Ron Paul shocks the establishment
Ron Paul, radical, anti-war liberal (or in US parlance libertarian) libertarian has shocked the US political establishment by raising a record (for a Republican) $4 million in one day (the biggest amount raised in one day was Kerry with $5.7 million the day after he accepted the Democrat nomination).
What’s even more astonishing is he’s done so whilst being shunned by the Republican establishment and the mainstream media (until recently). What’s behind his success? I’m not sure, but I’d hazard a guess that he appeals to those fed up with the political establishment, those who want the government out of their lives. Those who want freedom from the high taxes and social conservatism of the current mainstream Republican and Democrat parties. Perhaps there’s a vestige of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian traditions left in some parts of the country. Its not that long since Barry Goldwater was a candidate and a senator. A Republican who made a principled defense of gay rights and attacked the power of central government.
I am hoping that miracles do happen and he will win the Republican nomination. A more likely scenario is that he will prompt the US political establishment to rediscover the liberalism which the Democrats abandoned in the early 20th Centurty and which the Republicans discovered a part of in the 20th Century. I hope this at least happens. The Democrats especially have a great opportunity to stake out this ground again. Unfortunately they, like the Republicans are dominated by anti-liberals at the top.
You may ask isn’t it somehow wrong for a LibDem to support a Republican? Ordinariliy perhaps, certainly a Bush-like candidate is anathema, but so should Hillary Clinton with her big state, authoritarian, bullying positions. Liberals in the US are really stuck for options and Ron Paul gives a voice to them.
He embodies many of the core principles of liberalism, personal freedom, limited government, the state out of your pocket and your bedroom. I don’t agree with him on all policies, but he really is a liberal - he says most of these are up to the state, or even county or town governments.
He’s against (rightly in my view) the schemes for universal healthcare, but if New York wishes to socialise health care it will be able to. As liberals surely this is music to our ears? Real localism. Trying different solutions to see what works best and produces the desired outcomes.
He would also end the ‘War on Drugs’, ending the suffering of many many people. Again if Texas wanted to make drugs illegal it could, but Californians would be able to use medical marujana without fear of the DEA raiding them and putting terminally ill people in prison for smoking a bit of weed.
Religious tolerance and freedom would once again be the name of the game. He’d seek to ensure religion and state would be firmly seperated.
In my more hopeful (or delusional) moments, I hope he’d be another Jackson, to be followed by another Van Buren, this time without slavery to divide the party and let the anti-liberal Lincoln successor in.
Not much chance of that, the vested interests in politics are probably too great, the political classes know they’re onto a good thing and won’t give up control easily. It is refreshing however to see a radical liberal actually getting support and the arguments being heard. It offers a glimmer of hope for liberalism. Those who aren’t so radical, or are radical in a different direction to Ron Paul (most of us I should think) should be glad that he will hopefully offer hope for the more moderate liberal views as well.
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November 6th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
The man is a loon. He believes the USA should leave organisation such as the WTO and UN; the diplomatic difficulties involved are obvious to anyone, aside from the practical issues. He is a firm isolationist, essentially.
On the church and state, Ron has said that the founding fathers wanted an America with a christian ethos, I wouldn’t hope for anything from him in that regard. What makes you think he would make sure church and state were any more firmly seperated that now?
Furthermore, he thinks we should return to commodity backed currency- i.e the gold standard. I would hope that someone as well versed in economics as you seem to be would understand why this is incredibly stupid.
He thinks that states should be allowed to ban abortion and that the army should keep the don’t ask don’t tell policy on homosexuality. He is not socially liberal at all.
I can’t see any explanation for your effusivness except some self-deception stemming from a fondness for his anti-government rhetoric without considering his wider policy program.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
He’s an interesting prospect for sure - but unfortunately he also shares the good bits of the Libertarian platform with some less savoury opinions, being strongly anti-immigration, anti-abortion, and pro-gun.
I’d say Joe Biden is probably the candidate who’s views are closest to British liberals at the moment.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Ron Paul may be a loon, but at least he’s a decent loon…
He’s a strict constitutionalist - he would remove the religion from any Federal law (although he himself would probably use religion as a guiding principle).
My reading of the constitution, and knowledge of history, is that religion is up to states. That is not ideal, but its far better than the current state.
Nobody has ever told me why a return to a commodity backed currency is a bad thing. Its one of those questions I am puzzled about. Personally I’d prefer free banking. If you prefer a gold standard then you use it, if you don’t then you don’t have to.
As for the less savoury options - abortion - I disagree, but I agree with him that it is not in the Federal jurisdiction. He would allow states to decide, leading to a formalisation of the current situation where abortions are hard to come by in many states due to public opinion (which would be the driver behind states outlawing it) but in other states its easy to come by. Given states cannot restrict movement between each other it means that essentially abortion will be legal still.
The right to bear arms - I’m all in favour. One of the worst things to happen in the 20th Century was government taking away that right from British citizens because they feared revolution after WWI. I know I’m in a minority amongst UK liberals, but there is no justification in banning arms, just in the illegitimate use of them.
Anti-immigration: that is unsavoury. Hopefully though he’d again be pursuaded that its a state’s right (as it is constitutionally) so California can benefit from the immigration and Texas can cut off the arm to fulfill narrow minded prejudice…
Ideally of course the US would revert to free immigration - that’s not going to happen any time soon.
I don’t know much about Biden - I will look into him, but Ron Paul has the charisma to push a liberal/libertarian movement forwards. Something which the US, and the world, desperately needs.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
I often agree with you, but Ron Paul is not a liberal in any parlance, he’s just a libertarian. With that comes the unsavoury and incorrect assertion that government is the sole evil to be combatted in pursuing the cause of indivual freedom.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:00 am
On issues like abortion, saying “states rights” is creating a valid circumstance for the violation of the most fundamental right of bodily automonomy, and I don’t think you would allow such apologia if you didn’t happen to support some of his other goals. The same applies for immigration. Saying they can just go somewhere else is no excuse for such actions, and is essentially blaming the victim.
You say leaving religion to the states is better than now- what terrible errors in democratic states will be removed that will account for the christianization of the bible belt?
As to the gold standard, private gold standard currencies can be bought, but then so can gold. For a state to back both currencies has drawbacks that I would hope are obvious, given that exchange would occur between the two.
As to its inherent draw backs, pegging to any real good has many problems. Firstly, it means that any changes in avalability or price of the good cause financial collapse, as seen in the deflation that ended the gold standard.
More importantly, it reduces freedom within markets to only the movement of capital- that is to say, liquidity is dictated by how much gold we can mine (substitute for any other good). The current financial market circumstances should surely provide an obvious example of issues of this on a much smaller scale than could arise with pegged currencies.
Some coherent arguments have been made by the likes of Greenspan on anchor currencies, although I still disagree. These use systems are set to use a wider range of goods. However, Ron Paul supports the archaic Gold standard.
I don’t think choosing a commodity whos demand is reliant substantially on demand for jewellery in India; which would have to be heavily stockpiled and horded by governments, putting it to less efficent use than otherwise; and whos inherent value can vary according to mining returns and the like, represents any sound economics but rather backing a favoured warhorse of a few libertarian diehards despite the fact its inane.
Given the furore over race around his campaign and previously, I am not even willing to allow that he is a decent loon I’m afraid. He pretty terrible all around as far as I can see, and I did initially think he might be ok, as American politicans go.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Paul:
Libertarianism is part of the liberal family, and it doesn’t universally see government as the only problem - that’s pretty much just the anarcho-capitalists. Even they are part of the liberal family, just as anarcho-communists are part of the socialist family, they’re just the extreme wing…
As for Ron Paul - he’s done several things which would actually fit well in the LibDems - he’s against pork barreling - something which LibDems would rail against I hope. He’s also proposed that Social Security benefits should not be taxed (solid LibDem there) and that money paid into Social Security should be used just for that and not siphoned off to other things - again I think LibDems would fully support that.
Paul does however exhibit too much conservatism, but at least that leads him to protect civil liberties and to respect individual choice in most areas.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
tinter:
Abortion is an issue which cuts across liberals. I don’t think that opposition to it should rule someone out, and unlike more other anti-abortion people he at least is not willing to impose his view upon others.
From a US point of view, states rights is the first step towards a liberal state, states can freely compete in the social and economic spheres. The people of the US are far wealthier than at any other time in history, even the poorest are. It is much easier to move between states than ever before.
As far as I understand modern gold bugs, they mean gold as a particular commodity, not necessarily gold. I think having a currency backed by a commodity of fixed amount with stable value would solve many of the problems of the current system, I however don’t know of one - gold as you point out is not really suitable.
The race rows- I thought they’d been dealt with - it certainly was not him expressing racist opinions.
Given the other Republican candidates, he is the only one I could hope wins the nomination. He’s at least dedicated to restricting the role of the state and getting back to the original (if still flawed) liberal ideas of the USA.
My hope is that he can cause a resurgence of the true liberals in the US, moving the Democrats away from their authoritarian statist position towards a liberal position.
At the very least he may cause a resurgence of the ‘Old Right’ in the US leading to the defeat of the ‘new right’ and neo-conservatives.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Further towards trying to remove the perception of libertarians seeing the state as the onnly evil - libertarians are against eminent domain abuse. This is perpetrated by government, but usually at business’s request.
If a business were to attempt the same thing without government sanction libertarians would be opposed, and most would look to government to prevent it.
Libertarians made a mistake in siding with business against the state in the 70s, they are now coming to realise that the interests of business are not those of liberty. (the more clueful knew this all along…)
November 7th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
And Ron Paul on Racism:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul68.html
Even if you disagree with what he says, those are not the words of a racist.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Tristan,
“Paul does however exhibit too much conservatism, but at least that leads him to protect civil liberties and to respect individual choice in most areas.”
Funny, conservatism seems to lead at least as many people in the opposite direction. Perhaps it is not conservatism at work there.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
But its not just abortion where he acts in a conservative manner- I believe I mentioned DADT? He is willing to resrict freedom and choice on a range of issues.
He is against economic interventions by states- I don’t care to differentiate between federal and American states, government is government- but happy for them to moralise away.
It is moralising that has been at the leading edge of support for neo-conservatism. He is not the man to knock it on the head.
My criticisms of gold apply to pegging to any single good. All the same problems as have happened with gold would occur. Those who make the argument for pegging sensibly suggest pegging to a range of goods and measures.
Ron Paul, as far as I have read, just wants to peg to gold. Given his economic program is all he has, this is a pretty critical blow in my book.
November 8th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Joe: We are talking US conservatism which has a strong strand of liberalism within it. The neo-cons have done away with that, but Goldwater style conservatives are pretty liberal.
Tinter:
DADT: He’s against treating people as groups. So he doesn’t care about whether you are gay, just if your actions are disruptive - that goes for heterosexual relationships as well as homosexual relationships.
The fact that he sees people as individuals not just part of a group is exceedingly liberal.
The moralising which you speak of is far far more prominent in the Democrats with Clinton wanting to ban gambling to ‘protect’ you and to force a single healthcare solution upon people ‘for their own good’. That is not liberalism.
I’m open minded about a gold standard, given the multitude of problems the current fiat money system has, with value being set at a whim by a committee.
I do suggest you actually look at what he stands for before criticising. I also suggest you look into the principles behind the founding of the USA rather than simply moralising.
I do disagree with his stance on immigration, although it is the mainstream stance in the US and no other candidate seems to be saying anything different. His stance on abortion is that it is a moral choice which is none of the federal government’s business, which is far better than most of the Republicans or Democrats who want to force their morality upon others.
Lastly, who do you think offers better prospects? The reset of the Republicans would just expand the powers of the President even further and abuse it even more. The same goes for most of the Democrats who also seem to want to destroy the US economy.
Given the bad choices available, so far Ron Paul is by far the best option for me. Mike Gravel coming second, but he fails on trying to standardise health care (great, everyone but the rich can suffer from poor health care) and is a non-entity.
November 9th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Ron Paul is a non-entity in the polls as you well know.
I’m not enthused by any candidate, but social conservatism sends me running for the hills, which I guess leaves me stuck with a democrat.
I guess I would have to hope for a Biden or Richardson, but neither of them inspires especially. Just because the field is awful though, doesn’t make Paul any better in my eyes.
Somewhat, its a matter of perspective I guess, and how you try to pick candidates when you don’t like any of them that much.
I stand by most of of my criticisms though, and a candidate who I think is bad socially and economically isn’t going to win much love from me.
Fortunatly its not an election I have to vote in anyway!