You own your life. You own the fruits of your labor. You decide.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
An open letter to Ron Paul supporters - Living freedom
1 comment:
Anonymous
said...
1. After 2 primaries Stef presumes to offer a "postmortem" of the "failed" Ron Paul revolution and offers a supposed "alternative" while he says that his own project is "multi-generational." What self-serving arbitrariness. Why not consider the Ron Paul political project to be multi-generational, while offering Stef condolences that he hasn't made the world free after two whole years of effort. Sorry Stef but it's not over until its over. Let's at least wait until November before evaluating Ron Paul.
2. Stef says that the original tiny US government eventually grew into the most powerful government in the history of the world, and therefore it was a failure. But who says that not lasting forever is failure? Is Stef a failure because he may only last 70 years? The original republic was tiny and stable for a good 70 years (until Lincoln) and moderately small for a further 50 years (until the income tax and the federal reserve). 140 years seems a fair innings. If a Ron Paul comes along every 140 years and "reboots" the republic to its original condition then that would indeed be a success that could last forever.
3. Stef is not any sort of alternative to anything because: a. He is not a philosopher. Stef is a champion debater who is very good at justifying his own opinions and aesthetic preferences after the fact while presenting them as cosmic absolutes. b. FDR is not a philosophy board nor a philosophy podcast. It is a "Dear Abby" column. FDR's value is in helping a few dozen people with talking therapy, where Stef is a counsellor helping people to justify their escapes from abusive families or providing them with narratives to help them justify telling someone to fuck off. That's fine because it makes some people feel better, but it isn't philosophy and it isn't market anarchism / anarcho-capitalism. It is "freedom" only in the same sense that a charity soup kitchen is freedom to a hungry bum: freedom from hunger in the one case and freedom from feelings of guilt in the other case. The people who remain around Stef are those who have been helped with the talking therapy and are therefore his grateful fans, or those who are docile enough to only ever ask "Dorothy Dix" type questions that allow Stef to lecture, or newcomers as a result of Stef's advertising who haven't yet come up to speed. People who disagree with any of Stef's basic positions, such as UPB or the sanctity of children, are eventually booted out. As noted in a previous comment I made here, even in the area of anarchist thought, his one big contribution to describing a future, free world and how it can happen - the concept of the DRO - is completely unoriginal. So even if one gave up on the incrementalist appeal of Ron Paul, Stef is not the answer for the person who dreams of someday living in a free world.
1 comment:
1. After 2 primaries Stef presumes to offer a "postmortem" of the "failed" Ron Paul revolution and offers a supposed "alternative" while he says that his own project is "multi-generational." What self-serving arbitrariness. Why not consider the Ron Paul political project to be multi-generational, while offering Stef condolences that he hasn't made the world free after two whole years of effort. Sorry Stef but it's not over until its over. Let's at least wait until November before evaluating Ron Paul.
2. Stef says that the original tiny US government eventually grew into the most powerful government in the history of the world, and therefore it was a failure. But who says that not lasting forever is failure? Is Stef a failure because he may only last 70 years? The original republic was tiny and stable for a good 70 years (until Lincoln) and moderately small for a further 50 years (until the income tax and the federal reserve). 140 years seems a fair innings. If a Ron Paul comes along every 140 years and "reboots" the republic to its original condition then that would indeed be a success that could last forever.
3. Stef is not any sort of alternative to anything because: a. He is not a philosopher. Stef is a champion debater who is very good at justifying his own opinions and aesthetic preferences after the fact while presenting them as cosmic absolutes. b. FDR is not a philosophy board nor a philosophy podcast. It is a "Dear Abby" column. FDR's value is in helping a few dozen people with talking therapy, where Stef is a counsellor helping people to justify their escapes from abusive families or providing them with narratives to help them justify telling someone to fuck off. That's fine because it makes some people feel better, but it isn't philosophy and it isn't market anarchism / anarcho-capitalism. It is "freedom" only in the same sense that a charity soup kitchen is freedom to a hungry bum: freedom from hunger in the one case and freedom from feelings of guilt in the other case. The people who remain around Stef are those who have been helped with the talking therapy and are therefore his grateful fans, or those who are docile enough to only ever ask "Dorothy Dix" type questions that allow Stef to lecture, or newcomers as a result of Stef's advertising who haven't yet come up to speed. People who disagree with any of Stef's basic positions, such as UPB or the sanctity of children, are eventually booted out. As noted in a previous comment I made here, even in the area of anarchist thought, his one big contribution to describing a future, free world and how it can happen - the concept of the DRO - is completely unoriginal. So even if one gave up on the incrementalist appeal of Ron Paul, Stef is not the answer for the person who dreams of someday living in a free world.
- heuristic
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