[Peace-discuss] Ron Paul

[Morton K. Brussel]

Lest one become addicted to the antiwar stance of (some)  
libertarians, here is an antidote from BBlum's Anti-Empire report  
[http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer48.htm]

Libertarians: an eccentric blend of anarchy and runaway capitalism
What is it about libertarians? Their philosophy, in theory and in  
practice, seems to amount to little more than: "If the government is  
doing it, it's oppressive and we're against it." Corporations,  
however, tend to get free passes. Perhaps the most prominent  
libertarian today is Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who ran as the  
Libertarian Party's candidate for president in 1988 and is running  
now for the same office as a Republican. He's against the war in  
Iraq, in no uncertain terms, but if the war were officially being  
fought by, for, and in the name of a consortium of Lockheed Martin,  
Halliburton, Bechtel, and some other giant American corporations,  
would he have the same attitude? And one could of course argue that  
the war is indeed being fought for such a consortium. So is it simply  
the idea or the image of "a government operation" that bothers him  
and other libertarians?

Paul recently said: "The government is too bureaucratic, it spends  
too much money, they waste the money."[9]

Does the man think that corporations are not bureaucratic? Do  
libertarians think that any large institution is not overbearingly  
bureaucratic? Is it not the nature of the beast? Who amongst us has  
not had the frustrating experience with a corporation trying to  
correct an erroneous billing or trying to get a faulty product  
repaired or replaced? Can not a case be made that corporations spend  
too much (of our) money? What do libertarians think of the  
exceedingly obscene salaries paid to corporate executives? Or of two  
dozen varieties of corporate theft and corruption? Did someone  
mention Enron?

Ron Paul and other libertarians are against social security. Do they  
believe that it's better for elderly people to live in a homeless  
shelter than to be dependent on government "handouts"? That's exactly  
what it would come down to with many senior citizens if not for their  
social security. Most libertarians I'm sure are not racists, but Paul  
certainly sounds like one. Here are a couple of comments from his  
newsletter:

"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks  
have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market,  
individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."

"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the 'criminal  
justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the  
black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."[10]

Author Ellen Willis has written that "the fundamental fallacy of  
right libertarianism is that the state is the only source of coercive  
power." They don't recognize "that the corporations that control most  
economic resources, and therefore most people's access to the  
necessities of life, have far more power than government to dictate  
our behavior and the day-to-day terms of our existence."[11]

--mkb
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