Presidential candidate Ron Paul picks his fave superhero
ComicMix asked presidential candidate Ron Paul to pick his favorite superhero. He (or more likely, one of his younger staffers) picked Paul Pope's "Berlin Batman."
Link"My favorite comic book superhero is Baruch Wane, otherwise known as Batman, in The Batman Chronicles. "The Berlin Batman," #11 in the series by Paul Pope, details Batman's attempts to rescue the confiscated works of persecuted Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, from Nazi Party hands.
“Batman's assistant Robin writes in the memoirs, "[Mises] was an advocate of individual liberty, free speech, and free thinking... and so, should I add, the Berlin Batman." Batman, a Jew in hiding in Nazi Austria, was willing to risk his life for the sake of the promulgation of freedom, and I find this to be super-heroic."
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I heard Barack was really into ELFQUEST
Presumably Bruce Wayne never allowed racist statements to be made in *his* newsletter. And certainly Wayne would never have offered the lame excuse that he didn't even read much less produce the newsletter sent out under his name as an explanation of how racist statements ended up in there.
Why are the libertarian candidates who actually run for office such loons?
Of course, rescue Mises works so that they can be enshrined in the anti-FDR halls of justice.
And I would have thought he favored Watchmen's Rorschach.
This is a great question, though. I'm waiting to see who just buckles down and says "I like superman", and who goes the extra mile for the nerds and claims Booster Gold. Captain America's too obvious, but with the civil war in the Marvel Universe, anyone who supports Cap will be an adamant advocate for privacy laws.
This, of course, affects all three voters out there who see comic book preferences as the most reliable standard of a persons character and belief.
ron paul didn't even say this.
smells like an advert.
he'd obviously be Captain America anyway, he's the only candidate that could claim that.
I'm not sure what you intend by posting this. Have you not looked at Paul's positions on real issues?
Ron Paul opposes a woman's right to choose.
He opposes affirmative action and universal health care.
He wants to dismantle nearly everything funded by the government in favor of privatized solutions. Like KBR and Halliburton.
He opposes the use of contraceptives.
And you are concerned about what sort of comic book he would prefer?
Fuck.
Calm down, U.C. I posted it because I think it's funny to ask a candidate to pick a favorite superhero, and even funnier to get an answer from the candidate. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's going to be fun watching Ron Paul go down in flames. I haven't seen a more inept campaign style in a long time. Why won't he close his ties to neo-nazi fund raisers?
"It's going to be fun watching Ron Paul go down in flames. I haven't seen a more inept campaign style in a long time. Why won't he close his ties to neo-nazi fund raisers?"
Going down in flames? That would assume he's actually "up" anywhere. The only place Paul actually seems to be winning anything is Internet polls.
BTW, not to just dig on Paul...the scary thing is that compared to someone like Mike Huckabee, Paul is actually halfway sane and stable. And yet Huckabee is considered a rising candidate in the GOP primary who has a serious, if outside, chance .
It looks like, as usual, we'll have a Control Freak vs. Control Freak election next November.
Sorry -- just seeing so many fall for this "libertarian" false flag campaign has me paranoid. If BoingBoing goes Paultard, what hope is there?
Paranoia will di-stro-ya, and all that.
More likely Ron Paul than one of his "young staff", since Paul is a regular contributor to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the Batman-Mises connection was articulated back in March 1998:
Holy Praxaeology, Batman!
When the hell did the BoingBoing community start acting like the peanut-gallery commentators at crooksandliars.com??? (which are borderline as incoherent as YouTube comments.) For expressing yourselves with that much emotion and knee-jerk reaction (and so little open-minded independent research), I'm surprised you don't fall hook-line-and-sinker for the jingoist Neo-Con bullshit.
Are any of you even from the Internet? Don't any of you remember that the Internet is a libertarian haven, full of cryptoanarchists and digital revolutionaries fueled by technological determinism and information freedom?
Please go back and read the first year of Wired magazine at least, kthx.
GPG fingerprint:
B375 92E4 1376 5E35 F357
1CF9 2B0E 5F3A 4E51 0967
Thank, Zuzu.
Most superheroes are Jewish. Paul Krassner explained this years ago.
I just want to say that much of the anti-Paul stuff that's been said here is dishonest, misleading or just plain false.
But don't take my word for it either, look into his views yourself if you want to know them.
I've looked into his views and I frankly have not seen any dishonest criticisms of him in here.
The devil is in the detail Flying Squid. Take, for example, UC's comments...
>Ron Paul opposes a woman's right to choose.
Choose what? To vote? That bastard! Of course he means to choose to abort an unborn child. So, in that vain, one could say based on UC's model -- Ron Paul opposes a women's right to kill babies.
>He opposes affirmative action and universal health care.
Blanket statement much? Affirmative action for African Americans and women is one thing (and Paul opposes them, I don't agree with that, sure) but affirmative action on the whole (for every minority of every minority you can think of) is a whole different ball game. And universal health care? Who's going to pay for that with the debt W's accumulated?
>He wants to dismantle nearly everything funded by the government in favor of privatized solutions. Like KBR and Halliburton.
Paul favors local government over federal. Small government = real republican. Tossing in "like KBR and Halliburton" is damn near vomit inducing. UC is getting just as sensationalist as the MSM at this point.
>He opposes the use of contraceptives.
The slide to CNN level continues...
Dishonest? Maybe, maybe not. Filled with weasel words and half-truths? Most definitely.
Well it sounds like you agree with him on a lot of things, but I'm not seeing the half-truths. For example, I think most people know what 'a woman's right to choose' refers to. Paul has voted against abortion rights multiple times. Many people, myself included, feel that this is one of the many things which makes him an unacceptable candidate.
It seems to me that you are taking offense at the criticisms of someone you feel is right for the job, but rather than addressing those criticisms rationally, you've chosen to mock and deride.
Whereas for Roe v. Wade, Ron Paul has stated in numerous interviews all of which I'm sure are on YouTube that his contention is that "right to an abortion" should not have been circumnavigated through interpreting the 4th Amendment Right to Privacy. Instead, for him, the problem with Roe v. Wade isn't so much about abortion per se, but about whether this government action was Constitutionally within the prevue of the Federal government to begin with. This fits within Paul's general paradigm that local government will be more tailor-fit to meet the needs of particular constituents than a one-size-fits-all Federal government -- less Kafkaesque to deal with as an individual.
Realistically if Ron Paul were elected president he most likely couldn't reverse Roe v. Wade anyway, so really this issue is a red herring.
What Ron Paul could do:
1.) End the War in Iraq and pursue dismantling of military bases on foreign soil
2.) End this farcical "War or Terror", which has been the USA's Reichstag fire excuse for building a police state
3.) Set the agenda for Congress to repeal the USAPATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act (restoring Habeas Corpus)
4.) End the practice of torture, secret prisons in Guantanamo Bay, and extraordinary rendition
5.) End warrantless wiretapping, USVISIT, driftnets, and all other domestic mass-surveillance programs
6.) Balance the Federal budget (currently over 9 trillion dollars in debt) and put an end to the inflation primarily caused by the Military Keynesianism vis-a-vis the second Iraq War; even if he's unlikely to succeed in dismantling the Federal Reserve central banking system or restoring US currency to the gold standard. We could at least have a more inflation-conscious central banking system like the EU does, based on the German model (since they learned all about the hazards of hyperinflation the hard way).
7.) Cut corporate welfare / subsidies to agribusiness (e.g. corn/ethanol, milk), telecommunications, and military contractors. Again, ending the Iraq "war for oil" is ending a subsidy for the oil industry too. Higher oil prices make alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, and fission more economically viable to invest in.
8.) Open up genuine Free Trade (as opposed to WTO, IMF, World Bank, OECD, faux-"free trade" hegemony) with the "third world" so that they can develop their agricultural economies and rise out of poverty while we accept the fact that agriculture and even industrial manufacturing has far more comparative advantage abroad, while the USA still excels as a creative / knowledge economy -- such as information technology, biotechnology, media and entertainment. We can trade new innovations and technologies for food and consumer goods, and we'll both benefit.
In addition to opposing stupid wars, torture, the Patriot Act, Internet censorship, and any law that invades your privacy, Dr. Paul is the only candidate (let alone only Republican) that wants to let individual states decide the abortion issue for themselves; and yet every time his name comes up, the neocon shills, desperate for any mud to sling at him, condemn this gynaecologist's personal opinions on the matter.
Good grief, I thought those weirdos hated Boing Boing for its pro-freedom views, but mentioning the only presidential candidate people are actually enthusiastic about brings them out for some reason, like cold weather and cockroaches.
Liberty enthusiasts are well aware of the anti-authoritarian bent to many Batman stories. It's no surprise Dr. Paul or his staffer chose the Dark Knight as his favourite superhero.
Thank you, Squid. For my part, I think Ron Paul supporters have their hearts in the right place; there are so few decent candidates in this race that intelligent people are tempted to latch on to anyone who actually takes a stance on things and says things that we might agree with. It's worth digging deeper, however, to discover what those galvanizing figures actually believe and endorse. Paul's opposition to abortion is not merely academic. He's voted down pro-abortion legislation more than once, as you say. His paranoid, antagonistic comments on secularists (which I count myself one of) and religion in public life leave something to be desired as well:
"Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before putting their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage."
He does, however, support the death penalty at the state level — though tellingly not at the federal level. He voted for and supported the Defense of Marriage act.
Blah blah blah. I like Ron Paul on a LOT of the issues. I don't know if I'd vote for him in the general election, and I can't vote for him in the primary, which makes the point pretty much moot (although it already was considering he won't be nominated). He is not perfect, as we all know. Nobody is.
I would like to see Kucinich get a nomination, though.
>It seems to me that you are taking offense at the criticisms of someone you feel is right for the job, but rather than addressing those criticisms rationally, you've chosen to mock and deride.
I do not agree with Paul on all issues and am, like Adam, not even sure I would vote him in a general election. However, the success of his campaign finance wise and the way much of the MSM ignores him when talking to "serious" candidates who don't even raise half the money that he does is very disturbing. I can't help but become passionate about this with the way the government and media has operated these past eight years.
As for a half-truth example, to say "He wants to dismantle nearly everything funded by the government in favor of privatized solutions. Like KBR and Halliburton." is absolutely silly. He wants to dismantle bloated government agencies in favor of local governments for the most part. When someone like UC tosses in crap like "KBR and Halliburton" just to get a rise out of people, he can expect to be mocked by me.
Hi. I've been reading boingboing for years, but I created an account to comment here. I don't mean to troll.
I'm seriously concerned about the Paul campaign, and its popularity among geeks and other thoughtful, educated people. I have strong objections to Paul's politics--they're pretty standard leftie ones--but that's not the point. (I don't expect to change anyone's mind in the comment section of a blog post about Batman.)
I DO want to know--about how much of the boingboing readership is really enthusiastic about Paul in particular or libertarianism in general? How many of the editors? Why are we concerned with civil liberties and freedom of information, without having a debate about issues related to social justice and inequality that might, potentially, bear very heavily on the ability of individuals to meaningfully enjoy or benefit from the very freedoms we're concerned to protect?
Re: Conrade Raoul
Briefly (as we've gone off-topic), to me you sound like you're concerned with what Isaiah Berlin referred to as negative liberty vs. positive liberty. or positive and negative rights.
The grave danger of "positive liberty" is that the large and powerful governments required to provide those resources are also large and powerful enough to control and manipulate you.
A similar concept was covered when Mark linked to The Road to Serfdom.
I just wanted to say that the abortion issue is a tough one. Ron Paul is an OB/GYN who believes that human life begins upon conception. While I personally do not believe that can't we respect someone who does and therefore honestly views abortion as killing a fetus? When do you view life begins? At birth? What about 1 hour before birth? It is a sticky issue and sticky issues should be dealt with on a local level rather than a central level.
Opposes contraception? What? Link Citation? I have read a whole lot about this candidate and I have not seen that ever.
Getting the federal government back to a Constitutional level is bad? Wouldn't it be better to have teh federalist system we started with? Many government functions SHOULD be sent back to the state level in my humble opinion.
If you think the federal government should take care of us from cradle to grave and police teh world while undermining our natural rights then yes by all means vote for the status quo candidates who will continue to bloat the federal government, print fake money and run up massive debts for future generations.
The real issue comes down to a fundamental philosphy of do you want strong central government or more power to decentralized states. The old Jefferson vs. Hamilton.
I can't beleive some of the blind hate going on here against a very good man even if you fundamentally disagree with him on these issues. I can't say I agree with everything Ron Paul espouses but I think his libertarian leanings are worth a look.
Thanks,
-Dave
Let's not forget that he's pledged to dismantle the Departments of Education and Energy.
Ron Paul rejects the theory of evolution. (2:40 in.)
This alone precludes me from voting for him.
The Department of Energy's aggressive pursuit of liquified coal for energy isn't exactly a shining example of public service either.
@Zuzu--
Interesting links! And, you're right--I was thinking of the difference between positive and negative liberty in the back of my head when I asked the question, and I do think a really good way for people to think about how they feel about libertarianism is to reflect on how they feel about the varieties of control or manipulation.
But I didn't mean to push for my views--again, I'm pretty confident that I'm not going to win any adherents a blog's comments section! I just meant to ask a pretty factual question--how many readers or editors of boingboing are libertarians--and a slightly more interpretive one--why DOES the site focus on the kind of liberties it does? Why AREN'T we focusing on other kinds of rights or justice to go along with freedom of information?
However, in my rough summation, here's the a relevant selection from the entry for BoingBoing in Wikipedia to answer your questions: "Along with Mondo 2000, Boing Boing was an influence in the development of the cyberpunk subculture. ... All four Boing Boing contributors are or have been contributing writers for Wired magazine." Additionally, remember that Kevin Kelly was the founding executive editor of Wired; before that he was the editor and publisher of the Whole Earth Catalog through his relationship with Stewart Brand, who was the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog. The two of them created/developed the WELL, which was an extremely popular forum for this community. It was where the founders of the EFF met and organized to create that particular organization. Other notable names that came out of that community are Howard Rheingold, Declan McCullagh, Tim May, and Mike Godwin. vis-a-vis the WELL, also check out the Long Now Foundation and Danny Hillis.
You might also do well to read Kevin Kelly's Out of Control.
Extropianism and the technological singularity were hotter subjects for discussion then too, as were financial cryptography and data havens.
Could you really bring yourself to support a presidential candidate that rejects the theory of evolution? I can't and won't.
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It's not a silly question, it's indicative of the candidates' ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. Any rational, reasonable person accepts that the theory of evolution is the only sound explanation of how humans came to be; anything else, barring major discoveries that overturn our current understanding of genetics, is fantasy. I don't want a person who has chosen to reject science and accept fantasy leading my country.
He rejects a theory that, rejected, skews his entire view of biology, human history, and how the world works.
(compliments to Chuck Klosterman.)
It's not analogous, because Ron Paul *is* an unorthodox outsider. Despite the fact that his ideas about the federal government are ridiculous reactionary claptrap, however, let's say your Chuck Klosterman quote (a man well known for his political savvy — read: he's a tool) stands as a pertinent analogy. Yes, I think that kind of behaviour would quickly marginalize and humiliate a candidate. The only reason Christianity doesn't do that now is because half of the country believes in magical men in the sky.
Sorry, Zuzu, We didn't know that there was an Internet handbook of approved political positions. C'mon, already.
I'm also leery of the word "libertarian" used as a buzzword, and no, this is not an unreasearched knee-jerk reaction.
Libertarianism is not just a more free-wheeling version of liberalism.
It's not about not wanting The Man to tell you that you have to wear a seatbelt.
There are different flavors of libertarianism, it's true, but they are all variations on a basically conservative philosophy.
#28: "I do think a really good way for people to think about how they feel about libertarianism is to reflect on how they feel about the varieties of control or manipulation."
C'mon, Raoul, that's a leading question and you know it. One person's manipulation is another's reasonable social compromise.
Our society, like any free civilized society, is built on control and manipulation. It's how we keep our society from tearing itself apart. You need to be specific. I might agree with libertarians on one issue, and not on another.
The libertarians are positioned on the political scale to the right of the neo-cons, not the left. (For those of you who are confused on that point.)
Their philosophy takes the Neo-Cons' free market, anti-government philosophy one step further.
Comfortable with that, are you voters?
Neo-Cons have never ever supported free markets or limited government. Neo-Conservativism (aka Neo-Liberalism in other regions of the world) is foremost a corporatist (or literally fascist) philosophy of governance.
So Freedom is Slavery, is it? Did you just get done reading Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud or something?
For one alternative hypothesis on the origins of civilized society, you could read Human Action (PDF) by Ludwig von Mises (kinda back on-topic now!), wherein "Mises argues that the free-market economy not only outdistances any government-planned system, but ultimately serves as the foundation of civilization itself." In other words, does civilization emerge from the social interaction of individuals, or is it crystalized into being by the most powerfully armed gang around?
Zuzu,
Spare me the Cliff Notes and the condescension, please. I can do my own research, I don't need your help. Enough with the links already.
Every demagogue spouts off about economic and social freedom, non-violence, and the like. So what? It's all talk.
Your "economic freedom" is the same "economic freedom" the conservatives endorse, i.e., shallow self-interest. Oops, sorry: "enlightened self-interest."
Your advocation of a free market is anachronistic and unworkable in the real world, except as a vehicle for concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the few. In other words, a step back to the Gilded Age.
Because in our society, wealth IS power, and we can no more depend on market forces to evolve a fair economic model than we can depend on them to create a workable political structure.
It's delusional to think that you can seperate economic from political power. Eliminate government interference, right, and let economics work its wonders? Never mind that political power IS economic power, and vice versa. "Might Equals Right" applies equally to the economic sphere as to the political.
Sorry, but there is no economic justice that is not the result of cooperative human effort, just as there is no social justice that is not created the same way.
I'm all for repealing the Patriot Act, stopping torture, balancing the federal budget, etc. No quibbles with your laundry list in those areas.
But returning to the gold standard? Are you serious? You do know that this isn't the nineteenth century, right?
And don't talk to me about the beginnings of civilization. You don't know any more about it than I do. No one does. It's all conjecture by academics. Citing them or Wikipedia does not impress me, and frankly, it's lazy of you. Make your own arguments.
The simple fact is that fiat currency (as opposed to backed currency such as gold certificates) is used primarily by governments so that they can fund wars without having to wage a war tax first. Hence inflation -- the stealth tax.
Apparently not, because you haven't logically derived any of your opinions that you present as facts. Furthermore, hypertext is the cornerstone of the World Wide Web (contrary to all this "Web 2.0" web-application garbage currently in vogue); complain to Ted Nelson or Tim Berners-Lee if you don't like it. Absent of coercion from force or fraud, all trade is both-benefit; trade that is not both-benefit simply will not occur because one of the participants will refuse the exchange.I'm curious how in your worldview the same corrupt and selfish humans who engage in all other spheres of socioeconomic organization somehow become saints when given the vastly magnified power of government authority. If people abuse the power circumscribed by their amassed capital, it then follows they are even more abusive with the far greater power of government force.
"Apparently not, because you haven't logically derived any of your opinions that you present as facts."
Really? What are these "facts" that I've presented. It's you, my friend, that are presenting opinion as fact. Hence the pseudo-authoritative (vaguely coercive) use of citations, which your last post was mercifully free of. Thank you for that.
Per "fiat currency": I'm curious as to how you expect a modern capitalist economy to function without the modern tools of finance. You can't turn back the clock. But that's another debate, I think.
I'll just say, at the risk of oversimplifying (how can we not in this forum?) that inflation is not a new phenomenon. It did not spring up after we abandoned the gold standard. It's been around since before the Industrial Revolution, if I'm not mistaken.
"Absent of coercion from force or fraud, all trade is both-benefit."
"Absent coercion or fraud" is simply too big a caveat to excuse that big a generalization. I can't let you get away with that. The whole meat of the debate is in that clause.
How do we prevent or control economic coercion and fraud, that's the question. We simply disagree about how to do that.
In my opinion, the free market inevitably leads to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Coercion thus follows.
"I'm curious how in your worldview the same corrupt and selfish humans who engage in all other spheres of socioeconomic organization somehow become saints when given the vastly magnified power of government authority."
Um, I never said anything about saints, I don't think.
But listen: if you believe in any law at all, then you accept the premise that the many can control the baser impulses of the few in some form or other.
This is the basis of the rule of law: the idea that there is such a thing as justice, and that it can be achieved cooperatively. The profit motive is not a reliable engine for justice--it's an atomizing influence.
Fraud laws are an example. Surely that's a form of control and manipulation from the point of view of the con artist? How would market forces prevent fraud? Market forces do not by their nature encourage trade "absent of coercion or fraud." Market forces reward coercion and fraud, as long as they lead to a profit.
But listen, we agree on a lot of things, we just disagree on one point, as I see it: I believe that democratic government is a cooperative endeavor, a magnification of more local cooperative endeavors, and can be scaled up successfully. Not that that's an easy thing to achieve, but no one ever said it would be.
You believe that government is essentially a form of coercion, and that a scaling up of government is simply a scaling up of the abuses of power. Do I have that right?
To me, free market forces unchecked prevent the operation of democracy. You apparently disagree. Fair enough. Let's agree to disagree.
You make good arguments and are very articulate. I just don't like being lectured to. No one does. I will yield the floor now. Thanks for a stimulating debate. - Nick
The VITRIOL expended here, and elsewhere on Congressman Paul is UNREAL. All of the digits expended by all of the left and right on all of the candidates doesn't add up to the venom spewed out here on this thread against a gentle, self-effacing man who wants nothing more than a free, peaceful, propsperous republic that cultivates peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations. The positions many above single out for such poisonous invective (against abortion, pro free-market, pro liberty, anti-war), are the same as up to 80% of the candidates running, on paper, so why are a tiny minority so ANGRY at Paul? Is it because he has integrity, and he means what he says? Because he grounds his positions in the constitution and sound (Austrian) economics? That he wants to end America's evil wasteful empire abroad and adress the collapsing dollar, the welfare / warfare state, and rescue the people from the coming Social Security / Medicare meltdown?
Don't make up your mind based on what other commentators SAY he will do, go to his website, to his posts on LewRockwell.com, to YouTube videos of his debate appearances and interviews, and to his congressional record (and please READ the TEXT of the bills some criticise. He has voted for and introduced a few bills here and there that belie his constitutional position, he has pandered now and again to pro-life audiences (a requirement for Republican audiences), but the man's public record largely speaks for itself. You don't have to vote for him, you don't even have to like him, but you can't fail to understand that he is running for president, not because he wants to run the government or run your life, but to simply restore liberty-everyone's liberty - from the depredations of a federal government that has burst its constitutional chains and run completely amok over our freedom.
Contemplate that while Harry Reid introduces a bill to absolve the big telecoms from violating all of our rights to privacy, while the president of Quest Communications is under indictment (on dubious charges) in retaliation for his refusal to go along with it, while the drug war incarcerates millions of blacks and hispanics for peaceful behavior and turns the cities into war zones, while thousands of foreign nationals are imprisoned and tortured in our name in godforsaken hellholes around the world, while our soldiers and many, many Afghan and Iraqi civilians continue to die needlessly. We need a Misesian president now.
ZUZU - thanks for your posts. You were far more patient and articulate than I would have been!
@ Nick;
"You believe that government is essentially a form of coercion, and that a scaling up of government is simply a scaling up of the abuses of power. Do I have that right?"
How is that even a valid question? The very concept of a centralized, coercively-tax-funded government is one of force. A government is simply an organization that claims a monopoly on force over a given geographic area, this is not even open to quwestion or debate, so let's get that over with now.
The only relevant argument is whether a government (force) or free individuals are the right or moral vehicle for a given action. If you argue that government HAS to do certain things "because they won't get done", you place your subjective preferences over the preferences of others.
More seriously, you declare your right to negate the rights of others by comandeering their property or their labor for your preferred outcome. This is an argument from utility and is unacceptable, because it violates self-ownership, property ownership, and the non-aggression principle.
"To me, free market forces unchecked prevent the operation of democracy. You apparently disagree. Fair enough."
We have had 6 years to observe the increasingly naked results of such unfettered "democracy". Do you see where that has got us? TRUE, moral democracy is self-government.
@ (whoever said there is no going back to gold);
Jim F**king CRAMER just had Ron on, and while dancing around the issue agreed with Ron on the disastrous path the fed has put our dollar and our economy on, that a dollar collapse is possible, and what then? There are worse things than commodity money, and we may be about to find out exactly what those things are.
Without calculation, economic activity is impossible. Since under Socialism economic calculation is impossible, under Socialism there can be no economic activity in our sense of the word ... All economic change, therefore, would involve operations the value of which could neither be predicted beforehand nor ascertained after they had taken place. Everything would be a leap in the dark. Socialism is the renunciation of rational economy." -- Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, 1981, pp. 103-105.