| Ron Paul: Tyranny in Liberty’s Clothing |
 |
 |
| Written by Sid Davis |
 Millions of potential voters, especially younger ones, respect Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul’s Libertarian ideals. It’s easy to understand why. He has the aura of a political outsider, and the mainstream press has declined to discuss exactly what Libertarianism is, beyond some vague whitewash involving the word “liberty.” All would-be Libertarians would be well-served to take a few moments and think about what they are being asked to accept—not liberty, but tyranny in liberty’s clothing.Ron Paul tries to sell the idea that there is one firm definition of the word “liberty.” But liberty for one person is tyranny for another. To understand this conflict, consider an example regarding Paul’s stance against civil rights. Imagine that Libertarianism becomes the law of the land. Once that law is passed it becomes the mandate of the state to enforce it. Let’s say there is a restaurant, and the owner doesn’t want to serve a certain type of person. Let’s say green people. And let’s say the restaurant has a sign that makes this clear. No green people. As a Libertarian, that is now the restaurant owner’s right, and that right is backed by the power of the state. Now, let’s say a few green people come in and want to eat. The owner tells them no. The green people get all Rosa Parks about it and refuse to leave. The restaurant owner can  either resort to violence, or call the police. And of course, calling the authorities is the logical solution. Libertarianism is the law of the land, remember, and thus is backed by state power. So now we have the spectacle of green people being carted to jail because they’ve broken the law, yes, but also unavoidably because of what they are. We lived that era already. It was called Nazi Germany, or if you prefer a more recent example, Jim Crow, or even more recently, Apartheid. Those did not work out so well, yet while the green people would call that tyranny, the restaurant owner would call it liberty.Liberty, as most people understand it, is the right to do what they want—personal freedom. It’s also the right to control the product of their labor—economic freedom. But for corporations liberty is the right to do what they want with other people, and the product of their labor. These two definitions of liberty—one for the vast majority comprised of working people, and one for the tiny minority comprised of corporations—are incompatible. You can’t deregulate for corporations and simultaneously preserve liberty for working people. To be paid a minimum wage is liberty to the vast majority. But corporations, if not compelled, will not pay a minimum wage and they’ll call that liberty. To not die from preventable illness is liberty for the vast majority. Insurance corporations, if not compelled, won’t insure the sick and they’ll call that liberty. It’s crucially important to recognize the battle lines drawn by these opposing liberties, because in any conflict over political direction it is the most powerful who win. Rarely, that power rests with vast masses of people. Most often, it rests with a tiny minority of rich men and corporations. If the second group wins the battle, it means liberty for them, and tyranny for the masses. Ron Paul avoids addressing this basic but quite obvious paradox, and indeed he must, because he’s a crusader for liberty for the second group, not the first. In political terms, that means he’s just another deregulator and deficit hawk, just another proponent of the same neo-liberal economics that have wrecked the United States over the last thirty years. Paul’s economic ideas disparage regulation because of its failures, without admitting that the regulators were supposed to fail. What else can it be called when the top people in regulatory positions are bankers and businessmen, rather than the geologists, chemists, sociologists, and urban planners they were forty years ago? Replacing scientifically knowledgeable regulators with pro-business cheerleaders who would greenlight anything business wanted was pretty much the first step taken by business interests in their fight for more and more profits. Using failed regulation as a call for abolishing regulators is like using failed medicine as a call for abolishing doctors. The regulators did exactly what they were appointed to do—nothing. But if regulators are once again hired for their expertise in fields of vital importance, and asked to actually regulate—i.e., protect America from predatory corporations—they’ll do that.  Some Paul supporters think that his stances on oil wars and drug wars are a form of economic policy. End those wars and the money saved can be spent on meeting America’s many needs. But the military-industrial complex is the single most powerful segment of the American political landscape, and it defies logic to believe Ron Paul will be allowed to stand down the troops. They may leave Afghanistan, but then they’ll move on to Iran, or Syria, or Yemen. There are a trillion-plus U.S. dollars sunk into in the sands of the Middle East. That’s more than one-thousand billion. The very reason Paul says he wants to walk away—the vast expenditure—is the very reason it can never happen. To walk away means a devastating financial loss for some of the most powerful multinational corporations that have ever existed. These same multinationals can use the liberty gained by the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision in favor of unlimited campaign donations and lavish untold millions upon pro-war politicians any time Ron Paul seems to pose even a hint of a threat to their agenda.Similarly, the prison-industrial complex is gargantuan. The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world by far, and it’s growing. Most people who go to jail do so for drug violations. Do we really believe Ron Paul will be allowed to legalize drugs and thus destroy the fastest flowing conduit for funneling Americans into the immensely profitable prison system? Is that even remotely possible when companies like Halliburton, firmly entrenched in the military-industrial sector, are also the ones who build those prisons? And we shouldn’t forget that the prison-industrial complex is also the most effective method for controlling the black vote, through the constant loss of voting rights by convicted felons. Shutting these industries down may sound good to working class would-be Libertarians, but it doesn’t to the corporations. Will they give up their liberty to profit billions from mass imprisonment so that citizens can have the liberty to smoke a joint? In the end, the two definitions of liberty must come into conflict, which makes the concept of Libertarianism paradoxical at the most basic level, at the foundation. Any edifice built there won’t stand, just like Ron Paul’s ideas don’t stand. The closest a diverse society can ever come to liberty is a system where everyone presents their needs and co-exists in the balance struck. This ideal is exactly what Libertarianism wants to move America away from. Libertarianism is legalized inequality. For a very small segment of the population it might be a nice proposition. But for minorities, most women, working people, the indebted, the impoverished, anyone who needs insurance, anyone who rents a home or apartment, and a long list of other people that comprise the vast majority of us, to vote Libertarian would be to mandate liberty for the very few at the expense of the many. |