Culture Change: Ron Paul as Effect, not Cause

A brief explanation of how cultural change works without regard for the political process.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• market
• anarchism
• libertarian
• ron
• paul
• culture
• change
• liberty

[dbmcmillan]

Brilliant video. The reverence for the Constitution among some Ron Paul supporters is a rediculous appeal to authority. The Constitution is not a principle. Freedom is. Because freedom is more of a fact than an opinion, and we can extrapolate a just government from a principle of freedom. Unfortunately that government has never existed, surprisingly, because the anarchist idea that no man has authority over another, and that we are free to defend that condition, is an easy idea to understand

[fungku777]

How can you discern that Ron Paul (or anyone) is the result of a cause and not part of the cause? Surely you can see how 'cause and effect' are not mutually exclusive concepts.

[tryptala]

@XOmniverse Well, now you're slipping off into the bizarre world of hypotheticals and equivocations as you try to ponder what would have happened if there hadn't been a central government, or there weren't one now. A very muddy exercise since it cannot include the unpredictable which is one of the dominate forces in the history of mankind in general. Well, shall we play, what would China do if there suddenly wasn't a U.S. government, or what would happen during a disease pandemic?

[tryptala]

Good is taught, and there are many not so good teachers.

[tryptala]

@XOmniverse Good? Conflicts of interests gray the area of good. Human psychology is a grand shmorgasborg of types and psychoses. Nothing is simple. What you need might conflict with something someone else needs. That other guy, or you may be psychologically deranged or just impatient or greedy. Humans aggregate into collectives of power. No centralized government returns us to tribes and tribal activities, like warring and stealing.

[XOmniverse]

@tryptala There is no empirical data to support that claim. The history of the United States is, if anything, a counter argument to it.

[tryptala]

@XOmniverse Some of those problems and challenges are best addressed by a LIMITED central government. There are questions of efficacy, expediency, and diplomacy which a central government is BETTER able to, in some cases, attend to.

[XOmniverse]

@tryptala I don't think any anarcho-capitalist framework has ever been grounded in the assumption that people are innately good. I hear this argument often but its not grounded in anything but an unproven, false assertion about the premises anarcho-capitalists assume.

[tryptala]

@XOmniverse Of course, there are ethical questions in all things. Unless you're ready to start arguing that individual liberty is unethical, then it's besides the point and just a sophistic exercise to introduce it into the discussion. A lot of fundamentalist libertarian purists argue for no centralized government. Well, if we were living in Eden, sure, but unfortunately, there are not so good people and not so good actions in this world and conflicts of interest.

[XOmniverse]

@tryptala So things like liberty and distribution of power have nothing to do with ethics?

Have you ever questioned whether we even need a centralized government?

[tryptala]

@XOmniverse Ethics? This is not a question of ethics. It's about power and the distribution of power in a design to avoid it's abuse. The most minimal form of power is the individual. It's called liberty. The protection of liberty was the foundation of the U.S. system of governmen--the preservation of individual liberty and local jurisdiction. The more centralized the government, the more potential for abuse against individual liberty. Click on my name to go to my channel and watch my favorites.

[XOmniverse]

@tryptala Do you claim that something can be unethical for a federal government to do but ethical for a state government to do?