Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday questions Ron Paul on what exactly is Austrian Economics and what would leading thinkers of the Austrian school such as Ludwig von Mises and FA Hayek suggest for solutions to the current crisis (skip to 10:30 in).
Not necessarily an upstaging of Tom by Ron, but a more widespread exposition of the material and a more succinct and precise solution that was provided on a Sunday morning news show yesterday. Think of it as more of a companion piece.
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Pure undiluted pleasure to listen to this man. And I don’t mean Chris Wallace, just to be clear.
I’m no fan of the MSM, but I am willing to give credit where credit is due. The question about what Mises and Hayek would suggest for policy was a great question and as usual Mr. Paul answered it expertly.
I have noticed that Mr. Paul is at his best in his most recent interviews. He is the anti-politician and everything GOP voters claim they stand for. Will they end up voting for him? Who knows. Regardless, it sure is exciting to have the undiluted message of liberty receiving significant coverage and on Fox no less!
Beware the neocon shapeshifter, they are already painting themselves in RP colours.
Don’t skip any of this interview. I have been concerned with Paul on national defense. He usually talks like an active isolationist. I think interview he actually acknowledged that he might consider using our armed forces to secure the nation’s security. I always felt that if he wanted to be president he had to understand that means Commander in Chief of our armed forces. This interview eased my mind some about his willingness to defend out country. He sounded more like Rand Paul than Ron Paul in this interview.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/06/14/if-this-be-isolationism/
I mean no disrespect, but Paul has never been against national defense. What he is against is mindless unending warfare and antagonism that the government currently engages in on the international level. To my mind, he has been very clear, although I will admit his message doesn’t tend to be broadcast well mainstream media interviews. (I don’t know if this is because of interviewer ignorance or smears via the talk radio crowd or what.) The book of his collected congressional speeches on foreign policy outlines what he thinks the proper role of defense is. And please, I think it’s important to distinguish between Paul’s policy of non-intervention versus a policy of extreme isolationism.
He’s been stating this clearly from the get-go. It’s not a complex distinction.
Pay attention. Get a clue. Or well send the boys in blue for you.
Not to be a dick or anything, but anyone that believes that “fighting them over there” (so al-qaida will have new recruits to fight us over here) is ensuring security or in any way protecting our freedoms is a sucker that will believe anything.
You don’t defend yourself by invasion.
That…was better than I had any reason to expect. And I’ve liked Ron since I first voted for him back in ’88.
But who’s listening? That’s the important question now.
I like Ron Paul, but he’s dead wrong on Iran. A nuclear Iran would be a disaster.
What about India and Pakistan? They’ve got it now and no one wants to go after them. What about us? We actually use ours.
I’m all for going after Pakistan, in coordination with India, which is more or less an ally, unlike Pakistan. Pakistan is taking America for a sucker, and Ron Paul is also wrong about them.
But it’s much more tricky to attack a country which ALREADY has nukes, than to prevent a country from developing them. So it makes sense to be wary of attacking Pakistan, but Iran is another matter.
If I was Pakistan I would be thanking my lucky stars that my country had nuclear warheads when I realized that there would be people with your thinking in the USA government.
The way you are talking you would shrug your shoulders and go ahead and wipe out a entire civilization for the sole purpose of intimidating some nutjobs.
Think about it… You probably piss and moan about paying more taxes and complain about lack a accountability or responsibility these people in government have for the economy, medical industry, and your income…
.. but you’ll happily be convinced by these same dirtbags that killing hundreds of millions of people by nuclear holocaust is in your best interest?
Do you not see a problem with this logic? FFS man get your head out of childhood GI Joe fantasies and start paying attention to what is happening around you!!
nate, FFS indeed!
I said “going after” Pakistan as in destroying its nuclear arsinal and toppling its government, not as in dropping nukes on its cities. A nuclear holocaust is certainly something I would like to prevent, but in my view, unrealistic pacifism is the surest way to worldwide instability and eventually devastating conflicts.
No country needs nuclear weapons to deal with America. You don’t mess with America and its allies, you are pretty safe. You can even ask America for help when you are in trouble. Countless countries do just that.
“You don’t mess with America and its allies, you are pretty safe.”
“pretty” being the operative word in this statement, I’d say.
Martin OB, it saddens me that people desire war so much and talk about it like it’s a game of football. You’ve already got your wish of intervention in Pakistan. Special forces and attack drones are already there. Unfortunately, while some enemies do get killed off, many innocents also die in these attacks.
In regards to Iran, is Paul incorrect in saying that there’s no army, navy, or air force within Iran’s control that can fight on US shores? It’s a far cry from the bogeymen of old, the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, or the Third Reich. Demonizing them and making them into this ultimate evil is just stupid.
This war talk is just domination and empire. It’s evil, wrong, and totally backward. It’s harming countless people over there, and does nothing by incite hatred against us. Too many people have died on both sides, not to mention the level of carnage in regards to rapes, assaults, psychological damage, property damage, and the many people that are now disabled due to war activities. It’s also costing trillions. It’s unsustainable and damaging in so many ways that it’s hard to even catalog.
War and occupation is no simple thing. It costs so much in money and life. Please, rethink what you’re saying.
And why exactly?
The last time I checked, Iran hasn’t attacked anybody in … quite some time. This cannot be said of the “west” or the conglomerate of psychos currently doing the saber-rattling and sanctions song-and-dance.
And it’s not like it looks like Iran is currently hot on building the bomb anyway, NYT/WSJ/FOX propaganda notwithstanding.
Iran cannot afford to attack anyone right away at this point, but it does support terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, and Ahmedineyad is as open about his intentions towards Israel and his dreams of Islamic world domination as he can get away with, short of actually declaring war. If he had nuclear weapons, well, I don’t expect him to use them at once, but I do expect him to become a major headache, much worse than Kim Jong-il.
No one knows for sure whether he is buiding nuclear weapons or not, but he is enriching uranium and he rejected offers to do it in Russia. Also, he has just announced allegedly undetectable missile silos, and he has moved the centrifuges to reinforced bunkers.
You don’t expect him to openly state his plans, do you. If you suspect someone is trying to build nuclear weapons, you can’t just ask them and take their word for it. You have to wonder what a head of state who only wants cheaper energy would do, and I don’t think it’s anything like what he’s doing.
Why aren’t we doing more to allow for trade with them? Free trade would be the best course of action. You don’t attack your trading partners. Even if this means encouraging a black market somehow. The Iranian people are hungry for freedom, as we saw a few years ago.
Because trading, peace, liberty, and economic prosperity is far less important to people in government then consolidating their power base.
Duh .
> It does support terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas
But so what? We support terrorist organizations like M.E.K. and Israel’s TLAs. We bomb and main by robot in countries that are nominally at war with us. Nice.
>No one knows for sure whether he is buiding nuclear weapons or not, but he is enriching uranium and he rejected offers to do it in Russia.
Actually, our side made sure that any deal along those lines went “poof”. Actively sabotaging negotiations? Yes we can. Meanwhile, the IAEA is continuing to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material and the only serious hint about nefarious activities is the M.E.K. sourced “smoking laptop” which apparently is a fabrication.
> Also, he has just announced allegedly undetectable missile silos, and he has moved the centrifuges to reinforced bunkers.
Well, I would if there is someone on CNN threatening to attack me every other month.
> You don’t expect him to openly state his plans, do you. If you suspect someone is trying to build nuclear weapons, you can’t just ask them and take their word for it.
Iran is voluntary participant of the NPT and in relatively good standing, spinning and parsing by our propaganda ministries notwithstanding. This is more than can be said of the certain other Middle Eastern countries.
“Keep your eyes open and verify”, but the constant weekend panic about Iran getting nuclear weapons in a month’s time since 1995 is getting stale, very much so.
The point is not whether America’s foreign policy is spotless. I could explain why what America does is nothing like what Iran does, but that’s a distraction. The point is how dangerous to America and its allies a powerful Iran may be. Iran is clearly an enemy country who supports enemy groups, so a nuclear Iran is a major threat. Any presidential candidate must convince its potential voters that he will do what is best for the country.
You make some nice points, but at the end of the day, when a government wants to stay out of trouble, it can do it easily. Gaddafi did it and it worked for him. He was eventually ousted for other reasons, but no one accused him of building nukes.
The incentives for a nuclear Iran are there, and if Iran were building nukes that’s exactly how it would go about it.
Re: Martin OB,
Especially when a nuclear Iran is easier to attack than, oh let’s say, an ALREADY nuclear North Korea…
It’s easy to be a bully when the victim is still defenseless…
A nuclear USA has been a disaster!
Is there any website that I can visit where I don’t have to read this NeoCon propaganda? This site is an oasis, but the occasional invasions are annoying. Don’t worry NeoCon, you will be assimilated. Inside every NeoCon is a Misesian waiting to come out, that is once the double-think is expunged.
Here we go again with the lazy labelling. I don’t mind labels, but “neocon” has a very specific meaning, which has nothing to do with being unapologetically pro-Western, or “hawkish”. I think the conservapedia entry nails it:
That’s quite far from my position. On foreign policy I tend to agree with the objectivists; on immigration I’m much of a Hoppean.
I’m sorry that my comments spoiled your Chomskyan paradise. I would also like to find another blog with a more sensible position on foreign policy and a few other issues, while having similar economic views, but the ones I’ve found aren’t nearly as much fun. Suggestions are welcome.
Besides, I know I’m not the only one who is missing the old Mises dot org, because, you know, this cultural left-wing stance has not always been there. It’s not like I’m new to this. Been there, done that, moved on.
By the way, it’s ironic that you want to “expunge my double-think”. Given your low tolerance for contrarian comments and your plans to “assimilate” dissenters, I would rather expect your to add a new layer, thereby making it triple-think.
You have a very odd definition of ‘sensible’ if you think your position on invading both Pakistan and Iran is sensible.
How many simultaneous wars do you think we should engage in?
5?
6?
Why just stop with Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and Somalia?
Why don’t we just go full bore and just start carpet bombing the entire Middle east, northern Africa, AND south central Asia?
How many people do we have to kill, how many trillions of dollars must we spend before it’s Pro-Western enough fro you to consider it ‘reasonable’?
What is not sensible is to let enemy countries become as powerful and threatening as they like, hoping for them to return the favor afterwards.
I’m not in favor of endless wars, just a simple and coherent foreign policy, namely, that America (and the West in general) lets countries manage their own internal affairs as long as they don’t try to become nuclear powers. If they do try, stop them before they can. If they succeed, keep diplomatic pressure and consider the option of destroying their arsinals by surprise. Develop defensive systems like the recently deployed Iron Dome.
If invasion becomes a need, don’t go about it as if you were just helping the local insurgency. That’s the most expensive way, because you are propping corrupt local leaders who never get the job done and put American troops at risk. Instead, just invade, disarm the population, keep public order as it was done in colonial times and make them work to pay for the war. Take their resources.Then go away and watch them closely. Yes, that’s humilliating, but a defetead enemy country is not supposed to be rewarded. That’s how it has always worked throghout history. Show strength, determination and coherency, that’s the only thing some cultures can respect. Incidentally, the daily lives of ordinary citizens would probable be much better under proper occupation than under their corrupt local thugs. They would also be much more productive.
I completely agree with Martin OB that a nuclear armed Iran is much less desirable than a non-nuclear armed Iran. That being said, any U.S. military action waged against Iran to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, along with the probable blowback* that that action would foster, would be a much less desirable outcome.
*Also undesirable would be the domestic political ramifications that that blowback would cultivate.
Is this not the proper libertarian response?
No, I was correct, you are indeed a MASSIVE Neo-Con.
“Instead, just invade, disarm the population, keep public order as it was done in colonial times and make them work to pay for the war. Take their resources.Then go away and watch them closely. Yes, that’s humilliating, but a defetead enemy country is not supposed to be rewarded. That’s how it has always worked throghout history. Show strength, determination and coherency, that’s the only thing some cultures can respect. Incidentally, the daily lives of ordinary citizens would probable be much better under proper occupation than under their corrupt local thugs. They would also be much more productive.”
You have an extremely cartoonish, naive perspective when it comes to this subject.
Oh, and my “assmilation” comment was a joke.
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