Walter Block: Cheered at Paul Festival, booed at official Ron Paul rally

[Keith and stuff]

Thank you Shem for creating this thread. Walter was wrong, IMO. He should have talked about something other than increasing taxes to pay for babies... Maybe even something proliberty...

 

[idiom]

If a child has a natural birth and no one wants to adopt it, who pays?

This is the Roth-cap point. You have no right to life as such. Nobody has a moral obligation to keep an infant alive.

Block has a more interesting point that goes further. If you have a child and don't want it, you have a moral obligation (although the justification is weak) to advertise this and give the child to someone who wants it.

It is linked to his donut theory of property. If you have land in the middle of your property that you are not using you have the same moral obligation to advertise the lands availability.

This puts a spare infant on par with a spare acre in your back forty.

Its an extremely esoteric rothbardian position.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Thank you Shem for creating this thread. Walter was wrong, IMO. He should have talked about something other than increasing taxes to pay for babies... Maybe even something proliberty...

Haven't seen Walter's speech, but considering he's an anarcho-capitalist, I sincerely doubt he raised the idea of taxation to pay for his ideas.

 

[RonPaulMall]

A fan of Block on reason said the guy was trolling before the internet was even invented. Something like that. LOL...

So true and funny. But also the reason Walter is in the right. Being controversial, bombastic, and thought provoking is who Walter Block is. You don't go to a Walter Block speech expecting to be coddled to or fed some "feel good" tripe. If Walter changed his style just for this event he'd be cheating the audience. The people who misbehaved were immature and should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[S.Shorland]

pedophiles would pay

 

[Keith and stuff]

Haven't seen Walter's speech, but considering he's an anarcho-capitalist, I sincerely doubt he raised the idea of taxation to pay for his ideas.

Anarchists for tax increases. Does it sound good? The LP VP nominee from 1980, a Koch brother, just called for possible tax increases, why not a Mises guy jumping on the bandwagon?

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

Anarchists for tax increases. Does it sound good? The LP VP nominee from 1980, a Koch brother, just called for possible tax increases, why not a Mises guy jumping on the bandwagon?

You're going to need to provide video to prove he called for a tax increase.

 

[Keith and stuff]

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/08/hot-david-koch-calls-for-tax-increases.html

 

[idiom]

pedophiles would pay

Oh man is that a can of worms for rothbardism.

 

[MarcusI]

The right way to handle the speech for the audience would be too remain silent and let him speak. Booing was utterly wrong. The booers were worse to the movement than Blocks unfitting speech.

Pretty sad that there was such a misunderstanding between Ron and him.

 

[Keith and stuff]

The right way to handle the speech for the audience would be too remain silent and let him speak. Booing was utterly wrong. The booers were worse to the movement than Blocks unfitting speech.

Pretty sad that there was such a misunderstanding between Ron and him.

Walter made a mistake. It is ok, we all make many mistakes. Thankfully, none of my mistakes have been on national tv and with an in person audience of somewhere around 10k people.

 

[LBennett76]

Life begins as soon as you realize it's there.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

Mommy then is tubes and a respirator. Wonderful entrance to its new world. Very Borg-esque..Frikkin' rationalism was rife when Rome went down the toilet too.

You can make the same statements after a natural birth. Wanna save more babies or not?

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

surprised he is making a big deal about this. He knew he was opening up a can of worms even among like minded people. It wasn't like he was drowned out by any booing and in fact I am pretty sure it was one kind that he kind of expected to boo and he immediately picked him out and addressed him directly. He was ready to make a larger point about intellectualism and oh by the way, i have this idea about an extremely controversial subject.

Actually, I think he's dumb enough to not know better. The fact that he is an austrian economic philosopher does not make him an expert at anything. Ok, maybe it makes him an austrian philosopher, but not a lot else. A lot of you need to get over this hero-worship of austrian economics. Believe me, it will help you. Being an economic philosopher does not make him an expert at anything else - like knowing how to talk to a crowd, etc, etc, etc.

 

[ProIndividual]

It's not hero worship to realize the economic school Ron Paul agrees with is also the most correct one. No economic school is perfect; it's a soft science. But some people here know very little about Austrian economics, but claim to support it. Austirans predicted, en masse, the housing bubble collapse and th predictable fall of our economy. They are predicting another one. Ron knows they should be listened to.

And for you to call it "Austrian philosophy" shows you don't get any of this at all. Austrian economics is not a philosophy...it's an economic school. Some of its adherents are classical liberals, minarchist libertarians, and anarchists. Classical liberalism, minarchism and anarchism are philosophies. Philosophy does not include a specific economic school...it is based on 5 criteria: metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, logic, and ethics. Notice abortion fits into ethics. You can be a socialist or a free market advocate and still be most philosophies (hence "libertarianism" is a word synonymous in every other country but the USA with socialism, or social democracy).

No philosophy is dependent completely on an economic school, and no economic school is completely dependent on a philosophy. Both exist independently. No one derives their metaphysical, epistemological, aesthetic, ethical, or logical understanding of the world predominately from economics, and no one derives their business cycle theory predominately from philosophy. They simply aren't the same thing. It's like saying an economics degree is the same as a business degree. If they were the same thing, more successful business men like Warren Buffet and Donald Trump would be good at economics (which they aren't), and more economists would be billionaires.

Some of us still have a lot of studying to do in the philosophy and economics of liberty.

 

[idiom]

Separate the Austrian economics which are pretty solid and have a long history from the anarcho-capitalist ethics which are relatively new and sketchy.

This was an ethics lecture. If he had let fly on economics he would have been fine and brought the house down.

 

[newbitech]

Actually, I think he's dumb enough to not know better. The fact that he is an austrian economic philosopher does not make him an expert at anything. Ok, maybe it makes him an austrian philosopher, but not a lot else. A lot of you need to get over this hero-worship of austrian economics. Believe me, it will help you. Being an economic philosopher does not make him an expert at anything else - like knowing how to talk to a crowd, etc, etc, etc.

what are you talking about? abortion is a can a worms no matter how you slice it. you are sitting here taking cheap shots at the guy and sounding pretty hostile towards others views in the process. If you are going to do that, don't address me as the collective. you want to come down on my view? I was in the crowd. It was no where near 5-10% as he claims. it was maybe 3 or 4 jeers.

Like I said, what got people stirred up was his use of the word compromise. the crowd i was sitting around was attentive and open minded towards his views especially the broader since that in forums such as this was, with presumably open minded 'idea' supporters, he could get his idea out. He was prepared to fire back at any resistance to the idea of sharing his idea on such a controversial subject.

Oh an Austrian economics is not a person, so i am pretty sure no one here hero worships it. I think you are using that term in a divisive way. Some people, like you, sound like you need to get over your need to cause drama and replace it with a need to learn more about where ideas come from and how they are fostered.

I didn't particularly like the way he addressed the crowd, but I was extremely interested in the ideas he was bringing. I don't have any problem separating the two things.

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

In the light of the Akin meltdown, wasn't the smartest topic to discuss, especially in that room.

 

[king_nothing_]

Oh an Austrian economics is not a person, so i am pretty sure no one here hero worships it.

I think Austrian economics is a pretty cool guy. Eh kills Keynesianism and doesnt afraid of anything.

 

[Occam's Banana]

Tom Woods was not invited to speak at RP Rally

To me, this is FAR more disturbing than l'affaire Block. Tom Woods gave a kick-ass speech - hell, it was THE most kick-ass speech - at the Rally for the Republic back in '08.

Woods is one the best speakers in the movement. Not inviting him to speak - apparently out nothing more than petty spitefulness - indicates something about the character of certain persons involved in the campaign.