More on Rand Paul

Joe… may I respectfully ask you to correct the assertion that “that all the bank bailout money either has been paid back or will be covered by a modest tax on too-big-to-fail banks…”?

Most of the TARP money hasn’t been paid back yet (there are a lot of regional banks with TARP loans outstanding) and we’re not even close on AIG. Major banks that paid back TARP loans still have claims to government backstops on their balance sheet assets and we don’t know how that will play out. The Treasury owns underwater warrants on most of these banks. Oh and we still own Citigroup at enormous cost.

Then there’s Fannie and Freddie. You have to count them. And… GM and Chrysler, bailed out under the same authority.

Then of course there’s the giant opportunity costs associated with the bailout. Money that went to Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon could have done a lot of good for working Americans. You don’t get opportunities like that back.

Sorry to bicker but this is important — people who argued for this round of bailouts claimed that it worked so well after the S&L crisis but they did so by counting gains and miscounting costs. I don’t want to see the next round of bailouts justified because of press shorthand that the 2008 giveaways were somehow profitable. They weren’t.

Oh and awesome post.

Writing for a leftist ragazine with a tiny, tiny, tiny audience, leftist loon Joe Klein asserts (with the predictable absence of any evidence): “Glenn Beck’s ratings are down; his paranoid act is wearing thin.”

Tuesday, May 18, 2010, 5 p.m.

Beck – 2,190,000 viewers

Blitzer – 564,000 viewers

Matthews – 564,000 viewers

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/the_scoreboard_tuesday_may_18_162119.asp#more

I don’t think it’s fair to conflate the Tea Party with libertarianism. Libertarianism, like all utopian philosophies, will always be with us, if just on a fringe. The Tea Partiers, on the other hand, are an context-specific, ideology-free collection of agitated Republicans. They by and large favor Social Security. They’re just really mad that their side lost the last election. (The deficit has nothing to do with it, of course; the Tea Partiers didn’t protest when Bush and the GOP Congress passed Medicare Part D, or refused to pay for a couple wars).
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Paul is doing the right thing, politically, by saying it was a mistake to go on the Maddow show. The first rule of movement conservatism is that you don’t talk about conservatism– not with anyone who isn’t already part of the club. They evaluate all facts and sources of facts by their emotional response, rather than accuracy. This is what the “epistemic closure” debate has been all about. He can’t defend his positions in a logical and forthright manner, but he can say the word “liberal” a bunch of times.

In the September NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 24 percent had a positive opinion of Beck, 19 percent had a negative opinion and 42 percent said they didn’t know or weren’t sure. Meanwhile, an October Pew poll found that just 40 percent could identify Beck as a TV and radio host.
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http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jan/04/dana-milbank/milbank-says-americans-admire-glenn-beck-more-they/
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He’s on TV, and he has a loyal audience, but he’s really not a deal overall. Political media thinks he’s a big deal ’cause they consume a lot of political media, but political media isn’t that big a deal.

What textee isn’t telling you is that Glenn Beck has lost almost half his audience form his peak last year and he’s losing sponsors faster than Tiger Woods.
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But I’m sure textee is buying lots of gold from Goldline and he’s got his non-hybrid seeds and is ready for the upcoming econopochalypse. About the only thing Glenn seems to be doing right is emptying the pockets of gullible right-wingers. To which I say, “Go, Glenn, go!”

Not only are you insane, you are delusionally insane. Time to take your Haldol.

@ newfreedomblog
what a great rebuttal to Elvis’ points … bravo rusty, bravo, you’ve done a great job …. that should settle all the issues he raised and put him in his place

Gotta love how Rustyblog responds with name-calling, rather than a reasoned response.

Mr. Paul believes that private businesses have a right to discriminate, as long as they do not receive “government support”. Someone should explain to Mr. Paul (and any of his idiot followers) that those roads, railways, airports, streetlights, bridges and sidewalks that help the “right kind” of customers and employees to reach those private businesses (not to mention all those suppliers deliverying product, and transporters picking up goods for delivery to their customers) have been paid for by citizens of all races and creeds, as well as by both genders.
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Those same citizens that pay for all of that infrastructure also pay for the public schools educating your employees and the police, fire, military, etc., that put their lives on the line every single day to protect those private businesses. In fact, many of the people protecting those same private businesses are the ones against whom Paul says we should allow discrimination.
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It took a civil war and almost 2 centuries, but in 1964 the majority in this country finally figured out that the right to equality in terms of race, gender, ethnicity and creed trump the “right” to discriminate and/or use one’s ignorance and hatred to the detriment of other members of this country.

Yeah, Elvis had too many facts that are unpalatable to rightwingers.

“Republicans will understand the downside of demagogic extremism.”

At that point, were it ever to come, the Grand Ole Party would disappear in a puff of terminal guilt.

But don’t sit up late waiting for that to happen.

Joe Klein:

even Ronald Reagan found that he couldn’t put a dent in the liberal social safety net because it was too popular

That’s why you Third Way ideologues favor a commission to do just that, right?

Balance will eventually be restored–which, in this case, will probably mean fewer Democrats in Congress (because their 2010 levels were unnaturally high, given past history), but it will also mean that more Republicans will understand the downside of demagogic extremism.

So that means you’ll be happy when Serious Democrats are (more or less, according to established electoral trends) equally opposed by Serious Republicans, and “balance” has been “restored”?
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You’re claiming that the problem with conservatives isn’t that they’re wrong about the market’s ability to solve its own problems, wrong about emissions’ relationship to climate change, wrong about “fighting them over there, so that we don’t fight them here,” wrong about state revenues always going up when tax rates go down, wrong about the validity of natural selection theory, wrong about the efficacy of abstinence-only sex education, wrong about austerity programs in a near-depression, wrong about blind loyalty to a foreign nation, or wrong about the cost and length of occupations of hostile populations’ lands?
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The problem is that some Republicans are too “extreme” in their conservatism, and that they use (“demagogic”) rhetoric that appeals to too many people, according to you?
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So..if they were more “responsible” in how they spoke about their ideas, and only, say, wrong about climate change, state revenues and abstinence education, there would be “balance,” and everything would be fine once they had near-equivalent representation in government, at least in your mind?
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It would all be “balanced,” just as long as Republicans weren’t the pathological libertarians with their avowed hatred of the state, and their ability to generate grass-roots public sympathy when your New Democrats’ programs fail?
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Is that how your ideology works, Joe Klein?
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More importantly, don’t you understand that we liberals know that you’re withholding nearly identical criticisms of us, attacks that you were completely comfortable making against our ideas and politics only a few years ago, because that’s your idea of political prudence at the moment?
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Do you not know that we’re aware of your vicious attacks on “civil liberties extremists” and the “old ideology of the extreme left”? Do you believe that we are illiterates or amnesiacs?
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Be honest, that’s all that’s really required of your job, when it comes down to it. Just be frank about your antipathy toward liberals and liberalism, and your desire to see both right and left managed by people like you: Third Way intellectuals and technocrats. Just be up front about in how much contempt you and the rest of New Democrats hold people to the left of you –or anybody who isn’t already part of the established Serious order.
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Tell your readers honestly that you think that everybody who isn’t a “moderate,” i.e. doesn’t fall within the range of the acceptable center, from David Brooks (Serious conservative Republican) to you (Serious Third Way New Democrat) is by definition “extreme.” Tell your readers that “moderate” means “somebody who understands the boundaries of Washington consensus,” even when a particular view is, in reality, extreme (“let’s invest in the President the power to extra-legally assassinate American citizens”) or wildly ideological (“the problem with health care is that Americans access too much of it”). Tell Obama voters like us who you really are, Joe Klein, and what you really think of them.
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Is that kind of honesty just too much to ask for, or are you really wedded to the Third Way’s brand of Machiavellianism and your political goals?

Textee: “0.71% of Americans watch Glenn Beck.”

Let me fix that headline:
Moron Ron Paul

Rand Paul sure is off to a flying start. He going to have to make apologies for his apologies. Anybody want to bet that he’s going to join Palin and McCain as regular topics for the threads? I say he does. The media loves a guy that just blurts out whatever he’s thinking without considering the consequences. He’s going to be one entertaining candidate.

I have gained respect for Mr. Paul for at least admitting what he truly believes and stands for.
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The tea party needs to do the same and instead of using coded phrases such as “our america”, “real america”, and “america of our youth” they should say that what they really mean is “white christian america”.
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Just say how you really feel and stop being such cowards. I wouldn’t vote for him but at least he has the back bone to say what he believes.

joe, we know know all about medicare and social security. both government ran programs are busted. im sure healthcare will be different, no? you must think we’re a bunch of fucking morons out here joe.

As of today, polls showed Rand Paul posting a 25% lead over Democrat Jack Conway in the Kentucky Senatorial race. Considering Democrats outnumber Republicans by 2 to 1 in Kentucky that’s quite an achievement.
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Joe’s comments about the Tea Party don’t ring true. The Tea Party will help Republicans take back both houses of congress in November.
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He claims Glenn Beck’s ratings are down when they are in fact up by 26% for the year.
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Joe then claims, and many liberals pile on, that Beck has lost many sponsors. The only sponsors that Beck has lost are those that switched to other FOX News shows after Beck outed Van Jones, the Marxist Czar that was an advisor to President Obama.
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A black organization, that Jones was associated with, Color of Change, went after the sponsors claiming Beck was a racist. Some of those sponsors did in fact move to other shows for fear of bad publicity. Beck has plenty of sponsors and FOX is very happy with his show and ratings. When you beat all your competition by 4 to 1 or more you are a hit.

well put. This is the comment I was going to write, but no need to since you’ve done it so well.

I really do believe Paul when he says that he himself thinks discrimination is abhorrent, but that all the more proves the point that he has not thought out the logical consequences of his version of liberty.

The intelligence of Liberals on display as usual.

Yes. But even more fundamentally, exactly how do the Republicans pivot, i.e., “step away from the brink” from thirty years of anti-government, libertarian extremist dogma? What do they replace it with? And then what happens to the multi-billion $ “conservative” media, who’s very existence is for the exact purpose of inculcating the susceptible in that dogma? Before all of that, what will the political press do now that it can’t take one of the two political parties seriously? As if.

It would be a change of pace if all the politicians were honest and gave truthful answers to questions, but the entire point is to get elected. All of us dislike dishonest politicians, but on the other hand, we all have viewpoints that we keep to ourselves. We all have skeletons in our closets and we all aren’t anywhere near as good people that our dogs think we are.
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Many, if not all of us have some prejuidices that we’re not particularly proud of. The key is keeping them in check and not letting them define us as individuals. Honesty might be the best policy, but it’s not going to put you in a position where you can make policy.

“The Tea Party will help Republicans take back both houses of congress in November.”
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Would you like to make a friendly wager on that? If the republicans take both houses in November, I’ll leave the Swamp for 3 or 6 months. If they don’t, you take the break. The length would be your choice.

Oops, s/b Moron RAND Paul.
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Oh, and piss off you old wanker.

northpole,
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Write “The Tea Party is Not Racist” 250 times on the white board.
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That is your punishment for lying in class.
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Stupid comments without any significant real proof are ignorance at its worst.
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The Tea Party is in no way racist, violent or hateful. A few examples and a handful of bad signs do not define millions of people.
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If I took the bad actions of a handful of blacks and then tried to say that all blacks were represented by the actions of a few, you liberals would go bananas. Yet you do the same to The Tea Party members.
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Your unproven claims are despicable. If you were in fact a patriotic American you would not do this to your fellow citizens. Stop demonizing and lying about people simply because they have a different political view then you do. In a Democracy we are supposed to respect the views of others even if we have different views.

Sacred, make sure that the terms of the wager stipulate that massive ACORN voter fraud does not nullify the results.

Elvis,
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Where do you come up with this garbage. You must like to hear yourself talk because the stuff you say has nothing to do with reality.
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More Liberal intelligence. Some minds are closed. Some have no minds.

I was thinking of just a straight bet. It wouldn’t matter what anybody thought or charged. They get control of both houses (including any recounts), I quit posting for 3 or 6 months. 3xfire3 would just be limited to here. I don’t post anywhere else, so I wouldn’t be on the blogosphere period.

It’s the Constitution stupid!!! Rachel Maddow would be the first to be appalled and outraged if her 1st Amendment rights were taken away.

Although choosing to serve only certain patrons can be bad (like racist motivations) it also brings up whether you can kick somebody out of your business for being disruptive or advocating things you don’t agree with. If Rachel Maddow is correct, then business owners have no 1st amendment rights in their business, therefore the government manages their business – therefore, why own a business?!?!

As a former journalist, I am appalled at the way Ms. Maddow uses her show (which I would consider her business) to advocate for a particular segment of the population – therefore, her show segregates against conservative (and in this case constitutional) points of view. So, I think, under the Civil Rights Act, we should file a grievance against the Maddow show and insist that she not discriminate against ideas she may find repugnant.

It’s a good thing there are Libertarian nut-jobs like Dr. Paul to fight for Maddow’s right to do what she does, even if a lot of the time it’s reprehensible.

sacredh,
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I’ll take your wager but let’s make it one month. I would really miss hearing from you for a longer period than that. Your words of wisdom are really important to Swampland and all your Liberal friends would miss you.
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If I’m gone for more than one month, than newfreedom will be the only conservative voice on Swampland and you Liberals would lack some of my mature wisdom and not know what was going on in the real world.

hellslittle,
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Didn’t your mother teach you to respect your elders?
I don’t think she would be very happy with you now.

First, just as an aside, what’s with Rand Paul’ hair hat? Or is it just some sort of weird jerry-curl kind of thing? Yikes!

On a more serious note, Paul is a loose-cannon-mouth who will tie himself in political knots faster than both parties can say,”Squirm.” He really represents the focal point of the problem with the Tea Party – they don’t stand for anything. May I suggest you read an interesting article about this. I wrote it.

http://funks2.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/the-trip-to-nowhere-on-the-tea-party-express/

It’s a deal 3xfire3.
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“Your words of wisdom are really important to Swampland and all your Liberal friends would miss you.”
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That was a very generous thing to say, but I doubt if anyone would even notice I was gone. How about a void if the senate winds up 50-50? Biden would be a tiebreaker, but I don’t really want to count anyone that isn’t a senator. Do you also want to count independents that caucus with either party? Crist could possibly throw it to either the democrats or republicans. It’s up to you.

I’m glad you’re a former journalist. You seem to not understand what words like “segregate” or “discriminate” mean, you evidently think the 1st Amendment guarantees the right to refuse service, and, frankly, you aren’t very good at constructing coherent sentences in English. But, if you ever decide to get back in the business, NewsMax would probably take you on.
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The right-wing burned through its last Great White Dope, Tim Pawlenty, in about two weeks. I think Rand Paul can beat that record.

They’re just really mad that their side lost the last election.
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Spot on.
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Paul is doing the right thing, politically, by saying it was a mistake to go on the Maddow show.
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Don’t want anything punching a hole in the Tea Party’s balloon and letting the hot air out, do they?

That’s Senator-Elect Paul to you, Joe.

Didn’t your mother teach you to respect your elders?
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Didn’t your father teach you that respect is earned?

Grape, please don’t try to infringe on the old wanker’s right to tell me to get off my own lawn.

Joe Klein is just a violent, extremist thug that positively blisters with outrage at even the tiniest threat to status quo. This latest blog is just more proof of that.

Who are these hoi-poloi that think they have rights and freedoms? Only enlightened social managers like me Mr Joe Klein have any right to make any decisions.

Aw man, I got sucked into moderation purgatory for having too many links. Ok, this time, I will just give you phrases to search for.
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Tea Partiers are warmed over Republicans, from conservative writer Daniel Larison: “They’re Already Being Fooled Again” (One can quibble with this assertion, but there’s inarguably a massive amount of overlap (at least 2/3) between Tea Partiers and People Who Always Vote Republican).
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Republicans supported Bush right up to his last throes: “Bush mainly has members of his own party to thank for the fact that he is ending his presidency with an approval rating above 30%.”
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President Obama largely inherited today’s deficits: “”Where Today’s Large Deficits Come From”
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Libertarian-leaning writer Julian Sanchez on the “epistemic closure” of the right (Google that phrase to fins lots more): “One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted.”
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You’re entitled to your own opinions, Rusty and 3x, but not your own facts.

Let’s wait until after the general election.

It seems as though Rand Paul is going to take over (temporarily, I assume) Sarah Palin’s spot as a media darling. Since he adopted the Tea Party, I found this take very interesting. The Tea Party is a Paper Tiger.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/20/868238/-The-Real-Story-from-TuesdayThe-Tea-Party-is-a-Paper-Tiger

Apart from the fact that the rest of us in commentary lose one of your voices for a number of long weeks, this is really interesting…I’m beginning to feel like a pundit!
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Now the stakes in this election really are high.

Elvis,
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“In the September NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 24 percent had a positive opinion of Beck, 19 percent had a negative opinion and 42 percent said they didn’t know or weren’t sure”.
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Accoding to the latest gallup Poll
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48% Approve of President Obama’s job performance
47% Disapprove of his job performance
.3 no opinion
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That’s a 1% spread between approval and disapproval for Obama.
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Beck has a 5% spread between approval and disapproval.
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Looks like you have proven that Beck has a higher approval rating then President Obama.
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Good job Elvis. I’m sure your Liberals friend will be very proud of you. Keep up the good work.

Rachel Maddow would be the first to be appalled and outraged if her 1st Amendment rights were taken away.
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No one objects to Rand Paul saying that it’s okay to discriminate based on race. He can say pretty much whatever he wants, no matter how vile…and he can be called on it as well.
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As for whether or not the Civil Rights Act of 1964 tramples on other Constitutional guarantees, just read this:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Atlanta_Motel_v._United_States
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where the SCOTUS “upheld the permanent injunction issued by the District Court, and required the Heart of Atlanta Motel to receive business from clientele of all races.”
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In light of that, the rest of your post is, well, dumb.
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…her show segregates against conservative…
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How? You aren’t allowed to view it? Conservatives like Rand Paul are never invited on?
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Smarter right-wingers, please.

Sacredh,
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I agree with your terms. I sure don’t want foot in the mouth Biden as the decider.
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Also let’s go with independents on who they caucus with. That should give you a little bit of an advantage but that’s OK. You will probably need it.
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Thanks for being a good sport.
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ps: Crist won’t win.

Actually, the Libertarian position would have been to support the CRA, and the logic goes like this (from one of my libertarian friends)…the 14th Amendment basically made black folks full citizens. Jim Crow deprived them of their full constitutional rights, ergo the CRA was correct and fully constitutional. Pretty simple, really. I actually heard this same argument from a Libertarian Presidential candidate a few years back. Ayn Rand Paul doesn’t even know what the true libertarian position is…..

Hell, even if I win I’m tempted to take a month long break. We do some serious decorating for the holidays and not having the blog eat up so much time would give me a huge headstart. We put up 7 trees last year and I bought another 7 footer after Christmas last year. Our house looks like the mall at Christmas. Our electric bill was almost $700 for one month last holiday season (sorry Al) and we had close to 5000 LED lights.

Missed your last civics lesson, didya?

Looks like you have proven that Beck has a higher approval rating then President Obama.
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Perhaps to someone who was taught math by a chimp.

Yeah, that put him in his place — reality.

“the ridiculous statements he made in favor of a private business’s ability to discriminate according to race.”

Did I miss something? Did Rand Paul say something in favor of affirmative action?

The night Nixon won, my mother cried. You SOBs made my mother cry! No respect for you….

As of today, polls showed Rand Paul posting a 25% lead over Democrat Jack Conway in the Kentucky Senatorial race.
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No, a single poll showed that. And not surprisingly, it was from the Republicans’ best friend Rasmussen.
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Other polls show a 3% lead for Paul, and that was before he pissed off Grayson’s supporters in the primary and crapped the bed with this Civil Rights Act stuff.

1st Amendment? What are you talking about?

having a bad day- needed that giggle. thanks.

You lefties just don’t get it. Libertarians do not condone racism – we hate racism (including affirmative action – tell that white son of a coal miner in Appalachia that he is privileged to his face – I dare you). We just do not think the government should be involved in the lives of individuals or private enterprise, even for a cause as noble as to prevent racial hiring practices.

In the libertarian world, the fact that that a company is racist will be known (because the first amendment will be preserved unlike the wishes of the current administration) and they will not be in business long. How could that possibly happen when the Nanny State cannot come to the rescue? ….Because good libertarians (and liberals I am sure) will not patronize that racist business.

Calling libertarians racist is shallow and just plain dumb. Libertarians are for individual freedom above all else – for all races. Sounds good to me. Too idealistic? I would call many liberal policies such as large government entitlements the same thing. Teach them to fish, instead.

Hard core libertarian views do not break from the mainstream on race issues – still barking up the wrong tree on the Tea Parties – glad to see it.

Obama was a Trojan horse…..a gift presented (not that I bought any of it) as a moderate, in the spirit of Lincoln, bearing tax cuts like Reagan. Now the American people have awoken. And all the left can do is cry racism (wolf). It doesn’t matter anymore…

Mark the words, you lefties will be shocked with what 2010 and 2012 bring.

3xfire3, please cease calling the kettle black. Your mind is far more closed than anyone else’s here on the boards.
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I have no use for businesses who condone refusing to do business based on anything other than acts which disrupt business. Being a particular race is not one of those acts. Further, I have no use for people who condone discrimination. They are obviously possessed of closed minds.
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As for political parties, the Republicans always do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. The Democrats always do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Conservatives do not believe in civil rights and do believe in discrimination and violence as valid means for change. Liberals believe that government can solve every problem.
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Neither party is right, but at least liberals are trying to make the world better in some way. Conservatives, by and large, are not. They’re trying to make THEIR world better for THEM. They are not inclusive unless you toe the conservative line, tout the conservative dogma. It’s like a religion that they feel they have to spread and you are a traitor and a “libtard” if you don’t agree with them.
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The DHS – created under one of the most conservative regimes the US has seen in decades, mind you – has labeled right wing conservative radicals as the greatest domestic terrorist danger in the US. Combine this with the fact that half of all Americans are below average, the fact that people in America are almost programmed by religious leaders to listen to authority they “believe” in (never mind if that authority is responsible or merely in it because some idiot broadcaster thinks it’s a great way to soak up money from the mindless), and you get generally normal and rational Americans saying things like “Take back America” like a revolutionary (or civil) war battle cry.
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“Take back America” From whom? The majority of Americans who voted in the government we now have? By what means? Violence? Given all of the gun references, that’s a valid question. Considering the current government has said NOTHING, proposed NOTHING and is attempting to do NOTHING about restricting guns, this is one of those paranoid delusion issues that the right has taken under its wing as a cause celeb in an apparent (to me transparent) attempt to rile up gun rights advocates to join their cause.
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It’s the utter lack of logic and the over abundance of rhetoric that comes from the right which turns me off of them. It’s the “we know what’s best for you” attitude of the left that turns me off of them.
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You do not have a lock on the attitudes of America. The conservative movement is long on dogmatic rhetoric and utterly lacking in logic. Their only recourse is armed insurrection to displace the democratically elected executive branch of this country until 2012, and from what Beck, Rush, O’Reilly and other self-described ‘voices of the right’ keep saying, that is the only option left to people who listen to what “authorities they believe in” have to say.
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As a moderate, I have no use for your party, or the party of the President. Neither has my interests at heart. But at least the Democrats don’t advocate armed insurrection. As a vet, I have already proven my loyalty to the country by putting my skin on the line. I believe that though democracy is inherently flawed, it is both the law and the tradition of the land for settling political disputes. If the conservatives can’t deal with that, I’m ready to meet them on whatever terms they want to use and would applaud them stepping back from the brink.
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Will you be thankful that American laws and traditions – the things we’ve been exporting to other countries whether they want them or not – prevail? Or would you rather see civil war in the US again because a bunch of selfish, highly paid political demagogues whose importance to the nation rested squarely on the backs of disgruntled conservatives couldn’t shut the hell up?

this video boils down Rand Paul’s interview with Rachel Maddow to its essence:
http://bit.ly/atMtk8

Libertarians are not racist. Except of course for the ones who are. Just ask Pat Buchannan……..

to a hyperliberal…a sensible person
is extreme….but we’ve been pretending
too long….

Mr. Klein has been brilliant at times.
All he is doing now is showing his
inability to GET what most of America
thinks and feels.

You don’t get it. And you don’t get
that you don’t get it. It’s you that doesn’t
get it and you just don’t get that it is you
that just doesn’t get it.

Proof positive is that facts and proof
cannot make a dent.

You know that Pat’s no libertarian, Dirks!
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If there was ever a paleo-conservative, that’s Pat.

Can’t wait to see Maddow tonight. She often has conservatives on her show. She treats them respectfully, asks well researched questions, and then let’s them destroy themselves.
She will come back tonight and calmly and intelligently skewer Paul. His father has been on Maddow’s show a number of times. She likes and respects him although she does not agree with him politically.
However, she has a real disdain for hypocrits.

Pete: Of course you can still remove people from your premises for being disruptive. But, with the NRA victory allowing people to carry weapons into businesses, be careful. You may get shot. The second amendment tops the first.

“Perhaps to someone who was taught math by a chimp.”
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Sorry, 3X.
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That was not my remark, but, your numbers are not your strong point like they were 40 years ago in 1974 (which means I am 43 years old – did I go back and finish my degree in 2011?) or, how Republicans had no impact on Massachusetts even thought they just got their first Republican governor a little while ago in 1991 (hey, I’m 20 years old again!).

“paleo-conservative” is too recent. I hereby coin “archaeo-conservative” as an adjective for Buchanan.

“Democrats outnumber Republicans by 2 to 1 in Kentucky”

It’s 3 to 2 not 2 to 1. Interestingly Kentucky has very few independents. While Democrats have a registration edge, both of Kentucky’s Senators, four of the six Representatives in Congress and the Secretary of State are Republicans and McCain beat Obama by 16.2%.

“He claims Glenn Beck’s ratings are down when they are in fact up by 26% for the year.”

Glenn Beck’s average daily ratings this year, comparing January to May, are down by about a third. Comparing May this year to May last year his average daily ratings are up more than 20%, but that is because in May last year Beck had a Saturday show which had very low ratings and dragged the daily average down. May to May his average weekday ratings are up, but by much less than 26%.

“Libertarianism, like all utopian philosophies, will always be with us, if just on a fringe.”
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I see a huge similarity between the ideals (not the practice) of Marxism and the Utopian philosophy of Libertarianism.
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1) Marxists believed, despite all of human history, that everybody would give up private property and share everything.
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2) While adoring private property as their primary ideology (nominally the opposite) Libertarians believe that private businesses will act in the public good when it is not profitable or unprofitable to do so so.
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3) Marxists believed that the state would “wither away”.
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4) Libertarians believe that the government should be limited to preventing violence and maintaining national security and, therefore, wither away.
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Both believe that, despite history telling us otherwise, that people will not act in the own self interest over the public good and, as the incredibly hypothetical end of the Marxist fantasy, need no government.
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Democracy as we know it includes believing that people as individuals and businesses need a push to act toward the common good in terms of well written and executed regulation of particular businesses and, for goods or services which are better served that way, taxing businesses and individuals for the government to provide these.
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Libertarianism just has this big, awkward happy face on it that melts when exposed to critical thinking.

“Write “The Tea Party is Not Racist” 250 times on the white board.”
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3X,
.
You are not the teacher here.
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Again and again, as I say, the good 3X (when you aren’t POed) asks how liberals think.
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You are the student.
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You want the student to write on the “white” board.
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I guess you don’t like black boards.
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(No, I do not believe you are KKK, but that was an odd mistake you made which, probably, means nothing.)

I love this one Joe:

“by November most Americans will know that Medicare is government health care, that social security is a government pension service”

Trust me. The American people know that these are government programs and they also know that they are bankrupt!!

Only a government program like the social “security” “fund” could have already spent all of the money that has been collected for Social Security and now has to tax future generations to fund itself!! So much for Al Gore’s lock box, Joe!!

How do you write this stuff with a straight look on your face?

As for the stimulus, only government can think that borrowing more money and spending it can be the solution to too much debt! Oh yeah, great stimulus. I’m so glad I’m helping to keep fraudulent banks solvent and keep underwater home loaners in their homes. Homes they should never have been able to afford. Meanwhile, my family RENTS because we can’t afford the propped up house prices and aren’t willing to take on a negative am or adjustable rate mortgage that would require 60% of our income or more to finance!!!

Is this socialism? America has already had a large serving of your socialist, progressive agenda Mr Klein and we’ve had ENOUGH!!!

Give us our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, liberty and free markets BACK NOW!!

Obama ran as a moderate that most of us liberals hoped would turn into a liberal once he got inside the gates. What we didn’t count on was him moving even further to the center than we’d hoped. To many of us that voted him in, he’s not liberal enough. Maybe he’ll move left after he gets re-elected.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
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Where in this amendment can anybody find anything about private property?
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Does requiring businesses to allow blacks to enter and be served a religious only concept so that not hating black people is a religion?
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In the business, the walls and floors of the store, restaurant of the bar were going to speak if black people didn’t come inside?
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The first amendment is about speaking, not buying, selling, bartering or trading.

You will find racists calling themselves all manner of things. Citing a supposed example of one does not a whole philosophy taint. When the left-wing media paints Tea-Partiers with a broad racist brush, the average American sees right through it. Paint away, paint away. To paraphrase a famous preacher….”The left-wing media’s chickens…..are coming’ home to rooost!”

I know AynRand Paul is on the record supporting “states’ rights,” but has he stated his view on secession?

I think most of the Kentucky registered democrats are blue dogs and DINOs. They may be registered as democrats, but they don’t vote like them. Rand may be doing well in the polls right now, but he’s got 6 months to go and I don’t any of them are going to be easy.

“Joe Klein is just a violent, extremist thug that positively blisters with outrage…”
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No, this is what protects Joe:
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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
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If you call this being a thug, then, clearly, you have no idea what rights are.

BTW – Why don’t you guys ever talk about the Federal Reserve being a secretive and private cartel of banks, Joe?

Not that it really matters. Nobody reads TIME anymore anyhow.

But sacredh, you libs were voting for him before and will be voting for him again. It is only the 3 to 4% that voted for Bush in 2004, but voted for Obama in 2008 that matter. Don’t you see? Your vote and my vote are set in stone. It is the center that turns the tide. The outcome is hinged completely on the independents (discounting Acorn voter fraud for the moment). Independents are running from Obama and the liberals with their big spending, just as they would if a right-wing Republican were trying to change the socially moderate views of Americans from the bully pulpit.

“You lefties just don’t get it. Libertarians do not condone racism – we hate racism. We just do not think the government should be involved in the lives of individuals or private enterprise, even for a cause as noble as to prevent racial hiring practices.

In the libertarian world, the fact that that a company is racist will be known and they will not be in business long. How could that possibly happen when the Nanny State cannot come to the rescue? ….Because good libertarians (and liberals I am sure) will not patronize that racist business.

Calling libertarians racist is shallow and just plain dumb.”

I’m not going to call you racist reallibertarian but I will go with just plain dumb. The government had to step in and get involved with this issue because your view of how the world works didn’t play out that way in real life. Remember the Jim Crow South and segregated bathrooms, drinking fountains, hotels, restaurants ect. Those things were not going away on their own. Are you really going to assert that the government shouldn’t have done anything about the Jim Crow South and let the free market take care of it? How long were you willing to wait for the free market to fix it? 4 years, 5 years…10 years? That may work for you but I doubt the African Americans being denied their basic rights wouldn’t want to wait around and see how many years it would take for the free market forces to fix racism.

I watched that interview live last night..

This was my take on the whole interview:

Rachel: Are you a racist?

Rand: No.

Rachel: So you admit to being a racist?

Rand: No.

Rachel: You’re defending being a racist?

Rand: No.

Rachel: Does your mother know you’re a racist?

Rand: I’m not a racist.

Rachel: Sir, just yes or no. Does your fat, racist mother know you are a racist?

Rand: No, no, that’s all wrong.

Rachel: So you never admitted to your racist whore of a mother that you’re a vile, disgusting racist?

Rand: Wait…

Rachel: Sorry for inturrupting, go ahead and admit to being a racist.

Rand: No.

Rachel: Thanks, Dr. Rand Paul, for coming on and having a civil discussion about what a racist you are.

Rand: Uhh… Thanks?

reallibertarian.
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“Obama was a Trojan horse…..a gift presented (not that I bought any of it) as a moderate, in the spirit of Lincoln, bearing tax cuts like Reagan.”
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Obama ran as a progressive and has been doing gymnastics to get at least some conservative votes.
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I never heard anybody in 2008 call Obama a moderate third way kind of guy. He ran far to the left of where he is now.

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“..the average American sees right through it…”
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If average Americans are all in line with either the Tea Party or Libertarians, why are both polling so badly?

getmysonginamovie,
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“You don’t get it. And you don’t get
that you don’t get it.”
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Whatever you’ve got, I am glad that I do not have it and hope that it is not contagious since it, apparently, leads to incoherent statements.

“Give us our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, liberty and free markets BACK NOW!!”
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Free markets have no connection to the constitution and, with limited regulation, we have them.
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If you can’t find them, that isn’t Joe’s problem.

Were you using any hallucinogenic drugs while watching this interview or are you prone to psychotic episodes.

>Were you using any hallucinogenic drugs while watching this interview

That is a safe assumption to make when it comes to viewers of that Maddow dudes show, but sorry the answer is no.

Joe,
You should keep quiet so the public only thinks you’re stupid. Opinions are one thing, they can be defended or denied based on your or my view. Facts are solid, measurable and verifiable. Your demonstrably false claim that Glenn Becks ratings are down is a perfect example. His Fox numbers are well above last year same time. (comparable to showing Time Revenues and Circulation are down from last year or five years ago). Also his ratings, based on the research I have seen are higher than any other news or opinion program on CNN or the NBC options.
If you ‘believe’ the Tea Party movement has “Jumped the Shark”, are you willing to jump over a shark tank if the Republicans take the majority in the US House (Not the Senate)?
I doubt you have the courage, it is probably comparable to your short stature.

“Why don’t you guys ever talk about the Federal Reserve being a secretive and private cartel of banks..”
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He’ll write an article about that after he writes one about how the government is putting hidden microchips into toothpaste so that they can listen in on every word that you say.

So, you’re saying that you are prone to psychotic episodes.

m0mentom0ri:
Numbers?
Source?
Otherwise you are wrong and a liar.

Now have a nice day.

patricksartor, you don’t know what free market means do you, buddy?

The Constitution has everything to do with free markets because the Constitution defines the limits on what the Federal government can do and with those limits a free market can operate.

What we have today is not a free market. We have a monopoly on the unit of currency. We have huge taxation and regulation (massive regulation that utterly failed BTW) and massive government intervention into the market via programs like Fannie and Freddie – the very entities that fueled the crazy speculation in the housing market and built the bubble that brought down the banks and economy.

It’s not the free market that caused this crisis by any means. Free markets do regulate themselves because a bank that makes risky loans is likely to go out of business. When the government steps in to bail out such a bank it is removing that self correcting free market mechanism (called bankruptcy) and introducing moral hazard.

These are very simple concepts to understand but the unifying experience of all liberals is a lack of education in basic economics (and a general lack of common sense).

Ad Hominem attacks are now acceptable and valid rebuttal?
If so, then you are a poopy head, and you lose.
I wouldn’t have suspected it to be that easy. Thank you for your non quality of debate.

Racism is electing an affirmative action president. Sexism is selecting justices who are women.

patricksartor,

What is that supposed to mean? Do you deny that the Fed is private? Do you deny that it is secretive? Are you even aware of the effort to shed some light on the Fed’s operations when it comes to trillions of US dollars? Or are you just perfectly OK with the fact that a tiny coterie of private individuals have free reign over the nation’s currency in total secrecy?

Please explain.

“The first rule of movement conservatism is that you don’t talk about conservatism– not with anyone who isn’t already part of the club. They evaluate all facts and sources of facts by their emotional response, rather than accuracy.”

The above was very well said by Elvis!

What enrages conservative is that they go to all the trouble of constructing and believing a world where, yes, all the little animals DID march two by two into Noah’s ark – and then, here come these lefty smart-pantses armed with world-destroying “facts”. Arggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Maddow was going EASY on Paul because he’d announced his candidacy on her show. She gave him every opportunity to save himself, but he refused to be saved.

Stick a fork in him – he’s done!

And freedom is slavery, right?
.
Any more Orwellian remarks?

So you like the racist policies (affirmative action) that we have now supported by the government? If I was a hypocrite, I would too. Why, because I am black. OK, so maybe I am dumb? Well, I went to an Ivy League school. You know what sucks for me? You could say I got in there just because I am black…and you know what you maybe right. Maybe I am just dumb…

BTW, none of my comments were intended to say that I would not have supported the legislation back then. I believe that Libertarian views can work TODAY. That we can move beyond skin color. People except mixed marriages, gay couples, etc. I am sure I would have been marching with my brothers back then. Dramatic change was needed then. I was talking about NOW.

I am not even against affirmative action, but it should have no basis in skin color. It should be class-based. Give the white kid an Appalachia the same chance as the kid from the project in the city.

Don’t give a kid with brown skin and upper-middle class parents like me entrance to an Ivy League school above equally qualified white kids just because my skin is dark. I have been blessed. I don’t need the charity.

Made a typo above. You are right. I am dum (sic).

I’ve been trying to get a couple of my conservative friends to bet me on the Kentucky race. They say he’ll crush the democrat. I want 10 points. I’ll really settle for 4, but I’m playing hard to get.

You are mixing small government conservatism with religious beliefs. As a libertarian atheist, I don’t get it. Repubs and Dems are both hypocrites in so many ways. I would argue that the religious right is a long way from libertarian conservatism. They tend to be more authoritarian, which puts them close to lefty libs on the political compass in my book – the government knows best crowd.

“patricksartor, you don’t know what free market means do you, buddy?

The Constitution has everything to do with free markets because the Constitution defines the limits on what the Federal government can do and with those limits a free market can operate.”
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If true, that would mean that our founding fathers had psychic powers since the concept of free markets came after the writing the constitution.
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In each and every instance, government regulation came as a result of a market failure. In the study of economics, there are no economists at all who believe that markets do not fail.
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Free Markets could only function, even according to Classical Economic theory if it meets these rigorous standards:
.
* Infinite Buyers/Infinite Sellers – Infinite consumers with the willingness and ability to buy the product at a certain price, Infinite producers with the willingness and ability to supply the product at a certain price.
* Zero Entry/Exit Barriers – It is relatively easy to enter or exit as a business in a perfectly competitive market.
* Perfect Information – Prices and quality of products are assumed to be known to all consumers and producers.[1][2]
* Transactions are Costless – Buyers and sellers incur no costs in making an exchange [Perfect mobility].[2]
* Firms Aim to Maximize Profits – Firms aim to sell where marginal costs meet marginal revenue, where they generate the most profit.
* Homogeneous Products – The characteristics of any given market good or service do not vary across suppliers.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition
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These conditions do not exist in real life.
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This does not even include the concept of externalities
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
.
Historically, each and every regulation has been a popular response to market failures since real life is very little like Adam Smith’s thought experiment.

.

Re: Patricksartor at 3.7 wrote: Democracy as we know it includes believing that people as individuals and businesses need a push to act toward the common good in terms of well written and executed regulation of particular businesses and, for goods or services which are better served that way, taxing businesses and individuals for the government to provide these.

The flaw here is to expect that people in government are somehow morally and/or ethically superior to private citizens and business owners, and that therefore, it’s ok to allow government vast control over how people choose to live, and how businesses choose to operate. People aren’t angels, they are people, which is why we need government at all. But government that is allowed to act beyond the scope of merely protecting individual and property rights soon becomes government on the way to totalitarianism. It’s not an instant transition; it happens step by step.

But the proof that it happens accompanies any observation of the history of the US from the Civil War to today, a journey through time in which the average citizen and business has been subjected to more and more controls with less and less freedom.

I can’t wait to vote for Rand Paul. Finally a politician that you know how he feels. He doesn’t lie like Hillary under fire in the Balkans or I didn’t have sex with that womam Bill or the liar in chief OBAMA who didn’t know his pastor was a racist or the plagerising Biden or the liar Blumenthal who was never in Viet Nam I could go on for hours but you get the point

Read the Creature from Jekyll Island. It’s crazy stuff, really. Doubt the gold standard could ever work, but the lack of Fed Reserve oversight should be scary, especially for the Nanny-Staters.

“Do you deny that the Fed is private?”
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It is a regulated monopoly created by the federal government which, at a moment’s notice could be nationalized if it is found to act completely and totally outside of the nation’s best interest. It was assembled by an act of congress and, therefore, could be altered at any time.
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The Chairman is chosen by the President and approved by the Senate.
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“Do you deny that it is secretive?”
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It is relatively secretive about increasing or decreasing the money supply prior to taking action so that future expectations do not influence the capital markets. However, it is considered the place where good economists go when they die. It writes many, many academic papers about what it does, why it does it and how it does it.
.

It has always controlled the money supply and makes it income as an unprotected monopoly of check clearing. At a moment’s notice any competitor could, in theory, open shop and compete with the fed. It has paid for itself all along
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“Are you even aware of the effort to shed some light on the Fed’s operations when it comes to trillions of US dollars?”.
.
It has had it’s critics since 1913 when it was first formed, so, there have been people with irrational concerns about why it makes it’s decisions, but, it is subject to auditing and payroll and the like are public information. All currency goes through the Fed, so, which trillions you mean is the only question I have.
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“..are you just perfectly OK with the fact that a tiny coterie of private individuals have free reign over the nation’s currency in total secrecy?”
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First, not in total secrecy as it is not and that it subject to congressional review, I am perfectly okay with a system which has stabilized our currency.
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Every country with it’s own currency has some counterpart to the Fed for it’s own currency. It is far from an exotic idea today.

Perfect competition??

Who is talking about “perfection” here? You do not need PERFECT competition for a free market to operate. And you do not need a completely free market either. I’m not even arguing against all regulation or all taxation. My argument is that the free market does regulate itself and the closer we can move toward that ideal the more prosperity we can achieve for all.

That is what the “experiment” of the USA has proven. To say that free markets didn’t exist at the time of the founding fathers is ludicrous. Free markets have existed for as long as human beings have been trading with one another.

So I really don’t understand where you are coming from here. You say that all regulation has been a response to failures in the free market. There is SUPPOSED TO BE failure in the free market. That is the negative feedback that makes the system function. When a business goes bankrupt it is because it is unsustainable. When a business profits that is a positive feedback mechanism.

When it comes to government there is no such mechanism until the entire system collapses. The government simply creates more regulation, more bureaucracy or spends more money when it is faced with failure.

It is capitalism and the remnants of a free market that are the only thing holding the USA together right now despite the best efforts of a big spending gargantuan government to bring it down.

The government creates no wealth. It only robs an economy of wealth.

Ha Ha Ha !
Of course remind voters that Medicare and Medicaid are government programs, and are evolving into ObamaCare, and are in the process of bankrupting the federal and every state government, that it is the biggest entitlement program, bizarrely set up to far spend more per person than 80% of the population has earned, let alone paid in taxes, their WHOLE LIFE !!!!! That it can only be funded by squeezing every cent from anyone who actually earns money and rationing care very strictly. Thus the average rich person (read: earns and saves) will be taxed to the wazoo to give to nonearners, and in return will get CRAPPY health care that they hate. Without those “benefits” they could easily pay for reasonable health insurance which would pay for excellent health care.
As for Social Security, it is a Ponzi worthy of Madoff on Super Steroids. At least Madoff couldn’t force people to pay into the scam, he had to trick them. The gov’t will be going bankrupt with this one, no doubt.
Hopefully these evident truths are getting out to the people. The Dems have some serious assets on their side. #1 Denial. Typical Americans have been told for 40 years that America is the strongest and best country in the world, and they can’t believe that things are this bad, but they are. #2 Lots of smart people have been trained in the liberal way in the best universities in America, and they can spin the nonsense real well #3 Hollywood is on their side #4 40-50% of the population is wedded to handouts to the gov’t, maybe more. They want, they need the goody machine, they won’t come close to accepting reality, like the residents of New Orleans before the wind ‘picked up’.
So please Republicans, reveal the truth. Some elections may be rough some debates tough, but time is on your side. Hopefully the train can be derailed before that wall comes.

Did anybody notice Rand’s brother Ru at that shindig at the country club Tuesday night?

“Doubt the gold standard could ever work, but the lack of Fed Reserve oversight should be scary, especially for the Nanny-Staters.”
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The Gold Standard existed until 1972. It failed.
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The Fed is under constant watch. It is not, itself, anything to be overly concerned about so long as the Chairman is competent.
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Greenspan made some serious errors both in the 1990s and in the mid 2000s by not decreasing the money supply to prevent a speculative bubble twice.
.
Sht happens

We’re off to the drag races and I don’t mean NASCAR!

patricksartor,

You are certifiably insane my friend. I can’t tell if you are simply fatally gullible or a sociopathic liar.

How has the Fed stabilized the currency? Have you heard of inflation? The value of the dollar has been destroyed since 1913!

There’s no point having a discussion with someone as delusional and dishonest as yourself.

Don’t forget the “there are weapons of mass destruction there/slam dunk” thing, which I’m sure has you quite angry as well……

…..Hey, these are the right color….

http://cdn.picapp.com/ftp/Images/3/f/5/0/NASCAR_Banking_500_ef6a.jpg

Thank you Mr Sartor,

“Greenspan made some serious errors both in the 1990s and in the mid 2000s by not decreasing the money supply to prevent a speculative bubble twice.
.
Sht happens”

THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT!

When you have central planning like the FED you have a single point of failure. One individual can massively screw up and ruin the lives of many. Capitalism or a near free market is not centralized. It is meant to be decentralized and stabilized by the positive feedback mechanism of profit and the negative feedback mechanism of loss or bankruptcy.

You just shrug off the destruction wrought by the speculative bubbles created by the Feds low interest rate policies which added more fuel to the housing bubble fire.

But then you blame the free market??

I think you just proved my point. Thank you.

“That is what the “experiment” of the USA has proven. To say that free markets didn’t exist at the time of the founding fathers is ludicrous.”
.
The concept didn’t exist until the study of economics. Price regulations existed even during the Oil Crisis of 1980 resulting in long lines for price controlled gasoline rather than huge price increases.
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Adam Smith, who’s former title was Moral Philosopher in Glasgow Scotland in 1776 when he wrote “Wealth of Nations”.
.
Fully self regulating markets are only a thought experiment.
.
They have never existed in real life.
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“Free markets have existed for as long as human beings have been trading with one another.”
.
Prior to Adam Smith, there was Mercantilism. It involved the government regulating aspects of trade including prices and wages.
.
You do not seem to be aware of the history of economics nor modern economics.

There is a major difference between making a decision (and I’m going out on a limb here guessing that the poster meant “opinion” rather than decision, since it’s all opinion here) and making an informed decision (having an informed opinion). Any idiot can make an opinion.
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As most of the posts here indicate, the world is full of idiots.
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Almost none of them are informed and it’s even less likely that any of them are well considered.
.
Most, I’ve noticed, are “shoot from the hip diatribes” which manage to hit the poster’s foot AND mouth in the same shot. (It’s a visual. Think about how that could happen.)
.
The world would be a lot better off if people actually engaged their brains before putting their “mouths” in gear.

One thing Rand Paul might bring to the table is a dialogue about what in the world we’re ever going to do about our insane national debt.

This is a problem that’s been caused by both he left and the right and you never, I mean NEVER hear anyone talking about how we’re going to pay this thing off.

If we don’t do something about it soon, it’s going to be too late. It may be already.

I think you all are forgetting that Rand Paul isn’t saying anything that Ron Paul hasn’t said, and Ron Paul has been elected to Congress many times.

So don’t be too sure that it’s impossible.
Besides as much invective as you may heap on a person that doesn’t think the Government should force people to stop outwardly being racist… don’t forget you heap invective on everything, so nobody can really tell the difference.

The fact is, if the government hadn’t stepped in, racism would have been hidden as quickly as it was hidden, it wouldn’t be as subtle as it is subtle.

But times change anyway. At one time we needed a government to manage the space program. Now its Obama who is advocating that private industry can handle the task better and more efficiently.

The same is true with racism, what require government intervention years ago, can be handled now with merely shaming people. I wouldn’t go to a racist business, neither would you. It would harm business, and most people wouldn’t do it.

We don’t need the government in that business anymore, society has moved on. We have always tolerated racist hate speech, and we can tolerate their economic activity too, especially as it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans…whose afraid of the big bad racist? not me.

“But sacredh, you libs were voting for him before and will be voting for him again. It is only the 3 to 4% that voted for Bush in 2004, but voted for Obama in 2008 that matter. Don’t you see?”
.
Obama won by 8-9 million votes. Even if every one of them switched votes again (doubtful), it would only put it even. Factor in the declining Latino vote for the republicans and it’s still an uphill climb for them in 2012. There isn’t a republican candidate out there that scares me or many other liberals. It took Palin as VP to energize the republicans and they still got their asses kicked.

Well said:

“The same is true with racism, what require government intervention years ago, can be handled now with merely shaming people. I wouldn’t go to a racist business, neither would you. It would harm business, and most people wouldn’t do it.”

I hope and think you are right.

“When you have central planning like the FED you have a single point of failure. One individual can massively screw up and ruin the lives of many. Capitalism or a near free market is not centralized. It is meant to be decentralized and stabilized by the positive feedback mechanism of profit and the negative feedback mechanism of loss or bankruptcy.

You just shrug off the destruction wrought by the speculative bubbles created by the Feds low interest rate policies which added more fuel to the housing bubble fire.

But then you blame the free market?”
.
Prior to the Fed, bank failures were a weekly event.
.
Today, when relatively large errors occur, we return to where we were without the Fed.
.
“How has the Fed stabilized the currency? Have you heard of inflation? The value of the dollar has been destroyed since 1913!”
.
First, economic growth in the 20th century, mostly after 1913, has dwarfed economic growth for the entire thousand years prior to the 20th century. So, I wouldn’t be complaining about a downturn every ten years compared to growing your own food and having a lifespan of about 30 years old.
.
Second, except for stagflation, there has always been a solution to inflation. Markets have been proven not to function without at least 1% to 3% annual inflation.
.
So, unless you want farm without electricity, transportation or medicine and find out nation’s progress since 1913 a bad thing, then don’t even try to say that pre-1913 is a good time.
.
It was extremely awful.
.
Your great-grandfather or whoever you had living back in would kill to live in this day and age.

“Fully self regulating markets are only a thought experiment.
.
They have never existed in real life.”

Let me keep this simple for you. Long before Adam Smith human beings farmed the land, hunted for meat and fur for clothing. They TRADED these goods with one another. This was an example of free market capitalism. It may not have been “perfect competition” but it was trade and private property ownership. It didn’t take economics to “create” it. The study of economics merely “labeled” it.

Do you see the distinction. It’s quite profound isn’t it.

When we say “free markets” we are not talking about the textbook definition which is merely an ideal we are talking about real world markets that approach the ideal of “free markets”.

Capitalism does self regulate itself. That doesn’t mean it’s always perfect but you will never achieve the ideal of perfect information or perfect competititon AND YOU DON’T NEED TO. We accept less than perfection every day in our lives.

The important point is that it is better than any other system that we’ve had throughout history which is proven by the success of the USA.

joekleinisacommie,
.
Your name alone should have told me that you do not know economic definitions.
.
Communists want all goods and services to be owned by the government – no exceptions.
.
This is 0% similar to modern progressives, liberals or, like Joe, third way moderates.
.
You really need to do some research on history, economics, political science and history.

Some big tasks require the government and cannot be handled by private industry or individual action. It can be argued that was true of tackling racism in the south 46 years ago.

But times change. Tackling racism today is not the task it was 46 years ago.

Look at some big tasks like “going to the Moon”, now its Obama who states that such a large task as space travel, can be handled more efficiently and better by private industry – Obama is really libertarian on the space program.

Race speech has always been tolerated. We don’t tolerate it because we condone it, we tolerate it because we believe that eliminating free speech is a slippery slope that leads to totalitarianism, and there is no good way to regulate speech.

The fact that racism is not the issue it once was, means at some point we will have to consider that the economic activity of racists – while we don’t condone it at all either, can be tolerated, simply because 1) 99 percent of the country doesn’t tolerate racism any more and so as Rand has suggested, in this day and age, society will work to fix this problem on its own…and 2) the cost of regulation, the inherent attack on private property rights …is a slippery slope to authoritarianism as well.

I don’t think Rand’s view will be considered controversial as time passes.

discounting Acorn voter fraud for the moment

Ooops……there goes any last remaining shred of credibility you might have had.

“The important point is that it is better than any other system that we’ve had throughout history which is proven by the success of the USA.”
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In terms of Economics, if our economic system were a car, Marxists would be smashing it to pieces to try and build a spaceship. Modern progressives would be like somebody changing the oil.
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Modern conservatives and libertarians would be like the customer who does not understand cars screaming bloody murder and saying that automatic transmission is a part of a secret plot to try and make the car into a spaceship.

Sartor,
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don’t just regurgitate paragraphs from your Keynesian economics textbooks. I’m already familiar with these arguments.

First of all, correlation is not causation. There was plenty of economic growth in the US before the Fed existed. There was this thing called the industrial revolution.

There was also no inflation at the time and it didn’t hinder growth. I’d really love to know how inflation grows an economy. If that were true then just print that money baby!! Bring it on!!

“Your great-grandfather or whoever you had living back in would kill to live in this day and age.”

?? Of course he would but that has nothing to do with the argument at hand.

Look, it’s quite clear that you are a well educated idiot. You’ve learned your Keynesian economics well and that’s great. You seem perfectly OK with it. It doesn’t present you with any logical inconsistencies. Good for you. There’s not really any common ground we share here and I’ve presented my arguments that you’re yet to refute successfully and I really must go.

“In terms of Economics, if our economic system were a car, Marxists would be smashing it to pieces to try and build a spaceship. Modern progressives would be like somebody changing the oil.”
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Correction: The modern progressives would be pouring Obama brand Kool-Aid into the gas tank.

“What cost $100 in 1800 would cost $58.10 in 1913.

Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 1913 and 1800,
they would cost you $100 and $176.24 respectively”
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http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
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Economic growth under the era of the Federal Reserve has been unimaginably good.
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http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/avg-income-2006.jpg
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http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2008/05/04/average-income-in-the-united-states-1913-2006/
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With growth like that, I don’t mind the inflation.

“Correction: The modern progressives would be pouring Obama brand Kool-Aid into the gas tank.”
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It’s interesting when I keep on hearing about poison kool aid of Jim Jones from conservatives when Jim Jones was a paranoid right wing anti-government lunatic while liberals and calm and pro-government assistance.

“With growth like that, I don’t mind the inflation.”

That economic growth had nothing to do with the Fed or the inflation!! The Great Depression occurred on the Fed’s watch too did it not??
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The economic growth would have been just as great with or without the Fed. The problem with inflation is that it distorts prices, creates bubbles (housing bubble hello??) and robs savings.
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It’s OK though. I understand. You are a victim of Keynesian economic theory. Pick up a book on Austrian economic theory one day for a little perspective.
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And I’m out…

“They tend to be more authoritarian, which puts them close to lefty libs on the political compass in my book – the government knows best crowd.”
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As an atheist liberal, it seems so transparent to me that both the religious right and libertarians both want corporations to rule out lives without the power of majority rule, but, the religious right, also, wants us to pray with them.
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To me both libertarians and the religious right are authoritarian.

“I think you all are forgetting that Rand Paul isn’t saying anything that Ron Paul hasn’t said, and Ron Paul has been elected to Congress many times.”
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And been an outsider without much influence.

Wow… Corporate American is going to love having their way with you twits.
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“But sir, I live in Love Canal and I have toxic waste coming out of my tap”.
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Pay for a private, long term health study and prove it.
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“But sir, my brakes failed and I’m crippled”.
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Prove we knew that was going to happen with our cheap design. Our lawyers will keep it quiet. I know, pay for a private investigation.
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“But sir, my 11 year old daughter works 18 hours a day chained to a machine”.
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Who cares? There’s no law against that. We can’t make a profit if we pay anyone a living wage and now that there is no laws governing anything to do with the workplace. Your daughter and you have no choice but to live like the Chinese. Those folks no how to get bang for the buck.
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“But sir, the airliner I’m flying in is crashing to the ground in flames.”
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Prove it was our fault. The government doesn’t investigate that sh!t anymore. So we used bad parts to cut costs. We’ll never admit to it. It was a bird strike. That’s what our lawyers will say it was.
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Libertarians… patsies for the corporate lawyers. You won’t know which end to open first.

Hang in there, Mr. Klein.

While your post might have been cathartic, it doesn’t change reality nor observe any swing away from conservatives. See the PA-12 special election in which the very conservative Democrat prevailed. If Democrats stem the bleeding, it will only be by electing more such conservatives. In any event, November is going to be hard on you. I sense more fear than delusion in your post and I wish you good mental health.

OK, does anyone actually think Rand Paul wants to gut the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Seriously, that’s a non-starter. This is the issue with libertarians, though (I consider myself moderately libertarian, and for the purposes of a thought experiment, I would definitely defend the abolition of the Civil Rights Act on private property grounds, but never in reality) is that libertarians just say “government is bad!” and don’t try to find libertarian-compatible solutions to problems. I am an economist, and I do honestly believe that a more libertarian-oriented society would be better (or at least less bad) for more people than the sort of social/welfare state we live in today.

I’m not a utopian libertarian, thinking that all of our problems would go away if we just had no government or at least a very small one, which is I guess what makes me truly a conservative. In fact, I think we would still have a great many problems if we had small government, and many more if we had no government. But right now, we have too much government, and we’re paying a price, both in terms of American competitiveness and in terms of our personal freedoms.

We also must realize that Jim Crow laws were just that – laws. They forced people to be segregated in “places of public accommodation,” which, to reference my thought experiment, is also an abridgment of private property rights, just like laws mandating that private establishments not discriminate based on race. Honestly, I think the Civil Rights Act may have gone a tad too far, but when you do a mile of good, an inch too far is acceptable (don’t tell that to some of my libertarian brethren, though; they consider those fighting words).

This whole discussion is ridiculous, though. One of the problems with our democracy today is (and Joe Klein is either stupid or has a bad memory, because this was one of the themes in Primary Colors) that the political class doesn’t talk about issues that actually affect the public, they talk about distractions (although, to be fair, Klein may have meant it’s only bad when Democrats and those on the Left are hurt because of distractions).

I don’t think this will really hurt Paul too much – no one watches Maddow, and those that do would vote for Satan over Rand Paul. Sure, it’ll be brought up in newspapers or TV ads, but Paul won the primary by answering sleazy TV ads with more thoughtful ones. All Paul must ask is, “Where is the line we draw regarding government involvement in our lives? Is it our doorstep? Our refrigerator? Our bedroom? Our pay stub?”, then add “I oppose racism of all forms, and I would have voted to support the Civil Rights Act of 1964″ and round it off with an implication that his opponent supports omnipresent government regulation of everything. In the mean time, he should brush up on interviewing skills and answering a direct question directly – he’s reminding me a lot of his father here.

“I am an economist.”
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Was your PhD in Neo-Classical or Monetarist theory ?

Paul’s comments elicit so many emotions in me.

Deep sadness because to be denied anything merely for the color of my skin is very hurtful.

Anger because many Americans think the Tea Party has no racial agenda even though they did not exist when the Democrat in the Whitehouse was white.

Lastly, joy because Paul’s remarks have made it very difficult for the Tea Party to deny race is not an issue and the Republican party has lost even more credibility in the Black community.

It is one thing not to have a platform we can consider includes us, what is important us and our needs and quite another to have a member blatantly support racism.

I am an American and as such should be afforded all the rights and privileges of any other American and should not have to know an elected official whose job it is to represent all who inhabit his district would support racism

I am not afraid of the big bad racist either and I have more to lose because I am Black.

You probably don’t have a clue what is like to live in a world where the color of your skin can have so many negative implications even though you are a productive member of society and to be afraid that one day you might run into someone who will physically attack me just because of my race.

If you condone racism in any form, it will empower those who wish to do me harm and encourage others to join them. Not having consequences for racist acts can only promote them and the dangers they bring.

…what require government intervention years ago, can be handled now with merely shaming people.

That’s assuming that a person who is acting unjustly is capable of feeling shame and that said person wouldn’t just re-open his business under a new name, in a new location, and start all over again.

Even if ‘shaming’ someone into correct behavior actually worked, you would still have incidence of discrimination or deaths from food poisoning or whatever occurring until this ‘shaming’ effect manages to kick in.

Chaseetracks,
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Good Post. Your comments shows some common sense that we don’t often see here on Swampland.

realcocoa, I think one of the biggest problems we have here in the US is that too many people regard racism, bigotry and sexism as merely intellectual exercises rather than as actual problems that has victims. I’m a big blue-eyed white guy. What do I know about being discriminated against? It’s not a part of my history. I used to be a long-haired hippy. That and being an atheist is the lump sum of my experience with discrimination. A haircut and keeping my mouth shut would have ended those minor problems.
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Being black, hispanic or a woman is beyond the scope of my understanding. Until we as a people reject racism, bigotry and sexism, we are going to need laws that protect members of the population that face discrimination. We’ve made enormous strides in that direction, but I think I’ll be long dead before we wonder why those laws were even on the books in the first place.

For you very thick headed Liberals, the point is that of the number of people who feel they have enough information on Obama or Beck to offer an opinion, Beck has a higher favorable rating then Obama.
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Check the numbers. Of the people surveyed who had enough information to express an opinion 56% had a positive opinion of Beck compared to 50.5% for Obama.
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For those of you who never took a statistic course in college, simply remove the no opinion numbers and look at the remaining number compared to the favorable rating numbers. This gives you 56% for Beck and 50.5% for Obama.

Carpevis,
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If you really think you are a moderate, you are doing a fantastic job of deceiving yourself.
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Your views are either extreme Left or show a near total lack of knowledge of either of our two major political parties.
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The vast majority of Republicans are not ideologues and neither are the vast majority of Democrats.
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The vast majority of both parties only want what is best for our citizens and our country. Their views on how to achieve these goals may be different but both are patriotic Americans trying to do what is best for all our citizens.
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There are extremist on both sides. They are a small group that makes a lot of noise.
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It appears you have allowed yourself to become part of the extreme groups. Either you are young and idealistic and don’t have the breath of experience to understand the real world or you are simply one of the ideologues that can not open there minds to the truth about the world we live in.
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In a Democracy citizens of all parties must be willing to work together for the betterment of our citizens and our country.
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Always remember that there are two sides to every story and truth is almost always somewhere in between. If someone tells you this statement is not true you will know positively that there is an extremist ideologue. Don’t listen to what they say. They will only lead you astray.

Patrick,
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“An odd mistake I made referring to a whiteboard in a class room”. Then you say something about the KKK.
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Have you not been in a class room lately? They have changes to whiteboards and use colored markers in place of chalk.
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Patrick I try to be tolerant of most of your comments, but this is way across the line.
Your comment is that of a person who is an ideologue of the worse kind.
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As the grandfather of 3 bi-racial grandchildren and 2 Hispanic grandchildren and a black son-in-law, I find your comment disgusting.
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It is amazing that the Rand Paul comments have been available for some time. However, the national media covering the elections did not bother to research Paul’s history. They were do busy pundentizing.
It took NPR and Rachel Maddow to do some research and ask the right questions. What was instructive about Maddow’s interview, and I hope people like David Gregory were watching, was she was calm, she had her research in hand, she didn’t accept a non-statement but kept asking, in a non-hostile way for clarification. She was able to dispute Paul because she was prepared. Disagreeing with his point of view but still respecting him.
Today, Paul was interviewed by CNN. He was asked if he also was against the Americans for Disability Act. He stated that there was an issue he had. If a office bldg. owner wanted to rent to a disabled person, the office the person wanted was on the 2nd floor, the business would have to put in an elevator. The law states that the renter can offer a 1st floor office as an alternative. Blitzer did not correct Paul and will not follow up with a correction. Because, he doesn’t know the facts.
Now Paul is whining that somehow it was Maddow’s fault that he screwed up. This is the show he chose to announce he was a Senate candidate.

My impression of Rand Paul’s interview with Rachel Maddow was that the limits of his philosophy were being demonstrated … but something akin to invincible ignorance was preventing him from grasping that fact. As it happens, I was just reading some history on the anarchist movement (by Tuchman) a few weeks ago and I was struck with the similarities between the anarchist movement and with philosophic libertarianism. Both libertarianism and anarchism are utopic … ignoring the facts of history and of human nature. The “innocence” of such systems in application seem to quickly assume a _Lord of the Flies_ aspect. IMHO, an anarchist is a terrorist with delusions of grandeur whilest a libertarian is a sophomore.

Sacredh,
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Glad to hear you say Christmas trees. To many Liberals prefer the term Holiday trees.
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You’re OK in my book. An early Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Reallibertarian and Joekleinisacom,
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Thanks for your excellent posts. I am a retired moderate conservative veteran that posts here on a regular bases. Patrick is a piece of work. He is smart but totally irrational.
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I enjoyed your posts and your comments showed a lot more common sense and truth then I’m used to seeing on this site. JK’s political views are a little strange to say the least..
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Again thanks for your posts.

“One thing Rand Paul might bring to the table is a dialogue about what in the world we’re ever going to do about our insane national debt.
This is a problem that’s been caused by both he left and the right…”

If you mean 90% caused by the right and 10% by the left, I can agree. But to quote Dick Cheney, “Reagan proved it, deficits don’t matter.”

So you’ve got that going for ya!

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/05/20/more-on-rand-paul/comment-page-2/?replytocom=166311#respond#ixzz0oXEqQz6M

The Skeptical Cynic says:

“…the utopian (sic) foolishness of their ideology….”

Dystopian stupidity so beyond contemptible as to constitute treasonous criminality would be a more apt characterization.

With every right there is accompanied a concomitant responsibility. These nutcakes have the right remain wilfully and purposefully uninformed, misinformed and disinformed. However, they have the responsibility to not expose those who take an interest in improving the lot of all Americans instead of the being part of a vast majority of wage slaves of the oligarchy.

This is difficult as it is but having to deal with carrying the water for the loudmouth nincompoops is too much to bear. They’re like harbor tug boats, making their loudest noise when in the deepest fog.

This group of oviboviporcine should just STFU and enjoy the free ride. Get in the way in they’re going to end up like a slow footed armadillo on I-35 in that new nation. It is east of New Mexico,south of Oklahoma and west of Arkansas and Louisiana. Formally known as the sate of Texas, it is now the country of Retardia.

Great job of once again missing the point, Joe,

“The chance that the majority Democrats will pass a budget this year is “fading,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Tuesday.

He is pessimistic because House Democrats don’t know whether they want to pass a resolution that would officially acknowledge the certainty of big deficits. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and other Democrats have indicated that would be a tough vote in an election year.”

USA sovereign debt is the point.

Paul’s words have been twisted. He clearly stated he is against racism and abhors racial segregation. He was lamenting the consistant watering down of the basic tenets of the US Constitution. It takes a bit of reading the source directly and contextualizing what he actually said, as opposed to merely accepting the edited shorthand of his comments the media feeds to us. Another recent example is the Arizona immigration law. I have read it, and it does not condone profiling, the law specifically prohibits it. Are we not individually persistant enough to go to the actual sources, instead of blindly accepting the media shorthand?. I think you are, realcocoa…

i think thats part of Klein’s main point here. an i agree with you both. i hope he gets all kinds of palin style coverage – the kind that reaches the politically uninvolved and forever puts liberatarianism and anything related on their mental no-fly lists. i think many of those people end up voting (if they vote) based on gut reactions to candidates’ defining buzzwords.

You’re right, Centfan. Thank God for the attorneys and their influence in this country the last 50 years! I’d hate to think where we’d be without the literally hundreds of thousands of civil lawsuits “protecting” the wronged, and the 50% commission attorneys made representing the “victims”.

WOW. never thought this day would come. point for 3x! a totally irrelevant issue but a win nonetheless. patrick if the whiteboard comment was a joke im sorry, but it really didn’t seem like one.

Jeez Rover, look at the deficit charts. True, Bush was responsible for huge deficeits, but we are looking at geometric expansions since the dems have been in office. Enough pointing back, look at what the new administration has done in a very short time…

The Libertarian candidates are learning Obama’s wisdom in avoiding public interviews that might have exposed his Utopian foolishness.

If Time and the Democrats & Republicans can learn anything from watching the cards played, they will see that US Citizens (what you meant by ‘Americans’) already understand that Medicare and Medicaid are government programs, that they are a big part of the problem with our Health Care systems, and that their expansion is not corrective.

Glenn Beck is a bird with a few clear songs. They have been heard. They were catchy and clear, and like popular songs sliding off the charts, they might be gone but they are not forgotten.

Eric, you are so much smarter than me! I suppose all us knuckle dragging, illiterate, racist, war mongering conservative know nothings should just bow down to your typical superior liberal intellect? No thanks. I have many friends with whom I disagree, but we have discussions where mutual respect is a groundrule and generalizations are not allowed. Shame on you.

assuming you’re not making some lame joke, i seriously recommend that you wait at least two years worth of following politics before you get to thinking anything you might have is worth sharing here beyond questions.
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actually thats not a recommendation. im BEGGING you please

everyone is missing the best thing about this post: we have a real live articulate true believing libertarian on the boards!!! (maybe i just missed him earlier though) he/she seems to be interested in clearly explaining his ideology. a libertarian that is very much worth arguing with. unfortunately its 2:33am. im going to bed happy though

@real cocoa. I’m also black, so guess again.

There is a real consequence to being a racist…it makes one a jerk and a social outcast. Private clubs can and sometimes do exclude people on race…that has never been outlawed…but guess what, this is 2010…such clubs are rare and they are pariahs in our society…look around the world has changed. Govern,net resources are not unlimited, the focus should be on today’s problems and today’s challenges.

@cent fan

I would reply to your post in more detail, but it frankly didn’t make any sense. I guess it meant something to you.

Patrick:
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You are totally wrong about libertarians on this one, but you may use the “fringe” term if you like, seeing as most people polled can’t tell you what a libertarian is.
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On 1, you’re correct.
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On 2 you’re totally off base. Libertarians support private business but we do not under any circumstances say they will promote the public good when it is not profitable to them. We believe that private businesses should be allowed to “make it or break it” on their own. There are places where government regulation is needed, but most places that liberals see the need the business would die fairly quickly if they did what liberals don’t like if they were left to the free market. How many people would actually eat at an openly segregationist deli in NYC, Chicago, LA or most other major cities? Most white people e, myself included, would find that disgusting and hence they would get no minority business and very little white business. I’m sure that there some podunk town in the South that would love it and support it, but as a PRIVATE business they should have the right to determine their clientele. Just as a gay softball team doesn’t allow straights or the Boy Scouts doesn’t allow gays, or the Girl Scouts doesn’t allow boys. All of those are discriminatory practices, but people rarely complain that the Girl/Boy Scouts are gender discriminators. The vast majority of people in the United States would not patronize a racist bar/grill/deli/other business.
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On 3, you’re clearly correct.
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On 4, again you are wrong. We do NOT believe the state should “wither away” it performs vital functions that no other entity can provide. Social and Economic Justice just aren’t ones we agree with. The country will always have aggressors (foreign powers), thieves, murderers, rapists, child molesters and other miscreants that should be kept away from society at large. There will always be infrastructure to keep up. There will always be rights to be protected. There will always be borders to be policed. There will always be a myriad of other things libertarians believe are the purview of the state. If you really want an honest and intellectual discussion on the topic give me your email address or something and I will happily explain it. We are much more open to many liberal ideas that you might think. I for one will not post my email on here for the deluge of hate mail I would receive. Get to know a real libertarian before you paint us with such a broad brush.

“Reply to this comment” works so well on here.

One thing that often gets forgotten in the current debt debate was that the nonpartisan CBO projected the 2009 deficit to be 1 trillion dollars, before Obama entered office. It rose to about 1.4, partly because of the ongoing recession, as well as the stimulus package, that had significant tax cuts in it to try and get Republican support. The TeaParty folks often talk as if Obama entered office with a balanced budget and suddenly started spending money like a drunken sailor!

First of all, I honestly believe that Rand is not overtly racist, but what has been pointed out repeatedly in the media, is that this is not the point. The point is that discrimination is an ongoing issue, with the provisions of the 64 law regularly used to protect minorities from maltreatment. Personally, I have a lot of sympathy for the issue of protecting business owners from moral management by the government, but taking this to the extreme of allowing outright discrimination seems unjustified. In the battle of competing rights/interests, it seems reasonable to side with government enforcement on this one. If the civil war taught us anything (and hopefully it teaches us a lot of things), it is that sometimes you need to have the government step in forcefully to right moral wrongs even if they have popular support. In fact, the American Revolution is another example of the same principle. The new government of the colonies did not enjoy wide-spread popular support until the middle of the war. Sometimes individual rights need to be sacrificed for the greater good – but conservatives already believe that, just in regard to their own causes such as abortion, drug control, crime/punishment, terrorism, and gay rights.

I go on the Tea Party sites all the time to see what they’re talking about, and most of the conversation is strongly libertarian. Paul and other TP-supported GOP candidates will have trouble clearly stating what federal programs they would abolish. The Department of Education? OK, you may get away with saying that. But Social Security and Medicare? Farm subsidies? Title II of the Civil Rights Act? If they didn’t know it already, Democrats now have their fall strategy against TP/GOP candidates- ask very specific questions about what government programs their opponents would abolish, and watch what happens when the electorate begins to understand what libertarians really stand for.

Joe Klein….liberal ass clown. The best he can do is take a shot at Beck who has nearly twice as many viewers as Wolf and Tingly leg Chrissie COMBINED. And Joe you can count on the fact that Americans will know these few things in November. Fannie and Freddie, bankrupt. Medicare and Medicaid on the verge of bankruptcy. Unemployment still at or above 9%. Federal deficit projected at $13 trillion and growing. Stock market down bigtime on concerns about Europe. Health insurance premiums rise, not fall, because of Dumbama care. Iran has a nuke…and on and on. Republicans will take back the House…..goodbye botox witch, hello Speaker Boehner and pick-up 5+ Senate seats. Essentially the real beginning of the end for Jimmy {Carter} Dumbama and his ultra leftwing agenda.

“The economic growth would have been just as great with or without the Fed. The problem with inflation is that it distorts prices, creates bubbles (housing bubble hello??) and robs savings.”
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Just look at countries without monetary policy like Haiti, Nigeria… all of those very wealthy places.
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Places with no government to speak of at all are all third world countries.
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If we never used government to stabilize the economy, we would be one of those third world countries.
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Find just one – just one – success story for a country which hasn’t used government for monetary policy or fiscal policy to influence the economy with even twenty percent of the US GDP.
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Here’s a hint: there are none.
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Libertarianism was the first failure. We left it little by little as different aspects of it failed.
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Thomas Jefferson was like a Libertarian, was born into money and died as a debtor. His rival, Alexander Hamilton was a self made man who died with a huge amount of money after arriving in what were then the American colonies with nothing.

“He is smart but totally irrational.”
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Of the right wing that is the closest thing I have gotten to a compliment.
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3X,
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I notice that you always say that you are here to learn about other points of view, but, in reality, you end up just cheering on people who agree with you.
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With some effort, you have, sometimes, refrained from insulting people who disagree with you, but, you have not seemed to gain any new awareness. It is as if you believe you are a preacher seeking to convert the heathens.
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(My lifestyle is much more like that of a mid 20th Century Irish Catholic than any type of heathen, but, it seems as though you find anything to the left of Ronald Reagan immoral.)

I would like to point out that federal loan guarantees were started by Nixon, for Lockheed.

So bailouts that conservatives decry, were started by a Republican. Google it.

Interesting fact, anarchists, hard to place on the left or right continuum, were considered to the left and did have an actual militia during the Spanish Civil War.
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The particular subtype were Syndicalist Anarchists. They did have control of several Spanish villages and this was documented in George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.
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One thing most people on the right often forget that the most famous anti-totalitarian fiction writer, George Orwell, was a Social Democrat. Although Conservative Democracy was far, far better, in his opinion, than anything totalitarian, he was a believer in relatively (relative to the conservative view) bigger government, so long as it was elected by and serving the will of the people.

It amazes me that if Rand Paul brings this up as an interesting “philosophical” question in answering a qeustion he gets railroaded.
If you LISTEN, which many of us just cannot do he is talking about private property rights and government.
No one thinks that the civil rights act is not important or needed. What is not needed is government controlling businesses(which is private property). If some idiot wants to act like a biggot then let the private sector drive him out of business,not government.
What should be news is all these people crying racism at every turn. Or the other one discrimination, but hey if it can land you a billion dollar lawsuit who cares?
By the way Rand never talked about repealing anything with the civil rights act, but we at least should be able to have a conversation in this country with how it is working or how it has affect this country.

I spend way too much time on this, that is why – nothing personal – why I am not going share my email address right now.
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#2, If companies act exclusively in their own interest, the public good never gets served. One would make larger profits serving borderline stale or expired food than by serving fresher food among other things. If a customer does not actually get sick at the restaurant or, if it is from a grocery store do not attribute it to the quality of the food but their own preparation, the businesses will not, likely, suffer. The same is true for safety regulations both of products and the workplace. Sure, some of these things may be slightly over-the-top, but even with these regulations tens of thousands of people are disabled due to workplace accidents and/or faulty products. Without these regulations, things would be worse as they once were far, far worse.
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Also, in the financial services industry, one makes the most if most people are in the dark about what they are investing in. This is what happened with unregulated derivatives.
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Point 4, what is likely meant by the concept of the state “withered away” (completely poorly defined in the Communist Manifesto – I read it as a teenager knowing that I was very anti-communist as I would read about Fundamentalist Extremist Muslims who want to kill us, I wanted to know who Communists were and what they wanted) is most likely a libertarian state with extremely limited government.
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As for segregation, let me tell you about Boston.
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I went from a college student to cab driver seeking tuition money very rapidly due to my father having money problems and blue collar and white collar Boston are like day and night.
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Liberal Boston are in the Universities and corporate world (with recent college grads).
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I picked up a woman from the courthouse downtown.
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I asked where she was going.
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“South Boston, where it’s ALL WHITE thank God.”.

I didn’t know what to say.
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“So, what do you do at the courthouse” I asked.
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“I’m a magistrate.”
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Also, I must have been told at least a couple of hundred times in five years of Boston cab driving “Thank God we have a WHITE cab driver.”
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I am not sure why low levels of melanin help with driving, but, needing every dollar I could get and legally forbidden from throwing people out, I shut up and drove.
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If you has a “Whites Only” bar in some parts of Boston, you’d be making money hand over fist.

Rand Paul may know 1840s Boston, but, I can tell you about 1990s and early twenty first century Boston.
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You don’t want to be black in Boston.
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He should go see Dorchester.Which Dorchester, white Dorchester or black Dorchester. The neighborhood has two subsections. Half is 98% white, there are a few blocks in the middle and the other is 98% black.
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Rand Paul’s theory, ironically based upon 1840s Boston goes down the toilet in 21st century Boston.
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I knew people about a dozen years older than I am who told me about the early 1970s when there was busing. White mothers would pack their children’s lunch bag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a carton of milk and a knife to “stab one of the n…”.
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In the 1990s the South Boston Housing projects were getting desegregated.
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It was so bad that they had to create a special division of the Boston PD to handle racial incidents of white housing project dwellers attacking black housing project dwellers.
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The suburban born or the people who grew up out of town without racism (in suburbia most likely without any or very few minorities but a positive view of minorities from history class) are the liberals in the business community.

“Fannie and Freddie, bankrupt”
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An exaggeration to say the least and it’s problems are due to times before Obama and were in even worse shape when he took office.
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“Unemployment still at or above 9%.”
About the same as when Obama took office due to the mistakes of the previous administration and go downward slowly.
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” Federal deficit projected at $13 trillion and growing.”
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Due mostly to the previous administration.
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People this November will remember last November and, more importantly, the last few Novembers when electing right wingers drove our country into the ground.

This is horrible news. We have two main line parties that are completely irresponsible and pander solely to narrow tribal interests. And now it is becoming apparent that the Tea people are just as crazy and irresponsible as the Dems and GOP. Guess I’ll continue not to vote until someone, please, present an acceptable and at least marginally responsible platform.

“The suburban born or the people who grew up out of town without racism (in suburbia most likely without any or very few minorities but a positive view of minorities from history class)”
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Correction:
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The suburban born people and people born in far away towns WITHOUT any overt racism (in suburbia most likely without any or very few minorities but a positive view of minorities from high school history class) are the ones who make up Boston’s liberal business community.
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These people, the college students and the college professors and staff are Liberal Boston.
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Also, in year number ten or twenty of legalized discrimination, I am sure that almost any white person would give up from time to time to join a friend at a White’s only restaurant or bar. Protesting after year number ten or twenty does get exhausting.
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In Boston, among other places, legalized racism could be a ticket to big money for some whites.

What is not needed is government controlling businesses..
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There’s a big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that says you are wrong.

Wakeup,
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There are two scenarios:
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1) We have a libertarian government and you and your highly, highly dedicated friends all get together and stand on the sidewalk in front of every business which refuses to hire qualified minorities or fails to serve minorities. After weeks, months or years of your efforts, the business closes.
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2) Under the current system where refusal to serve is obvious but refusal to hire is less so (it is very hard to win an employment discrimination case unless the plaintiff was head and shoulders above the rest in work quality – and, even then, it is a hard to win) you, yourself, and your dedicated anti-racist friends do not have to go anywhere or do anything and the problem gets taken care of.
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The disparity in income among blacks and whites is far larger than the disparity in education. So, even with the laws we have, since racism is so hard to prove even for employment law specialists who research the case day and night for their clients, it is clear that we will have less vigilance protecting minorities under a libertarian government.
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If you really know without any doubt that, if the government stops enforcing these laws and allowing anti-discrimination lawsuits that you will spend a huge portion of your free time standing on street corners in front of racist businesses protesting, then you are both far, far more energetic than I am and far, far more dedicated than I am and, must, in order to do this, have a huge trust fund or other type of savings to give up your regular work to stand outside in the heat of summer and cold of Winter to protest these racists.
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If you, yourself, are not willing to do this and you do not know anybody who wants to be that professional protester, then the result will be that we will go back to Jim Crow slowly.
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This is one of thousands of reasons that libertarianism is a dream and not a possibility.
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For everybody from the center to the left, market mechanisms are wonderful since they work in most cases and, when they work, bring the job of government down to making mild adjustments and making use of taxes to motivate businesses. It is a free ride for societies just as the law of gravity is a free ride so that we do not have to tie ourselves to the earth. Just as gravity can be a problem when you are up high, there are circumstances when market incentives are against the best interest of society.
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For the right (including hard to define libertarians) government and people exist to serve markets.
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I do not exist to be a slave to any invisible force such as the “free market”. There have been times when Adam Smith’s so-called invisible hand has been wrapped around my throat choking me financially.

“As the grandfather of 3 bi-racial grandchildren and 2 Hispanic grandchildren and a black son-in-law, I find your comment disgusting.”
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In every classroom I have been in, there is a blackboard.
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Sometimes there is, also, a board to write with marker on, but, that is exclusively for the instructor.
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Actually, the last time I took any classes, it was at a real estate license training program (a private company not a school) and they had blackboards.
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The truth is, the end result of libertarian policies is that those four people in your life will have far less recourse in situations of discrimination.
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See what I wrote about Boston.
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New York, indeed, is a very liberal and very racially tolerant city in the business community, the academic community and among blue collar workers. Boston, relative to New York, is tiny and not anywhere near as diverse.
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This is what blue collar Boston really looks like:
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http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123050/2180573/2188133/2188647/1_soiling.jpg
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Do you wish that upon your son-in-law?
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When racism is not contained by the government before we, like the Hispanic world, have huge interracial population, this is what the future, as the past, will look like.

Don’t get your hands dirty, Prissy.

“The flaw here is to expect that people in government are somehow morally and/or ethically superior to private citizens and business owners, and that therefore, it’s ok to allow government vast control over how people choose to live, and how businesses choose to operate.”
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Cheese,
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You have this common flaw in reasoning which libertarians and conservatives share.
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We, sir (or madam – can’t tell by your name), are the government.
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No, not me more than you. All of us.
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We collectively discover a problem with how markets are functioning.
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A candidate runs with those reforms in mind.
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The candidate implements our reforms for us and with our consent.
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It is only appropriate to call “people in the government” since they are chosen by us, “the majority of the people”.
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For the most part, the wealthy are the business owners and/or managers.
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Rewriting this for democracy (small d) and reality that few own the resources or can access the resources to be business owners “… is to expect the majority of the people are morally and/or ethically superior to business owners and that, therefore, it is okay to allow the majority of the people vast control over how businesses choose to operate their businesses.”
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This is not a flaw to me.
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We, the majority of the people, including owners of other businesses (I am self employed, not really a business owner per se) determine what is best for the country, they are outside of the tunnel vision one experiences when operating a business and are speaking for themselves when they demand regulation and we, the majority are the moral and ethical superior.
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Democracy is all about having people represent your values.
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In your world, the government is a scary beast not chosen by anybody but just appeared at random.
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In the real world, we are the government (once again, including you).
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I trust the moral judgment of the majority of 150 million voters over the moral judgment of the few hundred or few thousand wrapped up in the transaction itself.
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If this were some outside dictator not chosen by the majority of the people, your flaw would be true.
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I vote.
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Hence, this is my government.
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When my vote includes regulating businesses to not sell me spoiled food among other thing and I then have imposed upon me a large number of ethical requirements in my job, I accept them. I know that they were chosen by private citizens who had observed the abuses of my business and do not want it repeated just as I do not want to be sold spoiled food, have toxic waste running down my street, etc, etc.

“Glad to hear you say Christmas trees. To many Liberals prefer the term Holiday trees.”
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This is a common conservative misconception encouraged by Bill O’Reilly.
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With Jewish in-laws, I know exactly who and why businesses say “happy holidays”.
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Prior to that it used to be “Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah.”
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This confused many Christians who would go to stores asking “what’s a Chan nook ah? Do you have any in stock?”
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It was the business community trying to make Chanukah (also spelled Hanukkah – which is how it sounds) into a gift giving day.
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It was not government or liberal driven at all.
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Every time I think of Bill O talking about a “War against Christmas” I think of somebody dressed like Santa holding an M-16.
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It is a conservative myth.
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We call them Christmas trees unless we are at work.

Joe, not only are your facts wrong on Banks, Bailouts and Tarp… your a liar.

3X,
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Please do explain to me how this will not be your bi-racial grandchildren’s future within a libertarian world:
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http://img.slate.com/media/1/123125/123050/2180573/2188133/2188647/1_soiling.jpg
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When Rand Paul described Boston as an example of anti-racism, he didn’t just put his foot in his mouth, he was up to his knee in his esophagus.
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After three years as a student there, that is the Boston I saw from 1991 (when it was a part time job driving cab) through until (working another job) when I moved back to this area in 2005.
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Without government protection that man is how your grandson will live.

robz,
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Are you capable of adding information or just at tossing random insults like “liar”.
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If I got a dollar for every right winger who just insults people but has nothing to add, I would be able to quit my job and retire.

Nice post, Paul. However, that’s not my point. A agree that, Bush left Obama a mess. However, when a car is speeding towards a cliff the first thing you do is hit the breaks. The Obama crowd jammed on the gas! lol When one inherits problems, one should fix them. Obama has made them worse, and keeps on blaming Bush. The Dems spending policies are totally out of control…

I’m not sure Rand Paul is actually condoning or advocating discrimination, but he is stating the law correctly. Private businesses CAN discriminate if they choose, and believe it or not, some still do. Constitutionally speaking, it actually is important for private businesses or individuals to be able to discriminate if they choose (as much as I hate saying that) — it means the government can’t force people to believe one thing or another. Anything that is public and/or government funded, however, is a different story.

The media has been spinning this issue against Rand Paul, and I’m not certain that it’s warranted. He is, in fact, stating the rights private businesses already have. If we asked President Obama, who is a Constitutional scholar, the same question, about whether private businesses have the right to discriminate, he would have to say “yes.”

The ACLU supports the rights of those who discriminate, as much as that often makes me personally uncomfortable. We need to remember the distinction between public versus private (though admittedly, the line gets blurred more and more). Paul stated the law correctly. He isn’t necessarily a racist for understanding and stating the rights a private business actually has. I don’t know much about him beyond the current media hype. I’d like to find out more before jumping on the bandwagon of judgment before knowing the facts.

How do you rationalize the position of the Catholic Church, a private institution that will not hire women for many positions or serve gays? Unless you’re willing to say that they don’t have the right to those beliefs, or at the very least support revoking their tax-exempt status and barring them from receiving fund through the misguided Faith-Based Initiatives program, then you have to admit that Rand Paul is right.

destor23, you might want to rephrase your concerns as having to do with whether the TARP funds will ever be paid back, not their profitability. Those that have been paid back included interest paid, a small but profitable advantage to the taxpayer. No free ride.

Of course, there’s always the small issue of what would have happened to the country if SOMEBODY hadn’t stepped in to keep the financial system from utter contraction into a black hole. Nobody ever seems to talk about that anymore. But, that’s OK; it’s easier to gripe anyway.

gee, textee, wanna give us historical numbers for perspective?!?! Your comment has no more merit than your complaint…c’mon!

hello all – only 1 hand (temp) due to stupid injury, but I just have to weigh in here…

First, libs/lefties/statists like Klein and his apologists here have no problem with lying to support their ideologies and never have.

I was raised as a lib dem, i have all lib dem friends, and I know the drill. It hasn’t changed in 40 years at least, since I was a little kid and was told that Nixon would make us go to school on Saturdays.

by saying that i by no means absolve the mainstream conservatives, because their crimes are far more insidious and harmful, but that’s for anoth post.

Now to facts:

someone said that the concept of “free markets” didnt arise till after the Constitution.

No.

adam smith’s wealth of nations was published in 1776 and is still the definitive work on free market econ. The Founders knew all about it, and, obviously free market principles didn’t just spring into life on that date either, but have been working all along.

Finally, we must get to the bottom of this 1964 civ rts act issue – (and this is why it’s not enough to hold the correct position, but you also have to know exactly WHY it is correct, because otherwise you can be made to look foolish)

I dont think anyone can deny that if you are in business, you have a right to do business with a certain person or group, or not do business with them.

How could it be otherwise?

Think about the implications of forcing every business person to agree to buy from or sell to every single entity that walks throuth the door (figuratively) – no sane person would support that.

the problem we have is that once we start making a race-based exception to this, we have struck a heavy blow to freedom, because, now, when different races are involved, it has the effect of invalidating any OTHER PERFECTLY LEGIMATE REASON a business operator might have for refusing to do business with someone.

that is a huge deal to me, and contrary to some on this board, i don’t think the act was necessary.

Some say that without the act, we would still have segr lunch counters and no blacks allowed signs. This argument is similar to the one that says we needed the civil war because without it we would still have slavery.

These are fallacious args – specifically they are hypotheses contrary to fact.

Just because Marie Curie discovered Radium doesn’t mean that without her we wouldn’t have radium. Someone else would have discovered it sooner or later. Every other nation ended slavery without civil war, and we could have too – if it weren’t for that racist, tyrannical big-government lover Lincoln, who was lierally hell-bent on establishing federal supremacy over the states.

Statist society and laws always lag behind reality, and the reality is that Americans were leaving racism behind in the 60′s anyway, and Jim Crow, just like slavery, would have died of natural causes. The act, like so many gov acts before and since, was just political grandstanding, and didn’t really do anything to end segregation.

News flash – segregation has only increased since then anyway – just look at all school cafeterias etc.

The act did nothing real except take away people’s freedom and perpetuate a victim mentality and promote more dependence among the very people it was supposed to help.

Rand Paul should stick to his guns on this issue.

“…adam smith’s wealth of nations was published in 1776 and is still the definitive work on free market econ. The Founders knew all about it, and, obviously free market principles didn’t just spring into life on that date either, but have been working all along.”
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1) Wealth of Nations was written in Scotland and not very well read by that time. I stated the year it was written, but, there is no reason to believe that any of our founding fathers ever saw a copy.
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2) If you read it, it was not only the first time that a book was written about free markets, it was rebuke of mercantilism, an economic ideology of price controls and treating gold as the means to wealth which bankrupted Spain twice (as Smith points out). Mercantilism was the primary economics theory at that time. It was far more accepted than free markets. Against Smith, even his homeland of Great Briton had Corn Laws going on for another sixty years. So, it was not accepted anywhere right away. The dozen years was a very short period of time for a new idea. Global Warming has been studied since the late 1960s and yet it is not universally accepted.
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3) NeoClassical Economics is the modern descendant of Adam Smith and has less than 10% of the PhD students using those theories. The general concept that, often, markets self regulate is accepted. That is why there is no school of economics which supports Marxism, any kind of command economy or price or wage controls. However, NewClassical Economics is almost like the Adam and Eve story are to biologists.
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“…Statist society and laws always lag behind reality..”
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There is a society that has a libertarian government or, do you mean that places like the Cato Institute like to believe that they know better than everybody else?
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In practice, with a tiny, tiny fraction of the economic activity we have today, our country began as Libertarian, but, failure after failure after failure, the people created agencies to protect us from market failures and bank failures.
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It was an absence of regulation which caused our most recent problems with derivatives and banks investing money in them.

Any more Libertarian lies for us today?

i take no issue with inaccurate assertions as long as they’re funny. good work

Patrick, I doubt you can admit anything because your ideology has too powerful a grip on you, but I must try anyway for the sake of others who may read this – here is the truth:

First, it is kinda silly to suggest that being published in Scotland somehow makes it unlikely that the Founders would read Wealth of Nations by Smith. Wasn’t there an awful lot of traffic in ideas and goods between Europe and the colonies during that time?

What time, exactly, did you say it wasn’t “widely read by” again? 1776? Nobody said it was widely read by 1776, since it had just been published that year, but the Constitution didn’t come until over 14 years later.

I think that 14 years is plenty of time for the Founders to read it.

Not to mention it is well known fact that the Founders were intimately familiar with Smiths book. He was a major influence.

Surprised you didn’t know that. Or did you just, well, lie about it?

***

I’m going to mostly ignore your psuedo-points on econ, except to say that I’m not surprised at all if less than 10% of phd econ students learn free market econ. So what? This country and this world are chock-full of phd’s who don’t have clue about how the world works, and they’re busy ruining things everywhere you look.

***

“our country began as Libertarian, but, failure after failure after failure, the people created agencies to protect us from market failures and bank failures.”

HA HA HA

You’re kidding, right?

OH yes, Patrick – “the people” clamored for the Fed so they wouldn’t have any more bank failures like 1907. That’s why the banksters met in secret at Jekyll Island to hammer out the deal.

Then the depression happened, the worst financial crisis in history up to that time. Whoops. What failed again Patrick?

Government

OH yes, Patrick – “the people” clamored for a Ponzi Soc Sec scheme.

Now, reality intrudes rudely – even the gov itself admits SS is headed for bankruptcy.

Government agency bankruptcy is failure, Patrick.

Government failure.

Fannie and Freddie are not responses to failures – they ARE failures themselves.

***

Keep the personal attacks coming pal, because they reveal the fact that your arguments are weak and that you are driven, not by the truth, but by your own agenda only.

“Not to mention it is well known fact that the Founders were intimately familiar with Smiths book. He was a major influence.”
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Proving a negative is close to impossible, but, considering that a very large share of letters among our founding fathers and their dissertations are well preserved and articles referring to them online are available, please send a link about this.
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“Then the depression happened, the worst financial crisis in history up to that time. Whoops. What failed again Patrick?”
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Uninsured banks and an unregulated stock exchange were the causes of those failures. Despite letters from hundreds of economists, Hoover passed high Tariffs. Indeed, that was a government action making things worse.
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“”the people” clamored for…Soc Sec.”
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Yes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Townsend.
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Dr. Francis Townsend lead a grass roots movement for it.
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There was a demand for some kind of a Federal bank after the panic of 1907:
“The panic of 1907 occurred during a lengthy economic contraction—measured by the National Bureau of Economic Research as occurring between May 1907 and June 1908.[60][61] The interrelated contraction, bank panic and falling stock market resulted in significant economic disruption. Robert Bruner and Sean Carr cite a number of statistics quantifying the damage in The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market’s Perfect Storm. Industrial production dropped further than after any bank run before then, while 1907 saw the second-highest volume of bankruptcies to that date. Production fell by 11%, imports by 26%, while unemployment rose to 8% from under 3%. Immigration dropped to 750,000 people in 1909, from 1.2 million two years earlier.[62]

Since the end of the Civil War, the United States had experienced panics of varying severity. Economists Charles Calomiris and Gary Gorton rate the worst panics as those leading to widespread bank suspensions—the panics of 1873, 1893, and 1907, and a suspension in 1914. Widespread suspensions were forestalled through coordinated actions during both the 1884 and the 1890 panics. A bank crisis in 1896, in which there was a perceived need for coordination, is also sometimes classified as a panic.[63]

The frequency of crises and the severity of the 1907 panic added to concern about the outsized role of J.P. Morgan which led to renewed impetus toward a national debate on reform.[64] In May 1908, Congress passed the Aldrich–Vreeland Act that established the National Monetary Commission to investigate the panic and to propose legislation to regulate banking.[65] Senator Nelson Aldrich (R–RI), the chairman of the National Monetary Commission, went to Europe for almost two years to study that continent’s banking system”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907#Aftermath
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“I’m going to mostly ignore your psuedo-points on econ, except to say that I’m not surprised at all if less than 10% of phd econ students learn free market econ. So what? This country and this world are chock-full of phd’s who don’t have clue about how the world works, and they’re busy ruining things everywhere you look.”
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So, you are saying that you (who do not have a PhD in Economics as far as I know) and less than 10% of all PhDs in Economics know everything with 90% of PhD economists and about 90% of public all “blinded by ideology”.

One day, when Tom was in the high school marching band, he was a part of the Homecoming Day Parade.
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He never learned the march, unfortunately.
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He walked with his tuba bumping into the the flute player behind him and the drum player in front of him the way down Main Street.
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One guy who used to pick on Tom went to his mother and said, “Mrs DeSabla, how did you like the parade?’
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Mrs. DeSalbla smiled and said, “It was wonderful! They were all out of step but my little Tom!”
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This, sir, is a metaphor.
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I could hardly care less if you were in the marching band or not.
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When 90% of professional in a field disagree with the people you pay attention to, then it is might be most reasonable to pay more attention to the other 90%.
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They are all out of step but the Libertarians?

It’s not a joke.
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Tom, please do send me any links you can find about historical records linking any of our founding fathers to having read any of the works of Adam Smith.
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Evolution, as you would most likely agree (since it almost exclusively highly religious people who refute this and Libertarians are rarely political in their religion and rarely doubt such) that evolution was discovered and published in 1859 with Darwin’s origin of species.
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Yet, at this very moment, we have people who, one hundred and fifty years later (it was in the fall, so, no quite 151 years) later, we have doubters.
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It would be fair to say that Adam Smith, like Darwin, had doubters for as long.
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I have no reason to believe that our founding fathers either believed in nor that they were doubters of Smith unless you send a link.
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So, please do.

“Every other nation ended slavery without civil war, and we could have too – if it weren’t for that racist, tyrannical big-government lover Lincoln, who was lierally hell-bent on establishing federal supremacy over the states.”

Abraham Lincoln was a racist?? Whether they are fair criticisms or not, Republicans have to be a little upset that Rand Paul’s comments now and in the past are bringing up conversations about whether the Civil Rights Movement, Fair Housing Laws, and the Disability Acts are good things or flawed instead of being able to talk about issues that are going to get them votes in November. While Libertarians may enjoy these intellectual games they are just not mainstream enough ideas to get votes.

Joe Klein, you are an idiot. I don’t like Glenn Beck, but he pretty much makes you look like the total loser you are. You’ll be unemployed in a few years. Time Magazine is closing down soon. My parents have subscribed for a couple decades and they’ve said they’re going to let their subscription expire this time because of the drivel you and others make.

The internet is relevant. Ron Paul owns the internet. Ron Paul is relevant. Joe Klein is an irrelevant nobody.

“My parents have subscribed for a couple decades and they’ve said they’re going to let their subscription expire this time because of the drivel you and others make.”
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You sound like you are about nine years old saying “Time is bad because my Dad says so!”
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If you are over 18, you have an amusing writing style.
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BTW: Outside of people who at least met them, who cares about your parents?

I think it may have been Geithner who said that the US is probably going to end up losing about $ 80 billion on TARP – only 2 years of what it cost to run the early Iraq war.

Wouldn’t you LOVE to be running against this guy?

Do you think “Meet the Press” will make a big deal about Paul being one of the few guests to ever cancel with that show? (Is he afraid Rachel Maddow might be there??)

Should we place bets as to the topic of Ron Paul’s next Tea Party-destroying comment? I’m thinking maybe “Charles Manson has rights too; let’s let the poor guy go!” – or possibly some kind of apology for Goldman Sachs.

He’s always going to make Bizzarro-world comments, because he’s a Bizzarro-world guy.

tomdesabla,
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About every 2 or 3 weeks a very knowledgeable non Liberals visits Swampland and makes some really excellent comments such as yours. They get responses from the Liberal loons on this site and realize it’s not worth their time to debate people who are so far removed from reality that they appear to not be playing with all their marbles.
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That’s really too bad because this site could use a few more enlightened non Liberals to show some balance to all the insanity that come from the children of the Left.
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I’m a retired moderate conservative veteran. If it wasn’t for people like you I would not waste my time on this site.
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The TIME reporters are almost as bad as the Liberal commenters on this site.

TIME is leftist? Maybe to a Tea Bagger, but not to objective readers, it’s conservative 90% of the time– though not just FOX wingnut propaganda.