On Ron Paul Candidacy

Summary: My Take on Ron Paul Presidential Candidacy:

1) I am not American, so I cannot vote or ‘not vote’ Ron Paul.

2) I respect Ron Paul and I want him to continue to fight for presidential post in every next election, I want him to keep his good work.

3) I don’t want Ron Paul to win election because if he wins, he will be destroying everything good he has done. His win will be nothing more than a supportive bailout for the corrupt statist system that the US is suffering. He will try something good that will protect the US from falling for a little more time and then he will be gone and the old system of aggression will again take its seat.

4) There is a bigger danger for Libertarianism if Ron Paul wins. The US economy will collapse and if it collapses during Ron Paul presidential powers, all socialists and statists will victimize him and libertarianism. People are ignorant and will remain ignorant and they will fall in the trap of socialist politicians and it will be established that Libertarianism is a failure and a Libertarian President became the cause of American failure.

That will break any hope for liberty in other countries like India.

While a general tendency of any politician is to be corrupt, dishonest and unscrupulous¹ , Ron Paul is certainly an anomaly. He is the only politician throughout the international platform of politicians who can be trusted upon his honesty and sanity. He is a person who has maintained his consistent approach towards a more reasonable outlook of government and its working. Hardly anyone can deny or ignore the consistent honesty of Ron Paul and his political approach regarding the US Foreign Policy. He is the one politician who stands along reason. If the question is to name a “good” politician, the answer is Ron Paul.

However, this is also true that a good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar and many libertarians believe this quote by HL Mencken to be true. This is the reason why the libertarians are now divided in two distinct groups, one if supporting Ron Paul and his presidential candidacy, while the other is denying being a part of Ron Paul’s political campaign. For the 2012 presidential campaign, Ron Paul is emerging as a potential republican candidate and this is creating a serious tussle between libertarians in favor of and in opposition to his presidential candidacy. Recently, Dr Walter Block wrote a seriously scathing article in favor of Ron Paul’s candidacy and criticized anyone who feels he should not vote for Ron Paul. He commented,

In my view, the “Ron Paul question” constitutes a litmus test for libertarians. Simply put, the “Ron Paul question” consists of determining whether or not a person supports Dr. Paul. If so, as I see matters, he passes this test and can be constituted a libertarian; if not, his credentials are to that extent suspect² .

Well, this difference of ideas is not new; there are miniarchists who prefer to call themselves libertarians but Dr. Walter Block is essentially considered as a staunch Anarchocapitalist. Obviously, he isn’t a miniarchist who will support government at all, yet he believes that the only way to achieve ordered free society is through political deliberations, or he is a principled parliamentarian Anarchocapitalist.  Yet, does he have the authority to blame anyone who isn’t a parliamentarian Anarchocapitalist as a non-libertarian? Can he really say that Voluntaryism is a misplaced idea? Dr Walter Block was actually attacking Wendy McElroy for her open opposition of Ron Paul and his candidacy for presidential elections. Wendy McElroy is a Canadian Individualist Anarchist and she has answered to Dr. Walter Block’s scatching criticism on her wall³ .

I have my own take on Ron Paul and his candidacy and since I am not a citizen of the United States, I have a totally different and mostly unbiased view of this whole issue and I neither support Dr. Walter Block nor I support Wendy McElroy and her opposition to Ron Paul.

I believe that Ron Paul is a great person and even if he is just a constitutionalist republican, he is doing a great job to popularize the idea of libertarianism. I know that Ron Paul and he is certainly much better choice than Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or Herman Cain and others.

I don’t think any sane person will support Dr. Walter Block’s statement that doesn’t matter what you believe, if you don’t vote for Ron Paul you aren’t “acting” libertarian. Ron Paul is certainly more libertarian than any other politician, but if a politician, no matter how libertarian he is, advocates things which violate people’s rights, like kicking out people based on not having some government papers, or telling women what they can do with their own bodies, then they ought to expect criticism from the Voluntaryist community, and it doesn’t make them “bad libertarians” for launching those criticisms.

LewRockwell.Com is a great libertarian portal however, most of the writers on this excellent web portal are consistently supporting Ron Paul, and obviously most of them seem to be either parliamentarian Anarchocapitalists or simply miniarchists. Writers at Lew’s site discuss all the time how the system itself is corrupt, but somehow Ron Paul can save the system? What if we don’t want the system saved? What if we genuinely believe that nobody is the ultimate choice?

Some of my American friends suggest that Ron Paul is more sympathetic to anarchy and voluntarism then he lets on. Yet his work in government and adherence to the constitution (tyrannical in its own nature) suggests something else. Even though, one could say that ‘returning to the constitution’ is still moving in the right direction.

I respect Ron Paul and I believe he deserves credit where it’s due with respect to the idea of liberty he brings in way or magnitude. However, I am not the one who believes that he and his political actions in government or senate are the solitary hope of liberty. Dr. Walter Block is actually monopolizing the ‘hope for liberty’ in his scathing article against Wendy McElroy. He actually is creating such an insane anomaly that even questioning Paul’s method and offering an alternative is tantamount to subversion to liberty itself. Isn’t it sounding like totalitarian confiscation of ‘hope of liberty’?

I have more hope in seeing a great multitude of individuals withdrawing their support by not voting, not paying taxes, not cooperating with the government in mass, and growing through the counter-economy.

Voting for Ron Paul is simply wrong. If we wish to accelerate the collapse of the system and not extend the life of the entirely corrupt apparatus it would probably be better to vote for the worst statist of the bunch. Voting for Paul would reverse the progress towards real freedom by allowing the system to survive further into the future. Thus on a utilitarian perspective, voting for Ron Paul is wrong. Voting for Paul is philosophically pro-government and therefore, in the long run it is anti-freedom.

Yet, this all doesn’t mean that I support Wendy McElroy. As a political Voluntaryist I don’t support Paul or any candidate but I don’t not for a second attempt to strip him of his great accomplishments and recognition of unusual talent, especial in the face of the odds he is up against. He has outperformed all of us in his circulation of liberty ideologies to the mainstream masses and that is just how it is. If you don’t like it do better but by all means don’t make Libertarians, Objectivists and Voluntaryists look communists with your whining and verbal desires for redistribution of donation dollars to ‘better,’ ‘more needy’ libertarian causes that are being overlooked in the Marketplace. Each to their need instead of ability or talent; doesn’t sound too Libertarian to me.

Why Some Libertarians Want Ron Paul to Win?

I believe that libertarians, who support Ron Paul and his candidacy for the US presidential election, are actually trying to protect their national pride, or maybe they believe that it is the only chance for them to protect and preserve something profitable of the current system for their next generation, their kids. If Ron Paul wins, he as Commander-in-Chief can order the troops home, and Ron Paul has pledged to do that as soon as he takes office. Second, he can send his cabinet, staff, and Attorney General after the Fed, perhaps using some of those GITMO powers to remove some particularly despicable criminals amongst the elite.

Ron Paul will do as much as he can to end the reign of the Fed however, I don’t believe that he will succeed in doing anything significant to end the Fed. What more a POTUS can do? Not much. Ron Paul may try to become a Putin for the USA and he may try to unite the USA under a third-party banner to win the Congressional elections again in 2016. But if he does so, he will be breaching all consistency towards his Constitutionalist approach, he will taking a great turn from his libertarian credentials towards being a totalitarian statist.

Ron Paul supporters are actually trying their best to save the United States from falling like a castle of cards under its own collectivist burden. They are trying to reduce the burden of statist wastage that they are suffering. In fact, Ron Paul may succeed in reducing the rate of increasing national debt on the US Citizens, however, he cannot stop it from increasing more, and he simply cannot reduce it even a bit. Ron Paul’s position is practical for the situation he is in and his supporters believe that voting for a softer whip is a defensive position. However, one cannot attain liberty by bowing their head for softer whip, for liberty, there is a need for extreme revolution against the state.

What if Ron Paul wins?

There hardly are chances of a Ron Paul win in presidential elections of 2012; I can’t even bid for his win in primaries. However, if somehow he wins, then he as a POTUS will be nothing more than an irrational bailout package of citizen’s trust towards the governmental system. Voting for Ron Paul will be nothing more than giving artificial life promoters for a deadly statist system which is at the verge of collapse. However, much more wrong can happen with a Ron Paul’s win. The United States is certainly at the verge of economical collapse. If Ron Paul wins, he may succeed in stretching the course of failure of the U.S. but he cannot avoid it. So what will happen? The Statists and the socialists will get a chance to attack libertarian principles at the core. The unscrupulous politicians will gather around Ron Paul as vultures and will credit him for the immense failure of Statist system without accepting their own faults. As a result, Ron Paul will be victimized and the idea of libertarianism will be criticized.

I am not an American voter and being an Indian, I know that Indian politicians and politicians of all nations will take examples of Ron Paul as a Libertarian president to stress that libertarianism is a failed idea and will culminate any possibility of progress of the concept of Individual Liberty in India. I am more against a Ron Paul win because I want him to keep working for the ‘hope for liberty.’ I believe that as a competitive candidate, Ron Paul is certainly doing much better job for the progress of libertarian ideas than anyone else including Dr. Walter Block, Wendy McElroy or any other libertarian including me. Yet, his win will be a potential danger for all good Ron Paul has done. But it is all about the utilitarian approach towards the issue of Ron Paul’s candidacy. Philosophically, parliamentarian Anarchocapitalism is simply wrong, since I am a Voluntaryist, an Anarchocapitalist; I believe that voting is farce; I believe that political deliberations are simply illogical and aggressive and hence I do not support Parliamentarian Anarchocapitalism, I am a staunch Voluntaryist, an Anarchist.

Conclusion:

I support Ron Paul’s struggle towards Presidential ship, I DO NOT wish his win.

I know that when he struggles for presidential ship, he creates huge ripples in masses that brings people towards libertarian shore. But if he succeeds and if he becomes the POTUS, it will be like a bailout for the destructive statist system. It will offer a little more time for this tyranny of statist system, yet Ron Paul cannot avoid American failure, He can certainly reduce the rate of Increase in National Debt of America, he cannot reduce the debt.

I fear that his win will become enough reason for Socialists/communists/statists to falsely claim that Libertarianism is a wrong idea that caused the American failure (which I believe is inevitable.) I have seen Indians criticizing Capitalism for the 2008 recession and I have seen Indians supporting stronger regulation and governmental control over market after 2008 recession. Ron Paul win and consecutive failure of American economy (as he cannot save it) will make Libertarianism a victim of socialist vultures.

1. What Makes a Politician Corrupt, Rational Libertarian Corner [↩]
2. Is Wendy McElroy Still a Libertarian, Walter Block, LewRockwell.Com [↩]
3. Response to Walter Block, Wendy McElroy, WendyMcElroy.com [↩]