December 23, 2011
Why I Support Ron Paul
Before I get too far into this post, I feel that I have to make a disclaimer: I am not a “Paul-bot.” If you follow libertarian or Republican politics, you know to whom I refer: the hardcore Paul partisans, the ones who tell all their friends to vote for Ron in any number of online polls each day, the ones who will automatically label you as a statist if you dare to disagree with anything Ron Paul says. I realize that most national political candidates have such followers; Paul’s partisans just seem to be much more visible, and there don’t seem to be any throngs of hardcore followers of the other GOP candidates.
So, that being said, I am supporting Ron Paul for President. I support him because his views align closest to mine on the single most important issue of our time: shrinking the size of government. Paul has a plan to balance the budget within three years – the most ambitious such plan out there. I’ve gone over the plan briefly (you can find it here). I think it’s a mostly solid plan, although there are a few over-simplifications in the budget. For example, Paul advocates eliminating the Department of Commerce completely. I have no issues with that in theory; there are certainly some agencies in that department that do work the government shouldn’t do, such as the Economic Development Administration or the Minority Business Development Agency. However, the Census Bureau, which performs the Constitutionally mandated decennial census, is also part of the Commerce Department. I’m sure Paul’s got a plan for keeping the Census Bureau around, but I’m sure there will be some costs associated with the bureau, even in years in which there is no census. But even if Ron Paul’s budget savings are only 75% of what the official plan says it would be, that’s still a savings of $1.6 trillion over four years (as compared to President Obama’s FY12 budget). That’s the type of dramatic turnaround we need.
Ron Paul also wins my vote for his views on national defense and foreign policy. This is also the area where he is most maligned by your typical Republicans. As a matter of principle, Ron Paul would stop spending tax money on foreign aid. In an age of trillion-dollar deficits, that’s a wise policy. Yet, included in that blanket policy would be foreign aid to Israel. Many evangelicals see this as abandoning Israel, and thus disobeying God’s will concerning them. I will have to tackle this subject in a future blog post, but suffice to say that I don’t agree that we must support Israel; God has promised that He will not let Israel be conquered again. So I have no qualms about cutting 100% of foreign aid.
As for defense, Ron Paul wisely believes that we should defend America, and America only. Much like John Quincy Adams, Ron Paul (and I) agree that America “is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” Paul is called an isolationist, when really his views are non-interventionist, much like George Washington advocated. I also believe that America’s armed forces should be used only for the defense of America – see my post Cutting the Pentagon Budget, Reframing the Pentagon’s Goals.
In recent days, a lot has been made of Ron Paul’s newsletters, published back in the early 1990’s when he was out of Congress. Apparently, some of those newsletters make statements many consider racist. I’ve read a few of the excerpts that have been paraded around the news, and while they’re not the worst things I’ve ever read, they’re certainly not something you would put your name on. Ron Paul has stated that he didn’t write everything in his newsletter, and that he doesn’t recall who wrote many of his articles. That’s probably true; the things Paul says today don’t sound anything like the articles in question, and it’s certainly not unheard of to have other people write articles for you. However, Paul deserves admonishment for allowing those views to be published if they don’t actually express what he believes.
So Ron Paul is certainly not a political Messiah; his views will never match anyone else’s views perfectly, and he’s got his share of skeletons in the closet. But he’s the best candidate in the race, and certainly better than any candidate either major party has put forth since Goldwater. That’s why I’m supporting Ron Paul this year.
Political Campaign Expert » Blog Archive » Why I Support Ron Paul « Liberty In The Son said,
December 23, 2011 at 2:59 PM
[...] Original post: Why I Support Ron Paul « Liberty In The Son [...]
Derek Young (@derekmyoung) said,
December 26, 2011 at 11:01 PM
That’s as clear of an assessment as I’ve seen. I’d never support Paul as my view of the appropriate level of government in a modern state is radically different than his, or yours for that matter. But I definitely get the attraction.
I do think he either needs to real with this newsletter issue or his supporters should get behind Gov. Johnson who seems to share most of his beliefs. Thus far Paul’s explanations are laughable. The newsletters aren’t just racist, but bizarrely conspiratorial. You’re right that it doesn’t sound like him now, and I hope it never was, but keep in mind he was trafficking in some pretty weird circles back then with neo-confederates, the John Birch Society, etc. That’s just where the libertarian movement was in those days – things have changed.
The problem for Paul being that he made an enormous amount of money from those newsletters and they’re all written in the first person, as a Congressional insider. As much as his supporters say “that doesn’t sound like him” it WAS him. There is video of him talking about them, even defending some of the worst sections. Now his excuse seems to be that he never read them. That, to be blunt, is clearly a lie. It would be like you or me having offensive posts on our blogs, making money from them, promoting them, defending them, and later claiming that someone else did it or that we didn’t know about it. People would laugh at us.
I like having Paul in the race. He challenges intellectually dishonesty in other Republicans quite well. It’s a voice that needs to be heard if not from Paul, then hopefully someone else. I just worry that he’s going to hurt that movement if he doesn’t change course pretty soon.