Chomsky on Ron Paul...

[luke]

see, i think it could get worse for some people, if you were out of a job and the american equivalent of the dole is stopped, if you have your medicare stopped, if your food stamps are stopped, if your employer can bully you around, if theres no free education and you can't afford to send your kid to school - thats worse

its a shame ron paul doesn't say look, we'll stop the wars and all this military spending - and increase social spending

just because paul has polices we agree with, stopping the war, ending the federal reserve, restoring peoples liberties etc we shouldn't ignore the policies we disagree with.

what america needs is a hugo chavez

[Mandy]

Or a Castro !!

[Salim201]

For information about how free markets work read Milton Freidman's 'Free to Choose', and obviously Smith's 'Wealth of Nations'. I agree completely with Ron Paul, we need smaller government, we don't want decisions about our civil liberties, about foreign policy, made in some centralized clique of analysts and planners who have very similar interests. This is the current stat quo.

If we're serious then we should be pushing for less government not more, I distrust immensely the notion that the state knows best. And thats what the discussion comes down to, what do you feel the role of the state is in modern society, we've had tyranny for thousands of years, admittedly libertarianism is relatively new idea, but when applied to economic policy, Britain was the wealthiest nation in the world when at the time it abolished corn laws and opened up its trade, and movement of immigrant workers during the industrial revolution. When government interferes with the economy and citizens finances then we can have no serious political freedom. What libertarians believe is that of course there should be social programmes but these shouldn't be centralized, it's an obligation on all of us and it should be voluntary. Some of the best pressure groups are independant of government, SHami Chakrabarti's Liberty, Shelter, Oxfam. I'd suggest you read more about libertarianism if you're unsure about certain aspects.

[luke]

all i know about milton freidman is from naomi klein ... disaster capitalism ...

i agree though, i don't want government removing civil liberties, i don't think we should have a foreign policy that rapes the planet for resources, supporting dictators, oppressing whole countries and selling arms left, right and center to profit a few - but i think if governments there for anything it should be there for the needy and less well off.

you say its an obligation on all of us, but oxfam, shelter etc are always short on money.

i don't really class myself as a libertarian, or left or right or anything, i kinda just take it issue by issue and see whats best