On the heels of Trevor's post from yesterday, I came across this YouTube by one of the more popular Ron Paul supporters that made me go, "Hmm..."
This man is a recent convert to the complete philosophy of liberty and property. I've bulled my way through many an argument with socialists and can tell you from first-hand experience that, for the most part, he's absolutely right. Winning a rhetorical argument usually accomplishes less than nothing. More often than not all it does is provoke the natural flight or fight response in the other person and they become hardened against your position simply out of sheer 'contrariness.'
My advice for the next 8 months is leave the rhetoric to the printed page.... blogging, message boards, what have you. If you have to get this out of your system, and believe me it's as instructive to work through a lot of the issues that come up via rhetorical debate, don't do so with someone you're trying to convince to vote for Dr. Paul. Just be polite, show your enthusiasm, plant a few seeds and move on.
Lastly, Jive asks for a recommended reading list. For one, I would start with Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty. As a follow-up, I'd suggest The Lord of the Rings, book or film, because as a metaphor, no work I've come across better expresses the potential for functional anarchism than that.
Ta,
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