Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Ron Paul Gains The Respect of the Experts on MSNBC
0
Comments
- He values property rights, and contracts between people (defended by law enforcement and courts).
Noam Chomsky: Under all circumstances? Suppose someone facing starvation accepts a contract with General Electric that requires him to work 12 hours a day locked into a factory with no health-safety regulations, no security, no benefits, etc. And the person accepts it because the alternative is that his children will starve. Fortunately, that form of savagery was overcome by democratic politics long ago. Should all of those victories for poor and working people be dismantled, as we enter into a period of private tyranny (with contracts defended by law enforcement)? Not my cup of tea.
- He wants to take away the unfair advantage corporations have (via the dismantling of big government)
Noam Chomsky: "Dismantling of big government" sounds like a nice phrase. What does it mean? Does it mean that corporations go out of existence, because there will no longer be any guarantee of limited liability? Does it mean that all health, safety, workers rights, etc., go out the window because they were instituted by public pressures implemented through government, the only component of the governing system that is at least to some extent accountable to the public (corporations are unaccountable, apart from generally weak regulatory apparatus)? Does it mean that the economy should collapse, because basic R&D is typically publicly funded? like what we're now using, computers and the internet? Should we eliminate roads, schools, public transportation, environmental regulation? Does it mean that we should be ruled by private tyrannies with no accountability to the general public, while all democratic forms are tossed out the window? Quite a few questions arise.
- He defends workers right to organize (so long as owners have the right to argue against it).
Noam Chomsky: Rights that are enforced by state police power, as you've already mentioned.
There are huge differences between workers and owners. Owners can fire and intimidate workers, not conversely. just for starters. Putting them on a par is effectively supporting the rule of owners over workers, with the support of state power itself largely under owner control, given concentration of resources.
- He proposes staying out of the foreign affairs of other nations (unless his home is directly attacked, and must respond to defend it).
Noam Chomsky: He is proposing a form of ultra-nationalism, in which we are concerned solely with our preserving our own wealth and extraordinary advantages, getting out of the UN, rejecting any international prosecution of US criminals (for aggressive war, for example), etc. Apart from being next to meaningless, the idea is morally unacceptable, in my view.
I really can't find differences between your positions and his.
Noam Chomsky: There's a lot more. Take Social Security. If he means what he says literally, then widows, orphans, the disabled who didn't themselves pay into Social Security should not benefit (or of course those awful illegal aliens). His claims about SS being "broken" are just false. He also wants to dismantle it, by undermining the social bonds on which it is based, the real meaning of offering younger workers other options, instead of having them pay for those who are retired, on the basis of a communal decision based on the principle that we should have concern for others in need. He wants people to be able to run around freely with assault rifles, on the basis of a distorted reading of the Second Amendment (and while we're at it, why not abolish the whole raft of constitutional provisions and amendments, since they were all enacted in ways he opposes?).
So I have these questions:
1) Can you please tell me the differences between your schools of Libertarianism?
Noam Chomsky: There are a few similarities here and there, but his form of libertarianism would be a nightmare, in my opinion, on the dubious assumption that it could even survive for more than a brief period without imploding.
Thought I'd share, I always take Chosmky seriously and he has some points.
Why not be against Big Corporations instead? That seems far more logical to me.
Surely, in a democracy, not wanting to give too much power to the government is effectively not wanting to give too much power to the people who elect the government i.e. the people?
I suggest the Teabaggers are careful in case they get what they wish for: small government that can do nothing whatsoever to stop the abuses of companies who care nothing for people, only for the bottom line.
I really think these people need to go back to school until they learn what government *is*. Oh and incidentally, if you want to know what happens if people stop paying tax to the government, look at Greece for your answer.
How you get to that point from here is not easy, but IMHO the solution cannot be to give up on government and let the corporations have free reign.
You'd also do better if the Senate elected the president, rather than having this three-house system, which effectively means the president cannot really do anything. Do you know that technically, the British prime minister has more power than the US president, provided his/her party is behind him?
Strangely enough though, the USA haven't contacted me to re-write the constitution. Pity
lol jk
It's not even a discussion. It's you calling people names!...