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Editorial
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Title: Colbert 'confused' by Republican candidate Ron Paul
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Colbe ... blican_candidate_Ron_0614.html
Published: Jun 14, 2007
Author: RP
Post Date: 2007-06-14 20:26:08 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 208
Comments: 14

Colbert 'confused' by Republican candidate Ron Paul David Edwards and Muriel Kane Published: Thursday June 14, 2007

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On Wednesday, Stephen Colbert welcomed Ron Paul to The Colbert Report, saying, "With my help, he could become the Republican Mike Gravel."

"I'm not sure how to feel about you," Colbert told Paul, "but I'm passionately ambivalent. You voted against the Patriot Act, you voted again the Iraq War. But you also hate taxes and you hate gun control. You are an enigma wrapped in a riddle nestled in a sesame seed bun of mystery. Are you a Republican or are you not a Republican?"

"You're confused, because I'm a constitutionalist and you haven't met one in a long time, responded Paul, launching into a defense of our constitutional freedoms.

"I'd rather be alive than free and dead," insisted Colbert in his right-wing persona. "That's what they say but they're wrong about that," answered Paul. "I'd rather be free and alive. And you can be. You do not have to give up your liberties in order to be safe."

Paul explained that he is against wars because they only increase government power and he is against every form of big government. As Colbert read out a list, Paul raised his hand higher and higher to agree he would abolish the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, the IRS, FEMA, the UN, NATO, the Interstate Commerce Commission, NAFTA, the WTO -- and even UNICEF, though not so much, "It wouldn't be one of my targets, he said.

At The Largest Minority, Manila Ryce blogs, "Stephen gave Republican candidate Ron Paul credit where credit is due, pointing out the similarities libertarians have with liberals, in opposing the war and The Patriot Act."

"And though Colbert was respectful, he did not let Paul get away as easily as fellow liberals Stewart and Maher have," Ryce continues. "Instead, he pointed out the differences between Paul’s far-right ideology and that held by the left. Stephen’s audience obviously wanted to cheer for Paul, but seemed thoroughly confused after they realized that the enemy of your enemy isn’t always your friend."

See link for video, tom007

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#6. To: tom007 (#0)

Some interesting comments at that The Largest Minority site.

Libertarians such as Paul cite government as the enemy of freedom rather than the true cause of tyranny in a democratic society - capitalism (corporate or otherwise). Hence, socialism is decried by the right for aiming to create more control through government. This criticism overlooks the fact that there are more ideological options than simply State Socialism or State Capitalism. Chomsky correctly points out in Government in the Future that “(Revolutionary Socialism) reflects the intuitive understanding that democracy is largely a sham when the industrial system is controlled by any form of autocratic elite, whether it’s owners, managers, technocrats, a vanguard party, a state bureaucracy, or whatever.” Libertarianism means freedom for those who can afford it. Revolutionary Socialism, in which industry is democratically owned and controlled by the workers, aims to bring democracy not only to the community, but to the workplace as well.

Comment by "G" helps to set things straight.

rack42  posted on  2007-06-14   23:02:14 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

IMO, Libertarianism, although it has some attractive principles, leads to corporate fascism. The U.S. was essentially libertarian in the late 1800s, and that led to the trusts, dying meat red to make it look good...legally, midnight justice, and so much more.

Govt is there to protect the rights of the poor and the minorities. True democracy, where 51 percent can execute the other 49 percent, is just not on. Our system sucks, as others have said, but it sucks a lot less than most other systems. The qualified socialism of Norway, Sweden, New Zealand and Canada might be better, but I doubt it would work for a far larger, more varied country.

Mekons4  posted on  2007-06-14   23:29:37 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

The U.S. was essentially libertarian in the late 1800s, and that led to the trusts, dying meat red to make it look good...legally, midnight justice, and so much more.

Umm...we ceased to be libertarian in any meaningful sense when the federal government broke loose from its Constitutional morings and did to the Southern states what King George tried (but failed) to do to the rebelling colonies.

The trusts of the 19th century were the fruits of this pernicious new Imperial form of misgovernance. Recall that it was Lincoln's radical Republican appointees to the Supreme Court that ruled that Corporations were citizens and shielded with Constitutional protections. Prior to that pernicious ruling, Corporations were state (not federal) chartered artifices that could be unchartered should the people of the chartering state deem it in the public interest to do so. But, thanks to Lincoln and the Radical Republicans, the states and the people were made supine and impotent while Corporations and Feds reigned supreme.

The Lords of Capital you rightly hate were the product of the Run-Amok State you (strangely) trust to protect you from what are, in fact, its creatures.

This is the great blind spot of the Left. Big Capital and Big Government are symbiotic co-parasites. Neither could exist without the other. And we cannot defeat either unless we defeat both.

Of course, this blind spot of the Left is exactly mirrored on the Right by those who look to Big Capital for protection from Big Government. They are just as blind, but in the opposite way.

Only (some) Libertarians (of the Left and Right) see the folly (and futility) of this traditional political divide. Unless we join together to fight against (and defeat) both Big Capital and Big Government, we will not regain our freedom. The either/or of the traditional Left-Right divide insures that the two-headed beast will always have at least one healthy head, and can thereby heal (or regrow like a Hydra) a second. The only way to kill the Beast is to hack off both heads and be done with it. ;^)

Arator  posted on  2007-06-15   0:03:18 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

How do you restrain Big Capital except by using Big Government to do it?

It seems to me the best we can do is to see to it, somehow, that they restrain each other, instead of working together, as they are now doing. I'm not sure how that can be achieved, however. But the New Deal did it in its day.

aristeides  posted on  2007-06-15   12:31:56 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

How do you restrain Big Capital except by using Big Government to do it?

Now that's a BIG Question. Having birthed these twin-monsters, how can we make our shared home habitable again for free people? One response that is well within the Anglo-American tradition (despite what Yankee propaganda would have us believe) is for States to take back their sovereignty in full from the Feds via seccession. Vermont is moving ever closer to doing this. Should they reestablish this principle, the way would be clear for other states to follow. With reclaimed sovereignty, we can begin anew and form a more perfect union, one where the federal government (and corporations) are more strictly conscribed and where the people (through their respective state governments) retain the means to hold both accountable and in check.

This process could be gradual and deliberate, and might avoid a clash of arms. Would the Feds dare to lay Vermont waste in response (as they did the deep South states)? Or might Vermont be the perfect vehicle by which this critical means of checking centralized power is reestablished?

Arator  posted on  2007-06-15   21:31:33 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  

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