I have to admit that I like Ron Paul. A lot. While Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinch are also speaking up against the transformation of the USA into a Neocon empire, the former, while certainly sincere and well-meaning, is too prone to antics and the latter showed an unforgivable lack of courage when he abstained during the vote on the infamous House Resolution 1400. In contrast, Ron Paul has shown impeccable character and courage in opposing the Neocons and he has a sterling record on refusing to vote for idiotic and propagandistic resolutions in Congress. Nobody, not even his opponents. seriously disputes that he is an honest and dedicated man.
The fact is that Ron Paul is in a league of his own. Not only that, but from all the anti-Neocon candidates he is the only one who has a conceivable chance, however small, of getting the nomination of his party (that could only happen if the Republicans finally realize that Ron Paul is the only Republican who, being anti-war, could beat the AIPAC-controlled Hillary).
Some of Ron Paul’s views raise concern among my friends. For example, Ron Paul’s belief that the Social Security Administration, the CIA, the FBI or the IRS should be eliminated might, at first glance, appear somewhat bizarre, but one must keep in mind a couple of things here:
1. Many federal administrations have, in the past, proven to be highly ineffective (can anyone name a single success of the CIA?)
2. Some federal functions could be better implemented on the state level
3. These are long-term goals and not something which Ron Paul would try to immediately implement if elected
4. None of these reforms could be implemented without Congress anyway
These standard objections to Ron Paul’s program really do not worry me at all.
More worrisome is Ron Paul’s beliefs in the values of deregulation such as, for example, “Internet neutrality” which he opposes. I can only explain that kind of irrational phobia of any regulation, no matter how obviously needed, by the typical “blindspot” of all US libertarians who, on principle and by definition, consider anything “government” as bad and who therefore automatically blame any corporate excesses upon government and its supposed “corporatism”. US libertarians are simply unable to accept the fact the corporations needs to be reined in by the civil society. They will always argue that a “truly free market” would resolve all issues of corporate greed, abuse, corruption and exploitation, nevermind that there has never, ever, been a truly free market anywhere and that there shall never be one either (the very concept of truly free market is based upon the idea of perfect competition which, in turn, is predicated on the two false assumptions of 1) perfect access by all to all information and 2) that information is free).
Nevertheless, this valid objection to Ron Paul’s idea on corporate power versus society needs to be placed in context. For one thing, corporate greed and power has reached such levels in the USA that it can scarcely be made worse: the US is already a country “by the corporations and for the corporations” in which none of the mechanisms which serve to keep corporations in check in civilized societies (unions, laws, regulations, elected representatives, etc.) have survived. Frankly, there is nothing Ron Paul could do to make this situation worse. Furthermore, even if some regulatory control over the corporate world, or some meager social right of the US worker, could conceivably be removed by a Ron Paul administration it would only very marginally affect the social Auschwitz which the USA has already become. In fact, I would argue that considering how toxic many US regulations are, or how pathetically vacuous US workers “right” have become over the past decades, some reduction in the federal red-tape just might be helpful, in particular if state and local governments substitute themselves to Washington on a more local and decentralized level.
Lastly, any valid criticism of some aspects of Ron Paul’s program should be contrasted with the two most salient and immensely important pillars of his entire worldview: a total rejection of imperial policies and wars of aggression abroad and an uncompromising dedication to civil rights domestically.
No, what really worries me about Ron Paul is something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. When Blitzer asked him whether he would consider running as an independent third party candidate Ron Paul replied: “I never think about that, I have no intention of doing that“.
Contrast this with this entry on the Lew Rockwell blog:
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The House He Lives in Really Is America to Him
Posted by Mike Tennant at July 6, 2007 03:21 PM
A member of the Pittsburgh Ron Paul Meetup Group, who wishes to be known here merely as “Freedom Fighter,” wrote the following to the members of our group today:
I am 60 years old. I have always voted for smaller government and to uphold the Constitution. I have never gotten what I voted for. Today I put my home up for sale. I am taking the proceeds and going to spend it promoting Ron Paul. That is the best way to spend my grandchildren’s inheritance. They will benefit more by having President Ron Paul than having $100,000 of fiat money. Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor. The Revolution has begun.
Now that’s putting your money where your mouth is!
——-
Indeed, this is an amazing example of courage and dedication. The question I ask is what will happen to this man if Ron Paul does not get the Republican nomination or if he is not elected President? Would the “Revolution”, to use the expression of this Ron Paul supporter, simply be over?
As I have written before, there is only one thing which stands in the way of an openly Fascist President in 2008: a so-called “third party” candidate who would seek to unite behind him on a minimalistic “Jeffersonian” political platform all those in the USA who care about peace and liberty. Considering that these are the values which brought a majority of Americans to send the Democrats into Congress during the last election it is not unreasonable to assume that a majority of Americans would now support such values if given the option, the total betrayal of these voters by the AIPAC-controlled Democrats.
Sure, there is a core of mostly “inbred rednecks” who still believe the lies of the Neocons and who would actually welcome the election of a Fascist President in 2008. And there is a core of pseudo-liberal Democrats who will vote for Hillary just because she is a woman or for Obama because he is Black. But if you give the American population the choice between Neocon imperialism and even more internal control on one hand and a return to a republic and an end to wars of agression on the other I think that no more than 30% of the population will choose the former.
Even if a third party candidate is not elected and even if, as seems likely, Hillary returns to the White House next year, the struggle will not be over. A Hillary Administration, or a Guiliani one for that matter, will fully hand over all US power to the Neocons and AIPAC. It does not take some amazing gift of prophecy to see what that will result in: a bloodbath in the Middle-East and an ugly, and possibly bloody, repression of the internal opposition inside the USA.
In this context I ask two basic questions:
1) Does Ron Paul have the moral right not to run as an independent if he does not get the Republican nomination?
2) Does Ron Paul have the moral right to simply go back to “life as usual” when a Fascist becomes the President in 2008?
My own and unequivocal answer to these two questions is a resounding: NO!
Not only does Ron Paul have a duty to his country, but he also has a duty to all his supporters, like the man who sold his house to give the money to the Paul campaign. For Ron Paul to simply leave the stage and let down all the people who truly believed in him and who sacrificed so much for him would be a complete betrayal.
If Ron Paul does not become President in 2008, by 2010 the entire county will be begging for him to come back and save whatever can be saved from the Neocon folly and its consequences. But if in the meanwhile Ron Paul simply goes back to Congress, or back to Texas, and leaves all his supporters crushed by disappointment, nobody will ever believe any politician again and Americans will cease to believe that there can be an alternative to Fascism. In that case the Ron Paul supporter who sold his house would have been wiser to keep it for his children.
Ron Paul can think about his nomination and election next year, but I sure hope that he also prepares for the worst-case scenario as well. I only hope that he misspoke when he said to Blitzer “I have no intention of doing that”.
PS: FYI – click here for my two first articles about American fascism and the only thing which, in my opinion, can prevent it.
I think you are sadly misinformed if you think socialists Gravel and Kucinich have anything to do with Paul….
They are diamtrically opposed in philosophy. Paul is for freedom and sovereignty, they are communists..
God help you.
I actually believe Ron Paul will NOT abandon all of his supporters. How could he when he knows we’re tired of the same old crap from both parties, and the money will keep flowing in for him. He has to say he has no intention of running as 3rd party if he wants to win the GOP nomination.
One thing to keep in mind, this movement is the biggest social/political movement I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. It is way bigger than the man Ron Paul. It HAS to continue regardless of the outcome of this election and it will. Ron Paul has talked on this point several times. One man cannot change the world, he can only change the way people percieve the world (and governments). He is already doing this and will continue to do this. I forsee a wave of libertarians, constitutionalists, and conservatives that stick to a pro-freedom Ron Paul type message taking over state and federal legislature positions. I can’t speak for all Ron Paul supporters, but as for myself I will never be the same again. I will be fighting for freedom on all levels for the rest of my life. If all Ron Paul supporters did the same we really could change the world.
BANG ON VS!
THE SAKER SPEAKETH!
vineyardsaker – Thank you for the fine column about the future of Ron Paul. I wrote a lengthy response over at the cross-posting you made at Scott Horton’s blog. I’ll provide a link instead of cutting and pasting everything:
http://thestressblog.com/2007/10/10/my-biggest-fear-about-ron-paul/#comments
Thanx for that great post! I’ve been a fan of Ron Paul for the past 3 years. Frankly how he can oppose farm subsidies and still get reelected in a rural community baffles me, but I guess some people value integrity more than a few bucks.
Don’t worry overmuch about the 3rd party refusal. For now, Paul needs all the support he can get for the republican nomination. He has to project total confidence. He’s in it to win it and NOT just to make a point.
If, even before a single primary vote is cast, he starts talking about a 3rd party run, a lot of that very strong support will evaporate.
I made my first contribution of 199$ to his campaign when he first announced (to avoid being noticed by the feds) Later I throw that caution away and gave some more. While I don’t plan to sell my house, I hope to gradually reach the 2300$ maximum contribution by December (it is a bit painful to part with all of it all at once (-: )
If every true believer could give $10, he could really launch a first class add campaign. At least you’d be trying to make a difference;
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
P.S. I’ve been a lifelong democrat until now
JT – your comments are far too insightful to be left only as a link here. I hope you don’t mind this, but I will re-post them here in-extenso:
VS
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I share your concern about Ron Paul’s future. As much as I hope he wins the Republican nomination, we have to be realistic in saying that the chance of doing so is very small. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do all that we can to advance his candidacy in the coming months, in terms of writing, money, organizing, and voting. The better he does in the primaries and caucuses the greater the impact we’ll see for freedom, peace, and democracy.
So I don’t want to discourage anyone from going all out for Paul ‘08. But the GOP is not going to choose him as its presidential nominee. Even if he would win the New Hampshire primary, this would only ensure a vitriolic counterattack by the party establishment and its allies in the mainstream media. Instead of ignoring and occasionally ridiculing Paul, they would begin ripping into him. Every unusual statement would be highlighted. That reputed racist remark about black people that was supposedly in some RP newsletter written by a screwball staffer but issued under the Congressman’s name would become front-page news. The kookiest of the Paul supporters would be featured on television raving about the Protocols of Zion or the need to privatize police departments (never mind that they wouldn’t be representative of the larger Paul constituency; they would be suitably kooky which is all that matters). Smear after smear would be issued by the neocons, Rockefeller Republicans, and just plain party hacks.
Barry Goldwater could survive–in the sense of winning intraparty contests, including the nomination–in 1964 because he was going into the primary season as the frontrunner. In November 1963, Goldwater was the Giuliani, Romney, or Thompson of his day. He was a first-teir candidate, in terms of money, publicity, and momentum. Ron Paul does not have that. Instead, look at what happened to Pat Buchanan in 1996. He was more famous than RP, he had more resources, he had run a strong campaign for the nomination four years earlier, andhe had the personal goodwill of many political and journalistic insiders even if they thought his political ideas were absurd. As soon as he won the New Hampshire primary, amiable Pat became Pat the Nazi who endangered all of civilization. The barrage that came his way was intense. He was edged out in the Arizona primary and he never regained his early momentum.
It’s fine for the public face of the campaign, and for us as grassroots activists, to focus on the Republican nomination. But someone inside the Paul campaign had better be thinking beyond next March. What is going to happen to all the votes, dollars, and enthusiasm–and the unique perspective and neglected issues–that comprise the Ron Paul Revolution? Is it all going to die in the ballot boxes of South Carolina or end in a unity hug at the national convention in St. Paul as Ron Paul gives his blessing to a Giuliani-Huckabee ticket or Romney-Thompson ticket? I hope not! There ought to be a Plan B.
Lying and parsing words come naturally to most politicians, but Paul is not a typical politician. So when he’s asked a direct question, I suppose he doesn’t want to lie. Perhaps he really isn’t thinking about a third-party bid right now. Maybe he’s just focused on the GOP nomination. That makes some sense for him, personally. But he shouldn’t close the door. He could just answer, “I’m running for the Republican nomination. I’m not thinking beyond that.” Or, “I don’t answer hypothetical questions.” Or, “Anything is possible. We’ll see how things stand next spring.” Whatever he says publicly, I hope he realizes privately that there are many Americans who want a real choice come next November. None of the major-party frontrunners offer that. “A Choice Not an Echo,” as Phyllis Schlafly said about BMG in 1964.
There are definitely some similarities between Paul and Gravel-Kucinich. They do share many common Jeffersonian principles. Obviously there are some differences on the hot-button social/moral issues of the day. Kucinich is much more infected by political correctness and enthralled by the welfare state. Still, of the 418 members of the House of Representatives who voted on September 25, 2007 on a gratuitous bill created by the Israeli-government lobby “strongly condemning the U.N. Human Rights Council for ignoring severe human rights abuses in various countries, while choosing to unfairly target Israel…”, there is a reason that the only two members to vote Nay were Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Of course, RP would pull out of the UN altogether while DK continues to have a naive faith in the value of the organization. I’m more impressed by Mike Gravel among the Democrats. He’s the only one of the bunch–including Kucinich–who says what he really thinks in the debates without regard to consequences. What does he have to lose? Kucinich doesn’t have much to lose either, but for some reason he thinks he does which is why he ends up endorsing imperialistic war-mongers like Kerry and pulling his punches in debates.
Personally, I’d like to see a Paul-Gravel ticket nominated by a new, broad-based populist party next year. One that’s broad enough to encompass not only the Libertarian and Constitution party but even the Greens. We will probably never agree on the secondary issues but it’s all a moot point as long as the Power Elite controls the decision-making apparatus. The primary issues are what unite the Left and Right, the libertarians and moralists, the creationists and ecologists. Primary issues like do we want a global empire purchased with the blood of the unfamous and unrich (Americans and foreigners alike)? Do we want centralized control of our daily lives in the hands of Washington bureaucrats? Do we want a nation characterized by agribusiness conglomerates, media concentration, proliferation of big-box chain stores at the expense of community and decent wages, and cheap consumer crap made in Communist China and other cheap-labor, authoritarian states?
The most important issue of all, and one on which populists of all varieties can agree, is the question Who Rules? That’s the basic question of politics. Do we want majority rule–yes, with minority rights as an attendant feature–or minority rule? Either the many or the few are going to be in charge. We’ve had the few ruling us for many years. If the populists of this nation cannot unite under a Ron Paul candidacy or some party’s umbrella there will never be an occasion to overthrow that rule. That’s what a revolution is. We’re going to have to build some bridges to granola eaters and Bible believers and others who may be unaccustomed to hanging out with libertarians. We’ve seen some of those bridges being built by Antiwar.com, The American Conservative, CounterPunch, Green Horizon Quarterly, the Antiwar League, and the Ron Paul campaign. Let’s unite to take control of our government from the oligarchs. Then we can use honest debate among ourselves–the unfamous, unwealthy, unprivileged 95% of America–to figure out what should be done in crafting policy to address education, health care, race, abortion, homosexuality, and all the other issues that are cynically used to divide and conquer the demos.
“…(the very concept of truly free market is based upon the idea of perfect competition which, in turn, is predicated on the two false assumptions of 1) perfect access by all to all information and 2) that information is free).”
This is nonsense. The “very” concept of a free market is based on the right to liberty and property of individuals. What they trade and what they know is not the business of the little busybodies who argue that the market “fails” because the result of all those individual free choices is not the “perfect” result they want. The “perfect and free information” idea has nothing to do with the moral and practical arguments for free markets.
“Progressive” bullies who want to rule the market by force also lack “perfect” information. So what? They are the ones who cooked up this anti-free market argument in the first place. The game is simple: since freedom does not lead to “perfect” results (results we want) we get to end freedom.
Nonsense. A truly free market does not mean equality of access to anything, not information or success.
Nonsense. A truly free market does not mean equality of access to anything, not information or success
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition
Whether or not he is planning to, it would be a strategic mistake for Paul to tell people he will run on a 3rd party ticket. He’s banking on the people rising to the occasion when he says “it’s now or never”, and realizing that people may be tempted to say “Well, even if he doesn’t win the nomination, he can run third party,” and not supporting him as much now as a result.
Besides, Paul won’t run on a 3rd party ticket; he’s going to win the Republican nomination.
-Dan
For all practical purposes, Ron Paul is already an independent candidate, in the sense that he does not have the Republican Party behind him. As far as I know, there are no Republican senators or governors who endorse him. There are no candidates for congress – either national congress or state congress – running with him. He does not represent the “Ron Paul wing” of the Republican Party. There is no such thing. He is a libertarian who ran for congress on a Republican ticket, and now he is a libertarian running for President on a Republican ticket.
JT says: “It’s fine for the public face of the campaign, and for us as grassroots activists, to focus on the Republican nomination. But someone inside the Paul campaign had better be thinking beyond next March. What is going to happen to all the votes, dollars, and enthusiasm – and the unique perspective and neglected issues – that comprise the Ron Paul Revolution?”
Ron Paul himself had better be thinking beyond next March. He has an opportunity to *create* the Ron Paul wing of the Republican Party. The most important thing he can do is build his grassroots activists into a permanent organization which stays active and eventually takes over the Republican Party at all levels, from the precinct level on up.
I should add that Kucinich activists should be doing the same thing on the Democratic side. In 2010 there should be candidates for Congress in *both* parties running against the neocons, against AIPAC, and against globalization. In 2012 there should be candidates in both parties at all levels.
There is no use thinking about third parties. A “party” that only has a Presidential candidate, but doesn’t field candidates for county judge and district attorney, isn’t really a party at all. In the US, there are two parties, and the only way we can change things is to work within those parties.
I write that a truly free market does not mean equality of access to anything, not information or success, and I am sent to a definition of “perfect” competition, a non-sequiter on stilts.
Free does not mean perfect. It means a lack of violence and theft.
Morons who want to “perfect” the world through violent control of it are….morons.
Four names united cause fear, blackout, & smear.