Recently, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas took to the floor of the House to talk about Wikileaks, transparency in government, and the case of Daniel Ellsberg, the 
Pentagon Papers, and the New York Times. He spoke about how the Iraq War was based on lies. He asked how the U. S. government should prosecute a citizen of Australia for publishing classified U. S. documents that he did not steal. Paul also said the following: “Revealing the real nature and goal of our presence in so many Muslim countries is a threat to our empire, and any revelation of this truth is highly resented by those in charge.”
Paul posed a number of questions at the end of his talk:
Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?
Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?
Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?
Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?
Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?
Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?
Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?
Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?
Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?
Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised ‘Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed.’ I yield back the balance of my time.
Source: Huffington Post
– Elaine Magliaro
ekeyra
Blouise, Im sure without them you would have been beaten with sacks of oranges, fed dog food, and trotted out for showtimes and then locked in a dark closet to contemplate suicide. I know. What was i thinking? Ill give you credit though, your charming even when your insulting me. It wasnt a justification, it was stating the realities of their circumstances.
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Nope, they would have paid me as little as possible, fed me drugs, stolen my tips, and made me work 7 days a week. Dog food, oranges, and a dark closet would have been treats.
And darlin’, I like cheap dates … love ’em and leave ’em … 😉
Chan,
Where you make the mistake is thinking in empathy and guilt are the same. Empathy is compassion for others. Guilt is the feeling people of conscience have when they don’t act upon their empathy (or act unjustly). It is only natural you make this mistake, as having no conscience, you have no proper frame of reference. Let me break that down for you”
I have compassion for others.
I have no guilt because I act on that compassion.
You have no compassion for others.
You have no guilt because you have no conscience.
Sociopath is as sociopath does, dancing monkey.
Now come on. Attack me some more. It’s funny.
ekeyra:
He gives a couple of bucks to the one legged beggar he sees at lunch once a month to massage his guilt.
The other 29 days he figures out how to steal from other people. 5 bucks a month isnt enough to cure his guilt, so he wants to take billions from other people to help the poor beggar and others like him.
Good little Buddha, he wouldn’t give it all away or even most of it when he can force other people to cough up their “fair share” for his favorite charity – personal guilt reduction.
The funny thing about all of it is that the begger is where he is because of the policies people like BIL promote. I always find that ironic.
B thank you for the wonderful diplay of your ability to cut and paste texts.
Tony
“P.S. I am not enslaving them, I am taxing them. In time or in its equivalent, I am requiring them to make a contribution to the common good. Enslaving them would be a 100% tax, and I don’t believe in that at all.”
As long as you dont take every last cent, its not slavery? So if I had a field of slaves picking cotton for me but I gave them back just enough to make clothes for themselves, that wouldnt be slavery at all? In addition you seem to believe that simply forcing people to contribute to the “common good”, regardless of the questionable morality of theft on its behalf, leads to a benevolent use of those resources, when the stark reality is the concept of a “common good” is distinctly vague and nebulous, and the confiscated resources will only go to satisfy the desires of the few who are permitted how to define the “common good” for everyone.
“This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material? And what its causal nature [or form]? And what is it doing in the world? And how long does it subsist?” – The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius – VIII, 11.
“[D]efined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) as ‘…a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.’ People with antisocial personality disorder may disregard social norms and laws, repeatedly lie, place others at risk for their own benefit, and demonstrate a profound lack of remorse. It is sometimes referred to as sociopathic personality disorder, or sociopathy.”
People are the patterns they make. There is no fault in accuracy. Accuracy is the brother of truth.
“If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” – The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius – VI, 21.
Tony I dont remember blaming anyone for the circumstances of their birth. Sadly, I lack the resources to lift the entirety of the third world out of poverty.
Blouise, Im sure without them you would have been beaten with sacks of oranges, fed dog food, and trotted out for showtimes and then locked in a dark closet to contemplate suicide. I know. What was i thinking? Ill give you credit though, your charming even when your insulting me. It wasnt a justification, it was stating the realities of their circumstances.
Did you guys miss the part where making shoes for nike was preferable to starvation? Thats not my judgement of them as a person, that is an observation of the totality of the economic options available to them, and I suspect it is the same reason they choose to work there instead of trying to engage in grueling subistence agriculture at the age of 8, or sell their bodies.
B, bash rand all you want. She was a longwinded, mediocre fiction writer, and an obsessive cult leader in her personal life. If you want to bash my heros Id suggest you start with henry david theau, frederic bastiat, albert j. nock, carl menger, ludwig von mises, murray rothbard, and bob murphy.
Have you ever stopped to wonder why it is that when you pass a hungry family, your first thoughts are, “someone should rob someone else to feed those people”, instead of “what can I give up to feed these people”? I would have more respect for you if you at least took the danger and responsibility of your recomended course of action upon yourself and did the committed the robbery yourself. Deciding that someone must be robbed to feed those people and that someone other than you must do the robbing to assuage your guilt reveals you to be a coward of the lowliest sort.
“Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.” ~ Mikhail Bakunin
Also, classifying ones political enemies as “psychologically disturbed” was a favorite tactic of stalin’s brutal NKVD divisions. You really want to follow in those footsteps?
Be sure to read that carefully before you respond, Chan.
My problem isn’t with wealthy people.
My problem is with venal and greedy people.
You know.
People like you.
You suppose my vendetta against the venal is about some rich guy screwing me or someone in my family over? Well, like most of your suppositions, you’d be wrong. See, when I see starving kids living in war zones or single moms struggling to makes ends meet or veterans living out in the cold, I – in stark contrast to you – feel badly for them. I have no material needs. I’m not hungry. I have a roof over my head. I have warm clothes in the winter and cool in the summer. I get my medicine. I drive a European sedan. I have recreational money.
My vendetta against the venal comes simply from observing the truth that the root of all evil is the love of money.
No. I don’t hate the venal because someone screwed me over. It’s a much simpler reason.
I hate the venal because they create much of the suffering in this world.
I hate the venal because I pay attention and have empathy.
“Rorschach: You see, Doctor, God didn’t kill that little girl. Fate didn’t butcher her and destiny didn’t feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn’t seem to mind. From then on I knew… God doesn’t make the world this way. We do.”
And only we can make it a better place. But you are incapable of sensing “we”. You have no belonging. You are ethically adrift, clinging to the rotting timbers of Randian Objectivism. You can be no part of a solution because you are part of the problem.
I am glad that I am like a child in the ways that I am indeed like a child – which are few but important. I’m childlike only in that any sense of a God I may have is my sense of wonder at the universe, to paraphrase Einstein. I am childlike in that I still have a sense of wonder. I am childlike in that I have a sense of play. I am childlike in that I can be gentle for no other reason than I can.
Just not with bad people.
You, Chan, are like a child in that you don’t have empathy for others. Like a two year old. Barely more than an animal. Unrestrained id. A selfish being who screams a lot about “mine, Mine, MINE!” and cares not a damn about others in society or indeed the very society itself.
A stunted child in an adult body selfishly careening from one rationalization of your behavior to another.
What do they call people who lack empathy again?
Come on. Attack me some more, Chan. Defend your greed is good philosophy by attacking me.
It’s worked out for you so well up to this point.
If by “worked out well” one means “illustrated why venal people suck.”
It’s a good thing you don’t ask for mercy. From me or anyone else. To receive mercy, one must first be merciful. Mercy?
There is none coming for you.
So at least you won’t be disappointed wallowing alone in your cynical selfishness.
Tony,
I think the statement was more radical and direct that you might expect from a politician. Especially one from Texas. Regardless, Paul’s adept soundbite machinations have little impact in Washington and clearly no impact on the President.
We are, after all, talking about the defective mind of a libertarian. Just look at the current thread topic! We’re talking about a rogue willing to take a public viewpoint well outside of the bipartisan condemnation of Wikileaks and other threats to State information control. It’s practically treasonous. I think even the principled left is buzzing about Paul’s radical outspokenness.
-Glenn Greenwald
@Puzzling: Paul is a politician, and by his election record, a very good one. I didn’t watch the video; but a priori I’d expect Paul to be quite adept and practiced at finding ways to couch his beliefs in pretty non-offensive language, when he wants to. Politicians live and die by the soundbite; Paul knows that.
@Chan: I think you are the child; a selfish and self-centered child that doesn’t understand how the world works, how people work, how people think and feel. Like a child you are naively focused on your own itty bitty world and cannot even imagine the plight of others. And because of that, you don’t give a shit about them, only about yourself.
So you sieze upon libertarianism, because there is a “philoosophy” that justifies your childish selfish and self-centered outlook. It is the libertarians that holds other people in disdain, dismissing their problems with a wave of their hand, and saying, “Oh, Ayn Rand says it is their own fault and none of my concern; let ’em starve and die, I don’t care.”
And I believe you don’t care, all you care about is yourself.
Overall, a relatively pleasant discussion for a Ron Paul thread.
I was fondly thinking back to the last time that Paul, a brutal, selfish, absolutist-minded libertarian spoke about The Jonathan Turley himself on CNN. What was the damned sociopath thinking? What kind of defective mind is capable of espousing such views?
(Paul’s comments are at 2:20 in the video)
I didnt ask for “your” mercy.
Every single thing you say points to someone who has a severly over inflated view of their abilities and position in this wide world.
It is fascinating, you are like a child.
Sure it is, some rich guy somewhere in your life screwed you or a family member over and ever since the family mythology is that rich people are all sociopaths.
Probably the person that got screwed did it to himself and only learned about it months or years later after someone he was bragging to about how he screwed the rich guy got told, “uh not exactly”.
Seen it many times. You have to do your homework in this world aint no other way.
This blog isnt going to make you any money, I suggest if you want to bash rich people go make some money and do some good with it and then you might be in a better position to “lecture” the wealthy.
Here is where to find the source material:
Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy by Michael W. Kraus , Stéphane Côté and Dacher Keltner
Studies show that “the wealthy” have poor people skills – especially related to empathic accuracy. A lack of empathy being a key defining feature of sociopathy, this is hardly surprising considering that people who routinely adopt the inherently sociopathic Randian outlook act out of easily distinguishable pure selfishness.
http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/13/5624389-rich-people-have-no-idea-what-youre-thinking
Again, this is not a case of confirmation bias, but merely confirmation that venal people suck.
One does not dispense mercy to opponents who have none nor are capable of the empathy required to express it. Opposing views have nothing to do with it. Showing mercy to a sociopath is futile and is analogous to showing mercy to a rabid dog.
It’s a tactical decision.
Nice try though, Rove.
No.
Not really.
It was as weak, feeble and self-serving as your other statements.
Buddha is Laughing:
Your post was funny, in that it describes you and how you behave toward people with opposing views.
Everyone has a spiritual space that they fill with something. I was speaking to my wife about that last night and thought it was rather interesting that many Objectivists do look at Objectivisim as a religion, they even have their own Devil – E. Kant.
@ekeyra: P.S. I am not enslaving them, I am taxing them. In time or in its equivalent, I am requiring them to make a contribution to the common good. Enslaving them would be a 100% tax, and I don’t believe in that at all.
Thanks Buddha.