[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

'Hit Us, Please' - America's Left Issues A 'Broken Arrow' Signal To Europe Cash Jordan Trump Deports ‘Thousands of Migrants’ to Africa… on Purpose Gunman Ambushes Border Patrol Agents In Texas Amid Anti-ICE Rhetoric From Democrats Texas Flood Why America Built A Forest From Canada To Texas Tucker Carlson Interviews President of Iran Mosoud Pezeshkian PROOF Netanyahu Wants US To Fight His Wars RAPID CRUSTAL MOVEMENT DETECTED- Are the Unusual Earthquakes TRIGGER for MORE (in Japan and Italy) ? Google Bets Big On Nuclear Fusion Iran sets a world record by deporting 300,000 illegal refugees in 14 days Brazilian Women Soccer Players (in Bikinis) Incredible Skills Watch: Mexico City Protest Against American Ex-Pat 'Invasion' Turns Viole Kazakhstan Just BETRAYED Russia - Takes gunpowder out of Putin’s Hands Why CNN & Fareed Zakaria are Wrong About Iran and Trump Something Is Going Deeply WRONG In Russia 329 Rivers in China Exceed Flood Warnings, With 75,000 Dams in Critical Condition Command Of Russian Army 'Undermined' After 16 Of Putin's Generals Killed At War, UK Says Rickards: Superintelligence Will Never Arrive Which Countries Invest In The US The Most? The History of Barbecue ‘Pathetic’: Joe Biden tells another ‘tall tale’ during rare public appearance Lawsuit Reveals CDC Has ZERO Evidence Proving Vaccines Don't Cause Autism Trumps DOJ Reportedly Quietly Looking Into Criminal Charges Against Election Officials Volcanic Risk and Phreatic (Groundwater) eruptions at Campi Flegrei in Italy Russia Upgrades AGS-17 Automatic Grenade Launcher! They told us the chickenpox vaccine was no big deal—just a routine jab to “protect” kids from a mild childhood illness Pentagon creates new military border zone in Arizona For over 200 years neurological damage from vaccines has been noted and documented The killing of cardiologist in Gaza must be Indonesia's wake-up call Marandi: Israel Prepares Proxies for Next War with Iran?

Editorial
See other Editorial Articles

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: 275
Comments: 14

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

Print This Email This

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

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  

Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 8.

#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  

#10. To: Arator (#8)

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.

Good post. Giving corporations "person" status to protect their owners or shareholders from personal responsibility is exactly what makes the abuses of power in today's corporate culture possible.

And far from being a balance of power, the "private" sector elite and the "public" sector elite are one and the same entity. They wash one another's hands, and nine times out of ten representatives of the second are recruited from the ranks of the first (Dick Cheney being a perfect example). That's basically what you get in Third World crony capitalist systems.

Rupert_Pupkin  posted on  2007-06-15 12:23:28 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  

Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest

[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]