Stefan Molyneux : Just put out a Ron Paul video. Your thoughts. Pretty compelling, imho.

[undergroundrr]

Totally agree with Stefan that voting perpetuates and reinforces the corrupt system, even if you're voting for someone truly virtuous and beneficial like Ron Paul. However, Paul's (and largely Molyneux's) message would not have been heard by millions if thousands upon thousands of supporters hadn't gotten deeply engaged in the political machinery and stuck there like chewing gum for the last four years. It's required hard work and persistence, much of it by people with a deep distaste for the process. From that standpoint, Molyneux's detachment from the process is a negative unless you truly believe that the two-party structure would have collapsed on itself naturally. I don't. I think that disengagement only allows generation after generation of tyranny.

I'm glad to see him step up with this video.

 

[Nate]

I really like Stefan, but I'm not sure how accurate he is in predicting libertarian/anarchist vilification after an RP win and subsequent economic collapse that is coming regardless. My contention would be that having a status quo politician in power at the time would lead us further into the black hole. This would leave the world worse off than an RP presidency no matter who gets the credit in the short term.

I definitely agree with you on this. I like Stefan when it comes to philosophy & argumentation, his "against me" tactic is one of my favorites, but I don't really think he has much to stand on when it comes to this. A collapse with Paul as President would be a much better situation that a collapse with Obama or Romney as President.

 

[goldpants]

Great video, it is content like this that is creating bills like SOPA.

 

[Revolution9]

He also did a video saying that there was obvious racism in the media's harsh (!) treatment of Herman Cain. I'm not making that up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2lihdenZCg

I don't have a high opinion of Stefan. If you only listen to him do interviews, he does a wonderful job of defending anarcho-capitalism and Austrian economics. But if you look more closely at his positions, he has some really disturbing views on breaking up children from their families. They call it a "defoo" with foo being an acronym for "family of origin." This isn't just giving people in troubled family settings the courage to break free, but more like the disconnection from families that you see in Scientology. Here are some websites that cover this topic:

http://www.fdrliberated.com/ - Excellent introduction.
http://www.molyneuxrevealed.com/ - Written by a father who lost his son to the group
http://liberatingminds.forumotion.com/f26-freedomain-radio

I am an anarchist myself. If any of you meet any anarchists who buy into Stefan's arguments against involvement in the political process, I would suggest you send them this 4 part essay Dismantling Leviathan by Roderick Long, who is frankly 10x the philosopher that Stefan is:

http://freenation.org/a/f24l3.html

I'm always ready to be cool with anyone who does anything to help Ron Paul. But really, everyone should be careful with this guy. You can dig up many long videos by him where he goes on and on about the dangers of voting.

I don't have a lot of patience for this, just like I don't have a lot of patience for the Objectivists and Koch brother libertarians who aren't supporting Ron Paul, and telling others not to.

I had an inherent distaste for this personality since I first saw him blithering about artists without a frakkin' clue one as to the actual industry. I felt he was cultist and the info you mention confirms my first impressions. Another case of 95% truth/5% poison pill.

Rev9

 

[Fr0m_3ur0pe]

Voting for Ron Paul means marketing libertarianism and free markets. Ron Paul has done more to liberty than Stefan Molyneux.

 

[ghengis86]

Voting for Ron Paul means marketing libertarianism and free markets. Ron Paul has done more to liberty than Stefan Molyneux.

Stefan acknowledges this. But he asks the question, 'at what cost?'. From the anarchists viewpoint, Ron has given millions of people an even greater incentive to believe in the state and afford the state the power to impose itself upon our lives. For those who wish to see an end to the state, that is not good.

Not saying who's right or who's done more for liberty but just trying to help you understand where Stefan is coming from

 

[matt0611]

Stefan acknowledges this. But he asks the question, 'at what cost?'. From the anarchists viewpoint, Ron has given millions of people an even greater incentive to believe in the state and afford the state the power to impose itself upon our lives. For those who wish to see an end to the state, that is not good.

Not saying who's right or who's done more for liberty but just trying to help you understand where Stefan is coming from

I think Ron Paul, deep down, respects that if people wanted to get totally unhooked from the state, he would be ok with that.
I'm an anarchist myself, but I'd be fine with transitioning to a much less limited state if that were possible. Not enough people understand liberty for it to happen in the current state of things.

 

[milo10]

Stefan acknowledges this. But he asks the question, 'at what cost?'. From the anarchists viewpoint, Ron has given millions of people an even greater incentive to believe in the state and afford the state the power to impose itself upon our lives. For those who wish to see an end to the state, that is not good.

Not saying who's right or who's done more for liberty but just trying to help you understand where Stefan is coming from

What total bs (not you, but Stefan). How many people do you know who have said, "I would have been an anarchist but for Ron Paul!"

Is there a single Ron Paul supporter here who has toned down their anti-statism due to Ron Paul? I don't mean just changed their mind in some area, but rather something like:

"I was against the income tax, but Ron Paul's plan doesn't provide for eliminating it, so now I'm for the income tax."

I don't share Stefan's ridiculous purism. I have a pluralistic view of human interactions, where an atheist anarchist like myself can happily befriend and consider as comrades people who are, say, Christian constitutional conservatives. Why? Because at this point in time, we're all working towards freedom, and I have confidence that the freer this society gets, the further my views will go. And that is not to say that I am not always learning and growing myself.

But if I did share Stefan's purism, what would I think of a publicly-known anarchist who has garnered far worse negative press relative to his popularity than Ron Paul ever has. While Stefan will make cracks that Ron Paul's statement that "evolution is a theory" will hurt libertarianism (because apparently people who believe in evolution are all myopic science nerds), how does his breaking up of families help public acceptance of anarchism?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/nov/15/family-relationships-fdr-defoo-cult

(Also, see my earlier post with links)