Gord's Notebook : #OWS Update 400 Arrested in Oakland Democracy Now! & Ron Paul's Mean Spirited "Libertarian Ideology "

Ron Paul's Libertarian Ideology is not benign and should not be confused with the values of liberals and Progressives but rather supports a bully mentality and not justice for all. In Paul's view even the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 represented government intrusion by forcing desegregation on the American people depriving them in Paul's view of having the freedom and the right to discriminate in any way they saw fit.

As Paul Rosenberg senior editor of Random Lenghts News argues in his article( quoted below )exposing the darker side of Ron Paul's Bullying Libertarianism that Ron Paul believes any change in society is to be determined by the market place and not by government even in cases where the government is trying to defend the rights of all Americans including minorities against the Tyranny of The Majority. After being freed from slavery African-Americans were subjected in the South to the brutal and humiliating Jim Crow laws and the KKK and other White Supremacists in the South and in the North. Ron Paul even tries to co-opt the Civil Rights Movement and leaders such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. but his views do not fit with the beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr. as Rosenberg says:

When King was assassinated, he was in Memphis to support a public employee's strike - a strike by municipal sanitation workers, who under Paul's libertarian philosophy would have no right to even organise. And he was there taking time out from his larger project of organising the multi-racial Poor People's March, a concerted attempt to vastly increase federal assistance to the poor - yet another activity that Paul would have bitterly opposed as not just wrong-headed, but unconstitutional.
To the sanitation workers in Memphis, King said:

All labour has dignity. You are … reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. We know that it isn't enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?

But as far as Paul's libertarian philosophy is concerned, the Memphis sanitation workers were receiving a market wage and that was all they were entitled to. If their children starved, that was just too bad. Any attempt they made outside the marketplace to try to raise themselves up from poverty was an act of bullying on their part. That's just the way the world looks when the liberty of bullies is the highest value that you know.

King, however, knew that all the libertarian talk about free markets was just so much rubbish: "We all too often have socialism for the rich," he once said, "and rugged free market capitalism for the poor."

Above quote from : Ron Paul and the liberty of bullies: Ron Paul's libertarian ideal is a far cry for the idea of 'freedom for all'.Paul Rosenberg at AlJazeera, January 23, 2012

There is a controversy over who started the violence during this past weekend in Oakland .
The police and those in authority claim the violence was started by the protesters.
The protesters say they were non-violent and the police once again over-reacted.
There is also the case to be made that members of the Anarchist group Black Bloc may have deliberately instigated violent clashes with the police.
And some have argued the Black Bloc are being used or have been infiltrated by police or others who are acting as "agents provocateurs" who are working with the police or other agencies ie FBI, CIA who knows.
So the issue here is if there is a group of agitators whether acting on their own or guided by police who are doing all they can to disrupt the peaceful protests they should be isolated by not just the police but also by the Occupy Movement and make it be known that these Black Bloc agitators do not represent the Occupy Movement.

Uploaded by gothgod/gordspoetryfactory.com on Jan 31, 2012

Democracy Now! Amy Goodman discusses the latest clashes in Oakland between the police and the OccupyOakland movement .

Ron Paul's stand on various issues appear to many as reasonable and so they champion his policies without critically examining the impact of his Libertarian ideology on other issues . Ron Paul's libertarian ideology is one that I believe will not benefit but in fact have a negative impact on the average American citizen and would be disastrous for those who already feel marginalized in America including a large portion of the so-called 99% such as the homeless, the poor, the working poor, minorities and so on.

The problem with Ron Paul is that he is not a liberal or progressive but rather a "libertarian" which is the bases of his policies some of which sound reasonable even to liberals and progressives but there are other policies which Ron Paul supports which are also based upon his "Libertarian "Ideology which are at odds with liberal or progressive values and policies.

Liberals and Progressives believe that government has a role to play in insuring equal rights and opportunity of all citizens. Liberals are in favor of programs such as a national education policy and programs in order to provide all American children with a basic eduation no matter what their income level or race or religion etc. Ron Paul would in fact gut the department of education at the federal level and leave this issue to the states and individual parents. As far as he is concerned as a libertarian there is not a "Right to education" and therefore the government has no obligation to insure that all American children are given the same high quality of education.

So we see that his Libertarian ideology regarding policy on education would lead to a patchwork of educational policies with each state deciding on how to fund public education or to simply put an end to any form of government financed public schools.

Ron paul insists as a libertarian that the US must stop or redefine its war on terrorism and stop American military interventionism or expanding its Empire. Those who agree with this policy champion Ron Paul without examining Ron paul's other policies on foreign affairs and domestic policies.

But he is also against any form of foreign aid to other nations. Ron Paul as a libertarian is also against America's participation in the United Nations or other international organizations. His reasoning is that belonging to such international organizations the United States is giving over some of its sovereignty to these organizations . America having become a member of the UN for example must abide by rulings from the UN which may or may not be in America's best interests . His view is that the US must decide upon its own policies without interference from other nations or international organizations.So according to Ron Paul the US cannot be dictated to by the UN or the International Criminal Court which means the US could not be prosecuted for war crimes by the international Court because it has no juridiction over US citizens or its government or military.
So Ron Paul, George W. Bush and president Obama agree that no other nation or international body has any say over America's policies and actions.

There are those who support Ron Paul because he says he will put an end to the "War on Drugs" and is therefore in favor of decriminalizing all prohibited recreational drugs. But there is a catch in his proposals of which many are not aware.

But and this is a big but Ron Paul as a libertarian believes in state's rights over the rights of the federal government and so he would as president decriminalize drugs at the federal level while allowing each state in the union to develop its own policies on prohibited drugs such as Marijuana, cocaine etc. But further the states' legilature's do not all agree on decriminalizing Marijuana or other drugs. Some states want stiffer penalties for drug offenses while others would allow marijuana for medical purposes to be dispensed while still others would simply decriminalize marijuana and make it legal to sell.

As a libertarian Ron Paul is against big government and is against any federal financed programs from education to the department of the environment and any so called entitlement programs from food stamps and welfare or unemployment benefits to social security.
Ron Paul believes that the Civil TRights bills of the mid 1960s are he believes an infringement on the rights of individuals and businesses and corporations and so he would overturn or nullify such laws which he believes are unnecessary government intrusions.

Ron Paul's Libertarian Ideology is not a liberal or progressive ideology and nor is it so benign . Paul Rosenberg in an article at AlJazeera argues Ron Paul's libertarian ideology is that of permitting bullies to write the laws and call the shots. Libertarian is based in the assumtion that the smartest most entreperneual and successful should be given complete freedom to achieve their goals while the rest of society if need be does without the basics of life from education to Unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps , environmental and consumer protection to medicaire and medicais social security and so forth.

It can be argued that Ron Paul's views are elitists and racists . He may claim that this is not true but whatever their motivations libertarian ideology can only lead to rewarding the haves even more and taking more away from the have nots especially when it comes to various social programs which are seen by others as improvents in our society on the road to a more just society or as Obama argued "A More Perfect Union".

Ron Paul and the liberty of bullies Ron Paul's libertarian ideal is a far cry for the idea of 'freedom for all'.by Paul Rosenberg at AlJazeera ,January 23, 2012

San Pedro, California - On January 12, a great blow was struck against freedom, if you subscribe to the philosophy of Ron Paul. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission voted 4-0 to uphold its earlier finding that a Cincinnati landlord, Jamie Hein, had discriminated against a ten-year-old biracial girl by posting a "White Only" sign in June 2011, aimed at keeping her out of a swimming pool. According to Paul's worldview, this was a grave and terrible blow to the white landlord's liberty.

The girl's white father, however, sees things a bit differently.

"My initial reaction to seeing the sign was of shock, disgust and outrage," the girl's father, Michael Gunn, said in brief comments the day the final decision was announced. The family quickly moved away, in order to protect their daughter from exposure to such humiliating bigotry - but they also filed the lawsuit.

According to Ron Paul's view of "liberty", they were right to move, but wrong to sue. Both Ron Paul and his son, Rand, oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act, because it outlaws private acts of discrimination. This is an "infringement of liberty", they argue. And they're right: just like laws against murder, it infringes the liberty of bullies. And that's precisely what justice is: the triumph of right over might.

The same logic also applies to the Civil War. It resulted in the abolition of slavery - infringing the liberty of hundreds of thousands of slaveholders. And Ron Paul thinks that was wrong, too.

In June 2004, the House of Representatives voted to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Paul was a lone voice in opposition. On the House floor, he said:

"I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty."

One is tempted to ask, how, exactly, Ron Paul thinks we made such progress, if not in large measure because of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and other similar legislations? But that would only distract attention from the truly odious and absurd central claim that the act diminished individual liberty. Who, but a die-hard racist, thinks that way? Only one who thinks of die-hard racists' "rights" first, and the rights of everyone else a distant second, if at all

Just to take one commonplace example, at the time of the Freedom Rides, preceding the Civil Rights Act by a few years, when the national consensus was still asleep to the evils of racism, any form of interstate travel for black people - at least in the South, where most lived - was an ordeal not simply bereft of freedom, but filled with potential danger.

The interstate bus service, desegregated by Federal Court ruling, but segregated in fact - reinforced by mob violence - was the well-chosen target of the Freedom Riders. The wretched truth of this situation was exposed forever by brave young students, white and black, who took their lives in their hands to change the course of history.

But this target was only the weak link in the chains that shackled black people's freedom to travel. Private car trips were anything but a freedom-filled alternative. Blacks travelling cross-country by car - whether crossing state lines or not - faced denial of individual liberty at every turn: segregated gas stations with segregated water fountains and segregated restrooms (if they were lucky), segregated restaurants with segregated restrooms (if they were lucky), segregated motels with segregated water fountains and segregated restrooms (if they were lucky). And God help any black family travelling thus, if some emergency should arise. They would be lucky, indeed, to reach their destination unharmed. A mere flat tyre could put life and limb at risk. But thank God that white bigots, white bullies were free.

Because in Ron Paul's eyes, things looked exactly the opposite: Each of these experiences of black humiliation, subjugation and unfreedom was actually a triumph of individual white property-owning freedom. And the 1964 Civil Rights Act swept all that precious freedom away. All that liberty for bullies, gone in a single "tyrannical" stroke of the pen.

...Thus, Paul's benign world-historical generalisation has no relationship at all to the actual history of the bloody and protracted struggle to rid the world of legal slavery. But Paul's grasp of US history is no better. Historically, Lincoln did not initiate the Civil War, the South did. Nor was the North originally fighting to abolish slavery - its aim was simply to preserve the Union against Southern secession.

Indeed, Southern states began to secede, and form themselves into the Confederacy, even before Lincoln took office. Lincoln was elected on November 6, 1860, and was to be inaugurated almost exactly four months later, but the Southern states were not about to wait around for that.

South Carolina seceded in December 1860, with six other states following shortly afterward. The Confederacy was formed in February 1861, the month before Lincoln's inauguration, on March 4, 1861. The act of secession was rejected by outgoing President Buchanan, who still officially held office, as well as by Lincoln as incoming president.