And have you met anyone that prides themselves on the Ron Paul depression if he were elected. We tend not to focus on it but it could happen.
We also don't focus on the fact that slavery, segregation, homophobia, etc. could emerge in some locality should Ron Paul win and everything be decided locally.
We value the long term. Others are more focused on these short term issues. We all have blind spots.
I acknowledge these possibilities (though chattel slavery still couldn't happen anyway, given the 13th Amendment), but I have made a rational, informed decision that the long-term benefits outweigh these possibilities. (That, and I have certain moral values that are consistent with libertarianism alone.)
However, people who disagree rarely ever acknowledge the long-term benefits of a Ron Paul Presidency. There's a reason for this, and it's not that they've been fully informed, but they still prefer short-term comfort over long-term survival. In the vast majority of cases, if not all, they're simply not informed enough [or rational enough] to acknowledge the long-term ramifications of their views at all. How many people actually say, "I don't care about long-term ruin, so long as I'm okay right now?" I haven't met ANYONE who thinks like that. Instead, the people I talk with who don't like Ron Paul actually believe - mistakenly - that corporatism, or socialism, or whatever, is actually better in the long-term. That's wrong thinking, not fundamentally opposing values.
In practice under capitalism some people becomes homeless and die. Not every family makes it to the promised long run.
The same thing happens under socialism, to a much greater degree, so that is no rational objection. Consider the widespread famines under Communist regimes, for instance. Of course, it might be a rational objection for someone to say, "
I (specifically) am more likely to be homeless or die under capitalism," but that's very specific to the person making the claim, and almost nobody supporting socialism, Communism, or whatever actually takes that line of argument to defend their choice. Instead, they invariably take a line of argument that
denies the consequences of their beliefs and refuses to acknowledge the consequences of Ron Paul's.
However, under socialism the inequality could be much less (implementation does matter, but in capitalism it matters too) and the productivity of society (and average long term well-being) would also be lower.
However, it's totally irrational to believe the inequality could be much less in a system that hinges on centralized economic control. Compare the way the party elite lived in the Soviet Union or China under Mao, to the way farmers lived...or just combine the following in your mind: "Limited resources, totalitarian centralized power, psychopathy." The result can and will always be exactly the same, and it's irrational to think, "It could be different in practice," with the same institutional infrastructure. Once again, we don't have a clash of values alone. Instead, we have a large number of people who quite simply cannot comprehend how their choices undermine the very same values they profess.
Dismissing people as irrational isn't effective for gaining votes or support, but that doesn't make it untrue either.
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