illogic, untruth, and ‘senior fellows’
david gordon, “senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute”, pretends to answer straightaway the objections of those who accuse ron paul and his supporters of statism. since it’s a charge that cannot be refuted, however, he relies on falsehood, then a preposterous clambake of argument by authority:
[...] However good his program, though, isn’t Ron Paul attempting to become head of the criminal gang that constitutes the State? To come to grips with this question, we need to ask, why is the State a criminal gang? As Franz Oppenheimer, Albert Jay Nock, and Murray Rothbard have explained, the State is not a productive organization. To the contrary, it seizes property from the productive members of society. Given this understanding, we can see that the objection against Ron Paul fails completely. His proposals are all efforts to curtail the exactions of the State, not to continue or extend them. The objectors count both political supporters and opponents of State power as “statists.” Apparently, by participating in the electoral process, regardless of the program one advocates, one incurs some sort of pollution. Murray Rothbard, the man who said that the State is a criminal gang, thought otherwise. He and Ron Paul were close friends, and he vigorously supported Ron Paul’s run for the presidency in 1988.Does it not make more sense to listen to the founder of the modern libertarian movement than “purists” who are plus royaliste que le roi? Rothbard scorned those who disdain political action. Interested only in their supposed ideological purity, they retreat to an intellectual pantisocracy and display little interest in actually securing libertarian political objectives. [...]
this guy’s at the pinnacle of the LvMI?
there is a literal answer to the question, “isn’t Ron Paul attempting to become head of the criminal gang that constitutes the State?”
yes.
there’s more to that answer though, since ron paul has been a member and participant in that criminal gang for decades. he and his family have subsisted on stolen wealth for as long. who do you think is paying his salary? you think that money came from heaven, as manna? no, it was forcefully pried, collectively, from the fingers of individual millions of unwilling participants who were threatened with kidnapping or worse if they didn’t hand over the cash to the crime syndicate of which paul’s been a willing, striving participant.
or am i wrong in concluding that ron paul actively ran for “office”? if someone had a gun pointed at his mother’s head and it was the only way to appease them, i stand corrected. leave word here.
david gordon wrote, “His proposals are all efforts to curtail the exactions of the State, not to continue or extend them.”
listen to ron paul and his favorite carrot/carrot of iraq and social security. i lost count of how many times this scoundrel’s pulled the socialist “humanitarian” card, reassuring everyone from blitzer to tucker how the trained dogs of systematic hooliganism wouldn’t be “left out in the cold” under a paul presidency. he’s promised explicitly to extend “social security” and similar “entitlement” (horrid term), “exactions of the State”. he’s promised this because he knows his already slim chance of election would be zip if he did the comparatively correct thing and vowed to end the theft, using the urgent application of every constitutional recourse. paul is selling bread and circuses, but with a twist; for ron paul plays the “i’m not a statist” statist card — one that’s reeled in plenty of denying idjits, including david gordon.
ron paul is a career statist, now become national panderer. want to keep socialism running? end the iraq occupation! something for nothing! that’s the bullshit line ron paul’s thwanking, and you’d have to be blind to not see past it. he pulled it on you slowly though, didn’t he, david? it’s not how he started. the “we can preserve the socialist state” line emerged around the time of the first onslaught of a “leftist” backlash. pure strategy. pure statism.
The objectors count both political supporters and opponents of State power as “statists.”
explain to me how someone advocating the power for the removal of troops from elsewhere for the more efficient application of one of the state’s primary theft programs is evidence of opposition to state power. explain how anyone running on a campaign promise to continue “social security” is not a statist. do it. the floor’s yours, fantastic asshole. deal with the ready, eager accepting of stolen wealth (salary) while you’re there. and instruct me as to how someone selling the US constitution as an ideal is not a statist. i’m eager to hear, since being a criminal without being a criminal would sure as hell make my life much easier. damned inconvenient now.
Apparently, by participating in the electoral process, regardless of the program one advocates, one incurs some sort of pollution. Murray Rothbard, the man who said that the State is a criminal gang, thought otherwise.
and there’s the ham-fisted introduction of argument by authority. murray rothbard could not have been a statist!
yeah? whence came rothbard’s major salary? did rothbard have a career at a state university, or did that resume bullet fly astray on its way over to my eyes? not surprising rothbard defended statism, since to decry it without carving out an exception for himself would have been auto-denunciation — possible, but not likely. but that’s merely informative fallacious ad hominem. to the argument, one can hardly claim straight-faced that applying to pad your wallet with stolen wealth via the machinery of the state, and continuing in that position for years, does not render one guilty of statism. tossing an argument by authority my way, take some relevant ad hominem with it. murray rothbard was a statist by execution, and never did he present a rational, defensible argument for his support of, and participation in, the state. the stalwart first-draft king of the intellectual knockdown was transformed into an embarrassing “well golly gee, it must be acceptable since university professors would exist in a free market” utilitarian shriveling prick when guilt grew large enough for him to pretend to address his crimes. don’t tell me he signed off on statism with a magic pill absolving his sins; show me the winning argument — the argument that doesn’t exist.
Does it not make more sense to listen to the founder of the modern libertarian movement than “purists” who are plus royaliste que le roi?
“purists” in quotes, david? i can almost smell the sarcasm. however, i am a purist. unlike rothbard, you wouldn’t see me within 100′ of a “government job”. i actively (not conveniently) dissociate from all known criminals. except as hemmed in and survival demands it, i do not knowingly trespass on the rightful property of others after it’s stolen by the state and relabeled that fictional non-entity “public”. never would i accept “social security” dirt from the fedgoons, since the many thousands stolen from me for that criminal project have already been spent, and the only way for it to be returned is through the robbery of others. fucker, i’m about as pure as it gets, and you should have your appeasing ass drilled into the ground for your snide illogic and attempt to wend your way around the truth by pretending that the taint affecting us all excuses any behavior you might propose in the name of “liberty”. fuck you, and fuck you some more.
rothbard is not “roi” compared to me. weighed against me on an action scale of criminality, rothbard pops the stop, that rat bastard. and you have the fucking delirious tripe potential to pretend he, career statist, is the standard against which purists are to measure themselves? go fuck your mother, dog. ‘fellow’.
Rothbard scorned those who disdain political action.
refusing to embrace the state is political action. rothbard was in no position to give advice to anyone on what was ethical with regard to sleeping with criminals, though he did well enunciating what was unethical. what’s next — a lincoln quote in defense of ron paul? i know lincoln didn’t have a problem with running for president, so… what the fuck.
Interested only in their supposed ideological purity, they retreat to an intellectual pantisocracy and display little interest in actually securing libertarian political objectives.
that right there is the “libertarian” equivalent of the neocon “rebuttal” to those who refuse to take up arms as criminal milfare recipients. at least the neocons are “doing something”! at least the “libertarians” are “doing something” embracing the state, not “[i]nterested only in their supposed ideological purity”. i almost can’t believe such sarcastic, shit-argument filth is coming out of LRC/LvMI, even after the disaster of the last year. teaching a new generation that freedom is best achieved through a mechanism built on and fed by aggression. good plan.
no, i refuse. got it? i refuse. for freedom from criminality. for ideological purity. if you lose that, what do you have? tell me. if you say that in certain cases you’re not wrong to shit on peaceful others, what do you have left? i actively refuse to pretend that my liberty would be enhanced by picking a new, improved slave master — for myself, let alone others. slavery of the mind is where it begins, and my mind would never be free knowing that i’d embraced the state. i would be freer in a jail cell than david gordon owning his own verdant planet. there is no freedom after you’ve thrown your integrity in the toilet and signed off on one atrocity after another while assuaging your guilt with vacant assurances that you acted with only the best intentions.
December 4th, 2007 at 09:19
I’ve neglected to run the heater so far this winter and it’s about 45 degrees in my room right now but damn it all this post really warmed me up!
December 4th, 2007 at 09:43
Your principles are impeccable. In supporting Ron Paul, I’ve been aware of compromises. As I have argued for Ron Paul, I have been vaguely aware of the allies that I have:
Constitutionalists – the Constitution evokes reverence among even some of the most energetic professed anti-statists. Such people ought to read Lysander Spooner’s essay on the “authority” of the Constitution:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig4/spooner1.html
Pro Article I, Section 8 People – I have encountered people who criticize that the Federal Reserve is not part of the government (though I argue it is hardly independent of it). Ron Paul speaks of allowing competing comodity currencies. That’s all fine, though I’m still a little vague on exactly what he intends to do. I still feel a little uneasy that his presidency would continue to keep the government intricately involved with defining our money.
All sorts of other allies of convenience – progressives, socialists and the like have signed on. They often are in support of ending the war but still yearn for other big government programs. I’ve seen the refrain that you can choose your level of government at the state level. Again, compromise. I think though that this is still a step in the right direction. If someone is going to try to exercise tyranny, I’d rather see it occur on a more local level – ultimately on an individual level.
My support of Ron Paul has been an exercise of compromise. This is dangerous, I know. My greatest fear is that we lend legitimacy to government if only it is small and limited. The problem – there has never been a government in history that has been content to remain small and limited.
Still, I am at the point where I question whether it is acceptable to support a person on the inside of government who will reduce its power. (I don’t see you arguing that Ron Paul aims to increase the scope of government.) True, I wish that he would be firm on opposing even more state action. Speaking of Social Security, I would be thrilled (and well qualified) to participate in an industry that could arise to meet the needs of those left without Social Security checks. [I would endorse supporting the impoverished 90 year old who unwittingly received stolen money while leaving out in the cold the early retired 55 year old with two vacation homes.]
When it comes right down to it though, Ron Paul knows that he would stand zero chance of being elected if he were to take the “purist” line and call for the complete dismantlement of government. So Ron Paul compromises himself.
The alternative is of course to just let government collapse on its own weight. My concern there is that the crisis born of such an event often lends itself to instituting an even worse version of a state.
The question is one of compromise – whether to and how much. I’m still on the fence.
December 4th, 2007 at 18:20
thanks, taylor. more on the way, though it’ll be my version of dispassionate. (ha!)
joe, off the top of my head i don’t recall anywhere except abortion and gay marriage where ron paul argues for increasing the scope of government, and on both of those issues he’s toggled a bit.
my position is that given the decrepit state of the average human, the state will always exist. though it pisses me off, i don’t compose arguments wishing that away magically. i strongly object, however, to those who are so deluded as to approach the state positively. the state is, has been, and shall always be, an enemy. damned are those who ever forget it. ron paul represents perhaps the worst of this betrayal — “hey, it’s a good guy pining for power over others!”
bullshit. same as with cops. any fucker sick enough to go in and apply for the job is someone it’s impossible to have a positive relationship with. every freeman must always approach the state and all it’s manifestations from a hostile, mistrustful position. this is neither recommendation nor theory; it’s the only logical conclusion when dealing with those who initiate force.
can there ever be a positive result of this relationship? yes, i think so. but only with the understanding that human frailty requires the relationship, and that it only gets worse when one approaches the state as a friend, partner, savior, blah blah blah.
that’s why i piss on constitutionalists when they extend beyond using the constitution as a magazine to thwap thugs over the head, and into overt worship of a piece of shit code that’s already been demonstrated millions of times to have failed abysmally.
on state money, ron paul’s raised a point few have noted while reading the constitution: the US crime gang has no constitutional authority to force “legal tender” on anyone. were it not for “legal tender” tyranny, the fedgoons would be in a different game, regardless of the illegality of the central bank’s existence. however, paul takes the comparative populist line on that as well, assuring his flock that the fed would fear nothing more from him than currency competition. you’re right to find that discomforting.
My concern there is that the crisis born of such an event often lends itself to instituting an even worse version of a state.
i think it’s far beyond the point where one can worry about the collapse of the US crime gang. the inevitability of it’s a practical PR reason not to have “liberty”, via the ron paul squad, tainted with what many generations already wrought. but after the collapse what will the paulist types be shouting? “hurry — let’s construct a replacement crime syndicate to protect property rights!”
not much of a legacy, far as that shit matters.
December 4th, 2007 at 19:13
my position is that given the decrepit state of the average human, the state will always exist
I agree. There will always be people wishing to use coercion who succeed in convincing others that their coercion is legitimate. The goal of those of us opposing such people could be to limit their scope to as small of groups as possible.
In that vein (just playing devils advocate here), if you accept that the state will always exist, might it not be proper to work within its organization to limit it?
December 4th, 2007 at 22:19
, if you accept that the state will always exist, might it not be proper to work within its organization to limit it?
never. considering the state as partner necessarily, without exception, makes one a partner in aggression. in the case of ron paul, such misguided cowardice-in-denial led him to rip off peaceful others to the tune of over — wait for it — a million dollars.
as you know, ron paul isn’t in jail, nor has he announced plans to return this plunder to even one of his victims.
the solution is to understand that all state scumbags are nothing but. similarly those buddying up with them. the sheen pretending otherwise, hand in hand with language distortion, has caused immeasurable destruction for which few of the plunderers were ever held to account. why? too many people eager to “work within” an entity which is nothing but initiated force. they transform these crimes into virtues.
ron paul.
October 21st, 2010 at 20:09
[...] david gordon’s the same idjit who pranced out this argument-by-authority claptrap. [...]