Letters to the Editor
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Now that everyone else has had their say...
Here's MY beef with the Ron Paul folks.
1.) The federal government is inherently bad and unfixable.
2.) The state governments are inherently good and can deal with all problems the Constitution doesn't lay out a solution for. These apparently include issues of individual liberty such as gay marriage or abortion (both of which the Paul campaign wants to leave as matters of the state.) There's also the issue that for all his rhetoric, I've not seen anything stating that Ron Paul would explicitly allow gays in the military. I would like to know what his stance on this if anyone could enlighten me.
Okay so about the feds. Ron Paul supporters seem to go on the idea that the federal government is broken and we should throw out the whole damn experiment. This would only be valid if federal gov't has always been a bad thing. However, thanks to the federal government, we have minimum wage and age laws, union protections, civil rights protections, anti-trust laws, voting rights laws, and other key standards of modern civil society. If you'd like to argue these bedrock American ideas, by all means.
So in replacing the federal government, Ron Paul backers present us with an equally poor solution: leave everything to the states. I am frankly stunned this is a line of reasoning that has a leg to stand on in the 21st century. Especially for people who claim to be Libertarians. How exactly do the states righters propose protecting liberty for all Americans on a state level? If every person deserves the right to smoke
marijuana, what happens when some states ban that right? What if one state prevents one group of people from voting? What if states allow corporations to bust up unions or block gay rights? If Ron Paul believes in these rights, he has to allow the federal government do its job when the states refuse to do so. That was important in the Civil Rights Movement, and contrary to what anyone wants to believe, it is still important now.
I take other issues with the Paul platform (though I admire the sincerity of his convictions), but they've pretty much been covered. More Ron Paul articles, please. I love me a healthy debate.
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Ron Paul credited with creating debate
If nothing else, Ron Paul can be credited with creating real debate and engagement within our society about the role of government, executive power, authenticity in politicians, and the place of the United States in the world. Love him or hate him, this is one of the few positives to date in this campaign.
I've heard many here talk about rejecting Paul based on some point of differentiation with libertarian philosophy. Ron Paul is clearly not a libertarian and was not even seen as an ideologically spotless candidate by the Libertarian Party when he ran back in 1988. If I recall, this was particularly true around issues of religion and state and reproductive rights, although the latter is certainly not settled debate within the libertarian movement today. Paul is more accurately described as a constitutionalist, one who does project the interplay between religion and government from hundreds of years ago on the role religion should have today, a position I personally disagree with but would overlook in favor of a higher benefit that I set out below.
If Ron Paul were elected President, let's remember that the existing Congress will remain largely intact, and the rulings of the federal courts will continue along their recent patterns. All Ron Paul can do is start to move the discourse and probably rule by veto, attempting to shift society's interaction with government. I still expect to be both a servant and ward of the state for some time to come. It's in this construct that I would not reject Paul based on a point of differentiation with his constitutionalist views; his impact will be severely limited despite the clarity of his goals.
The real outcome I would expect over Paul's first term would be a fast shift to some of the most egregious transgressions by the current administration, particularly in US foreign policy, entitlement program growth, and deficit spending. I see Hillary, Obama, Guiliani and Romney as no different from the Bush policies in this broader regard. I think it would take at least one presidential term to see a healthier set of world relationships result from a less adventurous and demanding United States, even if we cease financial support to many now addicted to US foreign aid. In terms of other parts of our establishment including the basic income tax construct, our social security pyramid scheme, and even the law-enforcement-enriching war on drugs, I think it unlikely that significant changes would be adopted in any rapid fashion as much as I think society could benefit from them.
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What programmers learn about politics from programming
We learn alot about the law of unintended consequences, and that the more complex a system is, the more important it is to pay attention to that law. We see the social and political systems of a nation like ours as being perhaps the most complex things there are, and we are skeptical they can be 'programmed' through lots of legislation.
For example, we see regulatory bodies set-up to protect us from abuses of corporate power. They may do some good things from time to time, but as they evolve it becomes clear that to regulate an industry one needs industry expertise, which means sourcing the regulators from the industry being regulated and consulting with industry lobbyists. In the end, the regulatory body is co-opted by the industry it's supposed to be regulating, increases the power of the dominant players in that industry, decreases competition, and does more harm than good. That's the law of uninteded consequences.
We also learn the best way to deal with complex systems is through smart local decision making of intelligent agents, and to trust in the self-organizing power of agents. These systems don't find the 'best' solution all the time, but on average they do better than programs that look for solutions from a top-down perspective.
Apply these lessons to politics and economics, and you've got someone who leans libertarian. Like me.