Ron Paul (2012) A Discussion

[myrkul]

Do you ever read or review on any books that you like?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A12M1WWAGSH35S/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev/191-4890888-8095714?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

He gave 5 stars to Roads to Reaction, by Herman Finer.
and 5 to The Biosphere: Complete Annotated Edition, by V. I. Vernadski

Of course, the reviews on the books he liked are short and concise, the reviews on the books he disliked are tirades.

If I like a book, what about it needs to be said?  It's the pointing out of the fallacies and lies of books that need greater attention.

But rather than acting like an honest scholar and putting out a rebuttal writing, you just comment on the book's Amazon page.

[niemivh]

Do you ever read or review on any books that you like?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A12M1WWAGSH35S/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev/191-4890888-8095714?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

He gave 5 stars to Roads to Reaction, by Herman Finer.
and 5 to The Biosphere: Complete Annotated Edition, by V. I. Vernadski

Of course, the reviews on the books he liked are short and concise, the reviews on the books he disliked are tirades.

aye, missed those scrolling through the first time because I was scanning for large volumes of text. ;p He had no choice but to 5 star Roads to Reaction because it proves his review of Roads to Serfdom.


@OP  I'd be happy to debate and converse with you but sadly I am not capable of communicating at the level of extreme cynicism that would be necessary.

I did read atleast a few paragraphs of your posted review. I was having a hard time getting past your perceived disdain for Ron Paul sopporters to find the true nuggets of insight against the Libertarian ideals that Pual has supported for the majority of his career. Not being familiar with the book, maybe it came off sounding like some loud mouth teen, high on angst and low in capacity for self indentification. But a read of the book would probably be needed to make such a distinction. You did read this book, right?

If I was cynical I wouldn't be here, I'd be off doing drugs somewhere or burying myself in a virtual reality video-game universe as the majority of people on this forum do one or either of, probably on a daily basis.

There is much difference between being a cynic (seeing everything through a negative perception) and seeing things that are degenerate and evil as what they are and being able to clearly define that evil and degeneracy.  I believe they called it "being literate".

But, yet again, the Libertarians start with their psychoanalysis and trying to hone in a target for ad-hominems because they are (typically) very ignorant and actually can't discuss policy or any of these ideas at any length whatsoever.

Keep proving me right Libertarians.

[niemivh]

Do you ever read or review on any books that you like?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A12M1WWAGSH35S/ref=cm_cr_pr_auth_rev/191-4890888-8095714?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

He gave 5 stars to Roads to Reaction, by Herman Finer.
and 5 to The Biosphere: Complete Annotated Edition, by V. I. Vernadski

Of course, the reviews on the books he liked are short and concise, the reviews on the books he disliked are tirades.

If I like a book, what about it needs to be said?  It's the pointing out of the fallacies and lies of books that need greater attention.

But rather than acting like an honest scholar and putting out a rebuttal writing, you just comment on the book's Amazon page.

Umm.. what?

Should I write a full rebuttal paper and then print it out and file it away in my file cabinet?  The point of reviewing the book and rebuffing it is for those counter-arguments to be read.  It's to dispel false memes floating around the society, where else am I to take my 'rebuttal'?

[myrkul]

Cynicism?  How avant garde of you.

Cynicism? Not at all. That's the perfect candidate!

Should I write a full rebuttal paper and then print it out and file it away in my file cabinet?  The point of reviewing the book and rebuffing it is for those counter-arguments to be read.  It's to dispel false memes floating around the society, where else am I to take my 'rebuttal'?

Here's a crazy thought... Publish it. Nobody is going to read a five page review.

[niemivh]

Cynicism?  How avant garde of you.

Cynicism? Not at all. That's the perfect candidate!

Should I write a full rebuttal paper and then print it out and file it away in my file cabinet?  The point of reviewing the book and rebuffing it is for those counter-arguments to be read.  It's to dispel false memes floating around the society, where else am I to take my 'rebuttal'?

Here's a crazy thought... Publish it. Nobody is going to read a five page review.

Audience for that would come from where?

Plus that review was only 8000 words, not enough to publish.  That's what the Debunking Libertarianism book is going to be about.

 

[myrkul]

Cynicism?  How avant garde of you.

Cynicism? Not at all. That's the perfect candidate!

Should I write a full rebuttal paper and then print it out and file it away in my file cabinet?  The point of reviewing the book and rebuffing it is for those counter-arguments to be read.  It's to dispel false memes floating around the society, where else am I to take my 'rebuttal'?

Here's a crazy thought... Publish it. Nobody is going to read a five page review.

Audience for that would come from where?

Plus that review was only 8000 words, not enough to publish.  That's what the Debunking Libertarianism book is going to be about.

 

Well, why write an 8000 word "review", when you're writing a book already? That's a lot of words to spray out into the internet where nobody is going to click on the "see more..." link when you've already annoyed them with the paragraph it shows. Save those words for your book.

[niemivh]

Cynicism?  How avant garde of you.

Cynicism? Not at all. That's the perfect candidate!

Should I write a full rebuttal paper and then print it out and file it away in my file cabinet?  The point of reviewing the book and rebuffing it is for those counter-arguments to be read.  It's to dispel false memes floating around the society, where else am I to take my 'rebuttal'?

Here's a crazy thought... Publish it. Nobody is going to read a five page review.

Audience for that would come from where?

Plus that review was only 8000 words, not enough to publish.  That's what the Debunking Libertarianism book is going to be about.

 

Well, why write an 8000 word "review", when you're writing a book already? That's a lot of words to spray out into the internet where nobody is going to click on the "see more..." link when you've already annoyed them with the paragraph it shows. Save those words for your book.

Practice makes perfect.  It's fun to write, if given the time I could write all day.

Editing is my arch-nemesis however.  I actually edit a lot of what I write, as I write, but as for macro-editing, that's something I'm going to need help with.

I write words like I write music, I'll go to the computer or (or to my guitar) and try to write 1 thing but accidentally write a dozen things, it took me about as long to write that as it took me to type it, so it's not like it was an incredible investment of time or anything.

[myrkul]

Editing is my arch-nemesis however.  I actually edit a lot of what I write, as I write, but as for macro-editing, that's something I'm going to need help with.

Don't. The one piece of advice I continuously hear from published authors is that if you edit while you write, you'll never finish your book. Write, then edit. Helps to get another pair of eyes on it, too.

[BoardGameCoin]

that review was so long winded before it got to anything resembling a point, that I quit reading.

+100

Sorry, I forgot that Libertarians typically have the attention spans of gnats and that's why they are suckered into destroying themselves with their chintzy ideological crackpotisms.  They can't be bothered with reading anything that isn't 2-dimensionally simple, by someone like Ron Paul, that speaks down to them and degrades their intelligence.

You could just work on your wordiness and level of assumptions. The first time through I made it about 7 paragraphs in and then felt like you were really repeating yourself. You can capture the gist of your argument in one of your comments on the review:

Well almost every problem in Paul's mind is due to money printing. That might be good fodder to feed the masses, but actual reality is much more complex than that. "Money printing" is such a primitively crude level of comprehension with regard to our problems. The nature of the crisis is based, fundamentally in derivatives and banks that are too big to fail, and that money printed or loaned-into-existence doesn't actually reflect anything real and concrete in the economy, that our markets are so deregulated that they constitute a gambling operation where any actual worthwhile and productive investment is just a side-effect, among many other things I could list. Oh yeah, that Wall St. pays basically no taxes is another huge part of the problem. I'm not arguing that between what we have now and some form of silver or gold standard wouldn't be better, but that wholly depends on the details of the system and from the Ron Paul camp I never hear details - just windstorms of heated rhetoric and undefined faux-populace jargon. Paul effectively says: "Problem: Money printing. Solution: Gold standard." Yeah, I require a little more information than that, information that is always lacking. What price would gold be set at? How would you create a settlement mechanism for trade with foreign countries? Would the currency be fully convertible, if so, how? How would short term gold flows be reflected in domestic credit policy? (Fun fact: Britain tried to have a 'strict standard' in which all gold outflows corresponded with reduced credit availability in the country in the mid 1800s and it was a unmitigated disaster.) If you have any details of this stuff from the Ron Paul or present, main-stream Libertarian point of view, I'm glad to hear it.

I'm more a regulation needed to keep the market free type than a strict libertarian.

[niemivh]

Editing is my arch-nemesis however.  I actually edit a lot of what I write, as I write, but as for macro-editing, that's something I'm going to need help with.

Don't. The one piece of advice I continuously hear from published authors is that if you edit while you write, you'll never finish your book. Write, then edit. Helps to get another pair of eyes on it, too.

Well I've got what they might call "shotgun creativity", that when I go to write, I could follow the argument in as many directions as I have pairs of hands to type with; same with everything else, it all comes out like a waterfall and I've got to catch as much of it as possible.

So what I mean by editing is that I'm simply parking, or not following, or deleting (if not germane enough) things that could be followed.

[niemivh]

that review was so long winded before it got to anything resembling a point, that I quit reading.

+100

Sorry, I forgot that Libertarians typically have the attention spans of gnats and that's why they are suckered into destroying themselves with their chintzy ideological crackpotisms.  They can't be bothered with reading anything that isn't 2-dimensionally simple, by someone like Ron Paul, that speaks down to them and degrades their intelligence.

You could just work on your wordiness and level of assumptions. The first time through I made it about 7 paragraphs in and then felt like you were really repeating yourself. You can capture the gist of your argument in one of your comments on the review:

Well almost every problem in Paul's mind is due to money printing. That might be good fodder to feed the masses, but actual reality is much more complex than that. "Money printing" is such a primitively crude level of comprehension with regard to our problems. The nature of the crisis is based, fundamentally in derivatives and banks that are too big to fail, and that money printed or loaned-into-existence doesn't actually reflect anything real and concrete in the economy, that our markets are so deregulated that they constitute a gambling operation where any actual worthwhile and productive investment is just a side-effect, among many other things I could list. Oh yeah, that Wall St. pays basically no taxes is another huge part of the problem. I'm not arguing that between what we have now and some form of silver or gold standard wouldn't be better, but that wholly depends on the details of the system and from the Ron Paul camp I never hear details - just windstorms of heated rhetoric and undefined faux-populace jargon. Paul effectively says: "Problem: Money printing. Solution: Gold standard." Yeah, I require a little more information than that, information that is always lacking. What price would gold be set at? How would you create a settlement mechanism for trade with foreign countries? Would the currency be fully convertible, if so, how? How would short term gold flows be reflected in domestic credit policy? (Fun fact: Britain tried to have a 'strict standard' in which all gold outflows corresponded with reduced credit availability in the country in the mid 1800s and it was a unmitigated disaster.) If you have any details of this stuff from the Ron Paul or present, main-stream Libertarian point of view, I'm glad to hear it.

I'm more a regulation needed to keep the market free type than a strict libertarian.

Well, I feel I have to give some sufficient background because of the fallacy of the sliding scale between Classical Liberalism and Communism that exists in nearly everyone's mind, soley because the Classical Liberals (and now Libertarians) frame the entire world in such a fashion.  The history of the destruction of the National System (that I try and represent) is an actually fascinating topic of discussion and why this false dichotomy exists.

But yes, that review could be shorter, for sure.  It's practically as long as the book, (LOL) but it gives multiple arguments against the book so the reader of the review can identify with whatever might resonate most with them.