NO PAULISTA

I might as well confess upfront – I have misgivings about writing this.  It’s because a good number of TTPers, several of whom I’ve come to know and like personally via our Rendezvous, are passionate "Paulistas," or advocates of Ron Paul (R-TX) and his campaign for the presidency.

My misgivings come not from fear of offending them but my regard and respect for them.  They are decent, sincere folks who truly love their country.  They are also smart and not easily conned, politically or otherwise.  So there has to be a lot in Paul’s message that’s worth their passion.

That said, I’m no Paulista, and it’s about time I explained why.

It’s because of the source of the connection between the two camps of Paul supporters and donors:  those who advocate real free market capitalism and a truly radical reduction of government interference in our lives, and those who Blame-America-First and are rooting for America to lose in Iraq.

The source has a name:  Murray Rothbard (1926-1995), one of the founders of the Libertarian Party.  Ron Paul was the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate in 1988.

The libertarian movement, and the party itself (formally organized in 1971), at its very inception had two intellectual parents:  philosopher Ayn Rand and economist Murray Rothbard.  Both were inspired in economic theory by the monumental genius of Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973) and his Austrian School which made an overwhelmingly impressive argument for laissez faire.

In 1969, as an impoverished graduate student, I rode a bus across the entire United States from LA to Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, to spend a weekend with Ludwig Von Mises and his wife, Margit, at his invitation.  He autographed my copy of his magnum opus, Human Action, which has pride of place in my library to this day.

Both Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises loved America (she having immigrated to here from Soviet Russia to escape from the Communists, he from Austria to escape the Nazis), and were heroic defenders of America against her enemies.

Murray Rothbard (from right here in Brooklyn) only loved the Platonic Ideal of What America Ought To Be.  Because the actual real-world America did not live up to its founding ideals, he came to hate America and its government to the point of taking the side of every enemy America had in the world.

Ludwig Von Mises would have despised what his former student had become – a perversion of his teachings, who embraced the intellectual childishness of anarchism.

Rothbard was a black flag anarchist who argued for not just the reduction of the US government, but its elimination.  But he had a problem called the Cold War.

If there really was an enormous threat in the world that required a huge government military and foreign policy to defend us from it, then he would have to abandon his anarchist dream.

Instead, he denied the threat, pretended it didn’t exist, and blamed us for it.

The first presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party was John Hospers, Chairman of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, in 1972.  John was introduced to me by Nathaniel Branden (Rand’s main disciple), who then invited me to teach and get my Ph.D. in philosophy under him at USC.  So John was my mentor and doctoral dissertation chairman when he ran for president.

John was a Randian libertarian, pro-defense, pro-America.  Rothbardian libertarians are the opposite.  Tragically, the latter seized control of the Libertarian Party after the ’72 campaign and have not relinquished it since.

I will never forget the day I canceled my subscription to Rothbard’s Libertarian Forum newsletter in 1974, for it was the day I stopped calling myself a libertarian.  The lead editorial was written by Rothbard, in which he said:  "The Soviet Union is the greatest force for peace in the world today." 

Not once – never, ever – did Rothbard take the side of America in any dispute with the Soviet Union.  No matter what happened, no matter what evil the Soviets perpetrated, it was always our fault, it was our aggressive behavior that "provoked" them.

And thus, Ron Paul, who has a picture of Ludwig Von Mises in his Congressional office and reminisces warmly about his "close friendship" with Murray Rothbard, publicly claims America provoked the Moslem terrorist atrocity of 9/11:  "They attack us because we’ve been over there."

As a result, Paul’s candidacy has attracted the worst of the Left and the Right:  the Hate-America MoveOn.org Moonbats cheering for Moslem terrorist victories over us, and those paleo-conservatives infected with anti-Semitism – the folks who use the term "neoconservative" as a code-word for "right-wing Jew," who advocate isolationism because they can’t stand America’s support for Israel.

I do not believe that Paul himself is anti-Semitic or is cheering for Moslem terrorists – but he should ask himself why among his supporters there are so many that are.

For 35 years, ever since John Hospers, I’ve waited in vain for a presidential candidate who advocated real economic freedom and a government restricted to the enumerated powers the Constitution gives it, and a foreign/military policy that has the strength and pride to pro-actively defend our country throughout the world without apology or appeasement.

The closest we came, of course, was Ronald Reagan, which is why he is so revered, and why we wish we had another like him running for president today.

Sadly, Ron Paul does not come remotely close to being another Reagan.  He has many fine, admirable, personal qualities.  He advocates a greater reduction of government power than even Reagan, far greater.  But he remains captured by Rothbardian illusions which blind him from the reality of a dangerous world.

Which is why, since being elected to Congress in 1996, he has not voted for a single Defense Authorization Bill, not one, not ever.

More sadly to me is the damage I fear Paul is doing to the cause of freedom.  When Libertarianism got started, many of its advocates focused on kid stuff, childish issues like legalizing pot, pornography, and prostitution.  The predictable result was that Libertarianism was irrevocably tainted with the kid stuff in the public’s mind, rather than associating it with serious political philosophy arguing for an enumerated powers-only government.

Now, thanks to Paul, this same philosophy is going to be associated in the public’s mind by an unwillingness to defend America and stand up to the enemies that are actively trying to destroy her. 

Thus the chance to have a real debate on just what are the legal, Constitutional justifications for government programs never enumerated or permitted in the Constitution is spoiled, due to the taint of Rothbardian anti-Americanism.

Again, for emphasis, I do not for a moment believe Paul is anti-American, but also again, many of his followers are – thus the taint.

Let’s put it in a thought experiment.  What sort of presidential candidate would you get if you crossed Ron Paul with Duncan Hunter?  Paul’s domestic and economic positions with Hunter’s foreign policy and military ones?  You’d get what I want, that’s who.

And that’s why Ron Paul by his lonesome is not what I want.  That’s why I’m no Paulista.