Deconstructing America's Savior - Part 5

Libertarians and constitutionalist conservatives typically support Ron Paul. Since I consider myself to be moderately libertarian in my political views and I lean towards originalist interpretations of the Constitution, I feel compelled to explain why I do not and will not support Ron Paul as a candidate for the Presidency. This is the fifth in a series of several posts in which I pick apart his policy platform and explain my objections.

Previous posts in the series:

1. An introduction to Ron Paul's policy platform.
2. Ron Paul on Debt and Taxes.
3. Ron Paul on American Independence and Sovereignty.
4. Ron Paul on War and Foreign Policy.

This time, let's pick apart his policy statement regarding Life and Liberty:

The right of an innocent, unborn child to life is at the heart of the American ideals of liberty. My professional and legislative record demonstrates my strong commitment to this pro-life principle.

In 40 years of medical practice, I never once considered performing an abortion, nor did I ever find abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.

I completely agree with Ron Paul's opposition to legalized abortion.

In Congress, I have authored legislation that seeks to define life as beginning at conception, HR 1094.

I am also the prime sponsor of HR 300, which would negate the effect of Roe v Wade by removing the ability of federal courts to interfere with state legislation to protect life. This is a practical, direct approach to ending federal court tyranny which threatens our constitutional republic and has caused the deaths of 45 million of the unborn.

I appreciate Paul's goal here--I think we'd be better off if abortion policy was a state issue, not a federal issue. I don't know enough about constitutional law to know if his approach in this legislation has any merit. My gut tells me that the Supreme Court would object to this approach and would declare this law to be unconstitutional, since the Court long ago declared itself the arbiter of the constitutionality of state laws. My gut tells me that a better approach would be to overturn Roe v Wade via constitutional amendment. My intestinal tract has never been known as a great constitutional scholar though, so your mileage may vary.

I have also authored HR 1095, which prevents federal funds to be used for so-called “population control.”

Many talk about being pro-life. I have taken direct action to restore protection for the unborn.

As an OB/GYN doctor, I’ve delivered over 4,000 babies. That experience has made me an unshakable foe of abortion. Many of you may have read my book, Challenge To Liberty, which champions the idea that there cannot be liberty in a society unless the rights of all innocents are protected. Much can be understood about the civility of a society in observing its regard for the dignity of human life.

Again, I completely agree with Ron Paul's opposition to legalized abortion. I think his legislative efforts have been largely quixotic, but that seems to be Paul's modus operandi. While it's true that Paul's principled opposition to abortion is incredibly consistent, I doubt that his approach would be much more effective than the other alternatives. My agreement with Paul's goals in this area aren't enough to persuade me that I must support him.

Next up: Ron Paul's policies with regard to The Second Amendment.

Deconstructing America's Savior - Part 4

Libertarians and constitutionalist conservatives typically support Ron Paul. Since I consider myself to be moderately libertarian in my political views and I lean towards originalist interpretations of the Constitution, I feel compelled to explain why I do not and will not support Ron Paul as a candidate for the Presidency. This is the fourth in a series of several posts in which I pick apart his policy platform and explain my objections.

Previous posts in the series:

1. An introduction to Ron Paul's policy platform.
2. Ron Paul on Debt and Taxes.
3. Ron Paul on American Independence and Sovereignty.
   

This time, let's pick apart his policy statement regarding War and Foreign Policy:

The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars. We must have new leadership in the White House to ensure this never happens again.

Ron Paul begins by attacking Bush's Iraq policy on three fronts: first, by claiming that it "was sold to us with false information"; second, by arguing that it has increased the danger of terrorism, finally by stating that its costs have been high.

Was the war in Iraq "sold to us with false information"? It's possible that Paul uses the phrase "false information" instead of "lies" precisely because he knows that the intelligence reports regarding WMDs in Iraq were sincerely believed by intelligence communities both foreign and domestic, by national leaders from both parties and by foreign governments. It seems clear that Ron Paul wants to imply that the Bush administration lied to America, but he doesn't come right out and say that. In other words, Ron Paul is either being dishonest by trying to imply something that he knows isn't true, or he sincerely believes that Bush lied. In either case, this opening statement doesn't reflect well on Paul's fitness to serve as President.

Has the war in Iraq increased the threat of terrorism? Al Qaeda didn't need the excuse of a war in Iraq to launch attacks against our African embassies in 1998, against the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 or against our mainland on 9/11. Al Qaeda may be using Iraq as a recruiting tool, but the important question is how future events in Iraq affect al Qaeda's recruiting efforts. If the U.S. withdraws in defeat, al Qaeda's propaganda will turn their victory into an even greater recruiting tool. If the U.S. perseveres and is successful in building up an Iraqi state that rejects terrorism, al Qaeda will have suffered a clear defeat that no amount of propaganda will be able to spin. Which path forward is most likely to lead to reduced terrorism? As I argued earlier this year, our best hope of truly defeating al Qaeda is to keep them fighting in Iraq:

This war isn't about WMDs alone, or about oil, or even about deposing a cruel dictator. Rather, in Iraq we have an opportunity to redefine the cultural landscape of the Middle East. By giving common Iraqis a shot at real freedom we threaten the cultural foundations upon which Islamic terrorism is built. So Al Qaeda must fight in Iraq, but theirs is a defensive war fought on territory of our choosing, in their own backyard.

Al Qaeda can not defeat us in a conventional war, so they resort to terror tactics, to suicide bombings and IEDs and kidnappings. The purpose of these tactics seems to be two-fold: to erode American support for the war and also to destroy Iraq's fledgling democracy in civil war. American support is eroding and Iraq is dangerously close to civil war, but Al Qaeda's tactics also pose a danger to their own existence. With one bloody attack on civilians after another, the Iraqi people are learning who their real enemies are. Already we see signs of Sunni tribes uniting to fight against Al Quada. If we hold on, Al Quada may yet destroy their domestic support in Iraq and the wider Middle East. And therein lies our hope of really solving the problem of Islamic terror.

Is Paul right to say that the costs of our war in Iraq been too high? To honestly evaluate the costs of Iraq we have to consider both the perspective of the past as well as the perspective of the future:

1. What were the perceived costs of war vs. the perceived costs of inaction when Bush made the decision to go to war in 2003? As I've already argued, the decision to go to war was made on the basis of incomplete information, when consensus opinion held that Saddam had WMD programs and that his regime posed significant risks to America in the future. In retrospect, the costs of allowing Saddam to keep his WMDs seem negligible--after all, he didn't really have any WMDs. But at the time the decision was made, Bush had to act on the basis of evidence that made the costs of inaction seem high. If Paul sincerely believes that Bush was lying about the evidence, then it makes sense to argue that the lives and money we have lost in waging this war are too high of a cost. But if Paul believes that we should have avoided war even if it were true that Saddam possessed WMDs, I question his wisdom.
   


2. What will the costs of war vs. the costs of inaction look like 25 or 50 years from now? History has a nasty habit of looking very different with a few years of perspective. Right now it's easy to point at Bush's decision in 2003 and argue that he was wrong, based on 2007 evidence. But the real benefits to be obtained by planting a pro-democratic, non-Islamist regime in the Middle East will take years to fully develop, just as the real benefits of planting democracy in Japan and Germany took decades to play out. By completely ignoring the long-term benefits and focusing solely on the short-term costs, Paul is displaying exactly the kind of naivety that he accuses Bush of. As one supporter of the war argued before we invaded Iraq:

   In a new millennium where a few diseased people can carry a suitcase with the power to kill millions, the lesson we must learn is simply this: the only way we will be safe, prosperous and free is when everyone is safe, prosperous and free.
   
   Critics of this War on Terror call it ‘eternal’ and ‘never-ending’ as a means of discouraging us from fighting it at all.
   
   But there can be an end to this war. It will end when all people are inside the bubble we have built for ourselves and our children – warm, well-fed, free to pursue their dreams and ambitions, their minds and bodies and women liberated, racial and tribal hatreds put aside, and so on.

3. Additionally, Ron Paul can't simply argue that we never should have invaded in the first place. As a presidential candidate, he can't turn back the clock to 2003 and undo Bush's decision. As I already argued, a pullout from Iraq will benefit al Qaeda and lead to a higher threat of future terrorism. Ron Paul only mentions the costs associated with continuing to fight the war. These costs are real, but they should be weighed against the equally real costs of withdrawing from the war. If Paul wants to lead this country effectively, he'll need to make decisions based on current reality, not reality as of 2003.

Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft of our young men and women.

We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing America and bring the troops home. No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as required by the Constitution.

Washington's warning against getting involved in foreign alliances came in the context of a war between Britain and France, with various prominent Americans arguing that the U.S. should ally with one or the other of the foreign powers. Thomas Jefferson was one of these national leaders who advocated closer ties with France.

This is the same Thomas Jefferson that as our minister to France attempted to form an international coalition to combat the Barbary Pirates. The European nations refused to work together with America, so as President Jefferson sent the fledgling U.S. Navy to the Mediterranean to protect our commercial interests by fighting a war against the Barbary Pirates. Jefferson may have talked about avoiding foreign entanglements, but his actions as a national leader prove that he was both willing to work with foreign nations when circumstances dictated and was willing to fight wars in foreign lands for the sake of protecting America's commerce.

In our global economy, America's commercial interests span the globe. Because no other country or coalition of countries is willing or able to effectively protect America's interests abroad, our government has to send our armed forces around the world to do that job. Paul advocates withdrawing our troops from the work they do around the world, but he neither acknowledges that America has interests that spread beyond our borders nor offers any mechanism by which these interests can be protected after our troops are withdrawn.

It's true that our troops are spread thin, but the only "new calls for a draft" that I have seen have come in the form of a cynical ploy by anti-war Democrat Chuck Rangel. The Rangel bill failed in a 402-2 vote, in part because not even Chuck Rangel was willing to vote for it. Since then, the all-volunteer military has continued to meet recruiting goals, and veterans of the Iraq war have continued to reenlist in large numbers.

I think a big part of Paul's objection to the war in Iraq is his insistence that military action is only constitutional if Congress explicitly declares war. How he reconciles this view with the fact that Jefferson took us into an undeclared war with the Barbary pirates, I don't know. So far as I know, the Supreme Court has never seen fit to rule on any legal challenge to our previous undeclared wars. If the Supreme Court accepts the constitutionality of an undeclared war, Ron Paul's objections are moot.

Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations.

Objecting to the UN's involvement in Iraq is disingenuous at best. We didn't go to war in Iraq because the UN twisted our arms and forced us into it. We used the Iraq's violation of a UN resolution as our most prominent casus belli, but Bush led us into war because he believed it was a war we needed to fight. The UN was more of an impediment to Bush's foreign policy goals than a motivating factor.

Too often we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we become despised. Too often we have supported those who turn on us, like the Kosovars who aid Islamic terrorists, or the Afghan jihads themselves, and their friend Osama bin Laden. We armed and trained them, and now we’re paying the price.

I'm not going to argue that foreign aid is a great thing--it's often inefficient and counterproductive, harming the people it's supposed to help. The specific charges that Paul makes are somewhat overblown, though. Our decision to arm the Afghans against the Soviets was made in an entirely different strategic context. We had a cold war to win, and we won it.

Additionally, Bin Laden may have begun his career as a jihadi in Afghanistan, but he was no creation of the CIA. Reading "The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11", my impression is that Bin Laden's biggest accomplishment in Afghanistan was managing to avoid getting killed. He isn't dangerous because we armed or supplied him, he's dangerous because he is effective in selling an ideology of jihad and in gathering money and recruits to his cause.

At the same time, we must not isolate ourselves. The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe. Many have thanked God for it, in many languages. Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.

If America is going to be involved in the world, we have to be prepared to defend our interests abroad. This has been true since the earliest days of our republic. In a perfect world, our interests would not need to be defended, but we don't live in such a world. Ron Paul doesn't seem to recognize this fact.

Next up: Ron Paul's policies with regard to Life and Liberty.

Deconstructing America's Savior - Part 3

Libertarians and constitutionalist conservatives typically support Ron Paul. Since I consider myself to be moderately libertarian in my political views and I lean towards originalist interpretations of the Constitution, I feel compelled to explain why I do not and will not support Ron Paul as a candidate for the Presidency. This is the third in a series of several posts in which I pick apart his policy platform and explain my objections.

Previous posts in the series:

1. An introduction to Ron Paul's policy platform.
2. Ron Paul on Debt and Taxes.

This time, let's pick apart his policy statement regarding American Independence and Sovereignty:

So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation. They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites.

The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals. Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor’s prescription to take herbs and vitamins. Alternative treatments could be banned.

Conflating the International Criminal Court, the trade organizations (GATT and WTO) and the trade agreements (NAFTA and CAFTA) into a single argument is kind of weird. Let's address these claims one at a time.

The International Criminal Court -- Here's Wikipedia's description of the ICC:

The court came into being on July 1, 2002 — the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, entered into force — and it can only prosecute crimes committed on or after that date.

As of October 2007, 105 states are members of the Court. A further 41 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute. However, a number of states, including China, India and the United States, are critical of the Court and have not joined.

In other words, the ICC is an international organization created by a treaty which America has not signed. If the ICC wishes to indict U.S. citizens for war crimes, there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop them. If the member states of the ICC wish to enforce ICC convictions of U.S. citizens, they'll have to go through the U.S. military to do so. Somehow, I'm not terribly concerned about this prospect.

GATT and the WTO -- Neither the former GATT nor its successor WTO has ever had any enforcement mechanism above and beyond the ability of its member nations to impose trade sanctions (i.e., retaliatory tariffs). This is a capability that individual nations have always possessed. See below for more information about this point.

NAFTA and CAFTA -- The NAFTA and CAFTA agreements are treaties that our elected officials ratified. These are treaties, not international organizations with powers of enforcement. These agreements reduce the quotas, tariffs and subsidies that impose silent but very real economic costs on all Americans. In seeking to overturn these agreements Ron Paul is revealing himself to be more concerned about abstract notions of sovereignty than he is about achieving the best economic system that is politically feasible.

The WTO has forced Congress to change our laws, yet we still face trade wars. Today, France is threatening to have U.S. goods taxed throughout Europe. If anything, the WTO makes trade relations worse by giving foreign competitors a new way to attack U.S. jobs.

The Cato Institue has an excellent paper which puts these claims about the WTO in proper perspective. Here's a quick excerpt:

Critics across the political spectrum allege that the World Trade Organization undermines the ability of the United States to determine its own trade, tax, environmental, and foreign policy. But an examination of how the WTO really works reveals that no such threat exists to U.S. sovereignty. The WTO is a contract organization that arbitrates disputes among its members on the basis of rules that all have agreed to follow. Like every other member, the United States has the power to veto any agreement of which it disapproves.

The WTO wields no power of enforcement. It has no authority or power to levy fines, impose sanctions, change tariff rates, or modify domestic laws in any way to bring about compliance. If a member refuses to comply with rules it previously agreed to follow, all the WTO can do is approve a request by the complaining member to impose sanctions—a “power” that member governments have always been able to wield against each other.

In other words, the members of the WTO have agreed, by treaty, to abide by defined rules of "fair trade". When a nation violates those rules, the WTO is powerless to punish the offending nation. All the WTO can do is grant an air of legitimacy to the retaliatory action which the victim nations would have imposed anyway. Congress can't be forced to change our laws by the WTO, but Congress generally does choose to voluntarily reform laws which violate the WTO rules to avoid trade sanctions. This is a good thing, unless you like the economic dislocation caused by trade wars. If Ron Paul thinks that starting trade wars is a good idea, he doesn't need my vote.

NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme.

And a free America, with limited, constitutional government, would be gone forever.

This is blatantly false. Ron Paul either hasn't done his research or he is misrepresenting the truth when he claims that there is a plot in the works to "create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico". Take a look at this post for a sane discussion of the truth about the so-called North American Union. On this issue, I find it very difficult to avoid reaching the conclusion that Ron Paul is a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

Let’s not forget the UN. It wants to impose a direct tax on us. I successfully fought this move in Congress last year, but if we are going to stop ongoing attempts of this world government body to tax us, we will need leadership from the White House.

Sure, the UN would love to have an independent source of income. But Paul is overstating both the scope of the threat and his role in defeating that threat. It's true that various ideas have been floated for granting the UN an authority to collect taxes, but no attempt has ever been made to actually implement these ideas. As for his role in defeating this threat: Ron Paul's own press release states that he inserted some language into a bill that "prohibits the Treasury from paying UN dues if the organization attempts to implement or impose any kind of tax on US citizens." The UN wasn't actively attempting to impose a tax, but Ron Paul defeated that non-existent attempt at taxation by proposing legislation that would retaliate for any such attempt, just in case such an attempt were to be made. Well done, I guess.

We must withdraw from any organizations and trade deals that infringe upon the freedom and independence of the United States of America.

Regarding the wisdom of withdrawing from trade organizations and treaties, see my above comments for some of my objections. With regard to the UN, I think the costs of withdrawing from the UN outweigh the benefits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the UN. Its member states include a long list of corrupt, tyrannical regimes that possess no moral legitimacy. It sickens me to see Americans arguing that we are morally required to submit our national will to the dictates of such rabble as Russia, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Burma and the Sudan.

But withdrawal from the UN doesn't really gain us anything--we have a veto on the Security Council and we haven't been shy about using it. The UN dues we pay are essentially a rounding error in our national budget, yet we have seen that withholding those dues is an effective lever for preventing the UN from acting in complete contradiction to our national interests. By effectively using our veto and the power of the purse, we have protected our sovereignty from harm.

Additionally, the UN isn't entirely useless. The UN is a weak institution, but even in its weakness it can be used to provide us some legitimacy when we must act in the world to protect our national interests. To withdraw from the UN entirely would be to forsake the use of this tool against our enemies and spite our allies in the process.

Ron Paul seems to be obsessed with the idea of national sovereignty. His single minded dedication to this principle has him advocating the abandonment of international institutions like the UN that help us protect our national interests. Worse is his belief that we should abandon free trade deals that generate enormous economic dividends for America.

What really leaves me flabbergasted is his paranoia regarding the North American Union--there's simply no evidence to suggest that any such Union is being contemplated by any, much less by all, of the North American governments. Ron Paul apparently feels that this threat is real enough to warrant discussing it as a central component of his policy platform. I think it's an imaginary threat that is best dealt with by authors of speculative fiction. One of us is utterly wrong.

Next up: Ron Paul's policies with regard to War and Foreign Policy.

Deconstructing America's Savior - Part 2

Libertarians and constitutionalist conservatives typically support Ron Paul. Since I consider myself to be moderately libertarian in my political views and I lean towards originalist interpretations of the Constitution, I feel compelled to explain why I do not and will not support Ron Paul as a candidate for the Presidency. This is the second in a series of several posts in which I pick apart his policy platform and explain my objections.

Previous posts in the series:

1. An introduction to Ron Paul's policy platform.

This time, let's pick apart his policy statement regarding Debt and Taxes:

Working Americans like lower taxes. So do I. Lower taxes benefit all of us, creating jobs and allowing us to make more decisions for ourselves about our lives.

Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by $40 a month or allows a business owner to save thousands in capital gains taxes and hire more employees, that tax cut is a good thing. Lower taxes allow more spending, saving, and investing which helps the economy — that means all of us.

Real conservatives have always supported low taxes and low spending.

I agree that the economy (and by extension, the majority of the populace) benefits from low marginal tax rates. I agree that Americans are generally better off being being free to make our own economic choices rather than having economic choices dictated to us by a paternalistic government. On the other hand, I see two significant qualifiers to this general rule:

1) The federal government has a legitimate role to play in providing some services to citizens. Insofar as the government must provide these services, taxes are necessary to fund this work. At some point, lower taxes are not an option. When a lower tax rate results in government revenue that is too low to fund government operations, the tax rate is too low. Ron Paul can argue for lower taxes, but this is a policy goal which can only be implemented if government spending is reduced.

2) It simply isn't true that "lower taxes benefit all of us". It is arguably true that lower tax rates would be a net boost to the economy. It is arguably true that most government spending programs are misguided, wasteful and ineffective. But the truth is that some people do benefit from our current regime of resource redistribution. Politically, the low levels of taxation and government spending that Ron Paul wants to see are simply unattainable. Most conservatives are willing to compromise in the face of political reality. Ron Paul, not so much.

But today, too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin. We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation. Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren. If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future — and yours.

Armageddon is coming. Repent. Yes, we spend too much money. Yes, we should have been running a surplus over the last several years to pay down the national debt while we were in the midst of an economic expansion. The end of the world is not yet in sight though. In the grand scheme of things recent deficits haven't been a serious problem.

In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply — making each dollar in your pocket worth less. The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to “we the people.”

The Federal Reserve is one of Ron Paul's favorite bogeymen. Here he argues that the unaccountable Fed creates inflation. While he doesn't mention it here, it's no secret that Paul would like to abolish the Fed and put America back on the Gold Standard. He calls the Fed "unaccountable", but in reality it is a creation of Congress, it is governed by a Board whose members are appointed (and who can be dismissed) by the President and the whole system can be altered by Congress if necessary. I can't deny that the Fed definitely does try to achieve a positive (albeit low) rate of inflation. This is a feature, not a bug. Smarter folks than I will argue that inflation is *NOT* always a bad thing. As for putting America back on the Gold Standard, I'd rather vote for Hillary than for somebody who honestly thinks that the Gold Standard is significantly better than a well managed fiat currency. I'm not exaggerating, either.

Worse, our economy and our very independence as a nation is increasingly in the hands of foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia, because their central banks also finance our runaway spending.

Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Another way to describe this situation is to say that the central banks of China and Saudi Arabia continue to see the U.S. as the safest place to invest their money. If they choose to invest in America by offering us very low rates of interest, the rational response is to say "thank you", but only after grabbing their cash. We wouldn't want them to rescind the offer while we're busy being polite...

We cannot continue to allow private banks, wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare, and governments collecting foreign aid to dictate the size of our ballooning budget. We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It’s called the Constitution of the United States.

"Private banks" is Paul's way of saying "the Federal Reserve". Enough said about that. Sure, many government agencies are wasteful, pork barrel spending is a problem that I'd love to see reduced, and I think foreign aid is generally counterproductive, at best. But Paul is missing the forest for the trees. The biggest fiscal problem we face is entitlement spending: these are the liabilities in future budgets that the federal government will not be able to fund. Foreign aid is, in relative terms, a pittance. A real solution to our over-grown entitlement spending isn't politically feasible (at least, not right now). Paul's ultimate solution is to return to the Constitution to find a blueprint for the Federal Government's fiscal and monetary future. This makes sense, in Ron Paul's dream world. In reality, we are never going to roll back the size and scope of the Federal Government to the extent that Paul desires.

Ron Paul's past history of absolutely uncompromising devotion to his principles leads me to believe that he would be a horrible President. As an uncompromising congressman, Paul is a valuable (embarrassingly rabid, but valuable nonetheless) voice for limited government. As President, Paul would gladly grid-lock the country into disaster in pursuit of his goals. To do so in pursuit of limited government is somewhat understandable. To do so in a quest to restore the Gold Standard would be laughably bad policy.

Next up: Ron Paul's policies with regard to American Independence and Sovereignty.

Deconstructing America's Savior

Libertarians and constitutionalist conservatives typically support Ron Paul. Since I consider myself to be moderately libertarian in my political views and I lean towards originalist interpretations of the Constitution, I feel compelled to explain why I do not and will not support Ron Paul as a candidate for the Presidency. This is the first in a series of several posts in which I pick apart his policy platform and explain my objections.

To begin, let's look at the introduction to his policy platform:

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.

The protection of individual freedoms for American citizens is the fundamental goal of Paul's political philosophy. Because Paul sees the U.S. Constitution as the bulwark of individual freedoms, all of his policy prescriptions are measured against an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. This desire for individual freedoms and his respect for the original intent of the founding fathers are admirable, but he holds these principles in such high regard that he is blind to the practical impact of his policy prescriptions in the real world. I don't disagree with Paul's principles, I disagree with several of the policies he advocates based on a blind devotion to those principles.

Let's pick apart that introduction:

Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital.

First and foremost, Ron Paul's goal is to protect individual freedoms. Although he doesn't specify any qualifiers here, further analysis of Paul's platform reveals an important qualifier: Paul isn't concerned with the individual freedoms of non-citizens.

As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dr. Paul tirelessly works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies.

In Paul's view, almost any government activity results in the destruction of individual liberties. This is especially true when government engages in activities that aren't explicitly approved by the Constitution. Consequently, "limited constitutional government" is the first item on Paul's priority list. "Low taxes" and "free markets" make the priority list because an originalist interpretation of the Constitution would force the federal government to drastically curtail its interference in the lives of Americans. Paul demands "sound monetary policies" because he sees the current Federal Reserve system as a tool for government to play games with money and impose a silent tax on Americans. His solution--return to the Gold Standard.

He is known among his congressional colleagues and his constituents for his consistent voting record. Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.

His devotion to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution is so unswerving that Ron Paul is nothing if not consistent in his legislative record. Political expediency has no influence in his decision making process. The practical impact of legislation isn't a major concern either

I agree with some of the principles upon which Ron Paul bases his policies. I admire Ron Paul's devotion to those principles. But I can't vote for somebody who takes admirable principles and turns them into a blind devotion to absurd policy prescriptions. As we'll see when I begin breaking down the individual components of Paul's policy platform, I strongly object to his foreign policy, his trade policy and his monetary policy. Those policies are so misguided and dangerous that I simply can't consider voting for him.

Next up: Ron Paul's policies with regard to Debt and Taxes

The politics of tea

I found this on a bottle of Tradewinds Raspberry Tea:

"Tea is a natural source of protective flavonoid antioxidants that help guard against free radicals."

Perhaps this is why the revolutionaries dumped tea in Boston Harbor. Given my tea drinking habit, it may also explain my reluctance to support Ron Paul.

If actresses had a perfect grasp of history, there would be no stupid political rants during the Emmys in the first place.

One of the distinguished historians of our day, Sally Field, has been "censored" by Fox while trying to make this particularly cogent argument against war:

"If the mothers ruled the world, there would be no g-dd-mned wars in the first place."

No doubt Ms. Field is basing this statement upon the historical record of women like Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi. Clearly, it's coincidental that the Yom Kippur war, the Falklands war and the 1971 war with Pakistan were all fought while these women led their countries. After all, they were mothers. Q.E.D.

Ron Paul, the founding fathers, and foreign policy

Recently I've seen quite a few statements online comparing the foreign policy positions of Ron Paul to the foreign policy positions of the founding fathers. These statements generally assert that Ron Paul is a non-interventionist in the same mold as the founding fathers: we should defend the U.S. from foreign aggression, but otherwise meddling in the affairs of foreign nations is out of the question. One such statement (which I'd link to, but that statement was later deleted by the author) read, in part:

He's consistent. War does not a conservative make in my opinion. I do think we need to defend ourselves when we believe it is nessecary, I agree with Ron Paul, . . . the kind of libertarian he is, is just like Jeffersonian, and actually more Jefferson Adams.

I appreciate the desire to support the policies of the founding fathers, but I don't think the founding fathers were as non-interventionist in their outlook as is commonly believed. In fact, Thomas Jefferson was the first president to send the United States military to the Middle East to use force to protect American commercial interests. Check out Wikipedia's history of the First Barbary War:

On Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, Yussif Karamanli, the Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli demanded $225,000 from the new administration. (In 1800, Federal revenues totaled a little over $10 million.) Putting his long-held beliefs into practice, Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, in May of 1801, the Pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents, but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate. Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis soon followed their ally in Tripoli.

In response, Jefferson sent a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress. Although Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli "and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will justify."

The Barbary Pirates were attacking American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean and demanding tribute--protection money, really--to stop the attacks. Jefferson chose to employ force (without a declaration of war) in the defense of America's commercial interests. Ron Paul doesn't seem very Jeffersonian when Jefferson's actual practice of foreign policy is taken into account.

the utopian fallacy

Megan McArdle identifies what I call the utopian fallacy, the irrational belief that all problems have solutions:

It is astonishing how often I have arguments about environmental issues, and a few others, in which I state a belief that the political and economic realities mean that some pet solution won't happen, and am rewarded with an angry/exasperated "Well, then how do you plan to fix the problem?" It is as if they believed that to state a problem, is also to imply a solution.

There are plenty of problems in the world, from unrequited love to people with stubbornly obnoxious beliefs, that I have no plans to fix because the solutions, if there are any, seem self-evidently worse than the problems they would replace. Yet many people seem to believe that if I refuse to state such a plan, or agree to theirs, it must be because I don't want to solve the problem--that I hate people who are unlucky in love, or the environment, or at the very least selfishly wish to continue harming same--rather than from any honest belief that sometimes life's a bugger and there's not much you can do about it.

This is a particular problem for our political system; every constituent is somebody with a multitude of problems and every politician gets votes by promising to fix those problems. Unfortunately, most of these problems are impervious to fixing. Every government program begins as a solution to a problem, but it has to be revised and expanded and improved as every iteration of the solution fails to fix the problem. Our government grows inexorably, but the problems remain, or mutate and grow. This is a problem. With no solution. Alas.

Change

Change, even change for change's sake alone, is often very good. Sometimes you just have to give your status quo bias a kick in the shins, to teach it who's boss. Or, to put it in other words:

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

Ecclesiastes 11:1-6

I've barely a week left until I move to Houston. It's nice not having any clue what my life will look like in a year.