Posts Tagged ‘Ron Paul’

A Couple Quick Questions, Ed. 15

Posted on January 14, 2012 at 5.34 pm

Q. Under the Austrian School of Economics, and indeed by the predictions of its proponents, the huge, expansionary policies of the Federal Reserve should be causing run-away Inflation. Indeed, the cry for years has been to warn of dire hyperinflation should any of the no in place expansionary policies by tried. Yet this flies in the face of what we have seen, namely price stability (save for rising Oil Imports) resulting in an entirely normal inflation rate of 3%. How do you square this with your avowed Austrian view? — Whimsical Eloquence, from tumblr.

A. Most of my answer can be summed up in this graphic:

As you can see, the value of the dollar has steadily declined over the course of the last hundred years.  It was also on the decline before then.  If you’d like to play with the numbers on a year-by-year basis, try this inflation calculator.  As the results of my calculation put it, “What cost $1 in 1900 would cost $25.85 in 2010.  Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2010 and 1900, they would cost you $1 and $0.04 respectively.”

That’s a lot of inflation, especially considering the lowering of prices which has been produced by technological advances, economies of scale, etc.  Moreover, as you mentioned, I subscribe to Austrian economics, which sees inflation not primarily as a rise in prices — the rising prices are merely a symptom of the underlying problem of the (fiat) growth of the money supply, which has grown precipitously.  Learn more here.

Q. I like Ron Paul, for the most part, however why do Ron Paul fanatics never mention his millions of dollars in earmarks he asks for (and mostly receives) every year? — The Modern Patriot, from tumblr.

A. I’m not sure that it’s accurate to say that this issue is “never” mentioned.  On the contrary, it’s brought up quite regularly as a supposed “gotcha” ostensibly showing Dr. Paul is not as consistent as he’s cracked up to be.  This is far from the case, especially as even his harshest detractors on the subject admit that “Paul’s campaign-finance record  shows little indication of a politician who is tied to special interests. Individuals have provided the vast majority of his campaign cash, supplying 91 percent of the money since his first bid for office.”

Here’s a speech (including transcript — and on a pro-Ron Paul website, by the way) of the congressman explain his reasoning behind his stance on earmarks.  The shortest version of his argument is that, constitutionally, he’d rather see money appropriated by Congress than the executive branch, so he puts in the earmarks his district requests and then votes against them because he doesn’t want the money spent at all.

Q. How can you legitimately believe that you are supporting the preservation of liberty when you are against taxes on the rich and for deregulating our economy. There is the freedom to do something and then there is the freedom from something. In the case of corporations, the question is whether they should have the freedom to exploit their workers and consumers without consequences, or whether the workers and consumers should have freedom from this exploitation. For whatever reason you side with the corporate opinion. Your attempt at forming a philosophy based around anti-authoritarianism has completely ignored the authority that capital accumulation gives the rich. There is nothing “libertarian” or “hip” about supporting neoliberal economics. — David, from the internet.

A. Woah, woah, woah.  So many unfounded assumptions here.  Let’s start at the end:  The title of my tumblr is very much tongue in cheek based on some amusing Google Analytics results I got one time.

But moving back to the beginning, let’s go through these accusations one by one.

1. How can you legitimately believe that you are supporting the preservation of liberty when you are against taxes on the rich and for deregulating our economy.  Well, I’m actually against taxes for everybody, not the rich in particular.  As for deregulation, the rest of your question indicates that you have rather different ideas about the nature and consequences of this idea than I do.  As it happens, the economic mess we’re in now is not due to a lack of regulation.

2. There is the freedom to do something and then there is the freedom from something. In the case of corporations, the question is whether they should have the freedom to exploit their workers and consumers without consequences, or whether the workers and consumers should have freedom from this exploitation. For whatever reason you side with the corporate opinion.  Do we really have to go through this again?  I am not advocating special benefits for corporations.  I am not transferring trillions from the poor and middle class taxpayer to Wall Street.  I am not permitting the wealthy to get away with fraudulent activity without prosecution.  The government — the entity you want to give more control over our economy — is.  My goodness, what do they teach in schools these days?

3. Your attempt at forming a philosophy based around anti-authoritarianism has completely ignored the authority that capital accumulation gives the rich.  I’ve argued above that it hasn’t, but I’d contend that yours has.  You object to the government using its powers to give special favors to its rich friends, but you want to give the government more of those same powers.  Do you really think the rich friends won’t come knocking again?  Really?  I find that I am the more suspicious of the wealthy of the two of us.

2 Hours to Go

Posted on January 3, 2012 at 6.37 pm

In less than two hours, Iowa caucusgoers will begin their complicated process of selecting their preferred candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency.  So here’s an update of some stuff which has been happening in the final days of the Iowa campaign:

• Attacks, attacks, and more attacks.  Even from Gingrich, who had vowed not to go negative but ultimately found that strategy unsuccessful.

• Ron Paul is in competition only with Mitt Romney for viral support on Facebook, but even Romney willingly conceded that Paul’s ads against Newt Gingrich were the best of the campaign season — and an Iowa State prof agrees.  On Twitter, WaPo finds Paul is king uncontested, beating out even the President for mentions.

• In terms of last ditch efforts, Santorum is relying on lots of personal appearances; Perry is spending big on TV ad buys; and Bachmann appears to seriously expect divine intervention.

• Many Iowa voters are heading to the caucuses still undecided — a remarkable feat after no less than 18 debates.  Interestingly, Romney’s“ignore Iowa” strategy has pulled him basically the exact same percentage of support he had after a huge campaign in the state in ‘08.  Newt, meanwhile, has essentially admitted defeat in Iowa after voters got to know him a little too well.

• Finally, Buzzfeed has found a strong similarity between the campaign plans of Ron Paul 2012 and Barack Obama 2008 in an article titled “Ron Paul’s Secret Plan to Actually Win.”  I’m not sure this plan is supposed to be a secret, but here’s hoping he does indeed win.

Another Ron Paul Post

Posted on December 20, 2011 at 5.12 pm

Q. Hello, I’ve followed your blog for a while and I want to say that I admire your intelligence and your values. I’ve liked Ron Paul for a while, and this blog is partly responsible for that, but I’ve been seeing some talk from other places that troubles me. I wanted to ask, then, if you could tell me Mr. Paul’s stance and voting record on issues of marriage equality and abortion? As well as what you think of allegations of him being racist and sexist. Thanks! — butterfly-effect, from tumblr.

A. Thank you very much for your compliments — I really appreciate it.  Now, let’s dive right in.

Ron Paul on gay marriage:  His position here is that we should let the individual, not the government, decide if they’re married or not.  I don’t have to recognize your marriage, and you don’t have to recognize mine.

In practice, this would look like no marriage licenses from the government; instead, people who wanted to be married would take care of the matter themselves.  The ceremony could be performed by a church or other religious organization, or it could be entirely nonreligious.

It would be entirely up to the people getting married, and neither churches nor the gay community would be able to use the force of the law to impose their views on the other group.  See Dr. Paul discuss the issue here.  See longer arguments from me on this matter here.

Ron Paul on abortion:  As you no doubt know, Ron Paul is himself an OB-GYN, a fact which I would argue makes him more qualified to speak on this subject than the rest of the presidential candidates.  He is pro-life, and reached that conclusion while actually in med school [video here].  Though he has voted in favor of some federal abortion legislation, he has long said that this should be dealt with by the states.  Read an excerpt from his discussion of this matter in his book, Liberty Defined, here — but I’d really suggest just buying the whole book for full coverage of this and 49 other issues.

Charges of sexism and racism:  These are preposterous, and only make sense if you assume two things:

1. Opposition to abortion is inherently sexist.
2. To avoid being racist or sexist, you have to support the government forcing everyone to think the right things.

On the first count, this simply isn’t the case.  Being pro-life would be sexist only if someone wanted abortion to be illegal not because they thought it was morally wrong and a criminal act of aggression (as Ron Paul does), but because they just want to be able to control women and tell them what to do.

On the second count, most charges of Ron Paul’s supposed sexism and racism come not from his stance on abortion but from his opposition to certain types of civil rights legislation.  Take the matter of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as an example:  Ron Paul has said he would have opposed the bill had he been in Congress then.  Is this because he was happy with Jim Crow laws?  No — far from it.  He supported the repeal of those laws.  What he opposed was the new power the law gave the federal government over private business transactions.

In fact, both racism and sexism are incompatible with libertarianism, for these gross stereotypes function by viewing people as members groups with supposedly predefined attributes rather than as individuals.  Libertarianism is fundamentally about the rights and value of the individual.  As the risk of being accused of committing the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, show me a libertarian who is racist and I’ll show you someone who isn’t actually a libertarian.  I’ll close by linking you to this post covering those newsletters from back in the day, and by letting Ron Paul explain for himself why he isn’t, and couldn’t be, a racist: