#OWS Economics: Ron Paul on Wealth and Privileges
Posted: March 2, 2013 Filed under: Democracy, Economics, Politics, Society | Tags: #OccupyWallStreet, capitalism, government, justice, Libertarianism, Ron Paul, Tea Party Leave a comment »
4. Government may not redistribute private wealth or grant special privileges to any individual or group.
Continuing my gradual critique of Ron Paul's Ten Principles, the next in line is relevant to what I've been talking a lot about these past few weeks, the great impetus behind #OccupyWallStreet: income inequality.
It's significant that the godfather of the Tea Party movement (the original form of it, anyway) includes wealth redistribution in his principles of liberty.
Mystic or Manic?: Religion on the Brain (or Your Brain on Religion)?
Posted: October 18, 2012 Filed under: Books, Personal, Religion and Irreligion, Science | Tags: brain chemistry, Christianity, Colton Burpo, Eben Alexander, God, heaven, Heaven Is For Real, Jesus, mysticism, neuroscience, Newsweek, Ron Paul, Sam Harris, skepticism 1 Comment »
Last night I was having a twittersation with someone named Simon Albert, a nonconforming, conservative Ron Paul supporter who refuses to go along with the Romney Republicans, about something entirely unrelated (at least in obvious ways) to politics: the nature of cosmic reality and what human minds can know about it. It’s not easy to have conversations of such weight in so ephemeral a format, but, of course, that rarely stops “tweeple” from trying.
It began when Albert tweeted, “God is real. #jesus #atheism.” Clearly, Albert was trolling for an argument with an atheist and he put a great big juicy worm on his hook. I bit. Read the rest of this entry »
An Introduction: Welcome Crooks & Liars Readers
Posted: September 7, 2012 Filed under: Personal, Politics | Tags: #OccupyWallStreet, anarcho-capitalism, Burt Worm, Crooks & Liars, Democratic Underground, John Perr, justice, Libertarianism, Ron Paul, Tragic Farce, zombie Leave a comment »Thanks to John Perr over at Crooks & Liars for rounding my last post up along with Nevada Progressive, Kevin Drum and The Political Carnival. I’m flattered and honored to be included in such distinguished company.
Some of you may have encountered me before over at Democratic Underground, where I went by the handle Burt Worm. For the rest of you, I’ve been keeping this blog for a little over a year, sometimes with more attentiveness than others. If you look at the word cloud down the right margin a ways, you’ll get an idea of my interests. As of today, #OccupyWallStreet is still my most covered topic (tangentially, usually, these days anyway). But I also obsess over Ron Paul, libertarianism and “anarcho”-capitalism because the ideas at the heart of their philosophies, which I tend to argue with, I think are essential for understanding what’s going on in the US and the world today. I’ve also been a bit obsessed with justice lately. And I won’t even mention my dabbling in theories about the face-eating Miami “zombie.”
I hope you’ll have a little look around the joint, and if you like what you see, you’ll come back and engage with me here. Otherwise, maybe I’ll be seeing you on Twitter.
Ron Paul’s Racist Backers (and Backstory)
Posted: February 29, 2012 Filed under: Election 2012, Politics | Tags: anarcho-capitalism, Civil Rights, Freedom, Friederich Hayek, herrnaphta, Libertarianism, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Race, Republicans, Ron Paul Leave a comment »
Michael McAuliffe at Huffington Post reports on some sizable donations in Ron Paul’s campaign war chest from the sorts of racist fringe dwellers the notorious Ron Paul newsletters of the early 1990s were designed to appeal to:
Paul’s 2012 campaign has received more than $6,000 from people who have identified themselves as white separatists or supremacists, or who are listed on anti-hate group sites such as the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Two prominent donors are leaders in what may be the most ambitious white nationalist political movement in the U.S., American Third Position. One is William Johnson, the group’s chairman. Another is Virginia Abernethy, a former Vanderbilt professor who is listed as a director of the party.
Abernethy has given Paul at least $2,451 for this election. Johnson has donated at least $3.349.
…
Most presidential campaigns reject what they regard as money from tainted sources. Paul has not done that, even though Abernethy and Johnson are well known for their views and Paul has encountered Johnson before.
It doesn’t look as though Paul will be gaining any more traction as a Republican. He’s got his solid fan base in the party, which doesn’t seem able to grow or shrink or bear any sign of sensitivity to the currents of the primary race. So, unless the anti-Romney contingent decides to throw over Santorum and Gingrich finally, this news is likely to have zero impact either way. And the way things are in the GOP, it would likely be more of a reason to move toward Paul than away from him, if only because Republican rank-and-filers love to side with anyone under attack from the “liberal media” for being too outrageously right-wing.
We have a hint as to how Paul intends to handle this, according to McAuliffe. Read the rest of this entry »
#OWS Economics: Ron Paul on Wealth and Privileges
Posted: November 10, 2011 Filed under: Democracy, Economics, Politics | Tags: #OccupyWallStreet, Catherine Austin Fitts, Economic inequality, Freedom, government, income gap, inequality, revolution, Ron Paul, Tea Party, Wall Street 5 Comments »4. Government may not redistribute private wealth or grant special privileges to any individual or group.
Continuing my gradual critique of Ron Paul’s Ten Principles, the next in line is relevant to what I’ve been talking a lot about these past few weeks, the great impetus behind #OccupyWallStreet: income inequality.
It’s significant that the godfather of the Tea Party movement (the original form of it, anyway) includes wealth redistribution in his principles of liberty. It points up an area where these two movements can either come together or get driven apart. There’s no question about where #ows stands on this point. Income inequality is a key symptom of the disease #0ws arose in response to, and one of its goals, I would argue, is to force a correction of what it views this to be: a moral wrong. If Paul is any indication (and I’m sure he is), the Tea Party is not so much troubled by this gap as it is by the idea that government should try to close it. Read the rest of this entry »
#OWS Economics: Neofeudal Reality and the Free Market Myth
Posted: October 25, 2011 Filed under: Economics, Politics | Tags: #OccupyWallStreet, banks, capitalism, debt, Federal Reserve, Freedom, government, Libertarianism, neofeudalism, revolution, Ron Paul 2 Comments »A little follow up to the last post about Damon Vrabel and his critique of neoclassical economics.
After concluding the Renaissance 2.0 series of lectures, Vrabel wrote a farewell on his blog at his Council for Spiritual, Psychological and Economic Renewal, explaining why he was no longer going to keep posting on the world situation. Among his reasons:
As I said in previous articles, IF we participate in the system, I’m not opposed to it at all. How could I be? I’d be a tyrant if I wanted to force hundreds of millions of people to change their behavior. And the fact is, that “IF” was answered long ago. We Americans have chosen the material benefits of being managed by the financial system for generations. We like demand-side freedom, i.e. choosing between Coke and Pepsi, but don’t want supply-side freedom. We like the supply-side to be taken care of for us. We love the benefits that come from it being imperially run—the credit card always works, the gas station is always open, our water faucets and light switches do what they’re supposed to do, the markets keep going up (oops…maybe not). All of our economic needs are outsourced to others, so we have the luxury of spending our time pursuing wants. And if these types of benefits are good for us, they’re good for the rest of the world. We have no moral authority to stand opposed just because we’re now going to lose our privileged position—a rather childlike perspective.
Do I detect some sarcasm? Many of the items Vrabel ticked off as buying our disinterest in changing the imperial system are, of course, threatening to stop working in the near-long term, if they haven’t already stopped working for many of us, which is why, I suspect, #OWS has resonated so deeply so fast.
In any case, perhaps responding to the Arab spring and certainly responding to questions from viewers of Renaissance 2.0, Vrabel returned to YouTube with a new series titled “Debunking Money.” Again, I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to understand how the world really works and why we, the people (or the peasantry, as the case may be), are experiencing a diminution of our liberties. In this series, Vrabel makes explicit his rejection of various ideas from the left and right, including Austrian school economics and Milton Friedman’s neoliberalism.
The lesson below is particularly interesting as it debunks the notion, popular among Libertarians and popularized by Ron Paul, that “ending the Fed” is a viable solution to the problem. Vrabel says the American people would be “cutting their own throat.” If you have difficulty following this, I strongly suggest starting from the first video and hanging on his every word, if possible. Not to say this is the ultimate truth, of course, but it is certainly much closer to the truth than anything you will be hearing from Republicans or Democrats:
Defending #OWS, Ron Paul Says He Supports Bailout of People with Bad Mortgages
Posted: October 19, 2011 Filed under: Election 2012, Politics | Tags: #OccupyWallStreet, foreclosure, government, health care, justice, Libertarianism, rights of the individual, rights of the society, Ron Paul 3 Comments »I applaud him for that. He is certainly the rare politician who seems to actually understand the legitimacy of the #occupyWallStreet protest.
Of course, the last time I heard applause for him like this at one of these debates, he was arguing against bailing out people with catastrophic illnesses who have no health insurance.
#TeaParty Terrified of #OccupyWallStreet’s New American Revolution
Posted: October 11, 2011 Filed under: Democracy, Politics | Tags: #OccupyWallStreet, Anarchism, Barack Obama, Democrats, Freedom, government, Republicans, revolution, Ron Paul, Tea Party 2 Comments »
Dress-up rebel doing the bidding of the corporate class.
James Oliphant of the Los Angeles Times quotes prominent self-anointed leaders of the Tea Party movement on their reaction to the recent sprouting of Occupy America encampments in dozens of cities across North America from Boston and New York to Seattle and L.A. Clearly the Tea Party bosses don’t get it Read the rest of this entry »
