Monday, November 26, 2007

Nor help for pain

The AP has this story up:

RENO, Nev. - Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an underdog Texas congressman with a libertarian streak, has picked up an endorsement from a Nevada brothel owner.

Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, said he was so impressed after hearing Paul at a campaign stop in Reno last week that he decided to raise money for him.

I'll get all the (working girls) together, and we can raise him some money," Hof told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I'll put up a collection box outside the door. They can drop in $1, $5 contributions."

Ever since the days of the Alhambra Saloon and the frontier Comique (pronounced komik-kyoo) theater, certain venues have always been the scene of political discussion and deal-making. In a world of limited government, there's got to be some bad to go along with the good. The Jawa Report and Hot Air have commentary.



Patrick Ruffini tries, in his own words, "to square the circle" of libertarianism and judge the Ron Paul phenomenon.

Some campaigns can win big without ever coming close to winning an actual contest. Pat Robertson’s 1988 campaign signaled that Christian Conservatives had arrived in the GOP. Ron Paul is doing the same for libertarians. This is not a counterweight to the religious right per se, since Paul is identified as pro-life, but it does potentially open up a new army of activists on the right not primarily motivated by social/moral issues. ...

As someone who routinely called myself a libertarian prior to 9/11, here’s how I would square the circle: Absolute freedom within our borders, for our own citizens; eternal vigilance and (when necessary) ruthlessness abroad. For libertarian ideals to survive, they must be relentlessly defended against the likes of Islamic extremists. Take a look at Andrew Sullivan’s writing right after 9/11 to see this ideal in its purest form; far from a religious crusade, ours was a war for secularism, tolerance, and free societies where gays don’t get stoned to death.

The key principle is one of reciprocity. If you behave peacefully and embrace the norms of a libertarian society, we leave you alone. If you seek to destroy a free society, we will destroy you.

Yet somehow I think there'll always be a contradiction between "absolute freedom" and "behaving peacefully". You can have as much freedom as you can stand, provided, like Wyatt Earp you are willing to keep intrusive noses out of your business. But it comes at the cost of being able to slam the shot glass down and meet the stare across the bar. There's no free lunch nor life without taint either in taking Norman Hsu's millions or opening the collection box at the Moonlite BunnyRanch.

for the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

To each man, liberty, limited only by the liberty which surrounds and protects other men. Do not intrude onto my person or property, and I will lay no hand on your nor speak against your beliefs or actions.

But if Islamists or Iranians insist on ganging up on us, we can "gang up" (form a military) on them. "Principles" cannot allow the nation to die, for then no men may be free.

11/26/2007 06:05:00 PM  
Blogger LarryD said...

Given that Ron Paul has picked up support among the Nazi fringe, and has not distanced himself from them, I hope his candidacy means less than Patrick Ruffini thinks. We threw David Duke out for good reason.

11/27/2007 05:59:00 AM  
Blogger Peter Grynch said...

Speaking of bunny ranches, I found this bit written by a chicken farmer and it gave me an insight into Hillary Clinton:

You've got to watch out for your dominant rooster killing the other males if he can catch them, but something else bad is to have a real, dedicated nesting hen go into full mama-mode on you. She'll lay her own eggs and then steal others to fill her nest. Then she wants to sit there and hatch them, even if doing that means not eating for a while.

You've got to watch out for those, because they'll peck the living shit out of you if you reach under her for the eggs. She gets all hormonal and insane from motherly instincts.

11/28/2007 11:52:00 AM  

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