Monday, May 23, 2016

Should Libertarians Feel a Kinship With @BernieSanders?

Recently on the show, Politicking with Larry King, King asked Ron Paul whether he felt a kinship with Bernie Sanders.

Dr. Paul answered, "Yes."

I have a problem with this answer. Sanders is a self-proclaimed socialist. His views on the best form that society should take are the exact opposite of those of a principled libertarian.

On the campaign trail, his speeches are packed with promises to give to this group and that group and that group, while never mentioning this means taking from others.

Sanders does not understand the fundamental problem with central power. He thinks that the power once transferred to him will do good. Libertarians understand that central power is fundamentally about coercion and anti-liberty, regardless of who is giving the orders. "Giving orders" is the problem.

To be sure, Sanders may be a bit less warlike than other presidential candidates and because of this,  we may be able to form an alliance with Sanders on this issue.

But it is counter-productive from a libertarian perspective to make a broad brush positive statement of Sanders and his campaign.  Sanders is mostly advocating evil.

If we are to hold the view that Dr. Paul's presidential campaign was mostly about educating the public about libertarianism, as I do, (SEE: How to Run for Office Like Ron Paul), then any kinf of general support for Sanders is misplaced. It is presenting and putting on a platform an individual who holds dear the confused and evil socialist perspective.

So while, there is potential for an alliance on the war issue, in general, Sanders should be bashed and bashed hard so that it becomes clear for those seeking to understand socialism or libertarianism that the two philosophies do not emerge out of the same foundation of appreciation for freedom. The consistent advocacy of freedom that is fundamental to libertarianism is at the core non-existent in the socialist view of central power and coercion.

Bernie is evil.

  -RW


12 comments:

  1. Question: From a libertarian perspective, is socialism justified because it is a way to decrease the wealth accumulation in the hands of a few that occurred because of violations of the NAP (crony capitalism)? Can new NAP violations (socialism) be justified as a way to take back stolen wealth?

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    1. Are you honestly pretending that socialism is about "taking back stolen wealth", rather than simply stealing wealth PERIOD?
      Yes, socialism would steal from the few which have amassed their wealth in immoral and dishonest ways.
      But that is only because socialism steals from everybody, in which those few are included.

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    2. This is the wise-man theory of governance. Somewhere out there, there is a group of wise men who can justly determine who has wealth due to ill-gotten gains and those who rightfully earned it. This group of men (or women) can then take from these "bad" people and send checks to the rest of us.

      The reality is they will fleece all of us, middle class included and wise men stay the hell away from govt.

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    3. @limelemon: Great question and one I always ask. Does what has been stolen stay stolen? I haven't gotten a good libertarian answer yet and I've been told Rothbard said "yes", in so many words.

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    4. Do two wrongs make a right? No they don't. If someone's wealth was stolen, it must be proven in a court of law, and only the individual party responsible must be punished, and only in proportion to the crime. It doesn't justify a bloody indiscriminate revolution.

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  2. As I endlessly point out, none of our enemies understand the first thing about the NAP or voluntary exchange and they do not want to know. Bernie understands nothing about anything and he and his supporters live in an alternative universe. Issues of scarcity and reality to not exist because those concerns would impede their dreams of control. Further, they are obviously the dangerous racists in society since everything they do and support is based upon the idea that working people, the poor and minorities are too stupid to live their own lives without the helping hand (provided by the government) of the Bernie-supporting “progressives”.

    I receive an endless supply of posts on Facebook from Bernie, probably because I always share them with a comment that begins: “Bernie, you evil moron”.

    The only reason why someone does not understand the horrors of Fed funny money creation is because that person does not want to know the truth and wants to live in a fantasy world. Ever meet a “progressive” who could understand this comic photo?:

    Bernie: Greed, guns and prisons are what’s wrong with America – Now give me 90% of your income or I’ll send men with guns after you and send you to prison.

    http://tinyurl.com/zvscv56

    Ever meet a “progressive” with whom you could establish a basic understanding concerning what private property and voluntary exchange even mean? Their interactions with us are NEVER done in good faith. EVER.

    I say no alliances with Bernie or his idiot supporters.

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  3. Ron Paul's kinship remark was conditioned on NAP of not subsidizing government, the firm with a monopoly on violence. Claiming kinship sounds to me more that Paul was expressing sympathy one, for some of Sanders' anti-crony capitalist positions, and two, how hard it is to get any message critical of DC or government machine to stick with the masses or any group. And Paul seemed to make clear that he was not endorsing Sanders.

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  4. Okay wonderful.
    So i can now no longer take Ron Paul's opinions on Donald Trump seriously.
    What a stupid answer from Ron.

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  5. What he meant to say, I believe, is that he can form alliances with people like Bernie the same way he formed an alliance with Barnie Frank on marijuana reform. I don't want this to come off the wrong way because I still think Ron Paul is sharp as a tack (more so than my 38-year old self), but the fact is, he's getting old. It happens to all of us. The good doctor will probably live past 100, but I disagree with those who think he should jump into the presidential race. He was apprehensive about running the last time and he seems to be enjoying life as it is outside of politics these days.

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  6. Hmm, I haven't got to listen to this yet, but I know Dr. Paul has been tearing up Sanders and his policies, so surely it has to be taken with context?

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  7. Robert, thank you for being the voice of sanity in this election season. It seems many libertarians have gone off the deep end, even Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, which shows just how tenuous this movement is.

    Lew Rockwell and Justin Raimondo are Trump apologists for some reason, while Ron Paul seems to loathe him, but feels a "kinship" to socialist Bernie Sanders. These are not the clarifying statements that need to be made about libertarianism to the masses. Again, thank you for providing one of the few sane analyses of this election.

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  8. Oy Wenzel, why don't you watch the whole interview in Ora.tv, to gauge the full context of the statement, instead of jumping how high and kneejerk respond to the Lefty, neoKUNT nerdrage clickbait editorial, as it's designed to be.

    You know, for a man who covers MSM daily, you do so a lot of cursory MSM headline acceptance, especially whenever your blog entry starts with "Oh boy..."

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