Ron Paul: The Choice for Liberty in 2012

What is America?  It is a nation born of tradition and the pursuit of liberty.  Out of the Revolution came a separation from Great Britain and the tyrant King George III, then the Constitution.  The challenge is to restore these traditions in our next presidential election.  The choice is Ron Paul.

President Obama called the Constitution “an imperfect document,” was chastised for it, yet it is probably true, for it was written by imperfect men.  Whatever the reality, it does not give the President—or any other American—the license to ignore the Constitution.  If not for the Constitution, America is but a blind amalgamation of political boundaries.  If satisfaction is not met in this regard, there are indeed measures by which to change or amend the document, something that has only been done 27 times during the history of the American republic.  There are some reasons for this, including: the reality that the system is fairly good in the first place; that Congress tends to be an institutional coward that lacks salt, its members favoring re-election over principled governance.

While the document may reflect “some deep flaws,” as Obama maintains, this president, his judgment fogged by the cloud of meliorism, cannot and should not be trusted to “fix” what he thinks is wrong, especially without adhering to the processes codified in law.  The simple belief that a hasty approach to lawmaking without the consent of a “dysfunctional Congress” is the danger inherent with this president.

Ron Paul has another tact entirely.  He has a deep love for America, her traditions, and her Constitution, flawed as the document may perhaps be.  Dr. Paul believes in governing by the founding principles of the American republic, for the traditions and adherence to the principle of Liberty once allowed for a thriving national character.  The American Revolution began as the greatest political experiment in history, yet the country has fallen away from the maintenance and cultivation of liberty as the paramount cause of this nation.  Ron Paul has not.

Often derided by the War Party on his foreign policy positions and erroneously characterized as an “isolationist,” Ron Paul stands with the great Americans from history: Nanos gigantium humeris insidentes.  In our nascent republic, Presidents argued for a strong national defense, rather than a marauding global offense, just as Ron Paul does today.

George Washington declared that it is America's “true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Such alliances and guarantees for war on behalf of other Continental powers led to the onset of World War I.  Without the dubious British war-guarantee to Poland, World War II may not have evolved into a worldwide affair in the first place.  Thus, diplomacy without regard to national sovereignty has led to colossal missteps for world powers.

One job of the President of the United States is to be the nation's chief diplomat.  Diplomacy has certainly known many faces, but Thomas Jefferson figured “Commerce with all nations, Alliances with none should be our motto.”  These statements of policy from both Washington and Jefferson were not off-the-cuff, either.  These men and others of the Revolutionary period were a scholarly and reflective bunch with a keen grasp of world history.

Today, Barack Obama may be scholarly, but he is reflexive rather than reflective.  Ron Paul is the antithesis of President Obama in demeanor.

There is a place for the Constitution, for at the very least, the text itself insures a modicum of order and affirms liberty in the face of meddling state intervention within the lives of citizens.  In essence, the Constitution buttresses freedom and liberty against the forces of anarchism and authoritarianism.  It was written as a document to preserve liberty.  Ron Paul believes this.  It is not apparent that this is a particular concern of Barack Obama's.

Dr. Paul and others within movements such as the Tea Party, believing in the legitimacy of the Constitution as rule of law, are accused of such nonsense as the “Repealing of the 20th Century.”  The notion that Big Government programs established outside the scope of the Constitution—such as Medicare, Social Security, the alphabet soup of organizations began under FDR and the New Deal, and now Obamacare—are spendthrift and significantly contribute to an inevitable U.S. bankruptcy lest the path change, is pure apostasy to these statists.

The programs are largely well-intended, but potential results poorly considered.  Human progress in this regard is not limitless.  Such radical beliefs tend to lead to authoritarian and totalitarian states.

Yet the radicals themselves say an authoritarian regime would be ushered in if the behemoth federal programs were to disappear and a constitutionalist like Ron Paul were to become president.  But doesn't a smaller government with more limitations put upon the government class sound like a return to more expansive liberty?  Large federal programs that tack on cost to the current $15 trillion-plus debt—that citizens are coerced into joining—sounds more like the authoritarianism they talk about.

Now ensconced are a War Party and a Party of Government.  While the GOP and the Dems may not get along so well, these parties of War and Government practice bipartisanship quite famously.  Power is the prime motivator, not principle.  Ron Paul exists outside of this realm.

While the neoconservative push is to act as a “moral force of good” in the world by fomenting global war, Ron Paul holds the words of Thomas Jefferson dear: “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”  This is the prudent and moral position.

War should be reserved as a defensive act.  The War Party would therefore not exist to the degree it does in this age, while the Party of Government would have at least one leg cut out from under it.  Far from something to be worried about, Americans should rejoice with such a turn in policy.  This is Ron Paul's aim:  for a steadfast defense at home rather than a haphazard offense abroad.

For the “means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home,” according to James Madison.  A constant state of war is both a threat to freedom and liberty on the personal level while also a risk to national sovereignty, having to sort out all the entangling alliances Washington warned of.

As the American government prosecutes undeclared war-like missions abroad, her citizens face eroding liberty on the homefront.  Ron Paul's firm opposition to one of the most visible affronts to personal liberty—the PATRIOT Act—is well documented.

Yet, says the neoconservative, what good is liberty when it cannot be practiced because one will be dead (without benevolent interventions)?  Comes the reality:  it is nanny-state war-mongering at its finest and their “help” to keep us “safe” only serves to erode liberty to say nothing of a less desirable life.

Belief in liberty is patriotism.  For it was the American patriot, Virginia's Patrick Henry, who declared, “Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!”  Ron Paul is a patriot with a zeal for liberty, the likes of which is rarely seen, and is certainly not seen amongst the other candidates of the Republican Primaries or our sitting president.

Where the War Party is dismissive of Ron Paul's foreign policy, the Party of Government actively encourages state control of institutions and behavior in order to create a better society going forth.  They cling to the notion that Government is a better steward of a life than the individual is.  While the sentiment is real and heartfelt, this attitude and subsequent policies have failed or are failing everywhere they have been put in place.  On the other hand, when an exercise in liberty has existed in this world's history—the United States is the prime or only example—liberty has flourished, however briefly, before being co-opted by larger statist claims to power.

The 20th Century English theologian and writer C.S. Lewis noted that “of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised 'for the good of its victims' may be the most oppressive.”  The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions.  And perhaps that is why, when faced with a vote in the United States, the average voter will pick between “the better of two evils.”  In 2012, however, the choice is clear: Ron Paul and liberty over the status quo.

Yet, Ron Paul cannot save the world or even save the country by himself—we'll leave that to Chuck Norris or to one of Stan Lee's creations—but as president, Paul's ideas and dedication to constitutional principles will shine like a beacon to the rest of the free world.  A Paul presidency, while embracing liberty, will encourage those who believe in the principles of the Constitution to be heard.  It will provide some redemption to the students—current and former—who have learned about the history and traditions of our country, but who have not seen such positive traditions outwardly practiced in their lifetimes.

Barack Obama promised hope and change.  Ron Paul is not making such foolish, open-ended promises which can only be measured by warm-fuzzies or by a wet-finger in the wind.  That hackneyed notion of “Change” ushered one erstwhile bartender and part-time thespian, Woody Boyd, into Boston City Hall some years back.  'Twas hardly an intellectual movement or dedicated to principles of any kind.  Fantasy indeed.

Ron Paul's record of standing with liberty speaks for itself.  He is a 12-term congressman, serving in the House of Representatives on-and-off since 1976.  Today, on the other hand, sits a president who does not demonstrate that he holds liberty in high regard.  There is now a pool of largely neoconservative and progressive candidates in the Republican Primaries—though trying to claim conservatism as it is the apparent litmus test for the nomination—where war-mongering is of utmost importance and personal liberties are disregarded in favor of the claim of safety and protection.

Ron Paul is a fine American who believes in a great America, yet that greatness is only possible if the country becomes again an earnest practitioner of liberty.  No other candidate can hold up to the most American of standards better than Dr. Paul.

The choice is apparent.  The challenge, however, is for Republicans to vote for Ron Paul in their state primaries or caucuses and for independents and Democrats to change their party registrations and do the same.

Peaceful by Someone's Definition: Occupy Movement

The Occupy Wall Street crowd and its disciples set up camps across America within our cities claiming to be peaceful protesters representing the 99 per cent.  Problematically, much of the 99 per cent—intended to be among the represented—are disinterested in the movement and what it has devolved into.  While the Occupy cause started out as an ostensibly non-violent one, it was never peaceful.

A myopic view of peace defines it as the cessation of violence, yet the meaning runs much deeper.  Mutual harmony amongst people and public order both expand the definition.

Reflect: Agitation in the streets, alleged sexual assaults, reports of a rampant illicit drug trade, human waste in open-air buckets.  Peaceful, one asks?

Came the urban terrorism in Oakland.  First, a former Marine wounded in a skirmish.  The Port of Oakland barricaded by chain link and forced to shut down.  Banks vandalized.  Chaos ensued.

What becomes of such peace?  A renunciation by the amorphous Occupy leadership of these rogue “anarchists.”  Eighteen percent of Oakland Unified's teaching force skipped school with substitutes largely unavailable.  Mayor Quan is still encouraging the misplaced rage.

Is this what Occupy is to become?  In Portland, where this writer had the misfortune of observing the Occupy encampment earlier this week, Lownsdale and Chapman Squares no longer appear to be a part of the City of Roses, but a Third World enclave.  Is our destiny to become Ciudad Terra Puerta?

Is living, nay existing, angstroms apart from each other in a squalid tent city a peaceful existence?  What of hectoring the Portland Police—who came out with a formal repudiation of Occupy Portland on Thursday—or the stifling of downtown business and tourism?  This now stands as a peaceful approach in the Portland of Sam Adams.

Clearly, the sentiment of Occupiers is understood by much of that 99 per cent.  Our country is in a bad place.  Yet the camps offer no solutions.  Grousing for months at a time without a message of any cohesion begins to fall on deaf ears.

The banks and Wall Street may be at fault for much of our mess, but are they to blame?  These institutions were simply playing the game that presidential administrations from Clinton through Obama had set up with a complicit Congress.

Economic policy of the united States has paid lip-service to the American worker during this time.  Within this current century, over fifty-thousand manufacturing plants and factories have shuttered and with it, the 6 million jobs, the towns, and the cities dependent upon them.  The Chinese have picked up this slack.

This debasement of the American economy is more devastating than war or financial shenanigans on Wall Street.  It is time the Occupation realize that many of our politicians—democratically elected—are to blame.  Circle the wagons and move toward substantive political solutions, rather than embracing the effects of mob psychology.

The call is to elect candidates who put America and her jobs, her cities, towns, and states first.  Vote candidates encouraging trade and tax policy which repatriates capital into the only Free Trade Zone our founders envisioned:  The one defined by the borders of the United States of America.

The specific hope and particular change this country needs is in how its citizens think and act.  Complaining about the symptoms of our crisis rather than attacking its source will lead to a long stalemate.  Our country cannot afford such a path, for our crisis will turn swiftly from immediate to existential.

If this occurs, peace may become but a relic within this republic.

Radicalism in Portland: A conflagration forthcoming?

Though Mayor Sam Adams and Commissioner Amanda Fritz advocated for—and the Portland City Council subsequently created—the Office of Equity and Human Rights, wherefore the need? As a principle, equity is fine, yet by legislating equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity, this melioristic fancy of theirs will simply serve as another protracted disappointment, wasting both time and treasure along the way.

Three scant years ago in the United States, “change” became the coin of the realm. Portland City Commissioners, ideological disciples of the 2008 movement, latched on to this and ran. Is such a tact so prudent? Twentieth Century political theorist Russell Kirk cautioned that “hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress.”

Hasty and far from principled, the five are a radical bunch. As such, and again to borrow from Kirk, the radical believes: “that education, positive legislation, and alteration of environment can produce men like gods; they deny that humanity has a natural proclivity toward violence and sin.” City Hall has long been devoid of leadership which can combat such efforts—“good-hearted efforts,” as Adams and Fritz say—which lead exactly nowhere.

Well-intentioned though the commissioners may be, perfect human beings and perfect societies cannot be legislated or planned into existence.

A human being is, by his or her mere nature, flawed—imperfect. A society is, by 18th Century Irish statesman Edmund Burke's description, “joined in perpetuity by a moral bond among the dead, the living, and those yet to be born.” Imperfect souls thus constitute an imperfect society, yet the Council concerns itself with legislation for Portland to become a perfect city, paying no mind to maintaining that moral bond of which a society requires.

In this regard, scattershot legislation and the latest “livability” standards will either lead to public backlash or an apathetic public will relent to the power-hungry on Fourth Avenue and go along for the bumpy ride. Disappointment either way.

The new office is likely to achieve exactly the opposite of its stated intentions. One class of people is more apt to become favored over another, only it will be a class that the Council and its bureaucrats intend it to be. The program is iniquitous at its core.

On the other hand, it is disingenuous to claim that unabated freedom and a laissez-faire marketplace can or will provide for all of the needs of the public at large. Leaders and true statesmen are called for. Presently, there is a void of leadership at City Hall, no matter the amount of Tweets, press releases, or photo opportunities emanating from within.

An abstraction such as this latest expansion of city government only serves to enlarge an already bloated bureaucracy and de-emphasize leadership, while encouraging City Hall's wanton pursuit of power.

This nation already recognizes equality before courts of law, so the Council's latest adventure is simply unnecessary duplication. Being created equal, and having equal standing under law, does not dictate that the equality of condition follows, yet this is the ultimate goal of the Council. Mandating and regulating equal outcomes will ultimately translate into an equality of apathy and subservience.

Do Portlanders want to be bound by the power wielded by an oligarchical Council?

Consider moderation. Plato noted that it “consists in an indifference about little things and in a prudent and well-proportioned zeal about things of importance.” The Council inhabits the negative space around this concept: zealous over little things while indifferent about the important ones.

Where does this all lead? As for the hasty innovation of the “good-hearted” Council—its constituent members largely free of principle, discipline, and moderation—one may want to note the approaching seven score anniversary of the bovine misstep in Mrs. O'Leary's Chicago barn.

[The writer is a descendent of Massachusetts O'Learys.]