[quote]lixy wrote:
Well, to me, he is attacking the arguments of people not present on this board. That’s a strawman in my book.[/quote]
Well, it doesn’t matter what “your book” says - a strawman fallacy is a defined thing, and calling Paulnuts Paulnuts ain’t a strawman.
By the way, do you hold yourself to “your book’s” standard when you blather about “neocons”?
I shan’t. Thanks for the useful tip, though.
If you were brighter, you wouldn’t suffer from such confusion.
I have given a range of conclusions, from Paul is one of these unseemly characters to Paul to Paul is innocent but not exercising good judgment about people around him.
His association most certainly is a valid question - and when he refuses to dissociate himself, it raises more still.
And, the idea that I am giving him more legitimacy is laughable - I am raising a valid point that this kerfuffle is a damnable thing with his fragile relationship with mainstream voters. You may want it to give him legitimacy - but you are just grasping at anything in order to retort. Sorry, Lixy - you are wasting time.
You continue to make the same stupid mistake Lifticus does - who here is suggesting that Paul can control whether a white supremacist gives money to his campaign or not? That isn’t the issue - the issue is what to do after you realize it has been given to you.
His campaign people don’t have to screen anything - that isn’t Paul’s problem.
Now he has white nationalists coming out and saying he attended lunches and meetings with them, etc. I can’t think of a worse news item for general election candidate. Can you imagine what would happen to any of the legitimate candidates’ poll numbers from either party if such news came out about them and they didn’t do everything to move away from it?
And? That cuts against Paul - if you listen to his followers, he has more money than he can spend. Why keep the small amount from the white supremacist if you don’t need it and could make a statement by returning it?
Yet, Paul doesn’t.
Wrong, that is the way it looks to radical wannabes - like you.
I am happy to discuss Paul’s policy and I have done so in the past - for example, his aversion to free trade agreements despite being a free trade advocate is proof in my mind he isn’t fit for the job on the basis that Paul’s free trade model only works if the world and its countries are in a global free trade zone; his ignorance of that reality means he won’t advance free trade, in fact, he would set it back - but discussions about Paul’s policies rarely head into anything interesting or productive.
Witness Lifticus - have you seen how unraveled and emotional he becomes when anyone raises the slightest criticism of Paul? He - and others, like self-proclaimed racist fascist Nominal Prospect - turn into shrieking 5 year olds. Sorry, I am into more adult discourse, at the risk of sounding, well, like an adult.
I am happy to discuss Paul’s policy and my problems with it - but who dares to represent Paul on the side of good faith debate? Cloakmanor does - the rest are just howlers.
As a starting point - I am not a libertarian, and I don’t pretend to be. I am a fellow traveler to some libertarian thought - depending on how you define libertarian - but as for the Rothbard lemmings, I reject most of their basic political assumptions to begin with, let alone would I consider voting for a politician that acts on those assumptions.
This new crop of libertarians are essentially the new Marxists - historically inept, philosophically shallow, and willing to believe in nearly any old thing they come across without a critical look, including the Marxist-esque “grand narrative of history”, which places nearly every event in modern history as a vicious tale of some Powers That Be abusing historical events to expand the government at the free person’s expense. That is the old Marxist bromide - and it is just as wrong and stupid now as it was then.
That said, we face an election soon, and discussions of political philosophy must be narrowed down to real politics at some point.
As such, I should also note - we should be spending far more time debating candidates who have a chance of winning. After all, 2008 is coming up, and important issues are on the table and important choices have to be made. There hasn’t been one decent thread examining the Democratic candidates, and I would actually like to see one from liberal partisans. I actually plan on participating in my state’s Democratic primary for the reason that though I am likely to vote GOP in 2008, it is important that I try to participate to get the best candidate from the other party as well - there is a good chance a Democrat could win, and even if I don’t vote Democrat in 2008, it is important to me that the best Democrat be the one that gets the job.
Such is the real side to American politics, if you talk to educated Americans who have jobs, lives, a legitimate stake in how the election turns, be they liberal, moderate, or conservative - not the fever swamps of Ron Paul mania, driven by internet warriors who have too much spare time on their hands. The internet is like that mirror on your car - it distorts the size of things. The Ron Paul candidacy just doesn’t warrant much attention now that we are so close to the primaries.
