The status quo is clearly failing us. This country is in a heap of trouble in a number of ways.
The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil But because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
– Albert Einstein
If you agree, and aren’t silly enough to think that Obama or McCain will bring the needed “change” to turn things around, you might enjoy the following video by Conza88, which contains some new clips of Ron Paul, Michael Badnarik, and Murray Rothbard, among others.
Judge Andrew Napolitano is the Senior Judicial Analyst for the FOX News Channel, but he is not your usual FOX neo-conservative drone. He also co-hosts a FOX News talk radio show called “Brian and The Judge“. The Judge is a leading voice for strictly following the Constitution in all matters of law.
Ron Paul appeared on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow tonight. He again answered the question about running as an Independent or Third Party candidate with the ballot access spending and marginalization arguments. What Paul doesn’t seem to realize is that his own candidacy on a Third Party/Independent ticket could have been a status quo breaker with the support he had.
He then has some strong words for Maddow’s liberal ears as he attacks Obama and McCain saying they both have the same ideas on foreign policy and monetary policy.
There was a rather short (as expected) report on NBC Nightly News this evening on Barr and his campaign. Watch it below.
This was a much more “respectful” report (but half as long) than the one from NBC last year during Ron Paul’s campaign where he was painted as a “fringe” candidate. See that one again below for comparison.
Bob Barr did what I believe to be the best interview of the campaign thus far for Franklin Pierce University on October 21st. The interview was extremely substantive and revealed a few insights I’ve always been curious about such as Barr’s true position on opening up another investigation of 9/11 and how he ended up being tricked into doing that interview for the Borat movie.
The interview is typically amateurish as it is for the campus television station, but it is well worth your time. This is the interview that should be on NBC Nightly News or some other main stream media outlet. It’s probably too long for the soundbite culture those outlets live in though.
The interview is in three parts. Watch them below.
Ron Paul was a guest on the Lew Rockwell Show on October 26, 2008 to talk about the current economic crisis. One of my favorite quotes by the good doctor was:
[Greenspan] has joined the gang of liberals and socialists to blame the free market for all the problems.
Ron Paul appeared on CNN’s American Morning with John Roberts this morning. They discussed Alan Greenspan’s recent testimony and the state of the Republican “brand” as well as Paul being a potential spoiler in Montana where he is receiving 4% of the vote as reported yesterday.
“The Republican Party is really in a mess.”
“It took 20 years” (to rebuild the Republican majority in Congress from 1974)
“It’s not the regulation that caused the problems.”
“The person who’s name they pick [vote for] is the one doing the spoiling. I think it is the flawed policy of both candidates.”
There is a decent article in the October 20th print edition of The American Conservative magazine by Daniel Larison that sums up the now splintered Ron Paul Revoluton. Much of the reason is attributed to Paul’s own original quasi-endorsement of third party candidates and Bob Barr’s own stubbornness in not participating in the endorsement press conference.
The gyst of the article suggests that Chuck Baldwin is now the most likely vote choice for Paul supporters. It could be construed as a bit of an attack piece on Barr. In the end the author arrives at the same lament I have had regarding the horribly missed opportunity at actually having Ron Paul’s movement be more than a fringe element easily dismissed, especially now that many of his economic predictions are coming to pass.
Larison ends his article with the following:
As all of this unfolded, the financial crisis revealed the prescience and importance of Paul’s warnings about the Federal Reserve’s inflationary monetary policy. This issue, which Paul stressed repeatedly during his primary campaign—much to the eye-rolling amusement of supposedly serious journalists and pundits—has proved far more relevant in this election cycle than anyone could have guessed. It is particularly unfortunate for the country that there will not be a unified, coherent movement to give voice to this critique at a time when we need it most.
While I may disagree with a portion of the article I am in complete agreement with Larison’s conclusion. There isn’t a readily available online version of this article so if you’d like to read the entire thing your going to have to purchase a copy of American Conservative magazine or sign up for it online. It really is a great read most of the time. It’s not Neo-conservative BS. It’s true conservative BS.
Newsweek and Slate magazine published a putrid article by Jacob Weisberg that argues that the recent financial collapse signals the death of libertarianism. It is one of those articles that forces your jaw to drop lower and lower with each idiotic word. Reason magazine’s editor Matt Welch wrote a good rebuttal to the article, but the rebuttal written by Anthony Gregory on LewRockwell.com perfectly aligns with my own view.
Whenever government failure destroys lives and wealth, we can easily become frustrated as we see the crisis blamed on freedom itself. Gun control fails to stop a massacre, and the freedom to own guns is attacked. Narco-terrorism claims the lives of many, and we hear the problem is not enough law enforcement against drugs. Destructive intervention follows destructive intervention, always in the name of erasing whatever allegedly dysfunctional liberty remains.
Jacob Weisberg has an unbelievably asinine article blaming the Wall Street collapses on libertarianism. We who believe in individual liberty supposedly brought on this recession. Specifically, the country has “narrowly avoided a global depression and is mercifully pointed toward merely the worst recession in a long while. This is thanks to a global economic meltdown made possible by libertarian ideas.” Thus the collapse signals “The End of Libertarianism.”
It is hard to grasp that someone could actually believe this. At first, we might be tempted to assume the author of the above nonsense is being deeply and deliberately dishonest. But perhaps sheer intellectual error could suffice to explain the problem.
Bob Barr’s appearance on CSPAN’s Washington Journal is now available on the CSPAN.org site. The segment includes some of the more “colorful” callers we have come to expect from the show. Barr continues to do a great job getting the liberty message out to voters through his media blitz of a day today.
Tonight catch Barr on PBS with Jim Lehrer between 6pm and 7pm Eastern.
Liberty Maven
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