I don't believe Congress has any "libertarians" in it.
I certainly am not going to hold up a bunch of Republicans as the "best shades of gray" while bashing Democrats who are an equal shade of gray in different areas.
Cheers,
Brian
For the record, I was a Lincoln/Douglas (values) debater in high
school. Based on the sheer volume of information posted here, I get
the feeling that at least one or two people were on their Policy
debate teams (the debate kids who talked fast like auctioneers to get
all their points in before time ran out).
That being said, I wanted to thank Brian Miller for having the time
and patience to continue rebutting Brian Holtz. Most of us on this
list who agree with Brian Miller have long since abandoned exchanging
the terabytes of data required for a debate with Brian Holtz.
As far as I'm concerned, Paul and Kucinich are equally libertarian,
one 60/100 and the other 100/60 on the Nolan Chart. And that may
technically put both of them just inside the Libertarian quadrant.
But who cares? People just inside the boundaries are fine for
membership, in order to make the party a "big tent" one, but we need
to expect better of our leaders -- at least 80/80, which neither Paul
nor Kucinich can claim.
Anyway, if Brian Holtz or anyone else wants to debate me on DOMA,
marriage, military service, adoption, etc., I'll be happy to have that
debate in-person, with defined time parameters. But this ceaseless
"go check out my terabytes of white noise on marketliberal" nonsense
is taking too much of my time. In the end, people have to decide for
themselves -- is it worth throwing gay people under the bus in order
to get America back on a gold standard? I say "No" but apparently
some on this list say "Yes." And I can't say I care.
I'm too busy preparing for Denver, where I know my side will win with
the delegates.
Rob
For the record, I was a Lincoln/Douglas (values) debater in high
school. Based on the sheer volume of information posted here, I get
the feeling that at least one or two people were on their Policy
debate teams (the debate kids who talked fast like auctioneers to get
all their points in before time ran out).That being said, I wanted to thank Brian Miller for having the time
and patience to continue rebutting Brian Holtz. Most of us on this
list who agree with Brian Miller have long since abandoned exchanging
the terabytes of data required for a debate with Brian Holtz.
I'd actually like to thank Brian Holtz for having the patience to spend endless amount of time rebuting points that have already been covered up and down. I'd be doing the same thing if I had enough time and endurance for that sort of thing. I don't agree with everything he says, but he presents his arguments with a logic that is rare in these sorts of debates.
As far as I'm concerned, Paul and Kucinich are equally libertarian,
one 60/100 and the other 100/60 on the Nolan Chart. And that may
technically put both of them just inside the Libertarian quadrant.
But who cares? People just inside the boundaries are fine for
membership, in order to make the party a "big tent" one, but we need
to expect better of our leaders -- at least 80/80, which neither Paul
nor Kucinich can claim.
See, I agree with you that our leaders need to be 80/80. I think that Brian Miller might disagree with that...from the things he's said, it seems like he has an unbelievably black-and-white view of what makes a libertarian that would disqualify nearly everyone, including myself.
But I can't possibly agree with you that Kucinich is 60/100. He's more like 0/100 or at the very most 10/100. I mean...come on, he is basically a European-style socialist! He is one of the most fiscally liberal members of Congress; how can you possibly call someone who would turn the USA into a Scandinavian-style economy above average on economic issues? If he's 60, where is your center? Eugene Debs?
Although it's a harder case to make, I also have to disagree with you that Ron Paul is a 60 on social issues. I'd put him at 80, at least. Right now, I think the only decidedly unlibertarian positions I've seen have been on gay-related issues (I'd put immigration and abortion as issues that libertarians can and do have legitimate disagreements about). I think it's hard to say that gay-related issues are more than 20% of the entire spectrum of social issues. They may be the 20% YOU most care about, but that doesn't make it true for everyone.
Jeremy
Rob Power wrote:
Rob) I get the feeling that at least one or two people were on their Policy
debate teams (Rob
Not me -- and such staged debates now just seem quaint in the Internet Age.
However, I like what I've seen of DebatePedia: http://wiki.idebate.org .
Rob) I wanted to thank Brian Miller for having the time and patience to
continue rebutting Brian Holtz. (Rob
The most you can thank Mr. Miller for is having the time and patience to
continue claiming to have rebutted me. For what he's doing to count as
"continue rebutting" me, he needs to answer me
* on Saddam's death toll:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/12907
* on the definition of "defense":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cal-libs/message/2312
* on whether Iraq was invaded to find bin Laden:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/12873
* on whether "defeat in Iraq was inevitable":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ca-liberty/message/5214
* on whether Halliburton has fudged its books:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/13130
* on whether the LRC "criticizes gay people, black people, women, etc.
as being 'insignificant'":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/13142
* on whether the Portland Platform allows a 100% marginal income tax:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/13144
* on whether the Portland Platform allows "mandatory private sector
quotas": http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/12848
* on whether Giuliani ordered an arrest of a reporter that led to the
reporter being physically "beaten":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/13216 (a message to
which he explicitly said he declines to respond)
* on whether I'm supportive of the efforts of him and his team to grow
the LP: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cal-libs/message/2462
You continue:
Rob) Most of us on this list who agree with Brian Miller have long since
abandoned exchanging the terabytes of data required for a debate with Brian
Holtz. (Rob
Your "abandoning" here on lpsf-discuss seems to have had less to do with
"terabytes" than with your "How Dare You?" attempt to shame me that clearly
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lpsf-discuss/message/13142> backfired. An
honorable person would either defend or retract charges as inflammatory as
the ones you and Mr. Miller made against me. I was confident that Mr.
Miller would do neither, but for you I held out some hope.
Rob) As far as I'm concerned, Paul and Kucinich are equally libertarian (Rob
Care to debate that online? Pick any argument length up to 30K of HTML. On
the forum(s) of your choice on the date of your choice we'll each post our
argument at 9pm. We'll then have 48 hours to compose simultaneous
rebuttals, each of which may freely quote either of the first two documents,
but which may contain no more than another (say) 20K of new text. The only
links allowed will be to statements and writings by Paul or Kucinich; no
links or references to outside arguments allowed. The debate will then be
declared closed, and any attempt to unilaterally make further arguments that
quote or extend the debate will constitute an admission of defeat. [I see
that Jeremy Linden has already pointed out how easy this debate would be to
win, so I don't expect you'll take me up on my offer.]
Rob) Anyway, if Brian Holtz or anyone else wants to debate me on DOMA,
marriage, military service, adoption, etc., (Rob
Pick any proposition you want, and if I disagree with you on it, I'll be
happy to debate you under the rules above. However, as I've made clear here
and on the PlatCom list, I agree with you on marriage rights, military
service, and adoption, so I don't know what you think there is in your list
that we need to debate. But feel free to continue your malicious
insinuations that I don't support gay rights...
Rob) I'll be happy to have that debate in-person, with defined time
parameters. (Rob
Pick any audience you want, and I'll be happy to debate you in person if we
begin by reading the arguments we produce under the rules above. I've seen
far too many fabricated and ignored facts here to be interested in sharing a
stage with disinformation that I haven't had time to fact-check.
Rob) But this ceaseless "go check out my terabytes of white noise on
marketliberal" nonsense is taking too much of my time. (Rob
Yahoo Desktop Search made it easy to review all the links I've sent in
discussion with you this year. In the context of our membership on the
Platform Committee, I've sent you links to
Note that while this rebuts one of the points from someone who I've
vowed not to debate here anymore, I'm not rebutting that person. I'm
instead answering Jeremy's points since he was kind enough to bring so
many people to the Drinking Freely social last week.
But I can't possibly agree with you that Kucinich is 60/100. He's more
like 0/100 or at the very most 10/100...
Although it's a harder case to make, I also have to disagree with
you that
Ron Paul is a 60 on social issues. I'd put him at 80, at least.
I just took the quiz for Kucinich and Paul at the Advocates website.
Because Kucinich gets an "Agree" on ending corporate welfare and
allowing free trade, and a "Maybe" on #3 (he agrees with letting
people control their own retirement, even though his proposed system
isn't really privatization), and a "Maybe" on government spending
(because he'd gut the military) he got a 60 on economic issues.
Because Paul gets a "Disagree" on sex laws (remember that he defended
the Texas sodomy law against the 2003 Supreme Court decision) and a
"Maybe" on censorship and a "Maybe" on drugs (RU-486 is an example of
a drug he'd ban), he also gets a 60 on personal issues.
Look, I'll admit that they're both plainly in the Libertarian
quadrant, and that calling them un-Libertarian is the kind of
bait-and-switch that the LRC has been griping about. I just don't
think that's enough for me to support someone for President.
Rob Power wrote:
Rob) Note that while this rebuts one of the points from someone who I've
vowed not to debate here anymore, I'm not rebutting that person. (Rob
If only you dared speak his name, we could then check whether this
incantation will succeed in warding him off. 
I'm guessing not. Next
time, try garlic.
Rob) I just took the quiz for Kucinich and Paul at the Advocates website.
Because Kucinich gets an "Agree" on ending corporate welfare and allowing
free trade, and a "Maybe" on #3 (he agrees with letting people control their
own retirement, even though his proposed system isn't really privatization),
and a "Maybe" on government spending (because he'd gut the military) he got
a 60 on economic issues. (Rob
Kucinich's site says: "Increase funding for regional food processing
facilities, marketing assistance, farm-to-school programs, on-farm renewable
energy, and the Farmers Market Nutrition Program. Agricultural research and
development institutions must be given funding priority to help family
farmers make a transition to profitable and sustainable agriculture.
Funding for smaller, regional packing plants will create better economic
opportunities for family farmers, better conditions for workers, and safer
meat for consumers. A variety of support mechanisms and financial
incentives would be given to local businesses, so that locally owned
businesses have a fair chance to compete." It's ludicrous to give Kucinich
an Agree on ending corporate welfare, but I'll be charitable and give him a
Maybe because he surely wants to end welfare for the kinds of firms that
don't give him campaign contributions.
He opposes trade agreements "which make it impossible to place taxes or
tariffs on outsourced work. The search for countries where workers are
unrepresented and environmental rules are lax must end. NAFTA, WTO, "Fast
Track" legislation, and the Free Trade Area of the Americas must be rejected
and replaced with Fair Trade policies in which bilateral trade agreements
are negotiated to provide for living wages for workers and environmental
safeguards." That's clearly a Disagree on ending government barriers to
international free trade.
Kucinich says: "Wall Street should not get its hands on Americans'
hard-earned Social Security savings. The Social Security system is not in
financial crisis, but it faces the same political crisis much of our
government faces: the pressure to privatize. I am working to prevent the
privatization of Social Security." All I can find on his campaign site or
house.gov about "letting people control their own retirement" (hah) is that
he wants to "empower [people] to make good decisions about their [pension]
plans." It's laughable to claim that Kucinich doesn't get a Disagree on
"Let people control their own retirement; privatize Social Security."
Kucinich of course doesn't want to replace government welfare with private
charity: Disagree.
The Advocates ask you to agree to "cut taxes and government spending by 50%
or more." Even if Kucinich eliminated ALL defense spending, that's only
25% of the federal budget. It's ludicrous to claim Kucinich gets anything
but a Disagree here.
Thus Kucinich scores a 10 on economic issues -- if we cut him slack on his
corporate welfare for favored constituencies. Your 60 doesn't even pass the
laugh test.
Rob) Because Paul gets a "Disagree" on sex laws (remember that he defended
the Texas sodomy law against the 2003 Supreme Court decision) and a "Maybe"
on censorship and a "Maybe" on drugs (RU-486 is an example of a drug he'd
ban), he also gets a 60 on personal issues. (Rob
As I've explained here already, what Paul defended was the jurisprudential
principle that under our present Constitution, the federal judiciary may not
assert centralized federal authority over state regulation of civil
liberties. I disagree with his jurisprudence and his worry that the federal
government tends to be more of a threat to civil liberties than a protector
of them, but you simply CAN NOT quote him saying there "should be laws
regarding sex for consenting adults". Instead, I can quote him saying (to
the values voter audience, no less):
RP) A free country is designed for individuals to deal with the subject of
virtue and excellence. Once we defer to the government to get involved in
worrying about our own virtue and our excellence and perfect fair economies,
it is done at the sacrifice of liberty. If we do that, and sacrifice that
liberty, and the job of virtue and excellence is taken over by the
government, you can only do that through tyranny. [...] If you want to
change people, you change them through persuasion, through family values,
through church values, but you can't do it through legislation, because
force doesn't work. (RP
Still, I'll be extremely unfair to Paul and give him a Maybe on sex laws,
because even though he uses "ridiculous" to describe sodomy laws, and even
though I've never seen him advocating or voting for the actual legislation
of anyone's sex life, he declines to use our best weapon against state sex
laws -- the Bill of Rights -- out of a misplaced fear that the federal
government threatens our civil liberties more than it protects them. (Lots
of radicals are gripped by such state-ophobia, but they're still
libertarians.)
You've cited zero evidence that Paul should get a Maybe on censorship.
Again, I quote him telling the values voter audience:
RP) What we as conservatives must remember, is that if you're willing to use
the strong arm of government to regulate things that are negative, that you
don't like and you find abhorrent, you set the stage for regulating your
religion, your schools, and everything else. The First Amendment wasn't
written to protect non-controversial speech; it was written to protect
controversial speech so that we don't lose our right to go to church and run
our schools. This is key. (RP
Also in that debate, Paul was the only candidate who dared answer No to the
question: "Would your administration prosecute all illegal adult
pornography, including so-called white collar pornographers?" Thus Paul
won't even tell a conservative Christian audience that he will prosecute
"illegal pornography"! We of course all know that Paul is an absolutist on
the question of political expression and campaign spending. Paul clearly
deserves an Agree here.
Paul of course gets an Agree on drugs as well. He told the values voters
that the war on drugs is a "total failure". The question put to him at 44:30
into his appearance at Google didn't mention RU-486 by name, but it was
about pharmaceuticals relating to women's "choice's about their reproductive
rights". Paul indeed responded by saying that the availability of these and
all drugs should be determined by private choice, and that "government
shouldn't be involved in that". Searches on house.gov and lewrockwell.com
find no evidence of Paul ever advocating the banning of RU-486. I seriously
doubt you can substantiate your claim that Paul would ban RU-486.
Thus by being unfair to Paul on sex laws, I can whittle him down to a 90 on
personal liberty based on the facts in evidence, but no lower. Your 60 for
his personal issues again just doesn't pass the laugh test.
Rob) Look, I'll admit that they're both plainly in the Libertarian quadrant
(Rob
Kucinich can't even SEE the libertarian quadrant. His positions on hate
crimes and campaign finance give him at best a 90 on personal freedom, and
90/10 is way over on the leftist corner of the Advocates chart. It's pretty
clear from all of the above why you pre-emptively vowed not to debate me on
the proposition that Kucinich and Paul "are equally libertarian". That's
simply preposterous.
Brian Miller writes:
BM) In the case of the Google event, Paul suggested positions that he's
since either repudiated or ignored (BM
I challenge you to quote a single case of Paul "repudiating" any position he
stated at Google. Go ahead. Make my day.
BM) When his logic is called out on a particular point, however, there's
always someone willing to jump in and cite some nebulous phraseology he
uttered "at the Google event" -- while simultaneously blasting any notation
of very different on-the-record comments he's made at various events such as
the "Values Voter" debate. (BM
ROTFL. I've quoted multiple paragraphs of what Paul said at the Values
Voter debate. You have not quoted a single syllable. I've demonstrated to
you multiple times that your AP article mischaracterized what Paul committed
to at the VV debate. But feel free to keep repeating your
already-discredited propaganda. It's clear why you apparently consider
yourself something of an authority on propoganda techniques.
BM) it serves only to increase my skepticism on his candidacy (which is
based on facts, not feelings). (BM
Yes, we're all now quite aware of your adeptness with facts. You're even
able to invent your own -- a handy skill, that.
For the record, I completely agree with Brian Holtz here. Ron Paul is way more libertarian than Dennis Kucinich. That seems so obvious to me that I would normally consider it barely worth mentioning, and I am quite astonished that it is actually a topic of debate among a few Libertarians.
Love & Liberty,
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