Ron Paul on tech issues

[jducoeur]

And while we're going through this morning's TechCrunch, I see that they finally managed to get an interview with Ron Paul. It's quite interesting, and I'm pleased to read it: he comes across as really pretty decent and sensible. He's definitely a bit of a libertarian extremist (he explicitly says, "I want to be very consistent", which I personally don't agree with as a political approach), but also decently thoughtful -- when confronted by the complexity of, say, network neutrality, he admits that the problem is complex and he doesn't understand it well enough yet. Would that more politicians were willing to say, "I don't know enough about that yet".

Overall, he strikes me as a fairly reasonable if slightly tunnel-visioned guy, who may be in a tad over his head. Someone who would be very interesting to have a salon conversation with. For president? Probably better than many of the alternatives, although a little too over-confidently libertarian for my taste. (Keep in mind I'm judging just from his own words in this interview -- this isn't any deeper an opinion than that.)

Comments

[richenza.livejournal.com]

I kind of like him, primarily because I don't think he can actually do half of what he wants to do. If he's really as enthusiastic about giving up controls as he claims, the system of checks and balances might actually work to keep some of his crazier stuff in line. Plus, someone who actually has a direction in mind that isn't a big secret might be a refreshing change form the staus quo.

Of course, I'm still not voting for him, as I'm not too sure I like his direction. But I admire the fact that he appears to ahve one.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

He has some good points, but his extreme isolationism is a bit worrisome to me (obviously YMMV). Some of his campaign advertising is very keep-those-damn-furriners-away-from-us, he's pro-enormous-fence, anti-UN, etc.

I mean, I'm all for the US not trying to police the world, as everyone says these days, but a complete withdrawal from any involvement in the world stage seems significantly unwise.

[jducoeur]

but his extreme isolationism is a bit worrisome to me (obviously YMMV).

Oh, I agree -- it's one of numerous reasons why I find him too extreme. But in actual interviews he doesn't seem to come across as nearly the nutjob that he does when it gets boiled down. He just seems to have an extremely strong and rather uncompromising interpretation of libertarianism...

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

The rabid support he gets from white supremecists and neo-Nazis is somewhat concerning to me also...