FeedPolitics: Ron Paul encouraged to run as a Libertarian
December 9, 2007 in Statehouse & Capitol
Via LewRockwell.com:*
In a move most unusual for this body, the Libertarian National Committee just adopted a resolution encouraging Ron Paul to seek the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. The LNC is meeting in Charleston, SC this weekend.
The resolution recognized Paul’s standing and history with the Libertarian Party. It also recognized a renewed passion that Paul has ignited across America.
From the resolution:
In the event that Republican primary voters select a candidate other than Congressman Paul in February of 2008, the Libertarian National Committee invites Congressman Ron Paul to seek the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party to be decided in Denver, Colorado during the Memorial Day weekend of 2008.
The motion was raised by former Congressman Bob Barr and approved unanimously by the board.
In a related motion, the Libertarian Party voted to authorize the use of their Ballot Base database application in support of the Ron Paul campaign in New Hampshire. This motion passed unanimously, as well. The vote also allows Libertarian Party presidential candidates to utilize Ballot Base in states which have a Libertarian Party primary.
* Yes. THAT Lew Rockwell. I have to say that the support Rockwell is showing for Paul is one of the reasons I’m hesitant to support Paul. I simply cannot grasp why any libertarian-minded person would object to Lincoln.
December 9th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
How can you like Lincoln? The guy was a tyrant. Try to be a little objective.
December 9th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Back in 2002, I addressed the fact that some people calling themselves libertarians had the gall to go around calling Lincoln a tyrant, when in fact Lincoln did more than any white man in American history to bring personal liberty to black-skinned Americans.
It makes me sick that Rockwell and others call themselves libertarians, yet wrap themselves in the Confederate flag and express sympathy with the Confederate cause and pretend it had nothing to so with enslaving human beings.
Go read Bernie Schoenburg’s column today. It discusses how Abe Lincoln is revered by free-loving people the world over — except by the demented, anti-government wing of the Libertarian Party.
Have a nice day.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
1. Maybe the ends justified the means, but you gotta admit that Lincoln did some heinous things wrt civil liberties.
2. I think the issue with ‘pro-Confederacy’ libertarians, if I may be so bold as to speak for a group of which I’m not even a member, is that they see independence/sovereignty of individuals as priority numero uno. If a people band together and decide to rule themselves independently from the established regime, what power should that government have to intercede? Lincoln, therefore, was acting as no less a tyrant than Saddam (see Kuwait) or Stalin (see the Warsaw Pact).
December 10th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Ben: Yes, I know. Lincoln suspended habeus corpus, closed down newspapers, etc. I’ve heard it all before. Bear in mind he did this during a time of armed insurrection. The entire nation was a battlefield, essentially. There were pro-Confederate people spread throughout the Union states, and many of them were actively supporting the Confederate cause. Read any book about Lincoln and you will find someone who went to great lengths to NOT be a tyrant.
December 11th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Mr. Dennis: You say that there was an “armed insurrection” and pro-Confederate agitators in Union territory. Fine, then deal with THEM, over whom the US gov’t had legitimate power, instead of decimating a [very very newly] sovereign nation.
*Once again, I will note that I am not pro-slavery, pro-secession, etc. I do think it’s interesting to give conventional wisdom a shove to see how it reacts. I also think that things are rarely as black and white as most people (my oh-so-fallible self included) like to pretend they are.
January 5th, 2008 at 1:02 am
Lincoln was a tyrant period. He was a “disciple” of Henry Clay who avdocated slavery and merchantilist government (government subsidies for special interests), and Lincoln agreed with Clay on both principles. The man murdered people for protesting the war (including 50 blacks) and shut down newspapers. To suggest that the South fought for slavery is preposterous! If this was true, then men such as Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee, General Beauregard, and Stonewall Jackson would not have fought. IF it was fought over slavery then you have to take into account that there were 13,000 documented BLACK slaveowners, and this is not to include the Indians who owned slaves. If the Confederates really were fighting for slavery then they wouldn’t have banned the slave trade right off the bat when they made their soveriegn nation. There were more slaveowners fighting for the Union than for the Confederacy, and when Lincoln changed the aim of the war there were mass desertion on the Union side, because they didn’t want to fight a “nigger war”.