Originally Written on
November 15th, 2011
For a YouTube Video
Which Would Have Been Entitled
“The Ron Paul
Contrast Ad”
Edited and Expanded
on December 6th and 7th, 2015
I first became
familiar with Texas Congressman Ron Paul on May 3rd, 2007, when he
appeared on the first televised Republican debate of the 2008 presidential
election. The following year, I registered as a Republican in Wisconsin, in order
to vote for the congressman in the national Republican primary, and on the day
of the election, I wrote-in his name on the ballot for the presidency.
These days [in
November 2011], I find myself agreeing with Dr. Paul about two-thirds to three-quarters of
the time. In light of various criticisms of a potential Ron Paul presidency
which were made on the eve of the 2008 election by Canadian voluntaryist
philosopher Stefan Molyneux, in proponence of some legalistic and
non-legalistic tactics which I have come to feel that the congressman has failed
to properly or sufficiently emphasize, in attentiveness to geopolitical
circumstances and history which I feel the congressman has overlooked, and in
defense of my stances on policy topics on which I simply disagree with the congressman, I will detail thirteen major areas
of policy on which I feel Congressman Paul and I differ to some significant
degree, and I will explain why I believe that my suggested improvements to Dr.
Paul’s platform would be more conducive to the simultaneous manifestation of
legitimate governance, contract rights, freedom of association, individual
liberty and sovereignty, free and fair trade, and socioeconomic justice in a
free-market system.
The thirteen
areas of policy on which I feel that Congressman Paul and I differ to some
significant or notable degree are (1) abortion; (2) gay marriage; (3) immigration-related
issues; (4) election reform; (5) taxation; (6) tactics for achieving
socioeconomic justice; (7) the Federal Reserve System; (8) U.S.-Israeli foreign
policy; (9) U.S.-Iranian foreign policy; (10) the conflict in Libya; (11) issues
pertaining to the events of September 11th, 2001; (12) issues
pertaining to the citizenship and eligibility status of the current president
of the United States; and (13) the abolition of several federal departments.
1. Abortion
If Ron Paul
were elected president, and there were to become a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme
Court, President Paul would likely appoint Andrew Napolitano, a former New
Jersey Superior Court Judge and [as of 2011] the host of FOX Business’s program
“Freedom Watch”. Napolitano is a libertarian, and a pro-life Catholic.
In the event
that Napolitano’s appointment were approved by the Senate and he found himself
on the Supreme Court, and the 1973 Roe v.
Wade decision were challenged, Associate Justice Napolitano would likely be
one of five justices to support such a challenge, comprising a pro-life
majority.
This would cause the Roe
decision to be found unconstitutional, effectively giving the states power to
regulate abortion. Currently [as
of 2011], seven states have provisions in their laws which would immediately
prohibit abortion in the event that Roe
v. Wade were overturned.
Like Andrew
Napolitano and Ron Paul, I oppose the Roe
decision, but for the opposite reason, and due to that reason, I would pursue
different tactics in order to invalidate it.
I oppose the Roe decision because it has been used as
a precedent to prohibit partial-birth abortion on the national level [Note: as
of 2015, I no longer support the legality of partial-birth abortion]. It is for
this reason that I feel that Roe v. Wade
could be a slippery slope to the prohibition of all abortions on a nationwide basis.
To echo the
sentiment of a libertarian bumper sticker, “I’m pro-choice on everything”; on
every issue I favor the right of each individual to make his or her own
decisions, so long as those decisions do not directly harm another person or
their legitimate property.
I accept that a
person is a human being in-utero, and I would never argue that a parent has the
right to determine whether a child who has
been born is truly a person – being that such an argument could be used to
excuse infanticide – but I believe that when discussing human beings who have not been born, arguments about
personhood can be distracting from the moral dilemma which I regard as the
central issue of abortion.
I believe that
individual liberty includes the right to judge whether it is truly more
despicable either to terminate a pregnancy or to risk bringing a child into a
world where it and its mother may suffer for the remainder of their lives.
Additionally,
the thought that an abortionist and / or a woman who has an abortion could be
prosecuted – and potentially even charged with murder – for participating in an
abortion, is something that I would never want any segment of our civil society
to be free to permit.
I think it is
obvious to everyone today that there is a shortage of doctors in this country –
and, to an even greater extent, the world – in general, and I would hate to see
doctors with skills and educations involving medical issues other than those directly pertaining to the performance of abortions imprisoned or
executed for ever having participated in the performance of such a procedure,
as much as I would hate to see any potential mother who is concerned about the
world their child would grow up in imprisoned and / or executed for simply
being a victim of her socioeconomic environment, and for not wanting to pass-on such harm to the unborn out of a sense of misdirected resentment of the condition of
her society and of humanity in general.
With regard to
the states’ rights aspect of the abortion issue, I am generally in favor of the
freedom of choice – that is, for states to choose the majority of their own
policies – and I also – for the most part – support Ronald Reagan’s saying
“vote with your feet”, meaning that if someone doesn’t like the laws of the
state in which they are living, he or she can always move.
However,
considering that the federal and state governments exercise jurisdiction over
such large geographical territories, that pregnancies last for shorter periods
of time than election cycles, and that many women who can barely afford to pay
for abortions also – most likely – could not afford to relocate to a state
where abortion laws would be more permissive, I feel that it would be too
costly and time-consuming for citizens to have any abortion policy other than the following:
I would support an amendment to the Constitution which would require the states to legalize all forms of abortion - including partial-birth abortion [this was my position in 2011, but as of 2015 I am opposed to partial-birth abortion] - and to prohibit the county and municipal governmental agencies under their jurisdictions from making abortion illegal and/or punishable.
In summary, while I applaud Ron Paul for his consistent support of states' rights on the abortion issue - as well as for exercising restraint from joining Rick Santorum and others in support of a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion - because the states do ultimately have the final say on the matter. However, because I feel that the federal courts should not have any involvement in the issue - as they have shown themselves incapable of consistently supporting the freedom of choice - I would support the only legalistic method of permitting abortion nationwide, which is to allow three-quarters of the states to compel the remainder of the states to enact an abortion policy which such a supermajority would favor.
2. Gay Marriage
Ron Paul supports the Defense of Marriage
Act (DoMA), which legally defines marriage as between one man and one woman at
the federal level, and also permits states to choose whether to recognize gay
marriages valid in other states.
As in the abortion issue – as much as I
respect Congressman Paul’s consistent support for states’ rights – I must again
differ with him on the issue of gay marriage, although not to such an extreme
degree as I would differ with him on abortion policy.
I feel that the fact that the federal
government does not recognize same-sex marriages which are valid in states does
not merely create a national problem, but an international problem.
Being that a person can become a U.S. citizen by
marrying a U.S.
citizen, a partner to a same-sex marriage which is valid in the state in which
he or she resides may be deported if that person is a foreign national, due to
the fact that the federal government does not recognize the validity of that
marriage.
In order to remedy this problem, I would recommend that the Defense of Marriage Act be repealed, and replaced with a bill that would prohibit the federal government from adopting
any legal definition of marriage, require the federal government to recognize
same-sex marriages which are valid in any state, and require states to
recognize same-sex marriages which are valid in other states.
I would note that such a bill would still
permit the states to choose whether to legalize same-sex marriage in the first
place.
3. Immigration
I agree with Congressman Paul that to
build a fence along the entire span of the U.S.-Mexico border would be costly,
impractical, and unnecessary; that we should continue to promote a path to
legal citizenship for immigrants; that there should be no national
identification card; and that the eVerify turns makes the potential employers
into de-facto border patrol agents.
I also believe that our mutual opposition
to the war on drugs, gun control, and the federal minimum wage law would help
ameliorate many of the problems associated with Mexican and Central-American
immigration into the U.S.; and I support Ron Paul’s opposition to the federal
Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (D.R.E.A.M.) Act.
However, I would criticize the congressman
for his stance on policy regarding English as the official national language,
birthright citizenship, state
“D.R.E.A.M.” acts, border patrol and enforcement, and amnesty.
English as the
National Language:
I would oppose efforts to make English the
official language (for the purpose of written government documents) at the
national or federal level because I fear that such legislation could be used to
give the federal government the power to prohibit states from conducting any
official government business in languages other than English.
While I understand the sentiment held by
many Americans that prospective U.S. citizens should learn English, I would
emphasize that the wave of immigration from Spanish-speaking countries has been
more persistent than most other waves of immigration throughout U.S. history,
so – in truth – it only appears that
Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States are not learning English, due
to the fact that many of them have only arrived relatively recently, while most
of those who arrived earlier have
already learned English.
Birthright
Citizenship:
While Ron Paul opposes the national
birthright citizenship provision codified in the 14th Amendment to
the Constitution, I would argue that that provision only entitles native-born
individuals to become U.S. citizens if they willingly
subject themselves to the jurisdiction of some state (this is to emphasize
that no government may force a person to submit to its jurisdiction and become
a citizen).
Since individuals – in the acts of
becoming citizens – voluntarily subject themselves to the jurisdiction of
governments, there is a mutual exchange between citizen and government – i.e., government protection in exchange
for citizen allegiance and other responsibilities – so I disagree with the
notion that birthright citizenship has anything to do with entitlement or
irresponsibility.
I feel that the birthright citizenship
provision of the 14th Amendment should be interpreted as meaning
that no person who shall have been born in a territory under the jurisdiction
of the U.S. government – whether that person’s parents are citizens or illegal
immigrants – may be denied application for citizenship or prohibited from
willingly subjecting himself or herself to the jurisdiction of an American
government in whose jurisdictional territory he or she resides or was born.
The Federal D.R.E.A.M.
Act:
While I would join Ron Paul in an effort
to repeal the federal Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors
(D.R.E.A.M.) Act – especially in light of the fact that the D.R.E.A.M. Act was
defeated by the U.S. Congress, and only became law through an executive order
signed by President Obama – I would criticize Congressman Paul for his
opposition to state
D.R.E.A.M.-Act-type legislation, such as the type signed into law by Texas
Governor Rick Perry and California Governor Jerry Brown.
While I do not believe that it is within
the federal government’s authority to provide welfare for illegal immigrants –
especially in light of the facts that the U.S. Congress defeated the federal D.R.E.A.M. Act bill, that it constitutes
specific individual welfare rather than a general public good, and that illegal
immigrants not having welfare does not interfere with the regulation of
interstate commerce in that there is no conceivable way it could provoke the
states to practice domestic protectionism – I feel that state welfare for
illegal immigrants is a step in the right direction, but only if the
institution and proceedings of such state governments are non-coercive and
subject to traditional common contract law.
I would also note that D.R.E.A.M.-Act-type
legislation does not grant citizenship, but only permanent residency, and that
that residency status and such welfare are only given to illegal immigrants who
have completed either a high school diploma or a General Educational
Development (G.E.D.), are in good legal standing in regards to their criminal
records, and have completed either at least two years of a higher-education
program or two years in military service.
Additionally, there are many individuals
who could be assisted by this legislation who did not even become illegal
immigrants through any fault or awareness of their own; namely, those who were
brought to this country by their illegal-immigrant parents when they were
children.
However, despite my support of state
D.R.E.A.M.-Act-type legislation at the state level, I would stress that
state-provided social welfare for illegal immigrants would likely be proven
inefficient and unnecessary in the event that a concerted effort by county and
municipal governments, religious organizations, charity organizations, labor
unions, businesses, and private donors would be shown to be capable of
sufficiently providing illegal immigrants with the job skills, education,
housing, funding, and legal statuses which they would need in order to become
faithful residents of the United States, as well as productive members of the
work force and the tax base.
Amnesty and Crime:
Ron Paul has expressed the opinion that
anyone who crosses the U.S.-Mexico border without documentation – or comes into
this country in any other illegal manner – should be arrested and deported to
the country from whence they came. He has also said that he would not support "automatic citizenship by a vote", referring to proposed amnesty bills (he also opposes amnesty through executive order). However, he has also stated that he is not
in favor of “rounding up eleven million people” who are in this country
illegally.
Even after outlining a policy on illegal
immigration which I believe is as lenient as my interpretation of the
Constitution would allow, I am not ashamed to say that I support amnesty for
illegal immigrants. I believe that the simple action of knowingly and
deliberately crossing an international border illegally should not be
considered a criminal transgression.
This is because – in the act of crossing a
border which is artificially created and arbitrarily defined by governments –
there is no corpus delicti (which is
to say that it is a victimless crime) as there is no real person who can rightfully
claim that either himself of his property was harmed.
This is not to say, however, that an
immigrant who – after crossing a border or coming into this country in any
other illegal manner – physically hurts someone; steals, damages, or trespasses
on someone’s property; or comes to participate in a government social welfare
program through fraudulent means, and / or without contributing what he or she
would be expected to contribute were that person a citizen (and by “social
welfare”, I mean to include public defense; i.e.,
protection by the police and the military) – should not be prosecuted and
punished to the full extent of the law for doing so.
This is also not to say that a citizen of a foreign government should not
be extradited, prosecuted, and
punished by that government for breaking a law against illegal emigration, as long as that foreign
government was constituted in a manner which is consistent with traditions of
common contract law.
I would add that the immigration policies
which have been considered by the state of Arizona, and a town in Alabama,
attempted to unilaterally enforce would only serve to turn the Hispanic
populations of those areas into even more of pariahs than they already are by
making race and skin color – rather than reasonable suspicion that some corpus delicti crime were being
committed – sufficient grounds for police confrontation, arrest, and
deportation.
I would add that, in a situation in which
there were reasonable suspicion that
a corpus delicti crime had been
committed by a person, and if it were discovered, following this, upon a search
incident to arrest, or during the course of subsequent legal proceedings, that
that person had come into this country illegally, only in this situation would I find deportation appropriate.
Although I share Paul's concerns about the unchecked power of the executive to do anything, including to issue an order bringing about amnesty, I would support any efforts by a president to pardon non-violent immigrants who entered the U.S. unlawfully.
Amnesty and
Freedom of Trade:
I would also argue that an open-border
immigration policy would promote the freedom of trade. I believe that – in the
same manner as the federal minimum wage law – the international border is an
artificial barrier which is arbitrarily delineated by government in order to
restrain the freedom of trade, and to act as a protectionist measure to secure
and entrench the wealth, prosperity, and social status of the most economically
privileged, societally well-adjusted, and linguistically fluent within a nation
at the expense of all others.
Amnesty and
Politics:
I feel that the right’s support of an
immigration policy which includes arrest and deportation and opposes welfare
and the left’s support of a policy that includes
welfare and opposes arrests and
deportation only serve as distractions from each side’s mutual resentment of
the fact that the tendency of immigrants to tolerate lower wages contributes to
a decline in the average market value of entry-level labor, which threatens the
standards in wages, benefits, and conditions of jobs held by Americans of both greater political persuasions who
are accustomed to their middle-to-high socioeconomic statuses and speak English
as a first language.
I believe that having a federal
immigration policy which promotes either or both deportation of and welfare for
illegal immigrants only serves to confuse attitudes towards immigrants on a
large scale, and so – for that reason – I would favor an immigration policy
which permits state, county, and municipal governments the liberty to determine
labor standards and welfare for illegals; and religious organizations, charity
organizations, labor unions, businesses, private donors, and the voting public
the freedom to lobby the representatives in government to alter the law in
order to affect the changes which they wish to see in immigration policy
according to the subjective values of each organization, community, and
individual which consents to subject itself to the mechanisms, proceedings, and
regulations of governments.
Borders:
Although Paul does not support the
construction of a border fence - and said that ideally, in a libertarian society, borders would be "open and blurred" - he has also said “you can’t just say borders don’t
count”. He has also said that he wants more agents on the border, suggesting
that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan should return to the U.S., in order to
supply additional border enforcement.
I believe that if we were to take Ron Paul’s
suggestion that federal drug laws be repealed, and apply the Non-Aggression
Principle consistently, then the amount of border agents currently deployed, or
a lesser amount, would be sufficient to enforce laws against violent crime at
the border, and only laws against
violent crime, being that immigrants would not have to be apprehended for
merely crossing the border and/or trafficking drugs.
4. Election
Reform
Although Ron Paul has said “All of
[Lysander] Spooner’s writings are worthy of study” and “I don’t criticize
Lysander”, in my opinion, Paul has not been sufficiently vocal about putting 19th-Century
individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner’s ideas into practice.
Spooner wrote in his 1870 essay No
Treason: The Constitution of No Authority that the secret-ballot election
system used in the United States is illegitimate. Spooner explained that
elections of political representatives involve “contracts of surety”, which,
according to English contract law dating back to the 1670s, are supposed to be
written, signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed by all parties involved in
making the contract.
Since representatives take no formal,
written oath to support the Constitution, nor to represent the people who elected
them, there is no formal authority for representatives to vote on the behalf of
their districts’ constituents.
I would criticize Paul for failing to
point this out, and for declining to recommend legislation requiring an “open-ballot”
system, which would require election results to be made public, and require representatives
to swear written oaths to support the Constitution and to represent their
districts’ constituents, and also possibly apportion the U.S. House of
Representatives according to the number of citizens willingly voting in elections,
rather than on the sheer number of people living in each district.
I would also criticize Paul for failing to publicly advocate removing the protections from prosecution for certain classes of crime which our elected representatives currently enjoy, and for failing to advocate legalizing the questioning of public debt.
5. Taxation
Dr. Paul has entertained the idea of
eliminating taxes altogether, expressing criticism of taxation as coercive. He
has also advocated drastically reducing the size and scope of the federal government,
in order to fund national common defense and little else.
Although he has entertained the idea of
eliminating taxes, and the idea that all government revenues should be earned
on a volunteer basis, he has also suggested that federal taxes be reduced to
10% of each person’s income.
This 10% suggestion is at-odds with Paul’s
notion that individual income taxation, and the 16th Amendment which
provides for it, are illegitimate. I would criticize Paul for being
inconsistent about taxes in this manner.
As of 2011, I supported the “Pay-Gap Tax”,
which I proposed. The legislation, which I termed the “Accelerated Graduated
Income Ratio Tax Act”, would tax “personal income in proportion to the salary
of the highest-paid employee of a company”, “divided by the annual income of
the average [paid] employee of the same company”.
However, I no longer support my own
proposal, because I oppose taxation on personal income, as well as corporate
income, on the grounds that income is wealth generated from production. I
argue, as the Georgists argue, that production should not be taxed, but instead
left alone, and government should be funded only through fines on the abuse of
land. Income and sales should not be taxed, because of the potential that such
taxes will have the effect of discouraging earning money and selling.
Although I oppose income taxes, I would have
appreciated if Paul, apparently a supporter of income taxation, had suggested,
as Milton Friedman proposed, the Negative Income Tax, which taxes personal
income over a certain amount, and gives to those earning less than that amount,
an amount equal to half of the difference between that amount and the person’s
earnings.
6. Tactics for
Achieving Socioeconomic Justice
Ron Paul has expressed support for
churches and private charity - as well as people’s neighbors, and “the community”
more generally - supplying services that are now typically provided by
government; both in general, and specifically in regards to medical care.
While I commend him for this, I believe
that churches, private charities, and communities, are too narrow a set of organizations
to name, in order to successfully drive the point home that a plethora of
non-governmental agencies could step in to provide services where the government
has failed to do so.
In addition to private charities and
religious organizations, I would advocate that services now typically provided
by government, be supplied by non-profits, not-for-profits, consumer awareness
and advocacy groups, mutuals and consumer cooperatives, mutual aid societies, egalitarian
labor-managed firms (E.L.M.F.s, i.e., cooperatives),
and labor unions.
Being a laissez-faire free-market capitalist, Paul and other libertarians
are not as inclined as the anti-authoritarians of the left are, to advocate
direct-action tactics or mutual aid societies. Libertarians all too often
recommend that “the private sector” supply services typically provided by “the
public sector” (i.e., government),
and using this nomenclature and this dichotomy, unfortunately, only serves to
confuse the distinction between profit-oriented capitalist agencies and agencies
founded on the principle of voluntary cooperation.
7. The Federal
Reserve System
Although Ron Paul was the only candidate
in the 2008 presidential election supporting an audit of the Federal Reserve,
and one of the few prominent political figures to bring this issue to the
forefront of public discussion to date, I would criticize Paul for stating that
he does not think it is necessary to abolish the Federal Reserve altogether.
Although Paul wrote a book entitled End
the Fed, and many of his supporters want to see the agency abolished, Paul
has not been consistent about his opposition to the Federal Reserve’s
existence. While I agree with Paul and other libertarians that increased
congressional oversight over the agency is needed, I do not believe that
Congress should control the agency, as that would leave monetary policy subject
to politicization.
I believe that there is no formal
constitutional authority for the Federal Reserve to exist, and that generations
have fought to end the central banks of their day. I believe that interest rates
should be chosen through negotiations between borrowers and lenders, that the
federal government should not insure bank deposits, and that the supervision
and regulation of banks should and can be performed through negotiation between
their employees and their customers.
I also believe – contrary to Paul’s
position that the country should return to a gold standard - that gold should
not become the nation’s only currency, but instead that in the absence of a
central bank and an official currency, ordinary people who engage in trade will
produce a wide variety of commodities and contracts to perform the functions of
currencies, including precious metals, gems, non-perishable foods, local currencies,
crypto-currencies and e-currencies, and mutuum checks (which combine features
of paper currencies, checks, and contracts).
8. U.S.-Israeli
Foreign Policy
Although Paul has sufficiently emphasized
the need for the federal government to end military and domestic foreign aid to
all countries, and pointed out on the floor of the U.S. House that Israel
encouraged Hamas (which the U.S. regards as a terrorist group) to run in a Palestinian
election, I would criticize Paul for neglecting to mention the roles which the
State of Israel has played in exposing the United States to various dangers.
Paul has not publicly mentioned the U.S.S.
Liberty incident, an incident during the Six-Day War of 1967 when Israeli
planes sank an American marine vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, killing all 34
onboard, and blaming the bombing on Syria, which was at that time united with
Egypt as one nation, the United Arab Republic.
Paul has not treated the State of Israel
as what it is; the only sovereign Middle Eastern country that has successfully
attacked an American military target, and the only Middle Eastern country (aside
from Pakistan) to possess undeclared nuclear weapons, and to be a non-signatory
to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Although Paul was one of the politicians who was the most critical of Israel
during his tenure, he has neglected to criticize the influence of the
American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (A.I.P.A.C.) on American politics. He
has also neglected to criticize the disproportionate amount of Jewish Americans,
Zionists, and American-Israeli dual citizens serving in the Supreme Court, the
presidential cabinet, and the U.S. Congress.
Paul has said that he wants to “respect
Israel’s sovereignty”, and that it is no business of his whether Israel chooses
to relocate its foreign embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem, or whether “the
City of Jerusalem, whole and undivided, shall be the capital of Israel”. While
I agree that such decisions should generally be the prerogative of the sovereign
nation in question, I believe that the 1967 “annexation” of East Jerusalem by
Israel, was actually a conquest,
illegal under international law, and that, therefore, the State of Israel does
not have the right to the entire city, whether as its capital or as any portion
of its territory.
Additionally, although Paul met with Rabbi
Yisroel Dovid Weiss of the anti-Zionist Jewish activist group Neturei Karta,
Paul does not seem to have learned anything from the meeting. If he had, he
would have emerged from the meeting saying that man-made government shall not
exist among the Jews, save for submission to the laws of foreign nations, and
constitution of community courts under the Sanhedrin, with duly-ordinated
rabbis serving in courts of 23 in small communities, and 71 in Jerusalem.
10.
U.S.-Iranian Foreign Policy
Although Paul has sufficiently emphasized
that the Islamic Republic of Iran has never attacked the United States - and
that the U.S. has, in fact, provoked
Iran in the past, first by overthrowing their democratically-elected leader
Mossadegh in 1953, and later, in the 1980s, by supporting and arming (with Israel's help) both sides in the Iraq-Iran War – Paul has not defended Iran as much as I would like him to.
Additionally, although I would commend
Paul for his openness to Obama’s 2015 “Iran deal” regarding that country’s
nuclear weapons program, I do not agree with his support of the deal, being
that it would require the U.S. to help Iran protect their weapons. I do not
believe that supporting the Iran deal for this reason is a true “laissez-faire” stance as applied to
foreign policy. I believe that any obligation on the part of the U.S. to help protect
another country militarily (including our membership in N.A.T.O.), constitutes
an example of the type of “entangling alliance” against which George Washington
warned us.
While Paul has stated that there is no
evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, I feel that he has not
sufficiently emphasized that Iran has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, while the State of Israel has not. I feel that the juxtaposition of
Iran with Israel is important regarding this issue, being that Israel’s safety
is often given as the justification for ginning up fear of a nuclear-armed
Iran.
However, I would commend Paul for attempting
to push back against right-wing insistence that “Ahmadinejad said Iran wants to
push Israel into the sea”, clarifying that the original quote was from the Ayatollah - not Ahmadinejad – and that
the Ayatollah said “the regime which is currently occupying Jerusalem shall
vanish from the pages of history,” rather than a quote directly calling for
violence against the State of Israel or the Jewish people.
11. The
Conflict in Libya
Although I admire Paul for his insistence
that there was no congressional authorization for the 2011 bombing of Libya by
the U.S., I believe that there was
congressional authorization, however, there was no explicit declaration of
war by Congress. I agree with Paul that a declaration of war by Congress
would have been necessary to justify that action, and I would commend his opposition to N.A.T.O. commission of U.S. troops.
I would criticize Ron Paul for saying
“we don’t know who we’re fighting” in Libya, “we could be helping al-Qaeda”.
While I agree that we shouldn’t be involved in the Middle East because we don’t
know who we’re fighting - and because we often train, fund, and arm one group
of rebels, or a government, which uses our money and arms to fight another group of rebels or a potential
government – I would argue that not only could we be helping al-Qaeda; we are al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda – meaning “the
base” - was established in the 1980s under the Reagan Administration as a base
of mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, which we trained, funded, and armed, in order to fight the
Soviets.
Additionally, Paul apparently had no
knowledge that one of the purposes of U.S. intervention in Libya was to back up
French and Italian oil interests in the region, as well as Western interest in the country's gold reserves. If he knew about those things, he
certainly didn’t mention it publicly.
12. Issues Pertaining
to the Events of September 11th, 2001
Although I would commend Paul for his
support for a new investigation of the 9/11 attacks, I believe that he has some
of his facts wrong on the attacks, and also that he has been inconsistent about
whether the Bush Administration had foreknowledge of the attacks, and/or was
involved in its planning.
Although one of his aides claimed that on
September 11th, 2001, Paul told members of his staff that the Bush Administration had foreknowledge of
the attacks, he has refused to take a consistent position about this publicly.
Paul has stated that he believed that
Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks. Although it is true
that bin Laden praised the attacks,
he denied responsibility for them twice on video. Paul was wrong on this, and
he has also declined to bring up the business (oil) connections between the bin
Laden and Bush families.
Additionally, Paul has never publicly entertained
the possibility that the State of Israel helped carry out the attacks, nor that
it at least had something to do with the planning, even though Israel, along
with Russia and Italy, was one of the countries that warned the U.S. of
possible upcoming attacks before September 2001.
13. Issues
Pertaining to Obama’s Citizenship and Eligibility for the Presidency
I would criticize Paul for never having
publicly entertained the possibility that Barack Obama is not a natural-born
citizen of the United States (and thus ineligible for the presidency), and for
declining to recommend that Obama be investigated for covering up his past and suppressing
the publication of his identification, Social Security, travel and passport,
and education records.
I would like to see a formal congressional investigation of Obama's eligibility, and in the event that a lawsuit concerning that matter were to end up in the Supreme Court, I would like to see justices Sotomayor and Kagen recuse themselves from the case. I also support Reverend James David Manning's "C.I.A. Columbia Obama trial", I believe that the case has standing under the 10th Amendment, and I would like to see Barack Obama face his accusers in a New York State court.
14. Abolition
of Federal Departments
Although I agree with Ron Paul’s support
of abolishing the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, the
Department of Education, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, I
would criticize him for neglecting to support the abolition of the Department
of Labor, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human
Services, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as for supporting the abolition of the Department
of the Interior.
There is no specifically enumerated constitutional
authority for federal involvement in labor affairs, agriculture, nor health.
While Paul supports abolishing the Department of Commerce, it would seem
natural that he would also oppose the
Department of Labor, being that both of these agencies were created as parts of a single agency (the
Department of Commerce and Labor), just
over a hundred years ago, separating during a progressive period of expanding
federal government.
Additionally, I do not believe that a
Department of Homeland Security is necessary to support the coordination of the
activities of the F.B.I., C.I.A., and N.S.A.. Paul has advocated returning
military spending to pre-2001 levels, so it would seem natural that he also
support returning the scope of the security
state to levels before the creation of the D.H.S.. However, although he
opposes many of the N.S.A.’s activities, and opposes C.I.A. intervention in the
affairs of foreign governments, he has not suggested that the Department of
Homeland Security be abolished.
I disagree with Paul’s support of
abolishing the Department of the Interior, being that the agency was
established in 1849, making it among the first five federal executive
departments. Also, I believe that the Department of the Interior does have an arguable reason to exist,
being that the federal government has the authority to regulate commerce with
Native American tribes.
To summarize, I believe that the key
differences between Ron Paul and myself are as follows: (1) Paul is more pro-life
than I am; (2) I am more supportive of gay marriage than Paul is; (3) Paul has
been inconsistent on immigration, and I am more pro-immigration than he is; (4)
I have suggested reforming the secret-ballot election system to an open-ballot
one, while Paul has not; (5) I support abolishing the taxation of personal
income, while Paul has been inconsistent on that issue; (6) I have been more
specific than Paul has about the set of organizations which can and should
provide services that are now typically provided by government; (7) I support
abolishing the Federal Reserve, while Paul has been inconsistent on that issue;
(8) I have been more openly critical of the State of Israel than Paul has; (9)
Paul and I have disagreed on several points of U.S.-Iranian foreign policy,
although there is no consistent trend in these policy differences that show us
to be on different “sides” of the issue of Iran in general; (10) Paul and I
have disagreed on several points concerning the 2011 intervention in Libya, although
there is no consistent trend in these policy differences that show us to be on
different “sides” of the issue of Libya in general; (11) I have been more
outspoken than Paul has in suggesting possible Bush Administration and Israeli involvement
in planning the 9/11 attacks; (12) I have been more outspoken than Paul has
concerning Obama’s citizenship and eligibility for the presidency; and (13) Paul
and I differ about which federal departments ought to be abolished, and which
should not.
