From what I can tell different people have different criticisms, which is perfectly logical since this web site has people from a fairly broad range of political beliefs.
On an ideological standpoint I agree with Paul's position on a lot of issues, especially in the area of economics and more importantly foreign affairs. However, the problem with libertarian economic policies is that they are not tenable, our society simply will not tolerate the growing pains that would result from a sudden and dramatic change in economic policy.
The problem with trying to introduce things like free markets at this stage of the game is that we don't have and haven't had free markets in a long time in most areas. Take our medical care system. In order to have free markets in medicine we would have to legalize all drugs and get rid of the whole concept of needing a medical license to prescribe medicine. This would work just fine, eventually people would be able to pick a provider that was as good as they could afford. Poor people would have poorly trained cheap doctors and rich people would have doctors trained in good medical schools. America would not allow that, so we have socialised medicine.
It's kinda funny to listen to people complaining about socialism but we've had market socialism pretty much since the industrial revolution, with a socialist economy the railroads would not have been built. So, we have a socialist economy, it works pretty well, and people at the top argue about who gets to actually be in charge of the economy, all the while pretending that they are arguing about who wants "free markets" more. We don't have free markets, pretty much never have had and definitely never will have, you'd think someone as smart as Paul would realise this, but he apparantly doesn't.
So that's the bottom line, either Paul is an economic idiot and doesn't really understand things as they now exist, or he's a liar and knows how things work but hides behind some austrian theory of economics just so he can be in charge.
I could be wrong, but from where I sit he is either an idiot or a liar and deceiver, albeit on a more subtle level than most.
On an ideological standpoint I agree with Paul's position on a lot of issues, especially in the area of economics and more importantly foreign affairs. However, the problem with libertarian economic policies is that they are not tenable, our society simply will not tolerate the growing pains that would result from a sudden and dramatic change in economic policy.
The problem with trying to introduce things like free markets at this stage of the game is that we don't have and haven't had free markets in a long time in most areas. Take our medical care system. In order to have free markets in medicine we would have to legalize all drugs and get rid of the whole concept of needing a medical license to prescribe medicine. This would work just fine, eventually people would be able to pick a provider that was as good as they could afford. Poor people would have poorly trained cheap doctors and rich people would have doctors trained in good medical schools. America would not allow that, so we have socialised medicine.
It's kinda funny to listen to people complaining about socialism but we've had market socialism pretty much since the industrial revolution, with a socialist economy the railroads would not have been built. So, we have a socialist economy, it works pretty well, and people at the top argue about who gets to actually be in charge of the economy, all the while pretending that they are arguing about who wants "free markets" more. We don't have free markets, pretty much never have had and definitely never will have, you'd think someone as smart as Paul would realise this, but he apparantly doesn't.
So that's the bottom line, either Paul is an economic idiot and doesn't really understand things as they now exist, or he's a liar and knows how things work but hides behind some austrian theory of economics just so he can be in charge.
I could be wrong, but from where I sit he is either an idiot or a liar and deceiver, albeit on a more subtle level than most.
