"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Our corrupt system vs. Ron Paul's purported libertarianism by Marie K. Monday, July 14, 2008 PERMANENT LINK Re This quasi-socialistic communo-fasci-moron system by Lucy Lindblad, Since I've been becoming more and more interested in new specific solutions and programs that could help us all in the mess we are now in, the idea of improving our "system" comes up. Of course, the question is — what is our system? Another is — is it the system that needs changing or something else? The idea of switching to a Libertarian system has come up. So, I see three
Despite their being so poorly run/designed, they actually fit within the notion of "social democracy" which according to Wikipedia attempts to "reform capitalism democratically through state regulation and the creation of state sponsored programs and organizations which work to ameliorate or remove perceived injustices inflicted by the capitalist market system." It seems that most countries today are social democracies, some with pretty good and some with not so good programs — it's just too bad that the US does such a poor job of it. It gives people an excuse to call for scrapping what we've managed to accomplish instead of calling for improvements. THE LIBERTARIAN SYSTEM Recently this (said to be) Ron Paul posting, a statement he's going to insert into the Congressional Record, has been linked to a lot. It gives a taste of what such a system would be like. It is actually about the current economic crisis, but the solutions offered are "interesting." The article says that "Big Events" are about to occur — events that will unleash chaos the entire world economy will share. What Paul is worried about is the "gigantic worldwide dollar bubble" created by the US government’s unrestrained (due to no gold backing fiat money) printing [or bank loan creation] of money — done based on secret agreements with central banks around the world to help the US pay off huge government foreign debts. This, of course, causes inflation and eventually leaves everyone holding "bad dollars." The point is that Paul predicts the bursting of this dollar bubble and economic collapse. He sees two choices to deal with it — one is limping along as we have which he says is no solution and won’t happen. He also fears that, to him, a bad choice taken in the 30’s will be repeated. As he puts it, people turned over power to the government for the creation of the "New Deal," [e.g. emergency relief, bank & monetary reforms, union protection, work relief/job creation efforts, aid to farmers & migrant workers, and the start of the social security system] which he equates with creating authoritarian government. Instead, he says this time "Something Big" is happening. The American youth he’s met on the campaign trail are willing to "reject the cradle-to-grave welfare" offered by "do-good" politicians and opt for "self reliance." This seems to be his 2nd choice and the "right thing" to do. Before I can go on, I HAVE to say, GEEZ, is that it — is this his solution to economic collapse — no safety net at all? OK, back to Paul. For him this is a "message of liberty" — hmmmmm? His "principles of liberty" include "self reliance, hard work, and frugality" and not empire building, financed through inflation and debt. He also has his "ideas of liberty" which are "free markets, sound money and trade." I like the idea of calling a halt to empire building, but because I don’t understand all of those libertarian "code words," I'm sure I’m missing something. So, what I see is that we don’t have free markets/trade because US officials go around using bullying tactics or start wars to get "deals" good for corrupt businesses and bad for everyone else. He also points out that you can’t have both "guns and butter" — hmmmmm, again. I do assume that his foreign policy ideas WOULD reduce the number of guns, but his solution of (individual) self reliance and probably scrapping or mostly scrapping our welfare related programs and programs like Medicaid and Medicare (entitlement programs) just seems wrong to me. I MUST add a few more comments. This statement doesn't seem to be that well-written — I even wonder if he wrote it. For example, the authoritarianism we have is really there to cover up all of the corruption and lies and to keep tabs on/control those upset about the current state of affairs. Then, there is the jump to the final sentences — where he admits that we’d "need to get our house in order" (no details) and provides a sort of "magical" ending with the empire ending, the wars stopping, the attack on civil liberties ceasing--for financial reasons, and then prosperity returning. I figure that by the time the bad things end "for financial reasons," the situation will have gotten so bad that We the People will have little chance of getting by ONLY with self reliance. SOME CONCLUSIONS For me, I'd rather have social democracy than the Libertarianism evoked by Paul's statement. Since there won't be any magic for us, it seems that the only solution is to get rid of the dishonest (to say the least) politicians we have — easier said than done, and get rid of the voting machines that have enabled them to elect themselves. With them gone, we'd have a better chance of having a real election and electing honest politicians who are ready to DO the job of getting rid of the bad things Paul thinks will end for financial reasons. There will also need to be a period of getting rid of all of the unconstitutional signing statements, agencies, laws, etc. and all of the illegal/corrupt/harmful business practices. A lot of dangerous medicines, chemicals, and genetically modified foods will need to be banned. After that will come re-building. For me, that means we have to better understand how to regulate business, how to close the gap between the rich and poor, and how to provide better health and welfare services in order to create better solutions. I also believe in the notion of non-profit/at cost provision of utilities — water, electricity, telecommunications, and the fuels for heating homes. It would be nice to think that we could come up with such good ideas and practices that once again we'd be respected. Marie K.  |
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