Ron Paul, Libertarianism and the U.N.

[d-cat]

d-cat,

Ron Paul "won" the Poll????

well that's what the person who ran the poll/thread announced.

What was the tally exactly?

I don't remember. I think there were 7 who chose Ron Paul.

You actually base part of your argument on a waccobb.net "poll"?

I wasn't basing any part of any argument on the WaccoBB poll. I said this thread was originally part of the poll thread, which Ron Paul won.

[I]Have you notice how many people are subscribed to this board?

Have you compared that number to the number of people who "vote" in these referenda?

Please, don't hurt your cause any more than you already have with such claims. You can surely argue better than that!

Ron Paul is a Libertarian. Right Libertarians (who are the dominant forces in the Libertarian Party) are Ayn Rand style, Adam Smith / Milton Friedman style, Free Market Laissez Faire Capitalists. We've seen how feasible that plan for society is.

(Can you name a single instance of a truly "free market" in any place at any time in history? Without monopolies of various and numerous kinds, most of the history of Capitalism would not exist.)

If you want a world based on individual rapacious and solopsistic desire, without any notions of the collective good, the commons, public interest, social needs and ends, fine, that's your right. But be honest enough to admit that upfront. Don't try to hide it in rhetoric about Peace and preserving the Constitution.

And if you want to affirm avoiding the Left/Right paradigm, at least give credit where credit is due. It was the catch phrase, and strategy of Die Gruenen (sp?) ala Petra Kelly et al in West Germany in the late seventies on. Otherwise known as the origin of the Green Party movement.

Generally articulated as: Neither Left nor Right, but Forward.

And what are the chances of Ron Paul even getting the Repub nomination? If you're supporting him to screw with Guiliani, well, there might be something there. But actually claiming he has a shot? Has anyone investigating his handicapping in Las Vegas? What are the odds?

I haven't made the argument in the previous paragraph heretofore because I recall similar slams against Ralph in the 2000 election. So I have hesitated to use it in sympathy for fellow underdog supporters.

But the difference is that nobody I knew in the Green Party at the time thought Nader could win the Presidency, and we weren't trying to spoil it for Gore. We just wanted the 15% for Federal matching funds in future elections so we could start to build a real opposition to corporate domination of the American political process.

The only people who deluded themselves that Nader could actually get more votes then either Bush or Gore, and I worked with some people like that every day from April through early November of 2000, were basically, sorry to say, politically naive and not very well educated about the history and realities of American elections.

By the way, there is an example of a Third Party candidate influencing a modern election. H. Ross Perot helped Clinton win against Bush I in, when was that, 1992? I'll leave a discussion about how much better Clinton was than Shrub's father would have been, for another day.

Geez!

"Mad" Miles




P.S. SonomaMark,

In spite of our partisan differences, You Da' Man!

(And by man I mean that in a totally non-gender-specific way which does not privilege the male over the female nor visa versa.

Language, what a bitch.

Ooops, did it again!?)

[d-cat]

IndyEye,

Thanks for your thoughtful post. I'm glad to see all the points you bring up. Some are very complex issues.

Anyone considering Edwards or Clinton should be aware that they are members of the CFR, who support the North American Union and a centralized one world government (The European Union is part of this). Most candidates on both sides of the party line are CFR members (you can go to cfr.org and do a search). Dick Cheney was their director and it was started by David Rockefeller. When they say that both parties are controlled by the same people, it's the CFR (and powers above them) that they're talking about. It's home to the major corporations. There should be some links about the CFR and the North American Union somewhere on this thread. Here's one for convenience. https://video.google.com/videoplay?d...17264635445048

I'm not so sure if there would be that vacuum you mention if states were allowed back their powers. It's the way it used to be and is actually the way it's still supposed to be. The Constitution called for very limited Federal power. We've strayed a bit.

I don't think an unregulated market necessarily means that corporations can run rampant. It's actually the corporations who lobby for regulation, according to Paul. In a free market, small businesses have a better chance. And we get a better choice and don't have to rely on the corporations for everything. It's corporatism that's the problem - when corporations team up with centralized power and get subsidized by the government. An example is the pharmaceutical industry. It's the federal regulations that enabled them to become so powerful. Now they want to take control of vitamin supplements and eliminate alternative medicine with more regulations.

In regard to whether it's cheaper to buy off state politicians, I don't think money is the issue. But I think it would be a lot harder to deal with 50 individual states than with something more centralized.

I can't really add anything to your Libertarian comments (I've been a Democrat all my life). Initially, some Libertarian views seemed extreme to me but I am seeing them in a increasingly favorable light as I gain a better understanding of them.

I think a lot of people who support Paul are those who really understand what is taking place in this country and are aware of the direction we are heading towards. That probably explains the passion Ron Paul supporters have. Solving everything isn't going to be easy or perfect. But there certainly is one amazing movement growing behind Paul, and it's made up of both Republicans and Democrats, working together as Americans. Americans who feel their freedoms are being lost. Americans who don't want imperialistic wars to continue in their name.

BTW people at the www.RonPaulForums.com often discuss topics such as the ones you bring up, if you care for a look. It's a real busy forum and a lot of exciting things go on there. There was a recent fundraiser started there (by a Democrat) that took in $4.3 million in a single day. Another one is planned for the 16th of December on the anniversary of The Boston Tea Party (which inspired a protest on the same day in Europe against the European Union). Full page ads are thought up, designed and paid for right there by the supporters. Now some are working on getting a Ron Paul blimp! There are even some celebrity members there. Lots of trolls and shills there too, acting as supporters and mussing things up.

>People aren't buying into the left/right paradigm anymore.

I think that's probably true, or at least I hope it's true. And I see no reason why Ron Paul should be less worthy of discussion here than, say, vaccinations. I've followed this thread only occasionally — it's hard when this forum becomes something I'd only expect in mid-town Manhattan, where sweet West Countians can assert their god-given rights to rude aggression...

But I stray.

Here's my take on Ron Paul, for whatever it's worth. I've read some of his stuff, I've heard an extensive interview. And I have a couple of very progressive friends who are ardent Libertarians, so I sorta know the standard answers to the standard questions.

He seems to me like a nice, sincere guy who's (possibly) not in anybody's pocket. His views on specifics are certainly consistent with his broad philosophy. He's appealing on those issues where liberal views would be served by asking the federal government to go fuck itself, e.g. marijuana and the war. In the interview, he kept stressing that he understood the need for compromise, going slow on the "absolutes," all that, and didn't seem at all like the damn-the-torpedoes ideologue.

But while I'd often like to kick the Feds in the nuts, I'm not quite ready to bring out the de-baller. We live in a world of power struggles, like it or not (I don't), and I think the best we can do in terms of national politics is to balance one big motherfucker against another, and to elect people who can do that juggling act with the panache of the Flying Karamazovs.

I'm sorry to say that includes Clinton, it includes Edwards. It doesn't include Obama, who seems to me to be running on a "there are really no conflicts here" platform, nor Kucinich, whose ideas I agree with just about 100% but who I think would have no more skill in carrying them out than I would. I think I'm a very gifted theatre director, and yet if I had the chance to direct a Broadway show, I'd be dead meat — you have to know the system, be able to play it & speak it & horse-trade & compromise & bluff & all that Lyndon Johnson stuff. Otherwise, like Jesse Jackson, you just make speeches.

Ok, so, Ron Paul. Here's what I don't get about Libertarianism:

* You take away the federal government, what do you have? Faith in God. In every other arena, when there's a power vacuum, somebody steps in. Corporate power is vast; corporate responsibility is ... huh, whazzat? Bush has effectively crippled federal regulatory agencies, and we're reaping the "benefits." (And he's crippled them for the future with the vast war expenditures & budget deficits.) In the current Big Government destruction of Big Government, have we seen a renaissance? I don't think so. I think you could certainly chart the stupidities of the Feds into multiple volumes, but does that mean we spread our legs, gratis, for the corporations? I don't think so. And I haven't heard any arguments that make me think otherwise.

* My friends tell me, well, the Feds are basically bought out by the corporations. Yeh, I agree. So if you reduce federal power, you'll just lessen their hold? I don't buy that. There's still a struggle.

* There's the recurrent States vs. Feds issue. If it's civil rights, Liberals side with the Feds. If it's marijuana or energy issues, we tend to side with the States. Hamstringing one in favor of the other is just a tactical question, not a theological one. Again, it's a balance of power. To my mind, Paul's assertion of states' rights may mean, to look at it positively, that we'll allow a greater diversity and have greater self-determination. The shadow side is that state politicians can be bought off cheaper than US Senstors, as has been proven for centuries here. I have yet to talk seriously with a Libertarian who has a good grounding in the 19th Century, though they seem to idolize it.

So anyway, that's my two cents. But while obviously I'm not a Ron Paul supporter, I think it's a worthy subject of debate in this forum. I'd welcome personal response, but not just referral to a website.

Peace & joy—
Conrad

[Zeno Swijtink]

I don't think an unregulated market necessarily means that corporations can run rampant. It's actually the corporations who lobby for regulation, according to Paul. In a free market, small businesses have a better chance.

That corporations lobby for regulation does not mean that smaller businesses are necessarily always hurt by regulation. Small businesses simply do not have the resources to lobby for regulation. Corporations lobby for regulation that favors their sector, as in cable vs phone companies. "No regulation" would favor some sector also.

Is Paul opposed to all regulation? What about things like copyright protection for a limited time? Or is he for eternal copyright protection?

If you believe in "the common interest" (does Paul?) there seem to be thousands of cases where regulation is in the common interest. An interesting example I found in Why Not?: How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small, by Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres. It regards ways to prevent car theft.

The Club, a device you put on your steering wheel to prevent car theft, has the effect that the thief goes to the next car. It has an negative externality.

Using a hidden devise such as the Lojack, a concealed car transmitter that allows the police to track a car after it is stolen, deters car theft in general. Since a thief cannot know whether a car has a Lojack knowing that there are quite a number of cars with this devise in an area deters car theft in general.

According to one analysis*, investing $400 in a Lojack reduces other people's expected car theft loss by more then $4000!

So the community has an interest in people using the Lojack system, rather than a Club.

In Massachusets the State regulated the car insurance industry by requiring a 25% discount for cars that use the Lojack system. This has led to increased use of the Lojack system and a drop in car theft of 50%!

A simple example of a prima facie beneficial regulation. But it presupposes that you believe in the common interest. Do you?

* Ayers & S Levitt, Measuring positive externalities from unobservable victim precaution: An empirical analysis of Lojack, 1997, National Bureau of Economic Research. Available at https://www.nber.org.

[Neshamah]

Ron Paul's ideals go too far, but I am supporting him because after decades of growing the government at various rates, a 4-8 year dose of libertarianism is exactly what we need. We can always grow the government back in better form if we have to.

When we give the government the power to do good, we have also given it the power to do evil. We cannot have it both ways. If we continue to depend solely on the government simply because it can be more efficient (and it can be,) we may not be able to complain when a later administration uses that power for less enlightened purposes, such as reshaping 120 foreign countries to benefit the corporations that paid for the latest Congress. Who knows what will be done in our name and for our own good if the present course is allowed to continue.

If we are to succeed in the long term, smaller groups of good people are going to have to work together. It will not be as efficient as a benevolent dictatorship, but neither will it have so much inertia that individuals can no longer make a difference or have their voices heard.

I think we are less than a generation away from desperate and need to contemplate some difficult choices. Ending our present Imperialist foreign policy and reversing the power grabbing executive orders of the last sixty years will more than balance the harm of a few years of reduced government oversight. The choices in 2012 may be even tougher if we don't act now.

As for electability, those who aim higher land higher. Perot aimed to win and started the Reform Party. Ralph Nader aimed for 5% and got 3%. If Ron Paul does well, maybe a more moderate successor will win in 2012. Ron Paul will not do everything that progressives want, but he will do one thing very well, and he has momentum. Which other candidates are going to shift the discussion? Which other candidates are going to make a real difference in 2008?

~ Neshamah

[OrchardDweller]

And what are the chances of Ron Paul even getting the Repub nomination? If you're supporting him to screw with Guiliani, well, there might be something there. But actually claiming he has a shot? Has anyone investigating his handicapping in Las Vegas? What are the odds?

Odds were 200 to 1 a few months ago, but here are some more recent odds:

https://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-100107.html
(odds 6/1 on sportsbook.com)

https://www.sportsbook.com/betting/R...-odds-753.html
(odds slashed to 4/1 on sportsbook.com)

https://www.gambling911.com/Ron-Paul-111007B.html
(5/1 odds in Europe)


Here's the money he's taken in so far this quarter: https://www.ronpaul2008.com/.
Check it out on the 16th if you want to see history being made.


and here are some photos (he drew a crowd of 5,000 at a recent rally):

[Zeno Swijtink]

In a free market, small businesses have a better chance. And we get a better choice and don't have to rely on the corporations for everything.

Paul Krugman wrote this piece, reprinted in the PD today, about current problems with credit and trust created by a freemarket ideology.

Absence of government=community regulation gave the big fish opportunity to get away with grand theft.

****
https://www1.pressdemocrat.com/artic...1043/OPINION01

Innovating our way to a financial crisis
The financial crisis that began late last summer, then took a brief vacation in September and October, is back with a vengeance.

How bad is it? Well, I've never seen financial insiders this spooked -- not even during the Asian crisis of 1997-98, when economic dominoes seemed to be falling all around the world.

This time, market players seem truly horrified -- because they've suddenly realized that they don't understand the complex financial system they created.

Before I get to that, however, let's talk about what's happening right now.

Credit -- lending between market players -- is to the financial markets what motor oil is to car engines. The ability to raise cash on short notice, which is what people mean when they talk about "liquidity," is an essential lubricant for the markets, and for the economy as a whole.

But liquidity has been drying up. Some credit markets have effectively closed up shop. Interest rates in other markets -- like the London market, in which banks lend to each other -- have risen even as interest rates on U.S. government debt, which is still considered safe, have plunged.

"What we are witnessing," says Bill Gross of the bond manager Pimco, "is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August."

The freezing up of the financial markets will, if it goes on much longer, lead to a severe reduction in overall lending, causing business investment to go the way of home construction -- and that will mean a recession, possibly a nasty one.

Behind the disappearance of liquidity lies a collapse of trust: market players don't want to lend to each other, because they're not sure they'll be repaid.

In a direct sense, this collapse of trust has been caused by the bursting of the housing bubble. The run-up of home prices made even less sense than the dot-com bubble - I mean, there wasn't even a glamorous new technology to justify claims that old rules no longer applied -- but somehow financial markets accepted crazy home prices as the new normal. And when the bubble burst, a lot of investments that were labeled AAA turned out to be junk.

Thus, "super-senior" claims against subprime mortgages -- that is, investments that have first dibs on whatever mortgage payments borrowers make, and were therefore supposed to pay off in full even if a sizable fraction of these borrowers defaulted on their debts - have lost a third of their market value since July.

But what has really undermined trust is the fact that nobody knows where the financial toxic waste is buried. Citigroup wasn't supposed to have tens of billions of dollars in subprime exposure; it did. Florida's Local Government Investment Pool, which acts as a bank for the state's school districts, was supposed to be risk-free; it wasn't (and now schools don't have the money to pay teachers).

How did things get so opaque? The answer is "financial innovation" -- two words that should, from now on, strike fear into investors' hearts.

O.K., to be fair, some kinds of financial innovation are good. I don't want to go back to the days when checking accounts didn't pay interest and you couldn't withdraw cash on weekends.

But the innovations of recent years -- the alphabet soup of C.D.O.'s and S.I.V.'s, R.M.B.S. and A.B.C.P. -- were sold on false pretenses. They were promoted as ways to spread risk, making investment safer. What they did instead -- aside from making their creators a lot of money, which they didn't have to repay when it all went bust -- was to spread confusion, luring investors into taking on more risk than they realized.

Why was this allowed to happen? At a deep level, I believe that the problem was ideological: policy makers, committed to the view that the market is always right, simply ignored the warning signs. We know, in particular, that Alan Greenspan brushed aside warnings from Edward Gramlich, who was a member of the Federal Reserve Board, about a potential subprime crisis.

And free-market orthodoxy dies hard. Just a few weeks ago Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, admitted to Fortune magazine that financial innovation got ahead of regulation -- but added, "I don't think we'd want it the other way around." Is that your final answer, Mr. Secretary?

Now, Mr. Paulson's new proposal to help borrowers renegotiate their mortgage payments and avoid foreclosure sounds in principle like a good idea (although we have yet to hear any details). Realistically, however, it won't make more than a small dent in the subprime problem.

The bottom line is that policy makers left the financial industry free to innovate -- and what it did was to innovate itself, and the rest of us, into a big, nasty mess.

Paul Krugman is a columnist for the New York Times.

[OrchardDweller]

I think a lot of people who support Paul are those who really understand what is taking place in this country and are aware of the direction we are heading towards. That probably explains the passion Ron Paul supporters have. Solving everything isn't going to be easy or perfect. But there certainly is one amazing movement growing behind Paul, and it's made up of both Republicans and Democrats, working together as Americans. Americans who feel their freedoms are being lost. Americans who don't want imperialistic wars to continue in their name.

Something's going on alright. Something big.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPjTAH8Y_L8

[d-cat]

Hi Zeno.

The Press Democrat is owned by The New York Times, which is owned by, among others, The Carlyle Group, a big defense contractor with connections to the likes of Bush Sr and George Schultz. If I remember right, it was also this group that bought out all the small local papers along the Trans Texas Corridor (Nafta Superhighway) to influence opinion there. But this doesn't mean that everything in the Press Democrat is BS. I think it was Hitler's Josef Goebbels who said, "All good propaganda must be 90% truth". Or something to that effect. But ultimately, corporate media serves its owners, and not the public. If you want to trust everything that you read in The Press Democrat, do so at your own peril!

"The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public."
- Commission On Freedom Of The Press

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
- William Colby (Former CIA Director)

On the subject of regulation, here is a real life example of one. I believe there was even a discussion about it here. They now want to regulate farm animals. So they're making it mandatory to have all livestock ID chipped (NAIS), at a cost per head with huge fines involved. This regulation is forcing small farmers to give up raising livestock. The big corporations of course can afford this. They don't even have to have the livestock individually chipped like the smaller farmers have to do. They get to buy group numbers because they deal with so many animals.

I had a chance to experience a "well regulated" market while living in Europe and the results I saw from it were that there were a lot of people working for the government, with a few owning small businesses, and the elite owning all businesses of importance. I've witnessed regulations there preventing people from starting businesses, and forcing others to shut down. There were a lot of regulations and it was one big pain in the butt for the little guy.

In reply to your question, Ron Paul is against federal regulation of the market, as the US Constitution mandates. And he is against NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO, UN. What is often referred to as 'free trade' agreements are actually managed trade agreements, according to Paul.

It's probably better to refer to Dr. Paul's own words on any subject rather than mine as I'm no expert. A great source is www.ronpaullibrary.org Other links can be found at www.ronpaulportal.com I hope you'll have a look into him. He's a very intelligent man.

And if you haven't ever seen it, have a look at this documentary. It may give you a whole new perspective on our financial system, and I think you'll see that issues like the ones discussed above seem almost insignificant compared to the issue of abolishing the Federal Reserve. Only four presidents have ever challenged these international bankers - McKinley (assassinated), Garfield (assassinated), Lincoln and JFK!

The Money Masters - How International Bankers Gained Control of America

https://video.google.com/videoplay?d...19560256183936

"The beauty of the plan is that not one person in a thousand can figure it out is because it is hidden behind complex sounding economic jibberish".

Paul Krugman wrote this piece, reprinted in the PD today, about current problems with credit and trust created by a freemarket ideology.

...

[Zeno Swijtink]

"The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public."
- Commission On Freedom Of The Press

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
- William Colby (Former CIA Director)

Seymour,

Before I respond can you give me a (what you take the be a) reliable source for the Colby quote?

Thanks, Zeno

[d-cat]

You can google the quote and choose whatever source you find reliable. Or maybe you won't find any reliable. That's ok, it's not so important because there are tons of other info available on the subject. If you like Wikipedia, give "Operation Mockingbird" a search.

Seymour,

Before I respond can you give me a (what you take the be a) reliable source for the Colby quote?

Thanks, Zeno

[Zeno Swijtink]

You can google the quote and choose whatever source you find reliable. Or maybe you won't find any reliable. That's ok, it's not so important because there are tons of other info available on the subject. If you like Wikipedia, give "Operation Mockingbird" a search.

But Google is a multibillion-dollar company often plugged on the Bits blog in the NYTimes, which, as you claim, is owned by, among others, The Carlyle Group.

In fact, Google is a big investor in the Carlyle Group, and at the same time it is deeply invested in the ISP used by Ron Paul's official website. That's why Paul is opposed to net neutrality my uncle Benny has told me (which I don't understand since Google is all in favor of net neutrality, so in fact I _do_ understand this, on a higher plane of logic as it were).

But my uncle Benny owns stock in a Dutch/Bahrein company that constructs prefab mosques in the Sudan and he drives a Hummer from General Motors, the world's largest auto company who must be in bed with the WTO. So why trust him?

I'm really confused. I am afraid.

PS If you want to check up some of these facts I can recommend a small mom-and-pop search engine https://www.hophophop.com which uses some new proprietary algorithm. I am so happy to have left the EU and live in this US of A where such small businesses still have a chance, protected by our splendid Constitution, itself the product of a group of lower middle class citizens who knew how to write well. But don't do this sipping a latte at Starbucks. You are in on the Secret of their Wi-fi I take it?

[d-cat]

Zeno,

I'm not sure on where you are taking this conversation. If you don't believe the CIA would be involved in media and that it is a "conspiracy theory", it's ok with me.

But back to the subject of Ron Paul and deregulation, this interview with him should cover any questions you may have about his views on this and related issues such as Codex.

Ron Paul Interview with Producer Kevin P. Miller (1 of 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko3-sbUQPTU

Ron Paul Interview with Producer Kevin P. Miller (2 of 2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7SGU0b0xjs

Any other questions, it would be better to refer to Ron Paul's writings/interviews, as mentioned before with the links. Good luck.

But Google is a multibillion-dollar company often plugged on the Bits blog in the NYTimes, which, as you claim, is owned by, among others, The Carlyle Group. ...

[Sonomamark]

I just have to ask: have you actually read the US Constitution? If so, by what elaborate means do you conclude that the Constitution "mandates no federal regulation of the market?"

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"

The Constitution explicitly reserves exclusively to the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce, which is a clear statement that 1) the Founding Fathers supported regulation of commerce and 2) they wanted the federal government to do it.

There you have it: the Libertarian Party's economic agenda is contrary to the wishes of the Founding Fathers. Q.E.D.



SM

Ron Paul is against federal regulation of the market, as the US Constitution mandates.

[Zeno Swijtink]

But Google is a multibillion-dollar company often plugged on the Bits blog in the NYTimes, which, as you claim, is owned by, among others, The Carlyle Group.

In fact, Google is a big investor in the Carlyle Group, and at the same time it is deeply invested in the ISP used by Ron Paul's official website. That's why Paul is opposed to net neutrality my uncle Benny has told me (which I don't understand since Google is all in favor of net neutrality, so in fact I _do_ understand this, on a higher plane of logic as it were).

But my uncle Benny owns stock in a Dutch/Bahrein company that constructs prefab mosques in the Sudan and he drives a Hummer from General Motors, the world's largest auto company who must be in bed with the WTO. So why trust him?

I'm really confused. I am afraid.

PS If you want to check up some of these facts I can recommend a small mom-and-pop search engine https://www.hophophop.com which uses some new proprietary algorithm. I am so happy to have left the EU and live in this US of A where such small businesses still have a chance, protected by our splendid Constitution, itself the product of a group of lower middle class citizens who knew how to write well. But don't do this sipping a latte at Starbucks. You are in on the Secret of their Wi-fi I take it?

December 11, 2007

Ask.com Puts a Bet on Privacy
By MIGUEL HELFT
OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 10 — Will privacy sell?

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/t...ogy/11ask.html

Ask.com is betting it will. The fourth-largest search engine company will begin a service today called AskEraser, which allows users to make their searches more private.

Ask.com and other major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft typically keep track of search terms typed by users and link them to a computer’s Internet address, and sometimes to the user. However, when AskEraser is turned on, Ask.com discards all that information, the company said.

Ask, a unit of IAC/InterActiveCorp based in Oakland, hopes that the privacy protection will differentiate it from more prominent search engines like Google. The service will be conspicuously displayed on Ask.com’s main search page, as well as on the pages of the company’s specialized services for finding videos, images, news and blogs. Unlike typical online privacy controls that can be difficult for average users to find or modify, people will be able to turn AskEraser on or off with a single click.

“It works like a light switch,” said Doug Leeds, senior vice president for product management at Ask.com. Mr. Leeds said the service would be a selling point with consumers who were particularly alert about protecting their privacy.

“I think that it is a step forward,” said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, about AskEraser. “It is the first time that a large company is giving individuals choices that are so transparent.”

But underscoring how difficult it is to completely erase one’s digital footprints, the information typed by users of AskEraser into Ask.com will not disappear completely. Ask.com relies on Google to deliver many of the ads that appear next to its search results. Under an agreement between the two companies, Ask.com will continue to pass query information on to Google. Mr. Leeds acknowledged that AskEraser cannot promise complete anonymity, but said it would greatly increase privacy protections for users who want them, as Google is contractually constrained in what it can do with that information. A Google spokesman said the company uses the information to place relevant ads and to fight certain online scams.

Some privacy experts doubt that concerns about privacy are significant enough to turn a feature like AskEraser into a major selling point for Ask.com. The search engine accounted for 4.7 percent of all searches conducted in the United States in October, according to comScore, which ranks Internet traffic. By comparison, Google accounted for 58.5 percent, Yahoo for 22.9 percent and Microsoft for 9.7 percent.

“My gut tells me that basically it is not going to be a competitive advantage,” said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, an independent research company “I think people will look at it and see it as a cool thing, and they may use it. But I don’t think it will be a market differentiator.”

Mr. Ponemon said many surveys showed that while about three in four Americans said they were concerned about privacy, their concern was not sufficient to make them change their behavior toward sharing personal information. About 8 percent of Americans were concerned enough about privacy to routinely take steps to protect it, the surveys showed.

“Privacy only becomes important to the average consumer when something blows up,” Mr. Ponemon said.

Of course, something has already blown up. Last year, AOL released the queries conducted by more than 650,000 Americans over three months to foster academic research. While the queries where associated only with a number, rather than a computer’s address, reporters for The New York Times and others were quickly able to identify some of the people who had done the queries. The queries released by AOL included searches for deeply private things like “depression and medical leave” and “fear that spouse contemplating cheating.”

The incident heightened concerns about the risks posed by the systematic collection of growing amounts of data about people’s online activities. In response, search companies have sought to reassure consumers that they are serious about privacy.

While companies say they need to keep records of search strings to improve the quality of search results and fight online scams, they have put limits on the time they retain user data.

Google and Microsoft make search logs largely anonymous or discard them after 18 months. Yahoo does the same after 13 months.

In recent months, privacy has emerged as an increasingly important issue affecting major Internet companies. Several consumer advocacy groups, legislators and competitors, for instance, have expressed concerns about the privacy implications of the proposed $3.1 billion merger between Google and the ad serving company DoubleClick, which is being reviewed by regulators in the United States and Europe.

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission held a forum to discuss concerns over online ads that appear based on a user’s Web visits. And just last week, the popular social networking site Facebook suffered an embarrassing setback when it was forced to rein in an advertising plan that would have informed users of their friends’ buying activities on the Web. After more than 50,000 of its members objected, the company apologized and said it would allow users to turn off the feature.

In some cases, companies have argued that they are required to keep records of search queries for some time to comply with laws in various countries.

“Those arguments are seriously undermined when their competitors erase data immediately,” said Chris Hoofnagle, a senior lawyer at the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mr. Hoofnagle and other privacy advocates said they hoped AskEraser would pressure Google and others to offer a similar feature. A Google spokesman said the company takes privacy seriously but is not currently developing a service to immediately discard search queries.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[OrchardDweller]

I just have to ask: have you actually read the US Constitution? If so, by what elaborate means do you conclude that the Constitution "mandates no federal regulation of the market?"

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"

The Constitution explicitly reserves exclusively to the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce, which is a clear statement that 1) the Founding Fathers supported regulation of commerce and 2) they wanted the federal government to do it.

There you have it: the Libertarian Party's economic agenda is contrary to the wishes of the Founding Fathers. Q.E.D.



SM

Actually, there is debate among scholars about what the founding fathers actually meant by commerce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
The founders' understanding of the word "commerce" is a subject of disagreement among scholars today. Some scholars argue that although commerce means economic activity today, it had non-economic meanings in late eighteenth century English. For example, in 18th century writing one finds expressions such as "the free and easy commerce of social life" and "our Lord's commerce with his disciples".[1] These scholars interpret interstate commerce to mean "substantial interstate human relations" and find this consistent with the meaning of commerce at the time of the writing of the Constitution.[1][2] Other scholars, such as Robert H. Bork and Daniel E. Troy, argue that prior to 1887, the Commerce Clause was rarely invoked by Congress and therefore a broad interpretation of the word "commerce" was clearly never intended by the Founders. In support of this claim, Bork and Troy point to scholarship that show that: the word "commerce", as used in the Constitutional Convention and the Federalist Papers, can be substituted with either "trade" or "exchange" interchangeably while preserving the meaning of the statements; contemporaneous dictionaries, such as the 1773 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, defined "commerce" as the "exchange of one thing for another; interchange of any thing; trade; traffick"; Madison wrote a letter in 1828 which stated that the "Constitution vests in Congress expressly...'the power to regulate trade.'" [3]
It is noted that the former view of the definitions of "commerce" given above has led to laws (such as the New Deal) which have been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and thereafter removed due to their unauthorized expansion of federal power.

[Sonomamark]

There is only debate among FRINGE scholars like Robert Bork on this question. Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the vast body of American jurisprudence has spoken, and it says that the words mean federal regulation of the marketplace. The federal government has this power, via the most reasonable interpretations of the words in question, and that is never going to change. So I don't know what your point is in bringing this up--this wild opinion by a handful of hard-right legal writers has zero traction in the real world.

Guess who makes such interpretations of the Constitution? The Supreme Court, which has already done so. You'll probably say there is debate about Marbury v. Madison, too, but you know what? The only entity which could rule that the Supreme Court does not have the right to interpret the Constitution would be ...the Supreme Court. I wouldn't hold my breath.

And who would you give that interpretive power to instead? The Executive Branch? Maybe not, since you don't seem to like fascism.

That leaves Congress. So in essence, you would be asking a body of elected officials--the kinds of people who seek power--to declare that they don't have any over a huge area of their jurisdiction.

Do you see where I'm going here? This isn't a thought problem: politics is about this world, muddy as it is, right here. I suppose it may be great fun to play Imaginary America with screeds about how it's "supposed to be" from fringe websites and conspiracy theorists, but none of that has the tiniest bit of relevance to the reality of the nation's politics and future.


SM

Actually, there is debate among scholars about what the founding fathers actually meant by commerce.

[Zeno Swijtink]

Actually, there is debate among scholars about what the founding fathers actually meant by commerce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
The founders' understanding of the word "commerce" is a subject of disagreement among scholars today. Some scholars argue that although commerce means economic activity today, it had non-economic meanings in late eighteenth century English. For example, in 18th century writing one finds expressions such as "the free and easy commerce of social life" and "our Lord's commerce with his disciples".[1] These scholars interpret interstate commerce to mean "substantial interstate human relations" and find this consistent with the meaning of commerce at the time of the writing of the Constitution.[1][2] Other scholars, such as Robert H. Bork and Daniel E. Troy, argue that prior to 1887, the Commerce Clause was rarely invoked by Congress and therefore a broad interpretation of the word "commerce" was clearly never intended by the Founders. In support of this claim, Bork and Troy point to scholarship that show that: the word "commerce", as used in the Constitutional Convention and the Federalist Papers, can be substituted with either "trade" or "exchange" interchangeably while preserving the meaning of the statements; contemporaneous dictionaries, such as the 1773 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, defined "commerce" as the "exchange of one thing for another; interchange of any thing; trade; traffick"; Madison wrote a letter in 1828 which stated that the "Constitution vests in Congress expressly...'the power to regulate trade.'" [3]
It is noted that the former view of the definitions of "commerce" given above has led to laws (such as the New Deal) which have been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and thereafter removed due to their unauthorized expansion of federal power.

This all very interesting but quite irrelevant: both these interpretations of "commerce" agree that commerce includes trade, so both interpretations agree that the federal government has the task to regulate trade, which is what the conversation is about right now, "Whether the Constitution mandate federal regulation of the market?" You said no.

What Bork and Troy are saying is that commerce should not be interpreted broader. So the Commerce clause cannot be interpreted according to these scholars as a ground for broader powers of the federal government. Maybe the No Child Left Behind law is unconstitutional according to Bork and Troy, or Federal regulation of abortion. Paul may not agree with Bork and Troy here ...

[OrchardDweller]

This all very interesting but quite irrelevant: both these interpretations of "commerce" agree that commerce includes trade, so both interpretations agree that the federal government has the task to regulate trade

No. You might want to read it again.

The founders' understanding of the word "commerce" is a subject of disagreement among scholars today. Some scholars argue that although commerce means economic activity today, it had non-economic meanings in late eighteenth century English. For example, in 18th century writing one finds expressions such as "the free and easy commerce of social life" and "our Lord's commerce with his disciples".[1] These scholars interpret interstate commerce to mean "substantial interstate human relations" and find this consistent with the meaning of commerce at the time of the writing of the Constitution.[1][2] Other scholars, such as Robert H. Bork and Daniel E. Troy, argue that prior to 1887, the Commerce Clause was rarely invoked by Congress and therefore a broad interpretation of the word "commerce" was clearly never intended by the Founders. In support of this claim, Bork and Troy point to scholarship that show that: the word "commerce", as used in the Constitutional Convention and the Federalist Papers, can be substituted with either "trade" or "exchange" interchangeably while preserving the meaning of the statements; contemporaneous dictionaries, such as the 1773 Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language, defined "commerce" as the "exchange of one thing for another; interchange of any thing; trade; traffick"; Madison wrote a letter in 1828 which stated that the "Constitution vests in Congress expressly...'the power to regulate trade.'" [3]
It is noted that the former view of the definitions of "commerce" given above has led to laws (such as the New Deal) which have been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and thereafter removed due to their unauthorized expansion of federal power.

[Zeno Swijtink]

No. You might want to read it again.

I did, and I read the references on Wikipedia:

I think I got this right. I followed up by reading the footnotes in the Wikipedia article about the Bork's opponent Akhil Amar, the Yale law professor, the "Liberal Originalist," who argues that the original meaning of commerce is broader than just an economic meaning, but that it includes the trade meaning.

Bork and Troy want to restrict it to just a trade meaning. See their https://www.constitution.org/lrev/bork-troy.htm

So both support the reading that the commerce clause instructs the Federal Government to regulate trade.

[OrchardDweller]

I did, and I read the references on Wikipedia:

I think I got this right. I followed up by reading the footnotes in the Wikipedia article about the Bork's opponent Akhil Amar, the Yale law professor, the "Liberal Originalist," who argues that the original meaning of commerce is broader than just an economic meaning, but that it includes the trade meaning.

Bork and Troy want to restrict it to just a trade meaning. See their https://www.constitution.org/lrev/bork-troy.htm

So both support the reading that the commerce clause instructs the Federal Government to regulate trade.

Zeno,

You are presenting your argument as if Bork and Akhir Amal are the only two sides of the discussion. The paragraph I posted says that "Some scholars argue that although commerce means economic activity today, it had non-economic meanings in late eighteenth century English". My original argument was that there is debate about the meaning of the word commerce among scholars and I believe this is correct. It was not about the positions of just Bork vs. Amal.

[Zeno Swijtink]

Zeno,

You are presenting your argument as if Bork and Akhir Amal are the only two sides of the discussion. The paragraph I posted says that "Some scholars argue that although commerce means economic activity today, it had non-economic meanings in late eighteenth century English". My original argument was that there is debate about the meaning of the word commerce among scholars and I believe this is correct. It was not about the positions of just Bork vs. Amal.

They are the only two sides of the discussion in the reference you gave. There is no scholar I know of who argues that "commerce" in the Constitution does not cover trade. There is no scholar who argues that commerce did not have an economic meaning in late eighteenth century English.

The discussion is whether it had also other meanings in the Constitution. That's what Bork denies. That's why he argues that the Commerce clause cannot be used to have the federal government regulate non-trade issues.

[d-cat]

I do know Dr. Paul is very knowledgeable about the Constitution and have heard him refer to (at least some) market regulations as unconstitutional. But personally I'm no expert and can't explain it or cite anything off-hand in the constitution regarding this. So I think my original statement of "Ron Paul is against federal regulation of the market, as the US Constitution mandates" would be better just left as "Ron Paul is against federal regulation of the market." I know there are debates about the wording like 'regulate' and whether regulating trade and regulating a market are the same thing, but it's not a subject of great interest to me nor one that I'm truly knowledgeable enough about to comment on. Better just left said that Ron Paul wants the federal government out of the market. And go to www.ronpaullibrary.org for any additional info.

Yes, I have read the Constitution. I think the forefathers were incredible people. I've also seen this interesting lecture on the Constitution, by 2004 Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik. Recommended for all Americans, be ye from the left or from the right - and especially for anyone who thinks that the USA is supposed to be a democracy!

https://www.archive.org/details/Michael_Badnarik

[d-cat]

There is only debate among FRINGE scholars...

Lotta great ideas came from the fringe. Columbus and Copernicus had fringe views. Bet I could guess which side of the fence some of the people on this forum would have been on, as they scorned and dragged Copernicus to prison for his fringe belief that the sun didn't revolve around the earth. I hope I would have been wise enough to be among the few who gave his contrarian view a listen.

[OrchardDweller]

I do know Dr. Paul is very knowledgeable about the Constitution and have heard him refer to (at least some) market regulations as unconstitutional.

True. Here's a recent example:

Ron Paul - Introducing Legislation Allowing Interstate Shipment of Unpasteurized Milk

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation that allows the transportation and sale in interstate commerce of unpasteurized milk and milk products, as long as the milk both originates from and is shipped to States that allow the sale of unpasteurized milk and milk products. This legislation removes an unconstitutional restraint on farmers who wish to sell unpasteurized milk and milk products, and people who wish to consume unpasteurized milk and milk products.

My office has heard from numerous people who would like to purchase unpasteurized milk. Many of these people have done their own research and come to the conclusion that unpasteurized milk is healthier than pasteurized milk. These Americans have the right to consume these products without having the Federal Government second-guess their judgment about what products best promote health. If there are legitimate concerns about the safety of unpasteurized milk, those concerns should be addressed at the State and local level.

I urge my colleagues to join me in promoting consumers' rights, the original intent of the Constitution, and federalism by cosponsoring my legislation to allow the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk and milk products.

https://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=973

[d-cat]

OrchardDweller,

There was recently a thread about this subject on the forum here. You might wanna see if this info has already been posted there - it might be good news to some. Thanks for the example - it's also another example of a regulation hurting the little guy.

True. Here's a recent example:

Ron Paul - Introducing Legislation Allowing Interstate Shipment of Unpasteurized Milk

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce legislation that allows the transportation and sale in interstate commerce of unpasteurized milk and milk products, as long as the milk both originates from and is shipped to States that allow the sale of unpasteurized milk and milk products. This legislation removes an unconstitutional restraint on farmers who wish to sell unpasteurized milk and milk products, and people who wish to consume unpasteurized milk and milk products.

My office has heard from numerous people who would like to purchase unpasteurized milk. Many of these people have done their own research and come to the conclusion that unpasteurized milk is healthier than pasteurized milk. These Americans have the right to consume these products without having the Federal Government second-guess their judgment about what products best promote health. If there are legitimate concerns about the safety of unpasteurized milk, those concerns should be addressed at the State and local level.

I urge my colleagues to join me in promoting consumers' rights, the original intent of the Constitution, and federalism by cosponsoring my legislation to allow the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk and milk products.

https://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=973

[OrchardDweller]

If anyone is interested, this Friday the Ron Paul Blimp will make its maiden voyage! Grassroots Ron Paul supporters came up with the idea at https://www.ronpaulforums.com/index.php? and financed it.

The plan is to have it fly over the Boston Harbor on Sunday December 16 for the Tea Party, which is expected to be the biggest one day fundraiser ever https://www.teaparty07.com/ After that we hope to have it fly at least up till the New Hampshire primaries on January 8 (it will actually fly over NH that day).

This is just one of the many things that Ron Paul supporters are doing to bypass corporate media to get the word out about Ron Paul and his message of Peace, Freedom and Prosperity.

[Willie Lumplump]

our splendid Constitution, itself the product of a group of lower middle class citizens who knew how to write well.

I suppose that you could point to Thomas Paine as an example of the lower middle-class, but for the most part the Constitution was written by members of the propertied class.

[Willie Lumplump]

My office has heard from numerous people who would like to purchase unpasteurized milk. Many of these people have done their own research and come to the conclusion that unpasteurized milk is healthier than pasteurized milk. These Americans have the right to consume these products without having the Federal Government second-guess their judgment about what products best promote health. If there are legitimate concerns about the safety of unpasteurized milk, those concerns should be addressed at the State and local level.

If Ron Paul and his fellow consumers of unpasturized milk want to indulge their taste in a cave away from the rest of us, I don't mind. But they don't have a right to expose the rest of us to communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, polio, scarlet fever, and typhoid. And citizens of, say, California, don't have the right to encourage diseases that can spread to Nevada. (Pathogens are notoriously indifferent to political borders.)

[Zeno Swijtink]

If Ron Paul and his fellow consumers of unpasturized milk want to indulge their taste in a cave away from the rest of us, I don't mind. But they don't have a right to expose the rest of us to communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, polio, scarlet fever, and typhoid. And citizens of, say, California, don't have the right to encourage diseases that can spread to Nevada. (Pathogens are notoriously indifferent to political borders.)

Right on Willie! Campylobacter jejuni, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella, and Yersinia enterocolitica are detected in raw milk. If we cannot even keep our spinach safe for public consumption, how can Paul consider a system of interstate raw milk transportation responsible from a public health perspective!

Paul seems to be stuck in some 19th century fantasy of frontier living. The world has become too complex for this and we need to face our problem right on and together, discussing the best available information we have.

Many references of this thru https://scholar.google.com/scholar?n...d+milk&spell=1

Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 252 No. 15, October 19, 1984

Unpasteurized milk. The hazards of a health fetish
M. E. Potter, A. F. Kaufmann, P. A. Blake and R. A. Feldman

Abstract: Meaningful differences in nutritional value between pasteurized and unpasteurized milk have not been demonstrated, and other purported benefits of raw milk consumption have not been substantiated. Conversely, the role of unpasteurized dairy products in the transmission of infectious diseases has been established repeatedly. To effectively counsel patients attracted by the health claims made for raw milk, practicing physicians must understand both the rationale used by proponents of raw milk and the magnitude of the risk involved in drinking raw milk.

[Sonomamark]

Yum! Non sequitur with a straw man chaser!

You've avoided my point, which is that these idle musings do not and will not have any real-world implementation, now or in the future. The nature of our political system as it has evolved ensures this. Whatever your opinion is, or Ron Paul's opinion, or Robert Bork's opinion, the federal government of the United States will always have the power to regulate markets, and it will continue to do so.

You've tried hard to change the subject, but no dice. The Wikipedia quotes, conjectures, accusations, surmises, links to websites and ideological expositions you make here don't amount to anything but talk. You're promoting a doomed candidate with a nonstarter political philosophy, and grasping at straws to show that there might, somehow, be a way for these to be viable. You have not in any manner succeeded.

I'm done with this thread--it's gotten recursive and silly.



SM

Lotta great ideas came from the fringe. Columbus and Copernicus had fringe views. Bet I could guess which side of the fence some of the people on this forum would have been on, as they scorned and dragged Copernicus to prison for his fringe belief that the sun didn't revolve around the earth. I hope I would have been wise enough to be among the few who gave his contrarian view a listen.