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Lew Rockwell: Ron Paul Not Using the State or UN to Control RonPaul.Com
New submitter sbulut77 writes with a follow up to accusations Ron Paul is using the UN to gain control of ronpaul.com. "Lew Rockwell explains the RonPaul.com issue. There is so much misinformation on this topic, his blog is very welcome. His blog entry is pretty short and well-written please read the blog post directly."
From the article: "Ron is not calling on the UN. ICANN has four approved arbitration organizations. Because the RP.com guys registered Ron's name in Australia, the international arbitration option must be used. Yes, it is associated with the UN. Too bad, but one must play the cards one is dealt. The UN itself is not involved, though note — whatever else is wrong with it — the UN is not a State."
Just admit to being a hypocrite instead of playing semantic games.
Not to mention, he is implying that forcibly taking the domain from the group is his only/primary option, whereas they did give him a price (and a not-exorbant, given the circumstances one at that) to take it, or the option of a very large degree of use/control for free.
He's got shreds of honesty, but they are negative valued.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
From my understanding, the group made a good faith offering of ronpaul.org to Ron Paul for free but wanted $250,000 for the commercial ronpaul.com in order to recoup the work and effort they put in. On top of that, I see nothing malicious, untruthful, slanderous or libelous on ronpaul.com -- quite the opposite! So this is how capitalism works, I have something you want and I have come to own it by legal means so it doesn't matter if it has your name on it or not. I'm sure they could drum up another person out there named Ron Paul if you want to play that game. Now, with all that said, the only option in a libertarian world is to either pay that sum, get a different URL or tell your followers to stop going to ronpaul.com. Turning to any -- and I mean ANY -- higher power to subvert that desired price is, by definition, appealing to a governing body to impose some form of regulation. And the only reason is to subvert the sale and tendering of cash from your hands to the party who has due ownership and control. Ron Paul says "Property rights are the foundation of all rights in a free society." And this is a directly contradictory action to that maxim whether he is a private citizen or not.
Ron is not using the State to acquire RonPaul.com. He could have brought a lawsuit in US government courts, but he did not.
Just because you use another arm or governing body instead of the official United States government does not mean you aren't using the State.
He is seeking to have ICANN enforce its own rules against cybersquatting, including the rule against registering a famous person’s name and making money off it.
Wait wait wait. I'm confused. You see, you're using the R word and your calling it a "rule" but I think the word that Ron Paul and most libertarians like to use is "regulation" and then they spit because it leaves a dirty taste in their mouth. What is the difference between rules against cybersquatting and government regulation? What is the difference between the New York Times using Ron Paul's name to sell newspapers and this site printing facts about him to make money? This isn't about what is right and wrong, this about the convenience of owning a domain. Ron Paul even has a different official domain, is this site parading around purporting to be the official Ron Paul domain? No? Then what exactly are your allegations?
Anyone registering a URL agrees to keep all the rules, just as he must pay a recurring fee. A URL is not private property in the normal sense. It is a license, and ICANN is a private, non-profit organization.
Wrong, ICANN was created to assume their responsibilities under a United States Department of Commerce contract. Haven't you been following the news where the rest of the world wants the US to give up control of ICANN? They act on the US Government's behalf. And in a libertarian world there would be no rules. Money and the free market would set the rules. In a free market you would have a whole bunch of different DNS registrars and lookup services. You could pick whichever one you liked the best. They would be for sale as entities. Big corporations could just pay them to change their DNS records to point resolution of weaker companies to their websites. When you typed in a URL it could go wherever the money tells it to go and if you don't like that, you might change to OpenDNS or someone else -- if they exist. But everyone has a price in a libertarian world. Rules are regulations and regulations are bad in a libertarian world. End of story. Rules ruin the free market. Regulations ruin capitalism and they are a hallmark of socialism.
Ron is not calling on the UN. ICANN has four approved arbitration organizations. Because the RP.com guys registered Ron's name in Au
My work here is dung.
He isn't trying to change legislation to get ownership of the domain. You can't call someone a hypocrite for following the same rules everyone else is currently following. This is a typical straw man argument against a libertarian minded politician. Create some questionable libertarian standard and then say that they aren't following it.
I'm not an expert in intelectual property law but I he might have a good case and he would be a fool not to at least try to get ownership of RonPaul.com. This isn't a case of some other guy named Ron Paul who had the site first. This is a case of individuals making money from a website dedicated to Ron Paul and in my layman's opinion it isn't totally absurd to question if Ron Paul himself has any legal advantage in this situation.
Title should still read:
"Libertarian unwilling to pay market value for property, asks for government help."
All the semantic wrangling in the world can't get you out of the fact that Ron Paul is going to have to realize that his infantile political philosophy just doesn't work in the real world.
Ron Paul is in the wrong here for a number of reasons.
A) He should have not let that domain expire in the first place. The way I see it, he decided not to renew those domains, some supporters registered it and started a website promoting his campaign.
B) He failed to even ASK the guys for their domain name until after they'd built up a huge community.
C) The guys owning Ronpaul.com/Ronpaul.org even offered to just give him ronpaul.org. The next thing you know, he just hits them with a UN letter.
This is really a dick move by Ron Paul (and I say this as a proud Anarcho-Capitalist/Libertarian and a supporter of his presidential campaigns).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
But he's using a bureaucratic process he rallies against, while ignoring equally valid/legitimate options within the confines of the processes that he often argues for.
The GP may overstate the seriousness of the issue, but otherwise, he's pretty spot on.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
If you read the SF novels detailing life in Libertopia, you'll find that, as if by magic, citizens voluntarily donate enough of their income to feed, clothe, and house those that are poor through no fault of their own. They purchase, build, and staff a full parks system out of the goodness of their hearts.
They are willing to lay their lives down, free of charge (and provide weapons and ammo, no less!) for their country/planet/space station. Everybody is cool with the idea that murder is a civil matter to be dealt with by heirs, who will gladly pay for the investigation. (And, by unspoken extension, if you don't have any heirs that like you, your life isn't worth $hit.) As long as you can pay the economic damages for your doings, well, you can pretty much do whatever you want.
And lets not forget the whole "rich and famous" part. If it were my name, I would not be able to have done what he did since I am neither rich nor famous. So much for equal protection under the law.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I'd love to read a libertarian take on "cybersquatting". I can't even define the notion of cybersquatting without involving government or human rights.
Here's my attempt at a libertarian definition of cybersquatting. Cybersquatting is when you enter into a private contract with a party to be listed in their directory under the name "X", and someone else claims that they "ought" themselves to be the ones who are listed under that name. Okay, that's fine, but a libertarian wouldn't recognize this "ought" and so no claim of cybersquatting would have any basis for a libertarian.
Here's my attempt at a statist definition of cybersquatting. The state or superstate recognizes that individuals have an interest in their own identities, and companies in their own brands, and it creates a framework of regulations to protect those interests, and it delegates the authority to do this, and it coerces people through threat of force to abide by that authority. Cybersquatting is when someone breaks the state's regulations in this regard."
So please, to any libertarians -- can you give me a purely libertarian explanation of why cybersquatting is wrong?
(or will you merely give an explanation of why this particular RP.com situation has contravened the arbitrary rules set by ICANN, while admitting that an alternative ICANN2 without such rules would be entirely fine from a libertarian perspective? How would free market forces chose between ICANN as it currently is, vs ICANN2 without those rules?)
It ought to make it easier to separate the honest libertarians, those who sincerely hold to their beliefs on the free market, from the Paul cultists who just believe whatever their idol(s) are saying today.