Ron Paul and the Singularity

[AlexM]

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I'm with tomd here -- there seems to be an *apparent* tension between consequentialism and deontology in the ACist camp; if ACists are to whole-heartedly embrace Ron Paul (and it sure seems like that's happening on this forum), then it would seem to imply that the normative moral and ethical claims ACists are fond of making are at least somewhat meaningless, given how readily they abandon them if it means "a step in the right direction" or some face time on CNN or whatever other justification is used for supporting Paul.

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Not at all. I'm a moral ACist, but I've said many times that I prefer to live in reality than in fantasy land. This means I'm going to fight for ways to make the world better rather than do absolutely nothing like all these "OMG voting is immoral!" ACists. I will vote for Ron Paul. This doesn't mean I completely support Ron Paul, what he will do or his policies. It's entirely a "lesser evil" scenario. Is the lesser evil still evil? Of course, but if I know that by not choosing to be stolen from I'm going to be to murdered, guess what I'm "choosing"? The lesser evil winning is the only thing I can hope to have happen that might improve my freedom.

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I agree but the danger is that this is the same argument that will cause people to vote for Rudy Giuliani the authoritarian over Hillary Clinton the communist...

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No doubt, and I concern myself more with convincing people that there's no lesser evil when it comes to (most) Republicans and Democrats. Vote Libertarian, or Green, or Constitution. These are truly lesser evils. People who are anti-state and think one of the big two parties is a lesser evil are largely deluding themselves IMO, but people like Ron Paul really are lesser evils.