The View From 1776

Kartik Ariyur takes a careful look at Lee Harris’s criticisms.

Reassessing Rep. Ron Paul’s Policy Positions
By Kartik B. Ariyur

I went through Lee Harris’ article. I don’t think that he has fully comprehended Rep. Paul’s arguments (he probably hasn’t read much beyond the libertarian label). Instead of countering 19th century historian Thomas Buckle, he should try to counter Rep. Paul.
 
I know that the active expression of virtue gives rise to the keenest intelligence—and therefore, when I heard Rep. Paul debating Mayor Giuliani, I studied his positions carefully. Given that he is the only Presidential candidate who has made a serious effort to uphold his Constitutional oath over the years, I believe every reasonable individual should study his positions seriously. On the other hand, when individuals openly violate an oath they take with their hands on Scripture, there is no reason why their positions should be given the benefit of doubt in initial study.

 
Rep. Paul’s position is not of the government not interfering in domestic affairs or for that matter of not conducting any foreign policy. His position rather, is that of upholding his Constitutional oath of office. He would have the Federal government interfere only to ensure equal justice under the law, the protection of free markets and private contracts, and secure the borders (and this is certainly no advocacy of zero government). He said he would go to war only with a Congressional declaration of war (never obtained since World War II), or if there is a clear and present danger.
 
What constitutes a clear and present danger differs from individual to individual. Those with greater faith prefer liberty to material comfort and security—for they recognize that there is never any gain of security through sacrificing liberty (Rep. Paul regularly quotes Benjamin Franklin on this topic). Those with lesser faith want to spend more of their income purchasing insulation rather than insurance (healthcare is a good example of this). Of course, those without very much faith prefer the job security of slavery to the uncertainty that liberty entails, and the pursuit of virtue and excellence that it enforces. For in a free society, one’s rewards are proportional to the value of service rendered to others in that society. Rep. Paul is willing to live with a small probability of a terrorist group acquiring or making a nuclear bomb and detonating it. And besides, he is the only Presidential candidate that believes in national sovereignty (no UN, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA…), and the protection of borders, and has practical plans to secure the border.
 
If you try in business to get the probability of an unfavorable event to zero, you end up paying a lot, and then expose yourself to several unfavorable events, because you haven’t mitigated all of the other risks and have spent all of your resources mitigating just one possibility. Rep. Paul is weighing the chances of different events—and he believes dependence upon Saudi Arabia (who are building fundamentalist mosques around the world and in the USA with the dollars they earn) and China for the day to day expenses of the Federal government constitutes a greater risk to national security at this time than Iran making a bomb and giving it to terrorist groups. Besides, he wants to let the Israelis destroy Iranian nuclear facilities if they want to—indeed, he was the only Representative in Congress to defend Israel’s destruction of the Osirak reactor in Iraq while Congress and the Reagan administration condemned Israeli self defense. He is clear that the danger posed by Al Qaeda or Iran is not in anyway of the same relative magnitude as that posed by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. He sees possible economic warfare by China and a monetary crisis as greater threats to security (and I happen to agree). The other more pressing dangers he sees are: the government controlling what ministers can say in the churches with their new legal tools; the institution of a police state which will prevent quick recovery from economic downturns. A police state can be economically efficient and provide a semblance of safety in the short term, but it would also destroy a culture of individuals speaking their minds, leading to a significant slowdown of innovation.
 
As for blowback, any violation of the natural rights of individuals, or offenses to their religious sensitivities, perceived or real, can result in violent retribution by those who take offense. And here, Rep. Paul is merely stating that US foreign policy has contributed to it and is stating that US citizens are better off without the US government using force to protect private commercial interests abroad. Moreover, he said that 9-11 would never have happened if the Unites States had respected the 2nd amendment and private property rights (without the FAA subsidizing the airlines and providing security, the airplanes may well have had cockpit doors and perhaps a gun or taser among the pilots/flight attendants; besides all the airlines would have had different security systems and would have been continuously evolving under competition—making it almost impossible for anyone to hijack). So this is rather consistent—the government violating natural rights at home and giving a perception of violating them abroad causes the problems. Blowback in this sense is the result of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ : whenever natural rights are violated, there are reactions.
 
Of course, this brings up the question of other nations getting cheaper oil because the Unites States does not intervene there. Does protection of oil interests abroad constitute a part of the General Welfare as intended in the Constitution? What if the Soviet Union had taken over the Persian Gulf? Would they have been able to hold on to it? Given that they needed food from the US and Western Europe, would they have tried imposing an oil embargo on the US? Even if they did hold on to it for a few years, wouldn’t the US have gotten along through more local drilling—ANWR and offshore drilling and Canadian oil. Besides, without spending a Trillion dollars abroad each year (2006—if you add up the money given to the World Bank, IMF, EXIM bank, UN, the 700 bases in 130 countries, foreign aid to the likes of Mr. Mugabe…--why do Americans or Europeans think that politicians in developing countries will actually use that money for the welfare of their citizens?), the US would not need the income tax; there would be a lot more prosperity, and an explosion of individual creativity. Clean coal would have long ago become a reality (because of free market competition induced by temporarily high oil prices), and that combined with widespread use of nuclear power would very likely have completely eliminated oil dependence.
 
But then, most aren’t willing to take risks, and freedom is risky, and it takes courage to take risks with your own life or property (unlike the banks or many corporate executives, who are not capitalists because they do not risk their own money—they are politicians). And one cannot have courage without faith in God or a Just Providence.
 
Most of the problems of society whether in the United States or elsewhere arise from a lack of faith—most want insulation, whether from oil supply shocks, or from healthcare costs, or for the cost of education—all of which result in enormous expenditures, whether in foreign military bases or in domestic bureaucracies, which results in the erosion of natural rights. If there were enough individuals with faith in a society, these problems would not arise. And if the number of those with faith becomes large enough again in the United States, there is no doubt that the Constitutional Republic would be restored.
 
To sum up, an individual such as Rep. Paul will be elected President of the United States only when the number of those with faith is significant. In fact, he was skeptical whether there were enough citizens who desired a return to the Rule of Law and limited Constitutional government. While the debate on war brought attention to his candidacy, it is the monetary issue that has energized and propelled support.