
Ron Paul’s Farewell Address: The Internet Can Stop Big Government - relampago
http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/16/ron-pauls-farewell-address-the-internet-can-stop-big-government/
======
snitko
What makes me sad is that a lot of people, even here, discharge Ron Paul as
some sort of crazy guy without even listening to what he says. In comments to
this post "thesagan" wrote that some of his ideas are "batshit crazy" as if
his ideology is composed of many different unrelated parts. Not true, Ron Paul
ideas are ideas of libertarianism and if you study them diligent enough,
you'll eventually be used to thinking in this framework. Which is actually the
point: it is a framework which has logical structure to it. Unlike both
parties' ideologies, which are, indeed, crafted out of many different
unrelated parts serving special interests.

~~~
astrodust
The problem is Ron Paul is a crazy guy. He's trying to rigorously apply
principles from the 1700s to today's world. He's not willing to compromise in
the face of evidence that contradicts his firmly held opinions.

I've studied Libertarianism to the point of finding out that, not unlike other
extremist philosophies, it's too far-fetched to ever work. People are too
"human" for Libertarianism to ever work. It's too easily corrupted to serve
the interests of those with power.

Ron Paul either lives in some kind of puppies and rainbows small-town world
where corporate interests never trump personal liberties, where money doesn't
equate to power and relative immunity from prosecution, or he's willing to
overlook all that and hold out _faith_ that Libertarianism will somehow change
how people iteract.

Basically he's the Richard M. Stallman of politicians. Blinded by ideology and
ultimately dragging things in the wrong direction.

~~~
snitko
I challenge you to give me one very specific example of how something is not
going to work in a libertarian world and I'm going right here right now to
prove you how it actually would work. (because, with all due respect, I think
writing comments that basically say "it's not gonna work because it's puppies
and rainbows" is not helping us find out the truth).

~~~
astrodust
Others have chimed in with similar explanations but it often revolves around
the principal problem of how do you allow "freedom" without infringing on
someone else's?

For instance, if I want to drink radiation laced water, Libertarians would
think I have the right. They'd also say I should have to pay for my own
medical treatment resulting from that. Reasonable enough.

However, if I drank radiation laced water because a chemical company was
disposing of their waste in my backyard and I didn't know, Libertarians would
tell you it's your fault for not having the proper testing equipment or paying
a company to run these tests for you.

The same thing shakes out for food. For employment. For air travel. For
basically everything you do you're assumed to have done enough research to
know the risks you're exposed to. Libertarianism also makes the _enormous_
assumption that a safe option will always be available.

Since there's zero protection from monopolies in a pure Libertarian society,
they will naturally occur, and the results will be overwhelmingly negative for
all but a handful of people, the proverbial 1% if that.

Libertarianism also as much as endorses discrimination as it sees it as your
absolute right to decide who you provide goods and services to. Idealists
would have you believe that non-discriminatory companies will always out-
perform their discriminatory counterparts, but history has proven the
opposite. If people are racist, they will certainly pay a small premium for
service that reflects their views.

It's this every-man-for-himself approach to living that quickly degenerates
into pure Darwinism where the one with the most money, who can easily afford
to build a protective bubble around themselves, thrives and the others live
miserable, dangerous lives.

Basically a pure Libertarian approach has too many dangerous failure states
for it to be taken seriously. There are arguments that can be made for a
_more_ or _less_ libertarian approach to problems in society, but to go 100%,
full-on is to miss the point.

~~~
praxeologist
>However, if I drank radiation laced water because a chemical company was
disposing of their waste in my backyard and I didn't know, Libertarians would
tell you it's your fault for not having the proper testing equipment or paying
a company to run these tests for you.

This is simply false. Pollution would be treated as a tort. Now, you can't set
up a home near an already existing, noisy club and complain about noise
pollution. If you set up a home in a quiet and unpolluted area, you have a
right to maintain the structural integrity of that area.

The details of what the maximum allowable punishment for someone coming along
and polluting your land is is a bit of an advanced subject. That you have no
recourse except to test your soil for pollution and clean it yourself is just
incorrect.

>The same thing shakes out for food. For employment. For air travel. For
basically everything you do you're assumed to have done enough research to
know the risks you're exposed to. Libertarianism also makes the enormous
assumption that a safe option will always be available.

Again false. Libertarian law is all about what to do when people violate
others' rights. There's also certain reasonable assumptions of safety which
consumers must be able to make. For instance, it would be a crime to sell some
sort of food, presented as safe to eat, which was really poisonous. It would
be a crime to sell tickets for a plane ride and fly with an untrained pilot or
a plane which hadn't been checked for safety.

>Since there's zero protection from monopolies in a pure Libertarian society,
they will naturally occur, and the results will be overwhelmingly negative for
all but a handful of people, the proverbial 1% if that.

If you had any genuine concern about monopolies, you would have concern about
your government. A state is a territorial monopoly on the legitimate use of
violence, the ability to arbitrate disputes and to assign property rights.

State-granted monopoly rights (IP for instance) is different from a
hypothetical "natural monopoly". A natural monopoly would not be problematic
because all it would mean is that one company is so successful at meeting the
demands of consumers such that no others care to or are able to enter the
market.

>Libertarianism also as much as endorses discrimination as it sees it as your
absolute right to decide who you provide goods and services to. Idealists
would have you believe that non-discriminatory companies will always out-
perform their discriminatory counterparts, but history has proven the
opposite. If people are racist, they will certainly pay a small premium for
service that reflects their views.

The other side of the coin to rights of free association, or what you would
disparage as legalized racism, is that the tolerant of is would be free to
discriminate against racists. As it is now, we will never root out racism
because hardcore bigots are afforded state subsidies and not cast out of civil
society.

If people are not racist—and I would say the vast majority of Americans are
not—why wouldn't they also pay a bit extra for services which reflect their
values? If most people are concerned for the poor not receiving medical
services, why wouldn't they pay a bit extra to receive services from a
Samaritan hospital which never turns away the poor?

You can't just take a look at a small segment of the worst of humanity and
pretend they are the majority because it is convenient for your argument.

~~~
rayiner
> This is simply false. Pollution would be treated as a tort. Now, you can't
> set up a home near an already existing, noisy club and complain about noise
> pollution. If you set up a home in a quiet and unpolluted area, you have a
> right to maintain the structural integrity of that area.

Let's analyze this situation with some economic rigor. What you're invoking is
Coase's theorem. The idea that if you create property rights in what would
otherwise be externalities, and let people transact freely in those property
rights, the end result will be an optimal allocation of rights that maximizes
value.

Now, I'll get to the punchline before going further in depth. It's deeply
ironic that libertarians invoke Coase's theorem in this context, because Coase
himself used smoke pollution as an example of a situation that called for
regulation rather than the creation of property rights.

You see, there is an important assumption underlying Coase's theorem:
transaction costs are zero. But in the environmental context, transaction
costs are not zero, and in fact they totally dominate the relevant
transactions. A polluting coal plant might cause $1,000 of health damage to
each of 100,000 people, and it isn't worth any of their whiles to litigate
such injuries. Yet the cumulative impact of such activity is large--the coal
plant is essentially "stealing" $100m, but getting away with it by stealing a
little from a lot of people at once.

Multiply that by the hundreds and thousands of pollution sources that have a
measurable impact on each person, and what you get is an unworkable system.
And Coase himself recognized this and said as much in his papers.

~~~
praxeologist
>Let's analyze this situation with some economic rigor. What you're invoking
is Coase's theorem.

You're attacking a strawman, and I said nothing about the Coase theorem. For
some criticism of Coase by a libertarian economist see here from page 4 of the
PDF: <http://mises.org/rothbard/lawproperty.pdf>

I said, "Pollution would be treated as a tort." Nothing really special there
because all rights violations would be, viz. we do not believe in victimless
"crimes against society".

I then was mentioning the idea of easement rights in pollution (for more on
this cf. from 26 in the above PDF).

>A polluting coal plant might cause $1,000 of health damage to each of 100,000
people, and it isn't worth any of their whiles to litigate such injuries. Yet
the cumulative impact of such activity is large--the coal plant is essentially
"stealing" $100m, but getting away with it by stealing a little from a lot of
people at once.

In common law tradition, people were able to sell their tort claims, no matter
how small. Modern authoritarian law prohibits this, there are barriers to
class action suits, and so on. We'd like to return to the common law tradition
here, so if you are concerned about this, you ought to be on our side.

Besides the problem with a governments ability to simply be corrupt, polluters
often pay fines to the bureaucracy rather than compensating victims. You are
incorrect to automatically assign a $ amount to any claim of this sort. The
punishment could involve at least a chance of death and who knows what all
these minor health hazards might add up to.

Still, the impact of an individual polluter may be seen as trivial, but firms
would be able to collectively pursue the torts after buying claims from the
victims.

I believe in a continuation of good 'governance' after abolishing
'government'. I'm working on some interesting ways in which "municipal"
service providers might utilize distributed torts against polluters into
something resembling various "social welfare" programs we have today.

~~~
hazov
Rothbard is not exactly an libertarian economist he is an Austrian school
economist, not every libertarian is an Austrian school economist. Although I'm
sympathetic to libertarianism I loathe the Austrian school because of their
unscientific methods. No need to answer to me about that, it's only my belief
and of some others in the libertarian camp, Bryan Caplan for example.

My main problem with Ron Paul besides the fact that he never tried to approach
libertarianism as something that is useful to solve pragmatic problems that
exists today and tried to develop a confrontational attitude towards other
people, he was someone who always chose tribalism instead of being a good
politician, the racism in his newsletters and the fact that he always appealed
more to the angry white male stereotype than to the common people, mom and
pops of every ethnic group who are working to pay their bills and raise their
children. That and the fact that he's a firm believer in the Austrian school.

~~~
praxeologist
Rothbard is clearly a libertarian economist and I never said that all
"libertarian" economists must be Austrians. You might want to not talk about
things being unscientific when you fail to back up your assertions.

It has been fashionable since the success of the natural sciences in the
1800's to attempt to apply the methods of the natural sciences to the social
sciences. Concepts like "equilibrium" are applied incorrectly because a person
goes on to striving for the next thing right after achieving the first and
markets are in a constant flux.

On why mathematical economics is a failure, see here:
<http://mises.org/daily/3540>

~~~
hazov
I said I have no interest of discussing anymore. I'm not here to build a
thread pointing failures in first order logic in other comments, this was my
opinion and it would be better if you just accept that I do not believe in the
same things as you.

If you wish there are plenty of refutations of why the criticism of Austrian
school about modern economics is misdirected, I believe pretty much of them do
a good job, Bryan Caplan was right in almost everything, you need not to
accept any of them of course, I respect you, but you'll need to know that I do
not accept anything that comes from mises.org and do not read them anymore.

~~~
praxeologist
You're a steaming pile of fallacies and non-arguments. You have an opinion,
congrats. Here's a couple refutations of Caplan:

<http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae6_3_4.pdf>
<http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae2_4_1.pdf>

You're either incapable or unwilling to have a real discussion though, so that
is just for anyone else who cares.

~~~
rayiner
It's pretty pointless to talk to people who reject empiricism. They're nothing
more than barbarians.

~~~
hazov
I actually thinks it's also pointless but sometimes I give a try to see why
they think empiricism is more a evil than a good way to try to infer about the
world, I edited the post to see what happens.

------
mixmastamyk
The real thing:

[http://washingtonexaminer.com/transcript-ron-pauls-
farewell-...](http://washingtonexaminer.com/transcript-ron-pauls-farewell-
address-to-congress/article/2513544)

Some great stuff in there, I just wish it was about half its length. Would
tighten up the points a lot.

~~~
ataggart
He's certainly letting his voluntarist-anarchist flag fly:

"What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral
premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion
is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian,
dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal.

The answer to that is that for thousands of years the acceptance of government
force, to rule over the people, at the sacrifice of liberty, was considered
moral and the only available option for achieving peace and prosperity.

What could be more utopian than that myth—considering the results especially
looking at the state sponsored killing, by nearly every government during the
20th Century, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. It’s time to
reconsider this grant of authority to the state.

No good has ever come from granting monopoly power to the state to use
aggression against the people to arbitrarily mold human behavior. Such power,
when left unchecked, becomes the seed of an ugly tyranny. This method of
governance has been adequately tested, and the results are in: reality
dictates we try liberty.

The idealism of non-aggression and rejecting all offensive use of force should
be tried. The idealism of government sanctioned violence has been abused
throughout history and is the primary source of poverty and war. The theory of
a society being based on individual freedom has been around for a long time.
It’s time to take a bold step and actually permit it by advancing this cause,
rather than taking a step backwards as some would like us to do."

~~~
eli_gottlieb
_"What a wonderful world it would be if everyone accepted the simple moral
premise of rejecting all acts of aggression. The retort to such a suggestion
is always: it’s too simplistic, too idealistic, impractical, naïve, utopian,
dangerous, and unrealistic to strive for such an ideal._

No, my objection is that Ron Paul wants to pretend property titles are not
acts of aggression backed by the state. I'm no anarchist, but I _am_ a
believer in the Enlightenment and the social contract. When a regime of
property has grown unbearable to the people, it is the right of the people
together to abolish it and free themselves of its burden.

Whereas Ron Paul would say that anyone wishing for even the slightest
alteration of existing property arrangements is exercising the "offensive use
of force." No, we are simply withdrawing force once exercised because we no
longer approve its usage.

You are not entitled to a police force that defends your plantations,
factories, mines and, yes, server farms and retail outlets from the angry,
starving masses. You receive that defense because you're part of a society
that works together and must work for everyone.

"Anarcho"-capitalism is in no way anarchist: without hierarchies.

~~~
mindslight
Any proper anarcho-capitalist has no choice but to agree with the majority of
your comment. The alternative is to endorse whatever system currently exists,
decomposing it into the an-cap framework in terms of one entity, the
government, owning everything. So any individual anarcho-capitalist must have
a certain idea of what constitutes an unjust property distribution that should
be revolted against.

The idea of the 'social contract' isn't terrible - for any sort of stability,
there must be a rough consensus on what constitutes society's Schelling
points. The problem comes about when the concept is taken as an immutable
condition and used to nebulously justify the specifics of the current system,
lulling people into believing in change from within. Any contract needs to
have well specified methods of exit.

------
curt
The libertarian viewpoint is very simple and not the dog eat dog world people
here are making it out to be. Libertarians such as myself believe that people
should be left alone to make their own decisions and live with the
consequences, except that you need laws to stop one person from hurting
another. Does that mean everybody for themselves? No. Before the creation of
the welfare state we had mutual aid groups where communities would help each
other. The groups could be based on religion, ethnicity, occupations, etc...
People naturally took care of each other.

Would a simple world like this work today? No. But you can still use the
guiding principles to form a freer world. That's where Ron Paul went wrong, he
lived in an idealistic world. We have legacy costs and promises that must be
kept.

~~~
rpm4321
Well put. It seems to me that there is a lot of room for a moderate
libertarian party, which could sit between the two major parties as a reform-
oriented 3rd party. The majority of the electorate is uncomfortable with the
idea of government regulating their bedroom activities, and is highly alarmed
with the profligate spending and clearly unsustainable entitlement
obligations, and is very skeptical of overseas adventurism. If this 3rd party
simply co-opted the Democrats social policies and the Republicans fiscal
policies, but with a reformist, common sense, moderate-libertarian bent, it
could probably win enough seats in Congress to become legislative kingmakers -
especially with an electorate as disgruntled as in the last two cycles.

------
jacobsimeon
He also says something of a little more substance that, maybe, lines up with
the deeper HN sentiment:

"Our individual goal in life ought to be for us to seek virtue and excellence
and recognize that self-esteem and happiness only comes from using one’s
natural ability, in the most productive manner possible, according to one’s
own talents."

I would argue that no other politician could state such a clear and meaningful
fact. The guy is as sincere and level headed as they come, which is what makes
the media's portrayal of him so tragic.

------
1123581321
As can be seen in these comments, people are penny-wise and pound foolish.
They would rather support one of two presidents who enjoy inflicting trillion-
dollar wars on other ethnicities than concede an inch of ground to a man who
wrote a couple racist newsletters. The behavior of people towards a threat to
the status quo, no matter how good and helpful the threat, is insanity.

------
jakeonthemove
Why the hell doers everyone think a libertarian government would be pushing
the ideology to the extreme? It doesn't happen with the other two parties, and
it definitely wouldn't happen with libertarians at the helm.

They would compromise because it's just impossible to do otherwise.

IMO, they have a lot of great ideas that Reps and Dems don't even consider
(which is why they probably label Libs "crazy").

------
pjriot
"The internet will provide the alternative to the government/media complex
that controls the news and most political propaganda. This is why it’s
essential that the internet remains free of government regulation."

What bothers me about this statement is that either side of the net neutrality
debate could claim it was meant to support their position. Net neutrality is
government regulation. It is also the kind of regulation that would prevent
the kind of control Paul is referring to.

~~~
Gormo
> Net neutrality is government regulation. It is also the kind of regulation
> that would prevent the kind of control Paul is referring to.

Or accelerate it. Don't confuse the ostensible intent of regulation with the
actual likely outcome. Stable regulatory regimes are often the most effective
venues for collusion in existence.

------
kroger
The video: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZs9RDj3i7E>

------
Steko
_"You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t
say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced
busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking
about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt
worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the
busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”"_

\-- Lee Atwater's Secret Decoder Ring for Conservative Doubletalk

[http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-
atwate...](http://www.thenation.com/article/170841/exclusive-lee-atwaters-
infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy)

------
slurgfest
"The Internet" is not democratically elected. Why should it have a mandate to
defeat what is decided democratically?

~~~
marshray
The internet as an institution is far more democratic than the current US
election system.

Anyone can exchange ideas online, and better yet, most people do!

~~~
camus
the internet is a medium ,not an institution.

------
devb0x
"...why it’s essential that the internet remains free of government
regulation"

The internet just gets switched off or blocked in some instances, we've all
seen it before. China, Iran, Egypt.

You don't control the infrastructure or the pipe in, the government does.

Even here in South Africa, I wonder at which point they will switch it off.
It's not ours.

------
wordplay
Would a true libertarian society view nations as pseudo corporations and
citizens as shareholders? Would the more highly compensated individuals be
considered to have a larger stake in the state?

------
SpikeDad
The Internet was vital in exposing his naive and harmful behavior. His
hypocritical pronouncements and racist background would never have come to the
public without it.

Don't let Washington hit your ass on the way out.

~~~
hypersoar
Can you elaborate? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you - I just haven't
followed him enough to know what you're talking about.

~~~
bithive123
Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception
(<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2597:>), build a fence along
the US-Mexico border (<http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll446.xml>), prevent
the Supreme Court from hearing cases on the Establishment Clause or the right
to privacy, permitting the return of sodomy laws and the like (a bill which he
has repeatedly re-introduced) (<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/query/z?c110:H.R.300:>), pull out of the UN (<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1146:>), disband NATO
(<http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2004/cr033004.htm>), end birthright
citizenship (<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.J.RES.46:>), deny
federal funding to any organisation which "which presents male or female
homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it
can be an acceptable life style" along with destroying public education and
social security (<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d096:h.r.7955:>),
and abolish the Federal Reserve (<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-
bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2755:>) in order to put America back on the gold standard
(<http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBB0868C74B4AA3FA>). He was also the
sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations
doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan.
(<http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2007-764>)

Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas
(<http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html>), he's against gay marriage
(<http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul197.html>), is against the popular vote
(<http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul214.html>), opposes the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 (<http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul188.html>), wants the estate tax
repealed (<http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul328.html>), is STILL making
racist remarks (<http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/02/ron_paul/>),
believes that the Panama Canal should be the property of the United States
(<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.con.res.231:>), and believes
in New World Order conspiracy theories
([http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/ron_paul_first_bush_was...](http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/ron_paul_first_bush_was_working_towards_nwo.htm)),
not to mention his belief that the International Baccalaureate program is UN
mind control. (<http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r109:E14AP5-0007:>)

~~~
cpr
You make all these points as if it's self-evident ("to all right-thinking
peoples", "no one here but us...") that he's dead wrong about them. That's not
very helpful.

Of course human life begins at conception--what is the combined human egg &
sperm, a fish?

And what's so great about NATO? The US should bear the brunt of the cost of
defending Europe against whom now, exactly?

The Federal Reserve came into being the same year as the income tax, and the
US dollar has lost 99% of its value since then. Coincidence? There are a lot
of great arguments against the Fed. Have you seriously investigated, or just
assumed that the Fed is great because it exists? Read some Austrian economics,
which argue persuasively that centralized money control will always result in
endless bust/boom cycles.

And the Left isn't waging a war on religion? C'mon.

What's so great about estate taxes? To decide that death is an event where
someone needs to have a large chunk of his wealth taken by the state is a
fairly controversial assumption.

Etc, etc.

~~~
astrodust
> Of course human life begins at conception--what is the combined human egg &
> sperm, a fish?

By extension any woman who suffers a miscarriage is a murderer, or worse, has
a fertilized egg that fails to implant. Are you sure you want to stick with
that definition?

> What's so great about estate taxes?

It prevents most of the money in circulation from accumulating in the hands of
a very small number of individuals. It was a reaction to the situation in
Europe where the finances of a country were, and had always been, completely
locked up and social mobility was nearly impossible.

The rate at which these inheritances should be taxed is debatable, as the
current rate might be a bit too high or, as Warren Buffet and many of his
associates would have you believe, too low. He intends to push 99% of his
wealth into charities before he dies so that his children will inherit _only_
a few hundred million, minus estate taxes. Those poor kids. How will they ever
survive?

~~~
alexakarpov
> By extension any woman who suffers a miscarriage is a murderer

With all respect, this is not "extension", but rather "gross distortion".

> It prevents most of the money in circulation from accumulating in the hands
> of a very small number of individuals.

What if such accumulation was just? Would it still be wrong? If yes, then why?
If no, then what's the problem? Shouldn't we worry about making game rules
fair, rather than making sure outcomes are "equalized"?

~~~
astrodust
Maybe you want to live in a society not unlike the Gilded Age where
billionaire robber barons controlled everything, where those who weren't part
of this small elite group could barely get by.

This is how un-checked wealth accumulates. Remember, it is very easy to make
money if you have lots of money to start with and can weather almost any risk
no matter how severe. When the smaller players bust out, the wreckage of their
companies and lives is bought for pennies on the dollar.

Would you want to live in a world where the Paris Hiltons could coast into
billions of wealth without having to do a single hard day's work in their
life? Where they'd have enough money to fund a hundred generations of that?

Society advances when there's an incentive to working hard. Making money is
one such incentive. When you can make money without working hard, it starts to
break down. The inheritance tax is a way of keeping an element of hard work in
the equation.

~~~
alexakarpov
Ah, but you've said 'robber barons'. This is exactly the thing - _robber_
barons. Being a robber - a bandit or baron, no difference - is a bad thing.
It's where the problem is. "Robber barons" use money and violence - rather,
they use money to "rent" violence from its providers - to create barriers to
entry - as you've said, "could barely get by". This is not even close to what
libertarian stand for.

As for it being easy to make money if you start with a lot - why, this totally
depends on the rules of the game in question! And if the game is fair and
open, then it will be equally easy for the rich starter to squander all their
wealth - since they don't actually _produce_ wealth, but only consume what was
inherited.

Libertarians are, first and foremost, about a free and honest game.

------
eli_gottlieb
Way to pander to Reddit.

~~~
jlgreco
Been there recently? Reddit, as far as you can say it "likes" or "dislikes"
anything, does not like Paul.

~~~
smokeyj
Everyone hates him. He's too liberal for liberals and too conservative for
conservatives.

~~~
astrodust
Don't confuse "Libertarian" with "liberal".

~~~
cpeterso
Don't confuse classical liberalism with American liberalism.

