The outcome in Iowa has Ron Paul solidly established and in an ideal position to move forward with confidence. If you’re watching the race at all, you’ve noticed that the GOP establishment has brought out the long knives, with Gingrich calling Paul’s supporters ‘indecent’, and Santorum saying that Paul is ‘disgusting‘. Virtually every ‘news’ story referencing Paul includes a declaratory statement that Paul cannot be nominated, or ‘almost certainly’ cannot. TV talking heads such as Politico’s Roger Simon were at least honest about the shared intent of the media and the GOP establishment: ‘If Paul wins Iowa we’ll just take it out (of the picture)’. Iowa’s own governor downplayed the importance of his state’s caucus outcome, should Paul win – something no other governor has done in American history.
In spite of the relentless assault against him, Paul’s support held up well, with a result mirroring most of the polls leading up to the caucuses. His supporters can’t possibly be discouraged – Paul’s support grew steadily over the months, and he finished near his peak. Santorum’s turn as ‘flavor of the week’, coming right after voters got another look at Newt Gingrich, came at the perfect time, further fracturing the establishment vote.
The Iowa results boost Paul’s chances for long-term success for a number of reasons.
- A lot of the negative attention that was aimed at Paul will now be focused on Santorum. The media may give Arlen Specter’s most important political ally a break, for now, but his opponents won’t. To the media, Santorum is a perfect GOP candidate – one they can easily trash when the time comes. His current appeal is a mile wide and a millimeter deep; there’s nothing of substance driving it – no scheme like Cain’s ’9-9-9 plan’, no great legislative achievements, nothing aside from the perception that he’d be ‘tough on terror’, that he speaks in earnest, and that he’s not Gingrich or Romney. As long as Santorum is in it, Romney and Gingrich will remain in, they likely think that Santorum’s chances to actually secure the nomination are nil.
- Romney’s finish makes any ‘inevitability’ talk look ridiculous. He seems to have a ceiling of 25%-30% of GOP primary voters, with no noticeable crossover enthusiasm from democrats, and little appeal to independents. The undecided voters will continue to ping-pong between the other candidates, with some sticking to Paul with each bounce. It seems that no matter what Romney says, does, or spends, he can’t gain any broader traction. He isn’t trusted by most republicans, for far better reasons than the GOP establishment posits for opposing Paul. There’s little prospect that Romney can change that fact, but he’s still going to grind it out.
- There isn’t much the GOP establishment can do to derail Paul going forward. Ballot registration deadlines are passing, and the look of a real race means the appearance of a new entry (from a bench that is shallow and all-establishment) is less likely. The GOP has shown an interest in gaming the convention, but they have already deeply alienated many of Paul’s supporters, who will easily constitute the difference in the next election, whether Paul is on the ballot or not. The more the GOP does that seems designed to deny him a fair chance at the nomination, the more people they will alienate. The damage may already be done; it’s hard to find any Paul supporters who show any enthusiasm for any other candidates. They know that this actually isn’t just like every other election, a choice between two evils. Our country is in the grip of something awful which transcends Obama, and we’re approaching the event horizon. For millions there is one way out and one captain, everything else is a distraction from reality.
The cake may already be baked for the GOP. They’ve made support of something akin to our current foreign policy the new litmus-test for respectability in the GOP. The damage they’ve already done to their party, with their wholesale abandonment of the party’s long-held ’11th Commandment’: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any republican”, may be too much to undo. If they are not yet worried and introspective, they should be.
- All of the candidates except perhaps Bachmann and Perry will remain in the race. They all realize that 15%-20% of GOP primary voters are up for grabs in any given month, and Bachmann and Perry’s supporters would add 15% or so to that pool. Paul should hope that the establishment vote remains divided for as long as possible, as he steadily builds his support.
- Gingrich’s finish, well behind Paul, makes it more likely this will be viewed as a two or three-man race, minus Gingrich. So he’s likely to get even more desperate. He’s the literal face of the establishment, bragging about his past ‘successes’ as our country circles the drain – he’s the GOP’s Obama. Gingrich’s remaining supporters are probably the least likely to support Paul. They’re comfortable with their man calling an elder statesman, who enjoys respect across the political spectrum, ‘indecent’. The longer Newt Gingrich hangs on, the better for Paul.
- The respectable Iowa finish gives Paul’s supporters hope for future success, and they will continue pushing hard. Every day that passes is another in which more people take a closer look at Ron Paul, and like him. His support can only grow; once attached, his voters aren’t easily shaken loose. Once you come to agree with Paul, you see the vast gulf between him and the other candidates. For most people, crossing that gulf is a one-way trip.
Paul’s message will improve and his arguments will crystallize in voters’ minds as he moves forward. He will paint a vivid picture of what life under constitutional government will be like for Americans, and show them a credible way to transition to that reality. Eventually, most voters will soberly compare the importance of Paul’s mismanagement of a newsletter with the establishment’s mismanagement of everything. Further moves against Iran will not sit well with war-weary voters, particularly if gas prices are affected. Backing off from confrontation with Iran bolsters Paul’s message that our policy is erratic, and that conflict is not inevitable. If conflict comes, Paul is also vindicated, since it will be far from ‘necessary’ and will have little to do with America’s security. It will be hard for the GOP to complain about anything Obama does to Iran; they have established their respect for undeclared war repeatedly, and they’ve been banging the war drums for months. Obama’s mistakes in Iran will be their mistakes as well. At home, private central bankers will continue to kick the debt can down the road, with more damaging intervention into the economy and more ‘money’ creation to fund the establishment’s fiat-money Ponzi scheme. Things are likely to unfold much as Paul has said they will, further enhancing his credibility.
In their hearts, most voters believe that at best, things might get a little better. And most of those voters only see the edges of reality. They are asleep to the depth of the rot and ruin that has been sowed by a ruling class which feels little for them but disdain. Though Ron Paul’s supporters share a greater awareness of this reality, they are also the only people in American politics who share a genuine hope about the future. Everyone else is knowingly faking it, their consciences paralyzed by fear of unknowns, such as constitutional government. Much of the confidence in Paul is based on his record of being right, and offering a proven path back to sanity – the restoration of constitutional government.
If our recent history were a disaster movie, the standard audience reaction would be quite predictable: most viewers would be hoping that the characters who didn’t warn about the disaster or do anything to avoid it would finally shut up, and let the guy who’s been right since the start of the film take over. Take the politics out of it and it becomes quite simple. On a purely rational level, this would be the only major issue in the campaign: Is there anyone competent running who saw how and why we got into these messes, has any idea what to do about them, and has the sand to do it?
Thursday
WHAT I THINK...........THOMAS WOODS
A few belated thoughts on Ron Paul and the Iowa caucuses.
Certainly it’s a disappointment. Some people counter that what matters are the delegates, but in my opinion what actually matters right now is momentum, and an Iowa victory would have been great in that department. At the same time, 22% in a state that is not ideologically in Ron’s camp, with all the media hate and ridicule so intense for two solid weeks – and heck, with Ron’s opposition to ethanol subsidies thrown in – is nothing to sniff at.
So many people worked so hard in Iowa for this 20+% showing – particularly A.J. Spiker, David Fischer, and Drew Ivers, all friends of mine – and we owe them our thanks.
As a knowledgeable friend explained to me in 2008, it is extremely difficult to reach many traditional voters, who decide on which candidate to choose on the basis of how much he sounds like the typical GOP product they’ve come to expect. So they listen for a speech that says, “I love America, Americans are the awesomest of the awesome, we need jobs, Obama is bad, war war war – and did I say Americans were the most awesome people ever, in the most awesome country, and the only reason anyone might not be thrilled with our government is because of our sheer awesomeness?”
At the same time, the race is still up in the air in the sense that voters have not settled on the preferred anti-Romney. This morning, while involuntarily subjected to FOX News, I heard a newscaster say, “You can’t get more anti-Mitt than Rick Santorum.” You know what? I’m pretty sure you can.
What lifted my spirits last night was Ron Paul’s speech. The man is as genuine as can be, as we already knew, so his enthusiasm last night wasn’t a put on. He is thrilled that issues once neglected are now being discussed everywhere. He is delighted to see young people flocking to something other than the standard GOP talking points from 1983, which appear to satisfy older voters too set in their ways to have an original thought. He crushed everyone in the under-40 vote. That means his ideas are the future.
He has every reason to be proud right now – of his supporters, and of himself.
Not one of us would have begrudged Ron Paul a quiet retirement had he chosen not to run this year. He had already awakened more Americans to the real American tradition of liberty, along with the Austrian School of economics, than any living person, and he had stared down the Ministry of Information and its war-propaganda politicians more consistently than anyone I can think of.
Yet he chose to impose on himself the unthinkable physical and mental toll of a rigorous presidential campaign. He opened himself up to ceaseless, vicious attack by intellectual and moral pygmies who enjoy nothing more than dragging the name of the one honest man in politics through the mud.
I’m sure Ron could have lived without the exhausting travel, the nonstop attacks from left and right, all of it. But he’s enduring it for us, because – corny as this may sound – he knows these ideas are the key to a better world.
That’s why I’ll be standing by him, doing whatever I can for the cause, in the weeks and months ahead, and helping promote peace, freedom, and prosperity. No way is this not worth fighting for. Now we simply fight all the harder.
I hope you’ll continue to join me.
Certainly it’s a disappointment. Some people counter that what matters are the delegates, but in my opinion what actually matters right now is momentum, and an Iowa victory would have been great in that department. At the same time, 22% in a state that is not ideologically in Ron’s camp, with all the media hate and ridicule so intense for two solid weeks – and heck, with Ron’s opposition to ethanol subsidies thrown in – is nothing to sniff at.
So many people worked so hard in Iowa for this 20+% showing – particularly A.J. Spiker, David Fischer, and Drew Ivers, all friends of mine – and we owe them our thanks.
As a knowledgeable friend explained to me in 2008, it is extremely difficult to reach many traditional voters, who decide on which candidate to choose on the basis of how much he sounds like the typical GOP product they’ve come to expect. So they listen for a speech that says, “I love America, Americans are the awesomest of the awesome, we need jobs, Obama is bad, war war war – and did I say Americans were the most awesome people ever, in the most awesome country, and the only reason anyone might not be thrilled with our government is because of our sheer awesomeness?”
At the same time, the race is still up in the air in the sense that voters have not settled on the preferred anti-Romney. This morning, while involuntarily subjected to FOX News, I heard a newscaster say, “You can’t get more anti-Mitt than Rick Santorum.” You know what? I’m pretty sure you can.
What lifted my spirits last night was Ron Paul’s speech. The man is as genuine as can be, as we already knew, so his enthusiasm last night wasn’t a put on. He is thrilled that issues once neglected are now being discussed everywhere. He is delighted to see young people flocking to something other than the standard GOP talking points from 1983, which appear to satisfy older voters too set in their ways to have an original thought. He crushed everyone in the under-40 vote. That means his ideas are the future.
He has every reason to be proud right now – of his supporters, and of himself.
Not one of us would have begrudged Ron Paul a quiet retirement had he chosen not to run this year. He had already awakened more Americans to the real American tradition of liberty, along with the Austrian School of economics, than any living person, and he had stared down the Ministry of Information and its war-propaganda politicians more consistently than anyone I can think of.
Yet he chose to impose on himself the unthinkable physical and mental toll of a rigorous presidential campaign. He opened himself up to ceaseless, vicious attack by intellectual and moral pygmies who enjoy nothing more than dragging the name of the one honest man in politics through the mud.
I’m sure Ron could have lived without the exhausting travel, the nonstop attacks from left and right, all of it. But he’s enduring it for us, because – corny as this may sound – he knows these ideas are the key to a better world.
That’s why I’ll be standing by him, doing whatever I can for the cause, in the weeks and months ahead, and helping promote peace, freedom, and prosperity. No way is this not worth fighting for. Now we simply fight all the harder.
I hope you’ll continue to join me.
WHAT I THINK........JERRI WARD
The purpose of the state is supposed to be to protect life, liberty and property and to settle disputes. Today, we have a government that protects killing, and at times, even finances it. The growth and scope of our government is totally out of control and fails the test for a limited government in a free society. ~ Ron Paul, Challenge to Liberty: Coming to Grips with the Abortion Issue
Ron Paul has long been an "unshakeable foe of abortion." While pro-life groups, in an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, have long engaged in the fruitless struggle to elect the presidential candidate who will then appoint the "just right" jurist to sit on the Supreme Court, Ron Paul has repeatedly introduced legislation which affirms that life begins at conception, legislation that would exclude the issue of abortion from the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, thereby overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the issue to the proper authorities, the individual states.
In light of this, it is unfortunate that the respected and stalwart American Right to Life has stooped to condemning Ron Paul for his principled and constitutional approach to the abortion issue by using fallacies, defamatory and villainous rhetoric, and the kind of reasoning characteristic of the sophists of pagan Greece. According to ARTL, Ron Paul’s pledge to oppose abortion is inadequate because he refuses go along with ARTL’s support of a proposed federal law that would authorize the use of the 14th Amendment to protect the pre-born. Because Ron Paul recognizes and publicly states that this approach is not constitutionally proper and is a usurpation of state authority, ARTL’s director of research makes the ludicrous (and viciously false) claim that "Ron Paul agrees with the central finding of Roe v. Wade itself."
While the absurdity of such a claim is clear on its face, let me also add that the central finding of Roe v. Wade would never have seen the light of day were it not for the overbroad application of the 14th Amendment by activist judges. That the 14th Amendment has been the most effective, dangerous, and misapplied tool of activist judges is something that Conservatives once understood. Such an understanding was reaffirmed in 1977 when Conservatives lionized Raoul Berger’s release of Government By Judiciary, The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which demonstrated completely and unequivocally that the 14th Amendment had long been construed far too broadly, resulting in a "vast array" of unconstitutional decisions, including Roe v. Wade. In fact, Berger made the case so well in the book and in his rebuttals to its critics that the critics began, in the words of Forrest McDonald, "to assert that neither the words of the Constitution or the intentions of the framers are any longer relevant."
This truth has apparently either (1) gone down the memory hole or (2) Conservatives have become every bit as cynical and unprincipled as the left-leaning activist jurists they demonize. Conservatives now want to pass a law that will approve solidifying the federal judiciary’s chokehold on the abortion issue by using, to their own ends, the same overbroad construction of the 14th Amendment that generated Roe v. Wade.
It seems apparent to me that nationalizing the issue of abortion resulted in over 50 million abortions since 1973. States that would be saving babies right now (were Ron Paul’s legislation passed when Republicans controlled Congress and the Presidency) have been able to do nothing but pass incremental measures seeking to slow down, but not end, the death of these babies who reside in their mother’s wombs. That is why I can’t understand why ARTL and others are determined to keep the issue in thrall to the same courts who brought about this tragedy.
The most effective solution is contained within the bills which Ron Paul has proposed session after session. His bills, which require only a simple majority vote, acknowledge that human life begins at conception and that it is within the authority of the States to protect that life. The legislation would deny the federal judiciary jurisdiction of the abortion issue, lawfully and constitutionally removing the power to overturn State laws which protect pre-born life. Under his legislation, Roe v. Wade would be dead, as pro-life activists have wanted for decades.
In response to Ron Paul’s proposing the above legislation, ARTL makes the laughable claim that he "is pro-choice, state-by-state. He believes states should be allowed to keep abortion, which is like allowing states to keep slavery." I can only assume that the ARTL did not get the 10th Amendment memo from the Tea Party. In fact, here we have Conservatives using the very accusations thrown at the Tea Party by race-card-playing leftists who assume that if we don’t unconstitutionally allow the federal government to dictate to the states what they may and may not do, Jim Crow laws will "rise again."
I am not as cynical about our constitutional form of government as ARTL appears to be. I am confident that pro-life people will be very successful in ending abortion in their own states once the federal grip on the issue is broken. Moreover, I agree with Raoul Berger’s statement: "I cannot bring myself to believe that the Court may assume a power not granted in order to correct an evil people were, and remain, unready to cure. Justification of judicial usurpation – the label Hamilton attached to encroachments on the legislative function – on the grounds that there is no other way to be rid of an acknowledged evil smacks of the discredited doctrine that the ‘end justifies the means.’" Berger went on to say: "Then there are the costs to constitutional government of countenancing such usurpation. As the Court itself has demonstrated, unconstitutional action establishes a precedent to cure a manifest evil, as Washington and Hamilton warned, that encourages transgression when such urgency is lacking." Berger’s point aptly applies to the proposal advanced by the ARTL and others to retain this usurped power (as opposed to restoring lawful federal authority) to regulate abortion at the national level, rather than the constitutionally appropriate state level. Such a "hair of the dog" solution is every bit as delusional as "fixing" our economy with the same monetary policies that crippled it, but too many are blinded by the appeal of manipulating illicit statist power to see it.
More importantly, as a Christian, I believe that once we shake off the chains placed upon us by the modern day pharaohs in Washington and return authority over this matter to its rightful place, we will be blessed by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to end abortion within each State. I do not believe that He will so bless us if we continue to use and co-opt the cynical, despotic, lawless tactics of our opponents. Such power-concentrating tactics use the arm of man in the same manner as the builders of the Tower of Babel did in their efforts to reach heaven – but trusting in "the arm of flesh" always brings God’s curse, never His blessing (Jer. 17:5). Asserting a messianic role for the federal government bespeaks practical atheism and an unthinking return to Hegel’s view that the state is god walking on earth, wherein Christians who should have known better inexplicably choose to fight in Saul’s armor. The mindset of those who are willing to undermine rather than redeem constitutional government, and who seek to use the swollen statist federal leviathan as the means to their ends was aptly skewered by one of Cromwell’s chaplains, John Howe, in his sermon, The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit, using words that still ring across the centuries:
"An arm of flesh signifies a great deal when the power of the almighty Spirit is reckoned as nothing."
Ron Paul has long been an "unshakeable foe of abortion." While pro-life groups, in an effort to overturn Roe v. Wade, have long engaged in the fruitless struggle to elect the presidential candidate who will then appoint the "just right" jurist to sit on the Supreme Court, Ron Paul has repeatedly introduced legislation which affirms that life begins at conception, legislation that would exclude the issue of abortion from the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, thereby overturning Roe v. Wade and returning the issue to the proper authorities, the individual states.
In light of this, it is unfortunate that the respected and stalwart American Right to Life has stooped to condemning Ron Paul for his principled and constitutional approach to the abortion issue by using fallacies, defamatory and villainous rhetoric, and the kind of reasoning characteristic of the sophists of pagan Greece. According to ARTL, Ron Paul’s pledge to oppose abortion is inadequate because he refuses go along with ARTL’s support of a proposed federal law that would authorize the use of the 14th Amendment to protect the pre-born. Because Ron Paul recognizes and publicly states that this approach is not constitutionally proper and is a usurpation of state authority, ARTL’s director of research makes the ludicrous (and viciously false) claim that "Ron Paul agrees with the central finding of Roe v. Wade itself."
While the absurdity of such a claim is clear on its face, let me also add that the central finding of Roe v. Wade would never have seen the light of day were it not for the overbroad application of the 14th Amendment by activist judges. That the 14th Amendment has been the most effective, dangerous, and misapplied tool of activist judges is something that Conservatives once understood. Such an understanding was reaffirmed in 1977 when Conservatives lionized Raoul Berger’s release of Government By Judiciary, The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, which demonstrated completely and unequivocally that the 14th Amendment had long been construed far too broadly, resulting in a "vast array" of unconstitutional decisions, including Roe v. Wade. In fact, Berger made the case so well in the book and in his rebuttals to its critics that the critics began, in the words of Forrest McDonald, "to assert that neither the words of the Constitution or the intentions of the framers are any longer relevant."
This truth has apparently either (1) gone down the memory hole or (2) Conservatives have become every bit as cynical and unprincipled as the left-leaning activist jurists they demonize. Conservatives now want to pass a law that will approve solidifying the federal judiciary’s chokehold on the abortion issue by using, to their own ends, the same overbroad construction of the 14th Amendment that generated Roe v. Wade.
It seems apparent to me that nationalizing the issue of abortion resulted in over 50 million abortions since 1973. States that would be saving babies right now (were Ron Paul’s legislation passed when Republicans controlled Congress and the Presidency) have been able to do nothing but pass incremental measures seeking to slow down, but not end, the death of these babies who reside in their mother’s wombs. That is why I can’t understand why ARTL and others are determined to keep the issue in thrall to the same courts who brought about this tragedy.
The most effective solution is contained within the bills which Ron Paul has proposed session after session. His bills, which require only a simple majority vote, acknowledge that human life begins at conception and that it is within the authority of the States to protect that life. The legislation would deny the federal judiciary jurisdiction of the abortion issue, lawfully and constitutionally removing the power to overturn State laws which protect pre-born life. Under his legislation, Roe v. Wade would be dead, as pro-life activists have wanted for decades.
In response to Ron Paul’s proposing the above legislation, ARTL makes the laughable claim that he "is pro-choice, state-by-state. He believes states should be allowed to keep abortion, which is like allowing states to keep slavery." I can only assume that the ARTL did not get the 10th Amendment memo from the Tea Party. In fact, here we have Conservatives using the very accusations thrown at the Tea Party by race-card-playing leftists who assume that if we don’t unconstitutionally allow the federal government to dictate to the states what they may and may not do, Jim Crow laws will "rise again."
I am not as cynical about our constitutional form of government as ARTL appears to be. I am confident that pro-life people will be very successful in ending abortion in their own states once the federal grip on the issue is broken. Moreover, I agree with Raoul Berger’s statement: "I cannot bring myself to believe that the Court may assume a power not granted in order to correct an evil people were, and remain, unready to cure. Justification of judicial usurpation – the label Hamilton attached to encroachments on the legislative function – on the grounds that there is no other way to be rid of an acknowledged evil smacks of the discredited doctrine that the ‘end justifies the means.’" Berger went on to say: "Then there are the costs to constitutional government of countenancing such usurpation. As the Court itself has demonstrated, unconstitutional action establishes a precedent to cure a manifest evil, as Washington and Hamilton warned, that encourages transgression when such urgency is lacking." Berger’s point aptly applies to the proposal advanced by the ARTL and others to retain this usurped power (as opposed to restoring lawful federal authority) to regulate abortion at the national level, rather than the constitutionally appropriate state level. Such a "hair of the dog" solution is every bit as delusional as "fixing" our economy with the same monetary policies that crippled it, but too many are blinded by the appeal of manipulating illicit statist power to see it.
More importantly, as a Christian, I believe that once we shake off the chains placed upon us by the modern day pharaohs in Washington and return authority over this matter to its rightful place, we will be blessed by God and empowered by the Holy Spirit to end abortion within each State. I do not believe that He will so bless us if we continue to use and co-opt the cynical, despotic, lawless tactics of our opponents. Such power-concentrating tactics use the arm of man in the same manner as the builders of the Tower of Babel did in their efforts to reach heaven – but trusting in "the arm of flesh" always brings God’s curse, never His blessing (Jer. 17:5). Asserting a messianic role for the federal government bespeaks practical atheism and an unthinking return to Hegel’s view that the state is god walking on earth, wherein Christians who should have known better inexplicably choose to fight in Saul’s armor. The mindset of those who are willing to undermine rather than redeem constitutional government, and who seek to use the swollen statist federal leviathan as the means to their ends was aptly skewered by one of Cromwell’s chaplains, John Howe, in his sermon, The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit, using words that still ring across the centuries:
"An arm of flesh signifies a great deal when the power of the almighty Spirit is reckoned as nothing."
Wednesday
WHAT I THINK........WALTER BLOCK
The closure of an international body of water is an act of war. If Iran implemented such a policy in the Strait of Hormuz, it would thus constitute an act of war. This is because in order to do so, this country would have to physically violate the rights of peaceful shippers. One might object that at present, Iran has only threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz. However, in my understanding of libertarian theory based upon the non aggression principle (NAP) not only are people (or governments!) not permitted to actually invade, or violate the rights of peaceful individuals, they are not entitled to threaten this either.
However, before we unduly criticize the Iranians for this threat, let us put the matter in context. The U.S. government has also threatened a blockade of Iran. With many statements emanating from Washington D.C. to the effect that the U.S. government "is not taking anything off the table," they are menacing actions a lot more serious, and invasive, than a mere blockade.
Why is the U.S. acting in so bellicose a manner? This is because it seems to be a settled part of present American policy that Iran should not persists in its (supposed) goal of arming itself with nuclear weapons.
Now, somewhat paradoxically, I agree with the Obama administration on this matter. Iran should not have nuclear weapons. But, neither should anyone else! Why not? This is because they are necessarily offensive. This type of ordnance cannot be used in a way that distinguishes between the guilty and the innocent. States Rothbard in this regard: "… while the bow and arrow and even the rifle can be pinpointed, if the will be there, against actual criminals, modern nuclear weapons cannot. Here is a crucial difference in kind. Of course, the bow and arrow could be used for aggressive purposes, but it could also be pinpointed to use only against aggressors. Nuclear weapons, even ‘conventional’ aerial bombs, cannot be. These weapons are ipso facto engines of indiscriminate mass destruction." (For a further elaboration of this thesis and a discussion of its implications, see here.)
However, this demand of Iran on the part of the U.S. comes with particular ill grace given the fact that the latter country has thousands of such nuclear devices. If the Obama Administration had suddenly become infused with libertarianism in general, and with Rothbard’s analysis of nuclear weapons in particular, it would certainly be justified in continuing to press the Iranians not to develop such firearms. But it would begin this quest by getting rid of its own stocks first.
But are not the Iranians unstable? Are they not likely, under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to use these items against innocent people? Did not this person threaten to wipe Israel off the map with them, that is, use such weapons against that country? No. This was a mis-translation of what he actually said (see here, here, here, here, here and especially here). Nor is it possible to ignore the fact that there is only one country on the face of the earth that has actually employed atomic weapons against innocent men, women and children. And that country, strangely enough, is not Iran. Rather, it is the good old U.S. of A., land of the free and home of the brave. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and especially here).
So, while I certainly endorse Rothbard’s analysis according to which any and all atomic weaponry is illicit according the NAP, it does not at all logically follow that a country with thousands of such armaments, that has the distinction of being the only one to have ever murdered people with such a heinous weapon, is justified in using force to prevent another nation from obtaining one for itself. (I here stipulate, arguendo, that this is indeed the case; Iran of course insists it is interested in nuclear power for entirely peaceful purposes.)
Now that we have explored the context, let us return to the Iranian threat to close the Straits of Hormuz. From a libertarian point of view, in order to assess the validity of this threat, we must ask, Does this constitute initiatory aggression, or threats, or retaliation? For libertarians are not pacifists. We reserve the right to employ threats, aggression, violence, provided, only, that it is in response to a prior act, but does not constitute the prior act itself. So, did Iran "start up" with the U.S., or did the U.S. begin the hostilities?
When put in this stark manner, it is difficult in the extreme to see the Iranians as the aggressors. At worst, they were going to build a nuclear weapon, not merely avail themselves of the peaceful use of this technology. Along comes a country, much larger and more powerful than theirs, certainly lacking "clean hands" in this regard, and orders them to cease and desist, under dire threat. So, in response, the Iranians issue a threat of their own: to close off international waters to peaceful shipping. Yes, Iran is in the wrong for so doing. But, they are not the real villain of the piece. That guilt lies elsewhere. The threat of the blockade against Iran came first. Only then did the Iranians make their own threat.
However, before we unduly criticize the Iranians for this threat, let us put the matter in context. The U.S. government has also threatened a blockade of Iran. With many statements emanating from Washington D.C. to the effect that the U.S. government "is not taking anything off the table," they are menacing actions a lot more serious, and invasive, than a mere blockade.
Why is the U.S. acting in so bellicose a manner? This is because it seems to be a settled part of present American policy that Iran should not persists in its (supposed) goal of arming itself with nuclear weapons.
Now, somewhat paradoxically, I agree with the Obama administration on this matter. Iran should not have nuclear weapons. But, neither should anyone else! Why not? This is because they are necessarily offensive. This type of ordnance cannot be used in a way that distinguishes between the guilty and the innocent. States Rothbard in this regard: "… while the bow and arrow and even the rifle can be pinpointed, if the will be there, against actual criminals, modern nuclear weapons cannot. Here is a crucial difference in kind. Of course, the bow and arrow could be used for aggressive purposes, but it could also be pinpointed to use only against aggressors. Nuclear weapons, even ‘conventional’ aerial bombs, cannot be. These weapons are ipso facto engines of indiscriminate mass destruction." (For a further elaboration of this thesis and a discussion of its implications, see here.)
However, this demand of Iran on the part of the U.S. comes with particular ill grace given the fact that the latter country has thousands of such nuclear devices. If the Obama Administration had suddenly become infused with libertarianism in general, and with Rothbard’s analysis of nuclear weapons in particular, it would certainly be justified in continuing to press the Iranians not to develop such firearms. But it would begin this quest by getting rid of its own stocks first.
But are not the Iranians unstable? Are they not likely, under the leadership of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to use these items against innocent people? Did not this person threaten to wipe Israel off the map with them, that is, use such weapons against that country? No. This was a mis-translation of what he actually said (see here, here, here, here, here and especially here). Nor is it possible to ignore the fact that there is only one country on the face of the earth that has actually employed atomic weapons against innocent men, women and children. And that country, strangely enough, is not Iran. Rather, it is the good old U.S. of A., land of the free and home of the brave. (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and especially here).
So, while I certainly endorse Rothbard’s analysis according to which any and all atomic weaponry is illicit according the NAP, it does not at all logically follow that a country with thousands of such armaments, that has the distinction of being the only one to have ever murdered people with such a heinous weapon, is justified in using force to prevent another nation from obtaining one for itself. (I here stipulate, arguendo, that this is indeed the case; Iran of course insists it is interested in nuclear power for entirely peaceful purposes.)
Now that we have explored the context, let us return to the Iranian threat to close the Straits of Hormuz. From a libertarian point of view, in order to assess the validity of this threat, we must ask, Does this constitute initiatory aggression, or threats, or retaliation? For libertarians are not pacifists. We reserve the right to employ threats, aggression, violence, provided, only, that it is in response to a prior act, but does not constitute the prior act itself. So, did Iran "start up" with the U.S., or did the U.S. begin the hostilities?
When put in this stark manner, it is difficult in the extreme to see the Iranians as the aggressors. At worst, they were going to build a nuclear weapon, not merely avail themselves of the peaceful use of this technology. Along comes a country, much larger and more powerful than theirs, certainly lacking "clean hands" in this regard, and orders them to cease and desist, under dire threat. So, in response, the Iranians issue a threat of their own: to close off international waters to peaceful shipping. Yes, Iran is in the wrong for so doing. But, they are not the real villain of the piece. That guilt lies elsewhere. The threat of the blockade against Iran came first. Only then did the Iranians make their own threat.
WHAT I THINK........DAVID GORDON
This brilliant book collects fifty short essays by Ron Paul on issues that range from abortion and assassination to unions and Zionism. It is no disparate assemblage, though; rather it is unified around a central theme, the vital importance of liberty. Paul’s defense of liberty and opposition to its contemporary enemies put him at odds with all establishment politicians, both Republican and Democratic.
As he puts the point with characteristic force: "For more than 100 years, the dominant views that have influenced our politicians have undermined the principles of personal liberty and private property, The tragedy is these bad policies have had strong bipartisan support. There has been no real opposition to the steady increase in the size and scope of government. Democrats are largely and openly for government expansion, and if we were to judge the Republicans by their actions and not their rhetoric, we would come to much the same conclusion about them."(p.20)
What exactly is the liberty that Paul favors? He makes clear at the book’s start what he has in mind: "Liberty means to exercise human rights in any manner a person chooses so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others. This means, above all else, keeping government out of our lives." (p.xi) And of course the liberties in question include property rights: a free society rests on a free market economy.
Few if any in American politics will openly avow total opposition to liberty and property, but the mainstream approach toward these values differs entirely from Paul’s. As conventional politicians see matters, liberty and property, whatever their importance, must be balanced against other values, such as social justice and security. Is it not reasonable, they say, that the rich should surrender a little of their wealth to help the destitute? Again, does not an absolutist conception of civil liberties ignore the peril of terrorism? Even if we must submit to bothersome surveillance and intrusions, is not the price worth paying if these measures reduce the dangers of a terrorist assault?
It is a principal merit of Liberty Defined to refute these all too common contentions. As Paul trenchantly points out, attempts to surrender a slight amount of liberty in pursuit of competing values lead rapidly to drastic incursions on freedom, if not its virtually complete curtailment. "Granting food stamps benefits to 2 percent of the population in need seems like a reasonable thing to do. But what is not realized is that though only 2 percent get undeserved benefits from the 98 percent, 100 percent of the principle of individual liberty has been sacrificed. . . it was only to be expected that the dependency of 2 percent would grow and spread. . .Here is a good example of how a compromise can lead to chaos. The personal income tax began at 1 percent and applied only to the rich. Just look at the size of the tax code today." (pp.129-30)
Paul’s contention should not be set aside as a "slippery-slope" argument. His view is not that it is logically necessary that any incursion on liberty lead on to others. Rather, his contention is twofold: people who favor balancing liberty against other values have failed to arrive at a principled limit on sacrifices of liberty; and experience with such balancing shows that it abandons freedom.
Precisely the same process of incremental surrender takes place over security. "Many Americans believe that it is necessary to sacrifice some freedom for security in order to preserve freedom in the greater sense." (p.253) This belief has at times led to the defense of gravely immoral behavior: "In recent years, especially since 9/11, a majority of the American people have been brainwashed into believing that our national security depends on torture and that it’s been effective. The fact is, our Constitution, our laws, international laws, and the code of morality all forbid it. . .The old ruse is to ask what if you knew someone had vital information that, if revealed, would save American lives. . . The question that supporters of torture refuse to even ask is, If one suspects that one individual out of 100 captured has crucial information, and you don’t know which one it is, are you justified to torture all 100 to get that information? If we still get a yes answer in support of such torture, I’m afraid our current system of government cannot survive." (pp.290-91)
But if we renounce, in all instances, the use of torture, do we not put our nation at risk? To the contrary, the view that security depends on the state, let alone state-mandated torture, rests on illusion. If a genuine threat to life and liberty is present, people in a free society can deal with it voluntarily: government coercion is superfluous. "In a free society, where depending on government is minimal or absent, any real crisis serves to motivate individuals, families, churches, and communities to come together and work to offset the crisis, whether it comes from natural causes. . .or is man-made." (p.254)
Are threats posed by foreign nations an exception to this contention? Not at all. These alleged threats are grossly exaggerated in order to aggrandize the State’s power. The so-called "war on terrorism" perfectly illustrates how the State uses a blown-up crisis to its own advantage: "For a little bit of reassurance – even with all the bad mistakes that contributed to the terrorist dangers – it is more likely that an American will die from being hit by lightning than from a terrorist attack." (p.97)
With great courage for someone seeking the presidency, Paul notes that our misbegotten quest for "security" has led to America’s becoming a menace to other nations. "Now many Americans can’t even conceive of other countries believing the United States to be a threat. And yet, ours is the only government that will travel to far distant lands to overthrow governments, station troops, and drop bombs on people. The United States is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against people. And we are surprised that many people in the world regard the United States as a threat?" (p.257)
The policy of American aggression unfortunately did not begin with the Bush and Obama administrations. These presidents followed in the footsteps of many eminent predecessors in office. Not least of these was Franklin Roosevelt, who spoke of "freedom from fear" but was a past master at arousing the very emotion he professed to allay, in order the better to pursue his bellicose scheming: "Roosevelt’s motivation and intent [in the Four Freedoms Speech] are unknown to me, but the results of his effort did not serve the cause of freedom in the United States. Within seven months of this speech, Roosevelt stopped all oil shipments to Japan, which helped lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. All the while, Roosevelt preached a distorted view of freedom; he was maneuvering us into war." (p.125)
In light of the campaign of contumely to which Ron Paul has of late been subjected, one turns with particular interest to his remarks on racism. He insightfully draws a connection between racism and a war-dominated foreign policy: "Wartime is an environment that breeds wicked forms of racism. This is because governments love to turn existing prejudices into hate in order to mobilize the masses. . . If we hate racism, we must also hate war since it is war that has bred all these malignant types of racism. . .Government-backed racism is designed to shore up government power. The idea is to stir popular opinion that should be directed against one’s own government toward some evil foreign enemy."(pp.239, 241)
Paul’s struggle against American empire has won him wide notice, but he is equally famous for his campaign for sound money and a free economy. Indeed, the two battles are closely linked, since it is military Keynesianism that supports the extensive government spending that the quest for empire requires. "Military Keynesianism supported by both conservatives and liberals has led to an obscene amount of taxpayer dollars being spent, now surpassing the military spending of all other nations combined. . .Military Keynesianism invites mercantilist policies. Frequently, our armies follow corporate investments around the world, and have for more than a hundred years. . .There’s something about military Keynesianism that I dislike even more than domestic economic Keynesianism. Too many times, I’ve seen how the conservative agenda of cutting government gets overtaken by this ideological attachment to unlimited military spending." (pp.174-76)
Paul does not confine himself to criticism but has a remedy for this dire state of affairs. The government should retire altogether from economic intervention and allow the free economy to work unhindered. In particular, the government should altogether renounce its control over the money supply. His familiar rallying cry "End the Fed" is part of a larger program: "I would like to see a dollar as good as gold. I would like to see the banking system operating as it would under free enterprise, meaning no central bank. I would like to see competitive currencies emerge on the market and be permitted to thrive.. . .Paper money is a drug and Washington is addicted. . .Washington should get out of the way and let another system built on human choice emerge spontaneously." (pp.201-202)
Paul’s entire political program rests firmly on moral principles. He movingly sums up what he believes in this way: "What moral system should government follow? The same one individuals follow. Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not bear false witness. Do not covet. Do not foster vice. If governments would merely follow the moral law that all religions recognize, we would live in a world of peace, prosperity, and freedom. The system is called classical liberalism. Liberty is not complicated." (p.211)
As he puts the point with characteristic force: "For more than 100 years, the dominant views that have influenced our politicians have undermined the principles of personal liberty and private property, The tragedy is these bad policies have had strong bipartisan support. There has been no real opposition to the steady increase in the size and scope of government. Democrats are largely and openly for government expansion, and if we were to judge the Republicans by their actions and not their rhetoric, we would come to much the same conclusion about them."(p.20)
What exactly is the liberty that Paul favors? He makes clear at the book’s start what he has in mind: "Liberty means to exercise human rights in any manner a person chooses so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others. This means, above all else, keeping government out of our lives." (p.xi) And of course the liberties in question include property rights: a free society rests on a free market economy.
Few if any in American politics will openly avow total opposition to liberty and property, but the mainstream approach toward these values differs entirely from Paul’s. As conventional politicians see matters, liberty and property, whatever their importance, must be balanced against other values, such as social justice and security. Is it not reasonable, they say, that the rich should surrender a little of their wealth to help the destitute? Again, does not an absolutist conception of civil liberties ignore the peril of terrorism? Even if we must submit to bothersome surveillance and intrusions, is not the price worth paying if these measures reduce the dangers of a terrorist assault?
It is a principal merit of Liberty Defined to refute these all too common contentions. As Paul trenchantly points out, attempts to surrender a slight amount of liberty in pursuit of competing values lead rapidly to drastic incursions on freedom, if not its virtually complete curtailment. "Granting food stamps benefits to 2 percent of the population in need seems like a reasonable thing to do. But what is not realized is that though only 2 percent get undeserved benefits from the 98 percent, 100 percent of the principle of individual liberty has been sacrificed. . . it was only to be expected that the dependency of 2 percent would grow and spread. . .Here is a good example of how a compromise can lead to chaos. The personal income tax began at 1 percent and applied only to the rich. Just look at the size of the tax code today." (pp.129-30)
Paul’s contention should not be set aside as a "slippery-slope" argument. His view is not that it is logically necessary that any incursion on liberty lead on to others. Rather, his contention is twofold: people who favor balancing liberty against other values have failed to arrive at a principled limit on sacrifices of liberty; and experience with such balancing shows that it abandons freedom.
Precisely the same process of incremental surrender takes place over security. "Many Americans believe that it is necessary to sacrifice some freedom for security in order to preserve freedom in the greater sense." (p.253) This belief has at times led to the defense of gravely immoral behavior: "In recent years, especially since 9/11, a majority of the American people have been brainwashed into believing that our national security depends on torture and that it’s been effective. The fact is, our Constitution, our laws, international laws, and the code of morality all forbid it. . .The old ruse is to ask what if you knew someone had vital information that, if revealed, would save American lives. . . The question that supporters of torture refuse to even ask is, If one suspects that one individual out of 100 captured has crucial information, and you don’t know which one it is, are you justified to torture all 100 to get that information? If we still get a yes answer in support of such torture, I’m afraid our current system of government cannot survive." (pp.290-91)
But if we renounce, in all instances, the use of torture, do we not put our nation at risk? To the contrary, the view that security depends on the state, let alone state-mandated torture, rests on illusion. If a genuine threat to life and liberty is present, people in a free society can deal with it voluntarily: government coercion is superfluous. "In a free society, where depending on government is minimal or absent, any real crisis serves to motivate individuals, families, churches, and communities to come together and work to offset the crisis, whether it comes from natural causes. . .or is man-made." (p.254)
Are threats posed by foreign nations an exception to this contention? Not at all. These alleged threats are grossly exaggerated in order to aggrandize the State’s power. The so-called "war on terrorism" perfectly illustrates how the State uses a blown-up crisis to its own advantage: "For a little bit of reassurance – even with all the bad mistakes that contributed to the terrorist dangers – it is more likely that an American will die from being hit by lightning than from a terrorist attack." (p.97)
With great courage for someone seeking the presidency, Paul notes that our misbegotten quest for "security" has led to America’s becoming a menace to other nations. "Now many Americans can’t even conceive of other countries believing the United States to be a threat. And yet, ours is the only government that will travel to far distant lands to overthrow governments, station troops, and drop bombs on people. The United States is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against people. And we are surprised that many people in the world regard the United States as a threat?" (p.257)
The policy of American aggression unfortunately did not begin with the Bush and Obama administrations. These presidents followed in the footsteps of many eminent predecessors in office. Not least of these was Franklin Roosevelt, who spoke of "freedom from fear" but was a past master at arousing the very emotion he professed to allay, in order the better to pursue his bellicose scheming: "Roosevelt’s motivation and intent [in the Four Freedoms Speech] are unknown to me, but the results of his effort did not serve the cause of freedom in the United States. Within seven months of this speech, Roosevelt stopped all oil shipments to Japan, which helped lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. All the while, Roosevelt preached a distorted view of freedom; he was maneuvering us into war." (p.125)
In light of the campaign of contumely to which Ron Paul has of late been subjected, one turns with particular interest to his remarks on racism. He insightfully draws a connection between racism and a war-dominated foreign policy: "Wartime is an environment that breeds wicked forms of racism. This is because governments love to turn existing prejudices into hate in order to mobilize the masses. . . If we hate racism, we must also hate war since it is war that has bred all these malignant types of racism. . .Government-backed racism is designed to shore up government power. The idea is to stir popular opinion that should be directed against one’s own government toward some evil foreign enemy."(pp.239, 241)
Paul’s struggle against American empire has won him wide notice, but he is equally famous for his campaign for sound money and a free economy. Indeed, the two battles are closely linked, since it is military Keynesianism that supports the extensive government spending that the quest for empire requires. "Military Keynesianism supported by both conservatives and liberals has led to an obscene amount of taxpayer dollars being spent, now surpassing the military spending of all other nations combined. . .Military Keynesianism invites mercantilist policies. Frequently, our armies follow corporate investments around the world, and have for more than a hundred years. . .There’s something about military Keynesianism that I dislike even more than domestic economic Keynesianism. Too many times, I’ve seen how the conservative agenda of cutting government gets overtaken by this ideological attachment to unlimited military spending." (pp.174-76)
Paul does not confine himself to criticism but has a remedy for this dire state of affairs. The government should retire altogether from economic intervention and allow the free economy to work unhindered. In particular, the government should altogether renounce its control over the money supply. His familiar rallying cry "End the Fed" is part of a larger program: "I would like to see a dollar as good as gold. I would like to see the banking system operating as it would under free enterprise, meaning no central bank. I would like to see competitive currencies emerge on the market and be permitted to thrive.. . .Paper money is a drug and Washington is addicted. . .Washington should get out of the way and let another system built on human choice emerge spontaneously." (pp.201-202)
Paul’s entire political program rests firmly on moral principles. He movingly sums up what he believes in this way: "What moral system should government follow? The same one individuals follow. Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not bear false witness. Do not covet. Do not foster vice. If governments would merely follow the moral law that all religions recognize, we would live in a world of peace, prosperity, and freedom. The system is called classical liberalism. Liberty is not complicated." (p.211)
WHAT I THINK.......THOMAS DiLORENZO
Former Bush administration speechwriter Michael Gerson, who is now a columnist for the company newspaper of the company town known as Washington, D.C., recently authored yet another hysterical neocon rant over the Ron Paul candidacy. Ron Paul is on a "quest to undo the Party of Lincoln," blared Gerson’s headline. Every freedom-loving, patriotic American can only hope and pray that Ron Paul succeeds.
Gerson’s tone is dripping with venomous hatred when he accuses Ron Paul of being some kind of nut by calling the Civil War "senseless" and of saying that Lincoln ruled with an iron fist. Generations of historians have also called the Civil War "senseless" or something similar. "The bumbling generation" is how some historians describe the Civil War-era politicians who plunged the nation into war, the most preeminent of whom was Lincoln himself. But when Ron Paul refers to the war in that way what he has in mind is the true historical fact that all other countries of the world that ended slavery in the nineteenth century – including most of the Northern states in the U.S – did so peacefully. The British, French, Spaniards, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, and others ended slavery in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, all of Central America, Mexico, Bolivia, Uruguay, the French and Danish colonies, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela without resorting to the mass murder and destruction of war. (See Jim Powell. Greatest Emancipations: How the West Ended Slavery; Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery; and Slavery in New York, published by the New York Historical Society).
Only Gerson’s beloved "Party of Lincoln" used slaves as political pawns in a war that all of them – Lincoln as well as the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress of 1861-1865 – stated over and over again was commenced to "save the union" (and consolidate political power in Washington, D.C.), and not to disturb Southern slavery. As Lincoln said in his famous 1862 letter to newspaper editor Horace Greeley, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." On July 22, 1861 the U.S. Congress announced to the world that the purpose of the war it had commenced was NOT "interference with the rights or established institutions of those states" [i.e., slavery], but to preserve the Union with the rights of the several states unimpaired." Gerson is obviously unaware of all of this.
Of course, Lincoln’s "save the Union" rhetoric was always outrageous nonsense. The original American union of the founding fathers was a voluntary union based on the Jeffersonian notion in the Declaration of Independence that the just powers of government result only from the consent of the governed, and whenever that consent was withdrawn, it was the duty of the governed to abolish that government. It was nothing more than a practical political arrangement and not some magical, mystical, sacred union that "justified" the mass murder of more than 350,000 Southerners to "save" it. Indeed, the founding fathers would probably have thought such a thing to be perhaps the biggest atrocity in world history.
Lincoln’s war destroyed the union of the founding fathers by forcing all states, North and South, to obey without question the dictates of Washington, D.C. – or else. Michael Gerson seems completely ignorant of all of this history when he mocks Ron Paul by saying "Paul is the most anti-Lincoln public official since Jefferson Davis . . . . According to Paul, Lincoln caused 600,000 Americans to die in order to ‘get rid of the original intent of the republic.’" Exactly. Even if it was not Lincoln’s intent – which it most certainly was since he was the political heir to the Hamiltonian/consolidationist wing of the American political tradition – it was undeniably the effect of Lincoln’s war. It is what would lead to such absurdities as someone like Michael Gerson becoming a propaganda mouthpiece for our rulers in Washington, D.C.
In his first inaugural address Lincoln threatened "invasion" and "bloodshed" in any state that refused to collect the newly-doubled tariff on imports, which at the time constituted more than 90 percent of all federal tax revenues. Two years later the Republican Party apparently decided that the murder of hundreds of thousands and the destruction of entire cities in the South could not be justified before world opinion if it was motivated by the greed for money and power – which of course it was, as is almost always the case with all wars. So the slaves were used as political pawns to cover up the true intentions of the Party of Lincoln, which from that time on has described itself as the "Grand Old Party" or the party of great moral ideas! (When you hear that rhetoric, think of the party’s great moral leaders, such as Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, or Newt Gingrich, all of whom have employed speechwriters like Michael Gerson to compose such nonsense for them).
Gerson also mocks the notion that Lincoln ruled "with an iron fist," which also demonstrates his complete ignorance of this aspect of American history. It is well known by anyone who bothers to learn about it that Lincoln illegally suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus (even his own attorney general said so) since only Congress can legally do so. He ordered the military to mass arrest thousands of Northern critics of his administration, without due process, and imprison them indefinitely. These included many opposition newspaper editors, and even the Mayor of Baltimore, Congressman Henry May of Maryland, and the grandson of Francis Scott Key, who had editorialized against Lincoln’s tyranny.
Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roger B. Taney after Judge Taney issued his opinion that Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional. He deported the most outspoken member of the opposition party, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio; confiscated firearms in the border states; instituted the first federal military conscription law; oversaw the daily shooting of hundreds of deserters to his army; and even announced that merely remaining silent when his administration’s policies were being discussed constituted "treason." Most importantly, the Republican Party’s invasion of the Southern states was the very definition of Treason under the Constitution. All of this – and worse – is why generations of historians have referred to the Lincoln presidency as the "Lincoln dictatorship," another historical fact that Gerson is oblivious to.
Treason is defined in Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution as follows: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" (emphasis added). "United States" is always in the plural in all the founding documents, signifying the free and independent states. Treason was defined as "only" waging war against the free and independent states, which of course is exactly what Lincoln and his party did. Again, Michael Gerson is ignorant of all of this.
Gerson’s ignorance of the history that he pretends to pontificate about gets even worse. He claims that Ron Paul’s "conception of liberty is not the same as Lincoln’s." Yes, and thank God for Ron Paul. What advocate of liberty would destroy the Constitution, imprison political dissenters, murder hundreds of thousands of his own citizens over tax collection, and then claim the moral high ground by including a few Biblical phrases in his political speeches (even though he himself was an atheist)?
Gerson is also unaware that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to "rebel territory," where the U.S. Army had no ability to free anyone, and that Lincoln called it a "war measure" that would have ended had the war ended on the next day. In other words, it freed no one, and had the war abruptly ended Lincoln was perfectly satisfied to allow the Southern states to do whatever they wanted to do with the slaves as long as they continued to pay federal tariff taxes. Indeed, in one speech he nonchalantly forecast that slavery would probably fade away sometime in the early twentieth century.
In addition to his shocking ignorance of American history, Michael Gerson is just plain hysterical and nonsensical with some of his other broadsides against Ron Paul. For example, any reasonable person who spends a small amount of time educating himself about the actual effects of the government’s "war on drugs" would have to conclude that it has been a colossal failure: It has utterly failed to reduce drug use; it has made the illicit drug trade more profitable by causing the price of illegal drugs (and the profits from selling them) to increase dramatically; it is the primary cause of violence in America, just as alcohol prohibition was in the 1920s and early 1930s; it has corrupted police and judges; it has lured untold numbers of children into the business because of the money they can make; and it has led to the grossly disproportionate imprisonment of young African-American men for victimless "crimes." Gerson mentions none of these facts, but only screams that Ron Paul has "proposed . . . legalization"!!!!!! This is supposed to be a self-evident fact that proves Ron Paul to be "disqualified" as a presidential candidate, says Gerson.
Unlike Ron Paul, who champions the constitutional dictum of equality under the law for all Americans, Michael Gerson parrots the Washington establishment’s view that inequality under the law in the form of institutionalized discrimination against white males, which is what "civil rights regulation" became immediately upon passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is more appropriate. To Ron Paul, government-sanctioned discrimination is discrimination, no matter what the skin color of the victims. Two wrongs do not make a right, in other words. Michael Gerson apparently never learned this elementary lesson.
Since David Duke is also known to have run for political office in Louisiana several decades ago by protesting racial hiring quotas and reverse discrimination, Gerson outrageously accuses Ron Paul of "defending former Ku Klux Kan Grand Wizard David Duke," proving that he is dishonest as well as ignorant of the subjects he is writing about.
Gerson is also outraged that Ron Paul has described American foreign policy as "aggressive" and "expansionist." Has Michael Gerson ever stepped foot outside of Washington, D.C.? Does he really reside on Planet Earth?
In one final burst of stupidity, Gerson concludes his essay be claiming that the U.S. entered World War II to save the European Jews from the Holocaust. (Earth to Michael Gerson: The Holocaust happened; the U.S. government did not save the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis). He makes this remarkably stupefying statement so that he can proclaim to his Washington Post audience that "Paul’s conception of liberty . . . would have freed the occupants of concentration camps from their dependency on liberating armies."
Michael Gerson pretends that Ron Paul has invented out of thin air his own personal conceptions of "liberty." Anyone who knows anything about Ron Paul – unlike the Michael Gersons of the world – understands why this is so absurd. Ron Paul has for many decades been a serious student of the classical liberal tradition of European and American thought. He is extraordinarily well educated in the free-market economics tradition of the Austrian School of Economics, associated with such scholars as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Henry Hazlitt. He is well schooled in the natural rights philosophy that informed the American founding fathers, and which is so beautifully articulated in such publications as The Law by Frederic Bastiat. He understands the logic of the foreign policy ideas of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who I would wager were far more thoughtful and educated on the subject than Michael Gerson is.
One thing that Gerson gets right is that Ron Paul’s conception of liberty, based on the above-mentioned literature, is indeed very different from those of Lincoln’s. Lincoln probably never even read The Federalist Papers; his personal library consisted almost entirely of books on rhetoric and speech making and political strategy. He was a champion of central banking, protectionist tariffs, and corporate welfare, all for the benefit of the Northern business elite that financed his career and his party at the expense of the rest of the public. He was willing to wage total war on his own citizens for the benefit of his own political benefactors. He was a machine politician who would make today’s Chicago politicians look like so many Mother Theresas by comparison. He deplored constitutional limitations on his own dictatorial powers, and waged war on his own countrymen for refusing to have their federal taxes doubled. Read Lincoln’s first inaugural address for yourself.
If Ron Paul succeeds in his "quest to undo the Party of Lincoln" it would be the greatest advance in freedom for Americans since the ending of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1866.
Gerson’s tone is dripping with venomous hatred when he accuses Ron Paul of being some kind of nut by calling the Civil War "senseless" and of saying that Lincoln ruled with an iron fist. Generations of historians have also called the Civil War "senseless" or something similar. "The bumbling generation" is how some historians describe the Civil War-era politicians who plunged the nation into war, the most preeminent of whom was Lincoln himself. But when Ron Paul refers to the war in that way what he has in mind is the true historical fact that all other countries of the world that ended slavery in the nineteenth century – including most of the Northern states in the U.S – did so peacefully. The British, French, Spaniards, Dutch, Swedes, Danes, and others ended slavery in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, all of Central America, Mexico, Bolivia, Uruguay, the French and Danish colonies, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela without resorting to the mass murder and destruction of war. (See Jim Powell. Greatest Emancipations: How the West Ended Slavery; Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery; and Slavery in New York, published by the New York Historical Society).
Only Gerson’s beloved "Party of Lincoln" used slaves as political pawns in a war that all of them – Lincoln as well as the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress of 1861-1865 – stated over and over again was commenced to "save the union" (and consolidate political power in Washington, D.C.), and not to disturb Southern slavery. As Lincoln said in his famous 1862 letter to newspaper editor Horace Greeley, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." On July 22, 1861 the U.S. Congress announced to the world that the purpose of the war it had commenced was NOT "interference with the rights or established institutions of those states" [i.e., slavery], but to preserve the Union with the rights of the several states unimpaired." Gerson is obviously unaware of all of this.
Of course, Lincoln’s "save the Union" rhetoric was always outrageous nonsense. The original American union of the founding fathers was a voluntary union based on the Jeffersonian notion in the Declaration of Independence that the just powers of government result only from the consent of the governed, and whenever that consent was withdrawn, it was the duty of the governed to abolish that government. It was nothing more than a practical political arrangement and not some magical, mystical, sacred union that "justified" the mass murder of more than 350,000 Southerners to "save" it. Indeed, the founding fathers would probably have thought such a thing to be perhaps the biggest atrocity in world history.
Lincoln’s war destroyed the union of the founding fathers by forcing all states, North and South, to obey without question the dictates of Washington, D.C. – or else. Michael Gerson seems completely ignorant of all of this history when he mocks Ron Paul by saying "Paul is the most anti-Lincoln public official since Jefferson Davis . . . . According to Paul, Lincoln caused 600,000 Americans to die in order to ‘get rid of the original intent of the republic.’" Exactly. Even if it was not Lincoln’s intent – which it most certainly was since he was the political heir to the Hamiltonian/consolidationist wing of the American political tradition – it was undeniably the effect of Lincoln’s war. It is what would lead to such absurdities as someone like Michael Gerson becoming a propaganda mouthpiece for our rulers in Washington, D.C.
In his first inaugural address Lincoln threatened "invasion" and "bloodshed" in any state that refused to collect the newly-doubled tariff on imports, which at the time constituted more than 90 percent of all federal tax revenues. Two years later the Republican Party apparently decided that the murder of hundreds of thousands and the destruction of entire cities in the South could not be justified before world opinion if it was motivated by the greed for money and power – which of course it was, as is almost always the case with all wars. So the slaves were used as political pawns to cover up the true intentions of the Party of Lincoln, which from that time on has described itself as the "Grand Old Party" or the party of great moral ideas! (When you hear that rhetoric, think of the party’s great moral leaders, such as Bob Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain, or Newt Gingrich, all of whom have employed speechwriters like Michael Gerson to compose such nonsense for them).
Gerson also mocks the notion that Lincoln ruled "with an iron fist," which also demonstrates his complete ignorance of this aspect of American history. It is well known by anyone who bothers to learn about it that Lincoln illegally suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus (even his own attorney general said so) since only Congress can legally do so. He ordered the military to mass arrest thousands of Northern critics of his administration, without due process, and imprison them indefinitely. These included many opposition newspaper editors, and even the Mayor of Baltimore, Congressman Henry May of Maryland, and the grandson of Francis Scott Key, who had editorialized against Lincoln’s tyranny.
Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roger B. Taney after Judge Taney issued his opinion that Lincoln’s suspension of Habeas Corpus was unconstitutional. He deported the most outspoken member of the opposition party, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio; confiscated firearms in the border states; instituted the first federal military conscription law; oversaw the daily shooting of hundreds of deserters to his army; and even announced that merely remaining silent when his administration’s policies were being discussed constituted "treason." Most importantly, the Republican Party’s invasion of the Southern states was the very definition of Treason under the Constitution. All of this – and worse – is why generations of historians have referred to the Lincoln presidency as the "Lincoln dictatorship," another historical fact that Gerson is oblivious to.
Treason is defined in Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution as follows: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" (emphasis added). "United States" is always in the plural in all the founding documents, signifying the free and independent states. Treason was defined as "only" waging war against the free and independent states, which of course is exactly what Lincoln and his party did. Again, Michael Gerson is ignorant of all of this.
Gerson’s ignorance of the history that he pretends to pontificate about gets even worse. He claims that Ron Paul’s "conception of liberty is not the same as Lincoln’s." Yes, and thank God for Ron Paul. What advocate of liberty would destroy the Constitution, imprison political dissenters, murder hundreds of thousands of his own citizens over tax collection, and then claim the moral high ground by including a few Biblical phrases in his political speeches (even though he himself was an atheist)?
Gerson is also unaware that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to "rebel territory," where the U.S. Army had no ability to free anyone, and that Lincoln called it a "war measure" that would have ended had the war ended on the next day. In other words, it freed no one, and had the war abruptly ended Lincoln was perfectly satisfied to allow the Southern states to do whatever they wanted to do with the slaves as long as they continued to pay federal tariff taxes. Indeed, in one speech he nonchalantly forecast that slavery would probably fade away sometime in the early twentieth century.
In addition to his shocking ignorance of American history, Michael Gerson is just plain hysterical and nonsensical with some of his other broadsides against Ron Paul. For example, any reasonable person who spends a small amount of time educating himself about the actual effects of the government’s "war on drugs" would have to conclude that it has been a colossal failure: It has utterly failed to reduce drug use; it has made the illicit drug trade more profitable by causing the price of illegal drugs (and the profits from selling them) to increase dramatically; it is the primary cause of violence in America, just as alcohol prohibition was in the 1920s and early 1930s; it has corrupted police and judges; it has lured untold numbers of children into the business because of the money they can make; and it has led to the grossly disproportionate imprisonment of young African-American men for victimless "crimes." Gerson mentions none of these facts, but only screams that Ron Paul has "proposed . . . legalization"!!!!!! This is supposed to be a self-evident fact that proves Ron Paul to be "disqualified" as a presidential candidate, says Gerson.
Unlike Ron Paul, who champions the constitutional dictum of equality under the law for all Americans, Michael Gerson parrots the Washington establishment’s view that inequality under the law in the form of institutionalized discrimination against white males, which is what "civil rights regulation" became immediately upon passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is more appropriate. To Ron Paul, government-sanctioned discrimination is discrimination, no matter what the skin color of the victims. Two wrongs do not make a right, in other words. Michael Gerson apparently never learned this elementary lesson.
Since David Duke is also known to have run for political office in Louisiana several decades ago by protesting racial hiring quotas and reverse discrimination, Gerson outrageously accuses Ron Paul of "defending former Ku Klux Kan Grand Wizard David Duke," proving that he is dishonest as well as ignorant of the subjects he is writing about.
Gerson is also outraged that Ron Paul has described American foreign policy as "aggressive" and "expansionist." Has Michael Gerson ever stepped foot outside of Washington, D.C.? Does he really reside on Planet Earth?
In one final burst of stupidity, Gerson concludes his essay be claiming that the U.S. entered World War II to save the European Jews from the Holocaust. (Earth to Michael Gerson: The Holocaust happened; the U.S. government did not save the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis). He makes this remarkably stupefying statement so that he can proclaim to his Washington Post audience that "Paul’s conception of liberty . . . would have freed the occupants of concentration camps from their dependency on liberating armies."
Michael Gerson pretends that Ron Paul has invented out of thin air his own personal conceptions of "liberty." Anyone who knows anything about Ron Paul – unlike the Michael Gersons of the world – understands why this is so absurd. Ron Paul has for many decades been a serious student of the classical liberal tradition of European and American thought. He is extraordinarily well educated in the free-market economics tradition of the Austrian School of Economics, associated with such scholars as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Henry Hazlitt. He is well schooled in the natural rights philosophy that informed the American founding fathers, and which is so beautifully articulated in such publications as The Law by Frederic Bastiat. He understands the logic of the foreign policy ideas of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who I would wager were far more thoughtful and educated on the subject than Michael Gerson is.
One thing that Gerson gets right is that Ron Paul’s conception of liberty, based on the above-mentioned literature, is indeed very different from those of Lincoln’s. Lincoln probably never even read The Federalist Papers; his personal library consisted almost entirely of books on rhetoric and speech making and political strategy. He was a champion of central banking, protectionist tariffs, and corporate welfare, all for the benefit of the Northern business elite that financed his career and his party at the expense of the rest of the public. He was willing to wage total war on his own citizens for the benefit of his own political benefactors. He was a machine politician who would make today’s Chicago politicians look like so many Mother Theresas by comparison. He deplored constitutional limitations on his own dictatorial powers, and waged war on his own countrymen for refusing to have their federal taxes doubled. Read Lincoln’s first inaugural address for yourself.
If Ron Paul succeeds in his "quest to undo the Party of Lincoln" it would be the greatest advance in freedom for Americans since the ending of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1866.
Tuesday
DEBT BURDEN THREATENS AMERICAN FAMILIES
Last week, as most Americans were celebrating the holidays with family and friends, the Obama Administration announced plans to seek yet another debt ceiling increase in the New Year. While some fiscal conservatives will try to block this increase, their efforts are designed to fail thanks to the procedure set up by the last debt ceiling negotiations. Congress would have to pass a joint resolution opposing the increase, which the president could simply veto. Thus, an additional $1.2 trillion on top of our already unsustainable debt is a foregone conclusion. Our Gross Domestic Product continues to contract and now stands at $14.5 trillion. The debt already far exceeds that and will soon hit the new ceiling of $16.39 trillion.
Everyone in DC acknowledges that the debt is unsustainable, yet few are willing to take serious steps toward addressing it. Politicians in Washington cannot face the fact that the blank checks must stop. Many think we can ignore the mounting debts and deficits and eventually the economy will magically turn around and grow its way out of the mess. If you really understand why the economy is foundering, you understand the burden cannot all be put on the backs of the American people while politicians stick their heads in the sand.
According to a USA Today analysis, there are currently over $61.6 trillion in unfunded future government liabilities, which amounts to $528,000 per American household. A huge part of these liabilities are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – promises made to make the American people feel secure in their futures. But how secure should the American people feel knowing that a default is becoming more mathematically unavoidable with every NEW program added, every bailout, every debt ceiling increase, every new war we rush into, and every round of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve? The last thing politicians should be doing is adding to that $528,000 household burden, with either more spending or more taxes. This is unequivocally a problem of too much spending by a government far outside its Constitutional bounds.
It is especially a slap in the face to the American family when the Federal Reserve dilutes the dollars we work for in order to bail out profligate banks and governments in Europe. The already perilous state of our economy and our currency should not be further endangered in a futile attempt to save the Euro. The least the government can do is allow Americans a choice in how to actually secure their financial futures that doesn’t depend on a sinking dollar and irresponsible government. My competing currency bill allows for that and I will continue to fight for economic freedom from foolish and selfish whims of the central bank.
It is nothing new for Washington to kick economic pain down the road. Optimistic politicians hope things will stay cobbled together just long enough to get through another election cycle, or that another administration will have to deal with the mess. The longer this cowardly attitude prevails, the bigger the problems become. Congress and the administration should exercise some good judgment, some political courage, and make the needed budgetary changes now. It would not be that difficult to do if Washington would simply work its way back to the Constitution instead of straying even further from it.
Everyone in DC acknowledges that the debt is unsustainable, yet few are willing to take serious steps toward addressing it. Politicians in Washington cannot face the fact that the blank checks must stop. Many think we can ignore the mounting debts and deficits and eventually the economy will magically turn around and grow its way out of the mess. If you really understand why the economy is foundering, you understand the burden cannot all be put on the backs of the American people while politicians stick their heads in the sand.
According to a USA Today analysis, there are currently over $61.6 trillion in unfunded future government liabilities, which amounts to $528,000 per American household. A huge part of these liabilities are Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – promises made to make the American people feel secure in their futures. But how secure should the American people feel knowing that a default is becoming more mathematically unavoidable with every NEW program added, every bailout, every debt ceiling increase, every new war we rush into, and every round of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve? The last thing politicians should be doing is adding to that $528,000 household burden, with either more spending or more taxes. This is unequivocally a problem of too much spending by a government far outside its Constitutional bounds.
It is especially a slap in the face to the American family when the Federal Reserve dilutes the dollars we work for in order to bail out profligate banks and governments in Europe. The already perilous state of our economy and our currency should not be further endangered in a futile attempt to save the Euro. The least the government can do is allow Americans a choice in how to actually secure their financial futures that doesn’t depend on a sinking dollar and irresponsible government. My competing currency bill allows for that and I will continue to fight for economic freedom from foolish and selfish whims of the central bank.
It is nothing new for Washington to kick economic pain down the road. Optimistic politicians hope things will stay cobbled together just long enough to get through another election cycle, or that another administration will have to deal with the mess. The longer this cowardly attitude prevails, the bigger the problems become. Congress and the administration should exercise some good judgment, some political courage, and make the needed budgetary changes now. It would not be that difficult to do if Washington would simply work its way back to the Constitution instead of straying even further from it.
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