Politics Is Not the Path to Freedom --- Ron Paul on the future.

[Ronin Truth]

I agree except that we have to get DC off of our backs somehow, and that means politics. Specifically, that means working in the state legislatures to force them to actively reject DC's BS.

How about you pursue liberty your way and I'll pursue freedom my way?

 

[otherone]

You won't have liberty unless you work through the political system. ALL government action, law, policy, etc is the result of politics.

Liberty exists in the absence of government action, law, policy, etc.

 

[Matt Collins]

How about you pursue liberty your way and I'll pursue freedom my way?

...which really means that...


I'll go get bad laws overturned, you can go play in a debate society.

 

[Matt Collins]

Liberty exists in the absence of government action, law, policy, etc.

No, because then you have mob rule.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Well then. Time to pack up the forum boys!

Well that could be one option, but I think I just stick around for awhile for the fun and games.

 

[Ronin Truth]

...which really means that...


I'll go get bad laws overturned, you can go play in a debate society.

...which really means that...

You get to waste your life playing delusional phony power parsing games in the cess pools with the sociopaths and I can go live my life with a clear conscience.


BTW, just out of a morbid curiosity, how's that overturning of bad laws thing going ................ rounded say, to the nearest 10,000 bad laws or so?

 

[Matt Collins]

...which really means that...

You get to waste your life playing delusional phony power parsing games in the cess pools with the sociopaths and I can go live my life with a clear conscience.

You don't want to fight for your freedom and liberties? You just want to let the government oppress you, and take your money?

BTW, just out of a morbid curiosity, how's that overturning of bad laws thing going ................ rounded say, to the nearest 10,000 bad laws or so?

Very well. But realize we didn't get this way overnight, we are not going to return back to more liberty overnight either. This is a multi-decade effort.

 

[Ronin Truth]

You don't want to fight for your freedom and liberties? You just want to let the government oppress you, and take your money?

I would but they have many more and much bigger guns than I have. I've got no martyr complex. I don't fight with any other of the world's armed criminal gangs either. Satan rules the Earth's human governments. Have you noticed? If anarchy is good enough for Jesus, it's more than good enough for me.

Very well. But realize we didn't get this way overnight, we are not going to return back to more liberty overnight either. This is a multi-decade effort.

I'll assume from that answer that your current overturned bad law count, rounded is ZERO, so far. Atta boy, hang in there. Keep on, keeping on.

//

 

[Czolgosz]

Authoritarians use fear to control the mass of chimps. Fear *is* more powerful than any other method out there.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Authoritarians use fear to control the mass of chimps. Fear *is* more powerful than any other method out there.

Murder tends to be a pretty powerful and effective method too.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Collins is speaking to us from 1984.

I seem to have misplaced my 1984 edition Newspeak dictionary somewhere.

 

[nayjevin]

...which really means that...

I'll go get bad laws overturned, you can go play in a debate society.

That's just instigating and encouraging a low level of discussion.

A person who creates jobs as an entrepreneur has increased liberty. There are so many other examples that do not involve debate. It just seems like you want to control what people do, and you spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about how if only you could get people who debate to join your club you could get what you want. I think that any time you think about what another person is doing, and that thought is negative, you should remind yourself that you want to change.

 

[nayjevin]

Liberty exists in the absence of government action, law, policy, etc.

I agree, if 'government' is defined to include a mob trying to rule me in the midst of anarchy.

 

[nayjevin]

Without education, any and all gains will be only temporary.

That might be exagerration, but there's a lot of truth to it.

I really don't think the title fits with what he actually said

Thank you, I don't either.

But Ron Paul leaves room for the individual to make choices.

 

[A Son of Liberty]

That's not true fortunately.

The entire idea that you need an educated populace is really a fallacy. You just need a few people who are willing to work hard and know how to push the right buttons.

Utter nonsense, as usual. People must understand the concept of human liberty in order to topple leviathan.

People think they are free right now, under this thoroughly repressive regime. People voted this government into existence. Unless they understand the concept of human liberty, any gains you make in the folly of politics will be fleeting, at best.

All you are is a pied piper, leading around a bunch of idiot voters. All it takes to undo your efforts is a sweeter tune.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Originally Posted by Matt Collins
That's not true fortunately.

The entire idea that you need an educated populace is really a fallacy. You just need a few people who are willing to work hard and know how to push the right buttons.

Thomas Jefferson Quotations on Education

1782. (Notes on the State of Virginia) "Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree."

1785 August 19. (to Peter Carr) "An honest heart being the first blessing, a knowing head is the second."[1]

1786 August 13. (to George Wythe) "I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness...Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance."[2]

1786 August 27. (to Thomas Mann Randolph) "Knowledge indeed is a desirable, a lovely possession."[3]

1787 December 20. (to James Madison) "Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to ; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty."[4]

1789 January 8. (to Richard Price) "...wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government..."[5]

1810 May 6. (to the Trustees of the Lottery for East Tennessee College) "No one more sincerely wishes the spread of information among mankind than I do, and none has greater confidence in it's effect towards supporting free & good government."[6]

1816 January 6. (to Charles Yancey) "if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be."[7]

1816 April 24. (to Dupont de Nemours) "Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day . . . . I believe it [human condition] susceptible of much improvement, and most of all, in matters of government and religion; and that the diffusion of knowledge among the people is to be the instrument by which it is effected."[8]

1818 January 14. (to Joseph C. Cabell) "Now let us see what the present primary schools cost us, on the supposition that all the children of 10. 11. & 12. years old are, as they ought to be, at school: and, if they are not, so much the work is the system; for they will be untaught, and their ignorance & vices will, in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences, than it would have done, in their correction, by a good education."[9]

1818 January 14. (to Joseph C. Cabell) "A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest."[10]

1818 August 4. "The objects of this primary eduction determine its character and limits. These objects are To give to every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business; To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing; To improve by reading, his morals and faculties; To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either; To know his rights; to exercise with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor and judgement; And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed. To instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens, being then the objects of education in the primary schools, whether privet or public, in them should be taught reading, writing and numerical arithmetic, the elements of mensuration...and the outlines of geography and history."[11]

1820 September 28. (to William C. Jarvis) "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves: and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their controul with a wholsome discretion, the remedy is, not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. this is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."[12]

1822 October 21. (to C.C. Blatchly) "I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue, and advancing the happiness of man."[13]

1824 March 27. (to Edward Everett) "The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They are the result of habit and long training."

http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-education

Matt probably attended government schools.

 

[klamath]

Even though I agree that education of the majority of the people is absolutely important to getting a major shift, I wonder hove many of the education of the masses crowd have used that tired old line. "It only took 2% to start the American revolution!" They say we can't win politically with an anti liberty populous but somehow they think a violent revolution will get lasting liberty when only 2% want true liberty.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Even though I agree that education of the majority of the people is absolutely important to getting a major shift, I wonder hove many of the education of the masses crowd have used that tired old line. "It only took 2% to start the American revolution!" They say we can't win politically with an anti liberty populous but somehow they think a violent revolution will get lasting liberty when only 2% want true liberty.

can't say I've ever used it. Being an adherent to the NAP, I also don't advocate "violent" revolution. I merely educate with words; I speak what I believe and hope something sticks. I hope that it gets people thinking, and that after they think about it, they do some research. Then, after they do their own research, they can start to pay it forward and educate someone else...and so on ...and so on (and scooby-dooby-dooby)

 

[Matt Collins]

Utter nonsense, as usual. People must understand the concept of human liberty in order to topple leviathan.

People think they are free right now, under this thoroughly repressive regime. People voted this government into existence. Unless they understand the concept of human liberty, any gains you make in the folly of politics will be fleeting, at best.

All you are is a pied piper, leading around a bunch of idiot voters. All it takes to undo your efforts is a sweeter tune.

Elections are slightly more complicated than that

 

[jjdoyle]

Utter nonsense, as usual. People must understand the concept of human liberty in order to topple leviathan.

People think they are free right now, under this thoroughly repressive regime. People voted this government into existence. Unless they understand the concept of human liberty, any gains you make in the folly of politics will be fleeting, at best.

All you are is a pied piper, leading around a bunch of idiot voters. All it takes to undo your efforts is a sweeter tune.

Campaign ads that tell people the good/bad of candidates, are "education" or "propaganda" (depending if facts are twisted, or not).
Education (or, propaganda) can be used during an election, and is used HEAVILY by the media, and certain campaigns and PACs (2004, Kerry Vietnam ads) now, etc.

Some, like President Obama though, actually got elected in 2008 on running one of the dumbest campaigns ever in terms of actually educating, and just had catchy catchphrases like, "Hope. Change."
He ran at the right time though, when the LEFT was completely fed up with the Republicans, and was able to have a very simple message with the right propaganda, to win. He simply continued the LEFT-RIGHT game, and at the right time for him. He wasn't concerned with educating to win, simply winning.

Some on the LEFT are now fed up with President Obama, even if they will defend many/most of his actions, and it's the point of trying to pickup those voters now, where education could help. Or, educated talking points, at the very least.

It's why I think having the "sweeter tune" is important, and having it backed up with some awesome lyrics to boot, should be expected at this point. I'm just not seeing it on certain points/issues (like, foreign policy), and instead the waters are getting very muddied.

And I agree with the title a good portion, as I don't see where politics is currently the path to freedom. The establishment has firewalls in place, to prevent any backwards movement from their agenda.
BUT, as I have said before, I first voted for RP in the 2008 primary in my state, and I never thought RP would be able to accomplish a lot as President, I just wanted to see him set the record for the number of vetoes as President. And I do think he would have had that record. And, with electing him President, it could have helped shine more light on how the LEFT-RIGHT two choices is fake, because I truly believe the Senate and House would have united against all his vetoes.