it is possible you do NOT know that difference, but I actually think you are pretty bright, so I don't really buy into the idea that you are just ignorant of your own bigotry.

I do find it funny that you can actually say this:

QuoteYou should really stop assuming things about what people think, know,  or intend

and

QuoteIn my case anyway, I don't know about others, since I only know what I myself know, mean, or intend.

followed by

QuoteWhich I know is exactly what your intent is

That is rather amusing - I wonder if it is intentionally ridiculous, or are you really this incapable of understanding what you say?

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 07:20:06 PM
Okay, I'll give a last piece article, from Reason magazine, which as I said is the big libertarian magazine.  The authors the article are libertarians.  They describe the same strategy that I am describing.  So if it's just some conspiracy and delusion that is my head, I'm not alone.

Quote from: Valmy on August 13, 2015, 09:51:34 AM
Left wingers, theoretically, tend to put justice above everything else. Which is awesome. But they tend to discount everything else, which is where it becomes more complicated.

Especially those who believe the Rousseau-type deal that people are all naturally good and insidious outside forces corrupt them.

Libertarians, theoretically, put individual freedom above everything else with similar problems.

Quote from: Martinus on August 13, 2015, 09:57:58 AM
Actually, I would say it's more "equality" than "justice". Justice can be an aspect of equality (equality under law, for example) but there are elements to the concept of justice that are not necessarily espoused by the left (for example retributive justice is more of the right's domain, whereas distributive justice is indeed the domain of the left).

Quote from: Martinus on August 13, 2015, 10:01:53 AM
Nobody likes fraternité. :(

Quote from: Valmy on August 13, 2015, 10:03:38 AM

Quote from: Martinus on August 13, 2015, 10:01:53 AM
Nobody likes fraternité. :(

I would say it is the liberté that tends to get ignored sadly. But let's not get sidetracked :P

Quote from: Martinus on August 13, 2015, 09:37:36 AM
Could it be said that (unlike certain other political ideologies, especially on the left) libertarianism does not generally consider combating racism its top priority and it is willing to tolerate racism in the name of personal freedom?

Racism is now (rightly or wrongly) considered one of the greatest evils of the world by certain portions of the public (the so-called "liberal left", for example) and it seems clear to me that libertarians do not necessarily share this view.

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 13, 2015, 09:33:01 AM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 12, 2015, 07:20:06 PM
Okay, I'll give a last piece article, from Reason magazine, which as I said is the big libertarian magazine.  The authors the article are libertarians.  They describe the same strategy that I am describing.  So if it's just some conspiracy and delusion that is my head, I'm not alone.

So the big libertarian magazine is publishing an expose criticizing some big name libertarians for voicing racist views or not taking responsibility for such views being voiced under the names.  That isn't very convincing proof that libertarianism as a political ideology is inherently racist.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 11:47:59 AM

Quote from: The Minsky Moment on August 13, 2015, 09:33:01 AM
[So the big libertarian magazine is publishing an expose criticizing some big name libertarians for voicing racist views or not taking responsibility for such views being voiced under the names.  That isn't very convincing proof that libertarianism as a political ideology is inherently racist.

Good, cause I didn't say that.  I said that there are racist elements to the libertarian movement.

Quote from: derspiess on August 13, 2015, 12:01:45 PM
Is there really much difference between saying the two, anyway?

Quote from: Barrister on August 13, 2015, 12:20:31 PM

Quote from: derspiess on August 13, 2015, 12:01:45 PM
Is there really much difference between saying the two, anyway?

Yes.

Preston Manning once said "a bright light attracts a few moths".  I have no problem with the assertion that some racists have, from time to time, attached themselves to the libertarian movement.  Any political movement will attract the occasional nutjob.

But Raz wants to go further, and to say that racism is somehow inherent to the movement or to the ideology itself.

QuoteWhat happens when the racists are also the theorists of the movement?  What happens when the racism comes from party's Presidential candidate.

Quote from: Martinus on August 13, 2015, 09:37:36 AM
Could it be said that (unlike certain other political ideologies, especially on the left) libertarianism does not generally consider combating racism its top priority and it is willing to tolerate racism in the name of personal freedom?

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 12:24:30 PMTake for instance a man living in London in 1715 London and a man living 2015 London.  The man living in 18th century London is theoretically free to fly over the city without restriction, unlike his counterpart in modern London where flying over the city is heavily restricted.  However, despite heavy regulations that exist on flying around the city of the London the modern man is has far more freedom of flight then the 18th century man because of circumstance.  The man in 1715 has no means to fly, so government regulation or lack there are meaningless to him.  It is not freedom from government that liberates him and gives him the freedom to fly but technology, a type of circumstance.

Quote from: MadImmortalMan on August 13, 2015, 02:27:50 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 12:24:30 PMTake for instance a man living in London in 1715 London and a man living 2015 London.  The man living in 18th century London is theoretically free to fly over the city without restriction, unlike his counterpart in modern London where flying over the city is heavily restricted.  However, despite heavy regulations that exist on flying around the city of the London the modern man is has far more freedom of flight then the 18th century man because of circumstance.  The man in 1715 has no means to fly, so government regulation or lack there are meaningless to him.  It is not freedom from government that liberates him and gives him the freedom to fly but technology, a type of circumstance.

Whether or not you can fly is not a political question. Some things are not under the jurisdiction of the electorate. The laws of physics are among those.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:38:42 PM
Berkut, honest question.  Why do you think South Africa had Apartheid?

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:38:42 PM
Berkut, honest question.  Why do you think South Africa had Apartheid?

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:38:42 PM
Berkut, honest question.  Why do you think South Africa had Apartheid?

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:38:42 PM
Berkut, honest question.  Why do you think South Africa had Apartheid?

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:38:42 PM
Berkut, honest question.  Why do you think South Africa had Apartheid?

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:36:18 PM
I have a right to bear arms, but what if nobody will sell me a weapon because I'm the wrong race?  In practice I do not have that right.

Quote from: Barrister on August 13, 2015, 02:40:37 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:38:42 PM
Berkut, honest question.  Why do you think South Africa had Apartheid?

This sure is a fascinating debate you're trying to get started here Raz. :mellow:

Quote from: lustindarkness on August 13, 2015, 02:47:12 PM
In 1982, a massive star ship bearing a bedraggled alien population, nicknamed "The Prawns," appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-eight years later, the initial welcome by the human population has faded. The refugee camp where the aliens were located has deteriorated into a militarized ghetto called District 9, where they are confined and exploited in squalor. In 2010, the munitions corporation, Multi-National United, is contracted to forcibly evict the population with operative Wikus van der Merwe in charge. In this operation, Wikus is exposed to a strange alien chemical and must rely on the help of his only two new 'Prawn' friends.

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 10:09:45 PM
Or you know, being black in Mississippi in 1869.

Quote from: lustindarkness on August 13, 2015, 02:47:12 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 02:38:42 PM
Berkut, honest question.  Why do you think South Africa had Apartheid?

In 1982, a massive star ship bearing a bedraggled alien population, nicknamed "The Prawns," appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-eight years later, the initial welcome by the human population has faded. The refugee camp where the aliens were located has deteriorated into a militarized ghetto called District 9, where they are confined and exploited in squalor. In 2010, the munitions corporation, Multi-National United, is contracted to forcibly evict the population with operative Wikus van der Merwe in charge. In this operation, Wikus is exposed to a strange alien chemical and must rely on the help of his only two new 'Prawn' friends.

Quote from: alfred russel on August 14, 2015, 09:16:23 PM
I don't know about 1869, but this film from 1870 Mississippi makes it seem like a happy and fun place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw

Quote from: alfred russel on August 14, 2015, 09:16:23 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 10:09:45 PM
Or you know, being black in Mississippi in 1869.

I don't know about 1869, but this film from 1870 Mississippi makes it seem like a happy and fun place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw

Quote from: alfred russel on August 14, 2015, 09:16:23 PM

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2015, 10:09:45 PM
Or you know, being black in Mississippi in 1869.

I don't know about 1869, but this film from 1870 Mississippi makes it seem like a happy and fun place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw

Quote from: Barrister on August 13, 2015, 12:20:31 PM

Quote from: derspiess on August 13, 2015, 12:01:45 PM
Is there really much difference between saying the two, anyway?

Yes.

Preston Manning once said "a bright light attracts a few moths".  I have no problem with the assertion that some racists have, from time to time, attached themselves to the libertarian movement.  Any political movement will attract the occasional nutjob.

But Raz wants to go further, and to say that racism is somehow inherent to the movement or to the ideology itself.