Tag Archives: Ron Paul

Some Libertarians Need Social Skills

Elections, Libertarians, Liberty, Politics, Republicans

Originally posted at United Liberty

Twitter and the Internet in general have gone insane once Rand Paul endorsed Mitt Romney a day after his dad, Ron Paul, conceded the Presidential race. All of a sudden, Rand Paul became a sellout, a traitor, a neo-con, etc. The same Rand Paul whose Senate record has nearly been perfect on issues from civil liberties to fiscal issues. If this is how we treat our own, imagine how we treat non-libertarians. This outburst only adds to the biggest problem most non-libertarians and some libertarians have with the Ron Paul movement, that we’re a lunatic fringe that demands 100% conformity. In order to broaden our outreach and persuade more people to become libertarians, some of us need to learn some basic social skills.

Why Should We Become More Sociable?

People do business with and vote for people they like. It’s human nature. In order to get more people to consider libertarian ideas and candidates, they have to like the people behind them whether it be the person on the phone or the door to door canvasser.

First things, first.

If your political discourse usually includes one or more of the following: Bilderbergers, Bohemian Grove, NWO, Illuminati, fluoride, conspiracy, 9/11 Truth, long form birth certificate, or anything like that; please keep it to yourself. You’re making all of us in the liberty movement look insane. (Full credit to a rant by @TPANick on Twitter for that) Plus, if your newssources are Infowars, Prison Planet, Lew Rockwell.com, or Russia Today (RT); you probably need to open your mind and find other news outlets. They’re all as much propaganda and agenda driven news outlets as the rest of the media. Do your own research and reach your own conclusions. Finally, if you believe that Reason magazine and the Cato Institute are statist, you probably need to find a more productive outlet for your time than politics.

How Should We Treat Our Enemies?

With respect and courtesy. Don’t boo their speeches or heckle them. Let them speak. If they win delegates or races, let them have them; there will be other ones. Be courteous to them, even when they’re not to us. When we are victorious, treat our defeated opponents honorably and try to make them friends. However, we should always argue our points and ideas forcefully and make sure we are treated fairly.

Always remember this: in politics, today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend.

How Should We Treat Ourselves And Allies?

We need to always remember that someone who agrees with us 80% of the time or even 51% of the time is a friend, not an enemy. For example, even though I voted for Ron Paul, I’m sure there will be commentors who will attack me as a Mitt Romney shill, among other things. We should debate ideas amongst ourselves and being that we’re a very individualist ideology, we won’t agree on everything. Everyone in the battle for individual freedom is a friend and ally, even if we disagree on some issues. There is no need for purity tests or other such nonsense. The very idea of which are anti-libertarian. We should show our fellow libertarians respect, unless they do something so egregious such as show vile racism or urge violence or anything else along those lines, then we need to show them the door out of the movement.

What Should You Take From This?

Basically you attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. We shouldn’t irritate people who are not libertarians just for the sake of irritating them. Being buffoons and douchebags in general turn off people, most of whom are not ideological and are only looking to see how their lives will be made better. I’ll leave it to a future post for ideas how to reach out to average Americans, but we need to put our best foot forward and look and conduct ourselves professionally and honorably. Anything less than that does our movement a great disservice.

Kevin Boyd
I’m one of the original co-founders of The Liberty Papers all the way back in 2005. Since then, I wound up doing this blogging thing professionally. Now I’m running the site now. You can find my other work at The Hayride.com and Rare. You can also find me over at the R Street Institute.
http://thelibertypapers.org/2005/11/22/a-bit-about-kevin/
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Jack Conway’s Unfair Attack on Rand Paul

Crime and Punishment, Criminal Justice Reform, Culture, Democrats, Dumbasses and Authoritarians, Election '10, Legal, Multimedia, Police Watch, Politics, Republicans, The War on Drugs, Theory and Ideas

I’m not a Rand Paul fan, not a Kentuckian and am not going to endorse him or give money to his campaign. Given that, all of the above is true of his Democratic opponent Jack Conway as well. His disingenuous advertisement attacking Paul for an alleged laissez faire approach to law enforcement is absurd and actually makes Paul look like a much more attractive candidate:

As has been made fairly clear by my posts and also by my colleague Stephen Littau, law enforcement in this country has gone out of control into zones of paramilitary tactics that are frightening.

Littau posted a Cato Institute video that showed a police arrest of a motorcyclist by an armed police officer showing no badge who looked on all accounts as if he were conducting a robbery.

Over at the Agitator, Radley Balko reports on the murder of Michael Sipes, seventeen, by police after responding to a noise complaint. As the drug war continues to escalate in Mexico, a smaller escalation appears to have occurred at home, with arrests up and disturbing lethal attacks on homes, including many where dogs have been killed. In 2007, drug arrests for marijuana possession alone totaled 775,138! If a Senator Paul will introduce legislation that would eliminate non-violent arrests for “crimes” like marijuana possession, more power to him.

I can not express enough how much I disagree with Paul on the Civil Rights Act and, given being told by a Kentuckian that racism was benefitting Paul in his senate race, it makes me distrust him highly. Given that, if Paul does think non-violent crimes should be at least a lower priority, that makes me give him a second look. The last thing we need is the “cops know best” approach that Jack Conway seems to be endorsing.

TomStrong
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Ron Paul Breaks With Son Over Mosque

Civil Liberties, Independents, Legal, Libertarians, Liberty, racism, Republicans, War on Terror

This is one of the Texas congressman’s best appearances since the heyday of his presidential run. I’ll admit my enthusiasm for him has waned mostly due to his son and a lot of the people who have associated themselves with Paul. Paul himself, however, is consistently a voice of reason over the irrationality and hatred of both political “sides.”

TomStrong

Yo Meghan, the revolution already started. Where have you been?

Independents, Republicans

Meghan McCain writes:

I understand that my place within the Young Republicans and the Republican Party is a controversial one, which is something I am still trying to get comfortable with. I am criticized almost daily for not being “conservative enough.” But the Republican Party needs to reach out to all kinds of voters. The last time I checked, most conservatives are already Republicans. It’s the independents that we need to sway. We need to make them believe we really do practice what we preached about less government, less spending, national security, etc, and we aren’t recruiting leaders who are old and out of touch.

This is interesting to me, because a few weeks ago, I went to a Young Republicans event in Birmingham. The following night, I cohosted a Liberty on the Rocks event in the same town. Both were on weekday nights, held in popular bars with decent food not too far away from each other, the weather was about the same (hot and muggy, of course), but quite a few more folks were at the latter event.  There were more Ron Paul voters at the LOTR event than voters for all of the GOP presidential candidates combined at the YR event.  To add fuel to the fire, there were even some Ron Paul supporters I know at the YR event.

From a libertarian perspective, both Meghan and her father have come out positively on a few issues, such as torture and gay rights. She made some comments about racism in her article with which libertarians will approve. With respect to less government and less spending, they’d both do well to spend a few hours around the good doctor from Texas. I don’t know if there is anything which can be done about the McCain impulse to go to war with little provocation, but I can easily set her up with some noted conservative/libertarian authors and politicans who would be willing to take the time to discuss the issue with her.

“What Young Republicans need is a revolution,” she writes.

In case she somehow missed the word, having been busy on the campaign trail and all, there already is one:

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Stephen Gordon
http://stephengordon.com
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