Which is to say, a politician I respect. Now I do not always see eye to eye with Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican representative for Texas, when it comes to dealing with tyrants and other nastiness outside the USA, but I do respect him nevertheless and given my views on politicians as a breed, that is saying something. When he is correct, oh my, is he correct:
Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the “Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.” This legislation prohibits US taxpayer dollars from being used to support or promote any United Nations actions that could infringe on the Second Amendment. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act also expresses the sense of Congress that proposals to tax, or otherwise limit, the right to keep and bear arms are “reprehensible and deserving of condemnation”.
[…]
Secretary Annan is not the only globalist calling for international controls on firearms. For example, some world leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac, have called for a global tax on firearms. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council’s “Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms” calls for a comprehensive program of worldwide gun control and praises the restrictive gun polices of Red China and France!
[…]
Mr. Speaker, global gun control is a recipe for global tyranny and a threat to the safety of all law-abiding persons. I therefore hope all my colleagues will help protect the fundamental human right to keep and bear arms by cosponsoring the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act.
Damn, that is almost enough to turn me into a Republican! Now if that party could just do something about its mercantilist anti-market trade policies, repressive sexual policies in some states and nasty tendency to vastly increase the size and scope of state whilst claiming to be the party of small government…
Agreed. Representative Ron Paul is a very principled man, despite the fact that I disagree with him on a number of issues. He used to belong to the Libertarian Party of the US. Another thing people might be interested in knowing is that he regularly introduces resolutions to withdraw the US from the UN.
Ron Paul lost my respect when he claimed in his speech in congress that “there is no proof” that Saddam is a threat, and therefore voted against the resolution authorizing the President to deal with Iraq.
Now, I understand the libertarian opposition to the use of American lives and American txapayer’s dollars to police the world. Americans should not be forced by their government to make big, altruistic sacrifices to enhance other people’s safety.
So the question should have been: was Saddam enough of a threat for the US to justify the war ? On this question different people may evaluate differently the known facts.
But this was not Ron Paul’s position: he flatly denied there was any problem… “no proof” was his moto. No proof that Saddam had WMD, no proof he had terrorist connections or sympathies, no proof he had started two wars of aggresion, no proof he murdered his citizens wholesale, no proof he hated the US.
Here we had an extreme example of an ideological position that completely blinded his perception of facts. I cannot respect that.
I know he takes a principled and consitent stand for libertarian principles, but mostly his gestures and speeches have no practical consequences, as he is far out from any working consensus in congress, that is – he is ineffective, though I would rather have ineffective libertarians than effective statists.
Welcome to Neoconservative Samizdata, Perry. 🙂
Sorry, that should be “Israel” above.
Damn, wrong thread (the ‘Israel’ comment).
Jacob,
The traditional libertarian position (obviously not shared on Samizdata) is that barring a direct attack against the US, use of force is inappropriate. You can see this position reflected by the likes of Murray Rothbard during the Cold War. I happen to think that is nothing more than glorified ostrich mentality. Even so, Ron Paul should be given credit for consistency. Furthermore, I think we should look at his overall record instead of a few isolated incidents and his overall record is one of principled libertarianism, especially on fiscal matters. This is a man who is not afraid to cross the GOP when it lurches toward statism. That takes some courage.
Ron Paul was a GOP legislator, then later ran for US President as a Libertarian, and eventually went back to the House as a GOP congressman (because it was apparently easier to get onto the ballot as Republican than Libertarian). He is not typical of the GOP, and in fact the party poobahs have frequently tried to take him down during various primary elections. I believe he is still a dues-paying member of the Libertarian Party, but I may be wrong about that. Anyway, if people can say that Bill Clinton was the “first black president,” then Libertarians can certainly say that Ron Paul was the “first Libertarian congressman.”
What kind of threat was Saddam Hussein? Every day, we see just how feeble and toothless his regime was, except when it came to beating up on his own people.
The significance of Ron Paul’s statement about there not being any proof of Saddam-as-threat-to-US is great. In the US, the congress is given the sole power to declare war, and the President to prosecute the wars that congress declares. The declaration of war requires as much debate and consideration as time and circumstances permit. As a congressman, a representative of the people from whom the US government draws its power, Paul had both the right and responsibility to examine the proof of the Administration’s justifications for war. That he found such proof wanting and/or absent, when there was PLENTY OF TIME for the Administration to make the airtight case it claimed to be able to make, speaks volumes about the illegitimacy of the Iraq war, and the disingenuousness of its proponents.
One thing that true libertarians are not is imperialists. Paul believes in a strong national defense, but not in imperialism. More every day, we see that the proponents of the Iraq war serve the interests of imperialists, whether or not they have been consciously aware of doing so. Don’t be blinded by desires for national glory, or delusions that our military might can or should bring freedom and democracy to foreign lands as a humanitarian obligation. These are emotional appeals that people with earthier motives use to get the ill-informed to go along with them. The promised outcome never materializes, but once the Rubicon is crossed, we can never go back. Don’t let yourself be used as a dupe, as so many in Congress did. Think for yourself and come to your own conclusions, as Ron Paul did. You may or may not agree with Paul, but at least you will have honest convictions, and the courage of them.
Yes, we have. That’s why all of us on the editorial staff support this particular effort (in Iraq).
And as a by the way… I wrote Ron Paul’s Space Policy back in for the 1988 campaign. I mostly worked with his campaign manager on it, only met Ron a couple times during the season.
His point on Iraq is correct IMO. While there WAS evidence that saddam openly violated the terms of the ceasefire & ignored UN sanctions, the first & foremost concern is the security of the united states itself. I saw no proof that US security was threatened by Iraq.
Am I the only one that finds it ironic that the same people that said (correctly) that the UN was irrelevant essentially acted to enforce their own rule against their will?
The Republicans have not won gold stars for small government, but I have to defend my imperfect friends
RE: the “…nasty tendency to vastly increase the size and scope of state…” Look at what their opposition would do. Much of the government expansion they propose is forced by the Democrats, and a GOP win is sometimes to make a new program smaller.
I’d like government reduction but there is currently NO constituency for it that can succeed electorally.
As a conservative and a libertarian Paul is not infallible and as far as Iraq was concerned just flat out wrong. That said, however, on “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms Act,” I say, oh hell yeah.
I sure hope you like verbal abuse. 🙂 🙂
Holding Ron Paul out as a libertarian avatar is a kind of straw-man argument. Lots of people who reasonably call themselves libertarians disagree with his statements re Iraq. And of course it’s possible to be wrong about one topic and right about others. He seems to be generally decent and thoughtful, remarkably so for a politician, and his comments about RKBA, civil liberties and other topics are consistently good, so I can live with his imperfections. Would that Congress had a couple of hundred more like him.
Cynical people are so easy to manipulate. PdH proclaims his cynicism by declaring Ron Paul to be one of the few politicians he respects, and proceeds to let Paul lead him around by the nose.
Read Rep. Paul’s statement. It looks like yet another gratuitous Congressional restriction on the expenditure of American tax dollars to further American interests — there already dozens of these — yet what it actually proposes is a ban on US funding of UN actions that could infringe on the Second Amendment. Since the Second Amendment is not law outside the United States the number of conceivable UN actions fitting this description is, well, small, as in zero. A “sense of Congress” resolution, as well, in American legislation is one without legal force.
All Ron Paul is doing with this is throwing a bouquet to his pro-gun, anti-UN Texas constituents, and secondarily to national gun organizations like the National Rifle Association. His bill would literally not do anything. I’ll leave it to others to judge whether this meaningless gesture would be enough to make Rep. Paul a libertarian hero if he weren’t already.
Zathras: until one of Ron’s bills to get us out of it passes, we’re in the UN. Any rule restricting firearms ownership would be applied (or at least attempted to be applied) to the US as well. And even if not successful, US tax dollars going towards fighting a concept we are bound to uphold is a ripoff. It’s actually worse than tax dollars funding abortion clinics abroad, in the way that it offends what is pretty much a universal belief rather than a personal one.
Zathras: it is far from meaningless… anything which weakens the UN by bringing it into disrepute in the USA and thus brings the USA a day closer to withdrawing from it, is a good thing. USA leaving would lead to the UN’s effective collapse economically and the end of a major force for evil in the world. It is indeed a ‘gesture’ but it is far from being a meaningless one.
Dale Amon: “I believe he [Ron Paul] is still a dues-paying member of the Libertarian Party, but I may be wrong about that.”
Fascinating, if true. British party discipline is incomparably fierce. Joining another one is an infallible way of getting thrown out of a political party in this country. Usually even suggesting voters support other than your own party will be enough–whatever the occasion–to finish a career. Tactical voting is never openly encouraged.
Ron Paul is a isolationist libertarian. Any deep thinker should realize that the era of islotaion ended the day Sputnik was launched in 1957. An isolationist of any poltical persuassion is a dinosaur. Ron Paul IS a political dinosaur.
The future lies in expanding political ideology and power globally. Whether you are on the left or right. Libertarian or socialist. The only way isolationism can come back to relevancy is for the collapse of technological civilization.
Glad to see you back, Perry, I’ve not seen you post in awhile. You get a big “Ditto” from me regarding this bill from Ron Paul. Anything that flips the proverbial “bird” at the U.N. is a “good thing”!
EO: by that logic, we’re all dinosaurs anyway. Most people are too docile & complacent to care a lick about freedom, they just want reality TV, nachos, & a cushion for every single possible risk they can name.
EO, there’s isolationalism and isolationalism. I oppose imperialism but support decreased trade and imigration barriers.
The hope would be to have a mutually supportive international consensus rather than bring peace using “The Tao of the Bloody Nose”
Rich
You have to read Ron Paul’s speech on Iraq to grasp the sillyness of it. He is not an isolationist libertarian, he is a willfully ignorant one. Reading his speech you are left with the feeling he thinks Saddam is an innocent pup, bullied by the criminal imperiaslist neocons, for no good reason.
Besides – he is a regular politician – a lot of talk, a lot of attempts to grab attention. True, his retoric is libertarian, not the usual empty platitudes, still I would like to judge a congressman not only by the purity of his retoric, but by some tangible aceivements.
Richard,
“The hope would be to have a mutually supportive international consensus rather than bring peace using “The Tao of the Bloody Nose””
Consensus is nice to have, but when others use on you “The Tao of the Bloody Nose” … well what do you do ? Preach some more consensus ?
What a lot of non sequitur in this thread.
“Any deep thinker should realize that the era of islotaion ended the day Sputnik was launched in 1957. An isolationist of any poltical persuassion is a dinosaur.”
Why is that so?
‘Cause it don’t work, regardless of whatever your personal ideology says.
Why is isolationism a “political dinosaur”? Because it is a utopian ideology and not a reality based ideology. Isolationism isn’t possible in the space age. Libertarianism has to adopt to reality and not stick to an ideal that technology has rendered obselete. All “isms” that don’t adapt became irrelevant over time. If the US adopts a founding fathers version of isolationism, the nation will not exist in 50 to 100 years. It would be overwhelmed by nations who disregarded isolationism.
The US and it’s allies should engage the world as evangelists of 21st century style freedoms of capitalism, property rights and the high technology way of life. If that breaks the libertarian tenet of live and let live, so be it. The world is in a battle for which ideal and system will dominate as it always has been. If Libertarians are serious about their ideology (freedom and property rights) they have to drop the idea of utopian isolation or they may lose freedom and property rights.
Ron Paul is an isolationist. I have been an observer of his career and writings for many years. The reason he is Republican is to get elected.
John Moore writes – “‘Cause it don’t work, regardless of whatever your personal ideology says.”
Could you give some real world examples proving that it doesn’t work, thanks.
Evolved One writes – “If the US adopts a founding fathers version of isolationism, the nation will not exist in 50 to 100 years. It would be overwhelmed by nations who disregarded isolationism.”
Can you explain how the most powerful military in the history of the world, armed with enough nukes to vaporise human life as we know it, will be overwhelmed by other nations, thank you.
Also could you explain why you don’t think intervenionist foreign policy will provoke WMD retaliation at some point in the future.