Rex Regnant Sed Non Gubernat

I remember only one event from first grade. It happened on the first day of school, a time of excitement and new challenges for all of us, I’m sure. I was excited to be a "grader" – that is, to be in a grade which ends with "grade." The school had a milk program, where parents could pay each week for their children to receive a pint of milk at snack-time. My parents had paid, and so I was to receive milk at snack.

As the school day began, the teacher settled down the class and taught us the basic rules for the classroom. Some were familiar from previous years – don’t hit each other, don’t put your finger into the pencil sharpener, don’t put your finger into the door – in fact, most rules seemed to revolve around keeping our fingers out of places. However, one was new and unusual – if you have something to say, raise your hand, don’t just shout or jump out of your seat.

In earlier years, shouting and jumping out of our seats had been the normal way to get the floor in order to speak. Now we were introduced to this new idea of "raising the hand." The teacher would then recognize each student in turn, and each would get a chance to talk. I have never been one to respect authority all that well, particularly as a child when I didn’t yet have the discernment to differentiate legitimate and illegitimate authority. Nonetheless, this rule immediately struck me as wise and worth obeying. I was quite clear that any reasonable person would choose to follow this rule, given that the consequence would be that all others would follow it too. Even lacking universal assent, it would work unilaterally too – those who choose to follow it can simply ignore anyone jumping around and screaming to get his point across. I resolved to follow it immediately and flawlessly.

Such was my state of mind when snack time came around, and the teacher asked, "Who has a milk account?" I responded the way I considered proper – by raising my hand. My fellow milk-drinkers, though, immediately began to jump out of their seats and shout. Having just learned of the alternative to such behavior, I considered their actions atrocious and quite unsuited for polite society. I kept my own counsel, and kept my hand raised.

You can probably figure out where this all led – I didn’t get any milk that day. My response to injustice was then, as now, a combination of surprise, resignation, and shame. I don’t know why injustice should make its victims feel shame, but it does always seem to – and this, by the way, is a fundamental principle on which the state feeds. My feelings, though, were that I had been cheated out of milk, yet had remained true to the rules. The others may have had their milk, but had surely lost some portion of their education.

When my mother came to pick me up, I was ashamed to mention the milk incident, but she questioned me about the milk situation persistently, perhaps already sensing, at that young age, that I was more inclined to do what I considered right than to demand that which was mine. Finally, I broke down and admitted that I had not gotten any milk. She had me wait outside while she went into the school to find out the whole story. Returning, she told me that the teacher had said that she had no idea that I had a milk account, since I hadn’t identified myself. As a side note, it immediately struck me what an absurd system that was, to have no independent record available to the teacher, who doubled as milkwoman, of who had paid for milk. Nonetheless, I responded with what seemed to me an obvious answer – "I raised my hand."

Libertarians often find themselves in a similar position. We support principles that we know everyone else has learned, and it seems that most people in polite society believed in them at some point. We were taught as children about not hitting other people, and we still believe it. Sure, we have more developed philosophies now, stronger arguments for why we ought not to hit people, but the basic principle remains. There are basic rules, like not hitting people, without respect for which no human society can function.

Even the rules regarding self-defense find themselves expressed in elementary school terms. The only viable defense, when caught hitting another child, is "he started it." Any just teacher will recognize that, even if the response was not quite proportional, the child who hit the other first deserves at least more blame. So, libertarians grow up understanding, along with everyone else, that the only time it might ever be acceptable to use force is in response to an aggressive attack. Then we find our neighbors advocating all kinds of force – wars of aggression, taxation, imprisonment for non-violent crimes. It seems as unfathomable to us that people would promote such things as it did to me that the only way to get milk was to break the hand-raising rule. No parent allows their children to take toys away from other children, but rather they encourage their children to share their own toys. Yet the children grow up to think that they can take away people’s property to give it to others, and to not share their own wealth.

As a result, we libertarians often find ourselves tongue-tied in debate. We can address all the economic issues, and point out the utilitarian benefits of liberty, but that’s not what we really want to do. We want to point out the morality of freedom, the evil of coercion – but we are unable, precisely because it is so obvious to us. We cannot effectively answer those who say "We must imprison drug users because it’s the government’s job to protect people from themselves," because it is so unbelievable to us that anyone would think it acceptable, nay, obligatory, to hit someone who has not hit someone else himself. I am often reduced to looking at such a person with a mix of horror and incredulity, and wondering how someone can think such a thing.

We make what seem to us completely obvious points – that we ought to follow our basic moral codes, and the necessary rules for civilization. We think that this ought to work, just like I expected raising my hand to work. We are puzzled by those who proudly and arrogantly proclaim that they are above the rules for civilization, just as I was puzzled by the fact that the children who broke the rules got their milk.

Consider the masses who laugh at libertarianism. Ask them just what, exactly, they oppose. Is it the idea of private property? Is it opposition to theft, or to murder? These are the fundamentals of our position, are they not? Or do they challenge the application of the position to specifics? Would they maintain that it is something other than theft to take away money from Peter to give it to Paul? What word is more applicable?

You’ll quickly find that most don’t oppose anything specific at all. They just think libertarians are weird, kooky – and to a certain extent, we are. While the diversity of the movement continues to grow by leaps and bounds, we remain a somewhat eclectic bunch. How could it be otherwise in a world with a public education system, where "normal" folks are taught never to look behind the curtain? Yet, this is no argument against our positions. In an insane world, only those who appear out of step with the rest will be sane. I appeared weird to my classmates, too, when I sat quietly, following the rules, and raising my hand. When breaking important rules is profitable, why not join those who break them? Look around you – success is in the government sector! Why not join in? Why not indeed. How about – because it is wrong to hit people?

Yet, in the end, we will succeed. In the end, a world run by a system based on hitting people cannot function – which is precisely why we have rules against hitting people in the first place. As the violence becomes more obvious, and it must, such a system loses supporters. People come to realize, too late perhaps, that the libertarians had a point after all. No society can exist if its members don’t believe in the basic rules, it will simply crumble. So society has a choice – to cease to exist at all, or to accept these rules. Our society has widely accepted them. Yet the government only has power because people believe that it is good to break these rules. As the contradiction becomes more obvious, the power of government will be diminished.

I am not counseling apathy or inaction. For the contradiction to be fully understood, there must be faithful guardians of the message present. The idea of non-aggression, together with all its beautiful philosophical and economic clothing, must be presented and kept on view at all times. Then, when the contradictions become too much for an individual to bear, that person has somewhere else to turn, knows of an alternative. That’s where we come in. This is the value of this very website, of the Mises Institute, of the Ron Paul rEVOLution, and of anything which exposes more people to the libertarian alternative. Most people will not spontaneously become libertarians when they become aware of the contradictions, but if libertarian ideas are in view when they are made aware of it, then they are likely to be persuaded. This is how our movement will grow. So, our goal must be outreach and education. We must remember, though, never to beat anyone over the head with our message – we need only to put it out there, to present it well, and they will come, just as supporters from all communities have flocked to Ron Paul. That government is violence institutionalized has become more painfully obvious in recent years, with taser incidents, loss of habeas corpus, and wars started on lies and continued despite the opposition of the people. The result has been more interest in libertarianism, and in particular the Ron Paul campaign.

Our message, although dressed up and more cogently argued, really is nothing more than the kindergarten creed. But adults cannot embrace what they learned in kindergarten, they fear they will look foolish. So we must argue for it through economics and through philosophy, but the message is still the same – don’t hit people. Go forth and spread the word.

January 21, 2008

Joshua Katz, NREMT-P , is the Libertarian Party of Connecticut's candidate for State General Assembly in the 23rd district. He is on the mathematics faculty at the Oxford Academy, Westbrook, Connecticut. He has studied philosophy of mind, logic, and epistemology of economics from an Austrian perspective, and is a former graduate student in philosophy at Texas A&M, as well as holding a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He still holds the title of Chief of EMS for the Town of Hempstead Department of Parks and Recreation, and will return to full-time service there in the summer. He enjoys a glass of port and a wedge of Brie, but has discontinued this practice on a regular basis, due to the sugar content of the port.

The liberal attacks on Ron Paul, fueled by a recent hit piece in the New Republic, are so transparently cynical that it almost makes me smile.


Almost.


To quote James Ridgeway, liberals can be and often are the meanest motherfuckers around. Criticize any of their scared beliefs, then watch out. They'll come at you with anything they've got, doesn't matter if it's truthful, accurate, or even sane. American liberals truly feel that they are humanity's Final Word. If you dispute that, you're a bigot, a hater, a piece of slime that deserves only the nastiest treatment. And baby, you'll get it.

At issue is Ron Paul's supposed racism and queer-phobia, reflected in newsletters that bore his name. Paul has distanced himself from the newsletters, saying that others penned the toxic rhetoric, without his direct knowledge or approval. Maybe Paul's telling the truth. Maybe he's not. Maybe he really does despise those of darker hue and same-sexers. Maybe he's like the worst racist you've ever seen. Maybe he eats black children for breakfast.

Whatever Paul actually believes about minorities and queers is not the real concern here. What bothers liberals, TNR's James Kirchik among them, is that Paul is the only presidential candidate who is seriously running against the state. This includes anti-imperialism and calls to end the Drug War. Given that Hillary and Obama are nowhere near this mindset -- quite the opposite -- means that anyone who is must be a bad person. If those newsletters didn't exist, hit men like Kirchik and the libloggers who support him would find something else to smear Paul with. Because, at bottom, they oppose any dismantling of the war state (recall Kos' shitting all over Kucinich). They simply want their preferred candidates to run the machine instead.

For TNR, there's another angle to its anti-Paul attack: Israel. Paul wants to end U.S. military aid to Israel, and is critical of Israeli aggression (he's also critical of Hezbollah and Hamas, but that doesn't count). This simply won't do for Democrats and many liberals, who either support Israeli violence and occupation, or are at best mum on the topic. When Israeli fighter jets were pounding Lebanon in 2006, it took weeks for leading libloggers to type the slightest negative word, which for them was "disproportionate." It was okay to bury Lebanese in rubble, just so long as it wasn't too much rubble. By opposing this and other uses of American tax dollars to kill and maim Arabs, Ron Paul shows that he's probably anti-Semitic as well.

The funny thing about TNR attacking Paul for being racist is that TNR has published plenty of racist musings itself. Martin Peretz alone contributed much of this, his belief that the "primitive" Palestinians are genetically and culturally incapable of achieving peace (for which no one is to blame, added Peretz in a tender moment) merely one of many racist screeds that TNR had no problem pushing. Then there was former editor Andrew Sullivan inviting Charles Murray to explain at length his "Bell Curve" theory in TNR's pages, a decision that Sullivan defended by writing, "The notion that there might be resilient ethnic differences in intelligence is not, we believe, an inherently racist belief." Of course not. Ron Paul, on the other hand . . .

I might be mistaken, but so far as I know, Ron Paul has not left the campaign trail to oversee the killing of a black man. Liberal hero Bill Clinton did in 1992, flying back to Arkansas from New Hampshire to witness Rickey Ray Rector take the lethal needle. (Since Clinton was our first black president, did that constitute black-on-black violence?) Clinton also expanded the police and prison state, in which a large number of African-Americans are trapped, and shredded the safety net for the poor, among whom reside many African-Americans. Does this make Bill Clinton a racist? Hush yo' mouf!

Racism isn't Paul's only sin. According to Kirchik, those newsletters exhibited acute paranoia:

[S]pecifically, the brand of anti-government paranoia that festered among right-wing militia groups during the 1980s and '90s. Indeed, the newsletters seemed to hint that armed revolution against the federal government would be justified. In January 1995, three months before right-wing militants bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a newsletter listed 'Ten Militia Commandments,' describing 'the 1,500 local militias now training to defend liberty' as 'one of the most encouraging developments in America.' It warned militia members that they were 'possibly under BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] or other totalitarian federal surveillance' and printed bits of advice from the Sons of Liberty, an anti-government militia based in Alabama--among them, 'You can't kill a Hydra by cutting off its head,' 'Keep the group size down,' 'Keep quiet and you're harder to find,' 'Leave no clues,' 'Avoid the phone as much as possible,' and 'Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.'

Yikes. Scary stuff. Sane people know that there is no American surveillance state -- or there wasn't one during the hallowed Clinton era, when all that crazy militia activity was taking place. According to liberal history, police state measures (torture, too) only occur during Republican presidencies, the past seven years being the most recent example. For Paul's newsletter to say otherwise is simple lunacy.

I'll tell you this: I've studied various strands of American right wing political philosophy and beliefs, and have had many conversations with rightists of different temperaments, and when it comes to seriously defending First and Fourth Amendment rights (what remain, anyway), I'll stand with libertarians like Ron Paul. I may not agree with most of his beliefs, nor that of the anti-statist right overall, but I know that Paul and others like him aren't looking to tap my phone or break down my door in the middle of the night.

Think the Branch Davidians were paranoid?

Then vote Hillary or Obama.

And sleep tight.

"Equal rights for all; special privileges for none."

"Though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable . . . the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression."

"[The purpose of representative government is] to curb the excesses of the monied interests."

"The influence over government must be shared among the people. If every individual which composes their mass participates in the ultimate authority, the government will be safe; because the corrupting of the whole mass will exceed any private resources of wealth."

"Peace, then, has been our principle, peace is our interest, and peace has saved to the world this only plant of free and rational government now existing in it."

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

~ Thomas Jefferson

You asked for a treatise to explain my support for the "lunatic" Ron Paul. Since you asked, I'll send you some thoughts.

Why should Americans left-of-center – with commitments to peace, justice, and democracy – see Congressman Paul as a real option rather than as a right-wing wacko? That's the question. Several years ago, I was hoping that Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) would run for president in 2008. He's a principled statesman with a consistent record of opposition to war and empire, and support for democracy and civil liberties. He also has the potential to reach beyond his base of liberal Democrats to conservatives and libertarians with his stance on government frugality and bureaucratic waste. So, I was excited about a Feingold candidacy until he bowed out of the race.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) did not appeal to very many voters in 2004 and he is repeating that dismal showing in 2008. Part of his problem was his flip-flop on abortion when he entered the '04 race. A principled pro-choicer like Feingold and a principled pro-lifer like Paul can earn respect from a wide range of people, but it's hard to admire someone who jumped from pro-life to pro-choice seemingly as a matter of political convenience. As if the Democratic power brokers would ever consent to the nomination of Kucinich, regardless of how enthusiastic he becomes for "reproductive freedom"! So, from the get-go, Kucinich hobbled his efforts by undercutting his strongest selling point: his integrity.

My favorite candidate for the '08 Democratic presidential nomination is Mike Gravel, former U.S. Senator from Alaska. But Gravel, like Kucinich, is treated as a joke by the mainstream media, has not raised substantial money, and languishes at the bottom of the polls. Thomas Jefferson was not perfect, but the founder of the Democratic Party had a platform that is not only remarkably good but still applicable and popular in 21st century America. Leavened with the racial egalitarianism of King, Abernathy, and Hamer, the Jeffersonian platform could be used by politicians for electoral success and wise policy.

Senator Feingold and Representative Paul, who have often voted together on major issues of the day despite being tagged as a "liberal Democrat" and "conservative Republican," are examples of modern Jeffersonians. Senator Gravel is the most Jeffersonian candidate running among the Democrats this year, but he has failed to catch on with a wide portion of the citizenry. That's where Ron Paul comes in.

Not only does Ron Paul represent Jeffersonian values usually termed "conservative" or "libertarian" today (fidelity to the Constitution, frugal government, states' rights, Second Amendment, national sovereignty), but he is also a leading example of support for Jeffersonian positions nowadays described as "liberal" or "leftist" (e.g. opposition not only to the Iraq War but to war in general, anti-imperialism, ending the federal war on drugs, hostility to the Patriot Act and other violations of civil liberties). This accounts for the wide appeal of the Paul campaign. It's precisely the sort of trans-ideological, cross-generational populist-libertarian-moralist coalition that I was hoping to see with a Feingold presidential campaign.

If we stipulate that a candidate polling at least 5% in national polls is a "major candidate," there is simply no other major candidate in 2008 who is more Jeffersonian, more committed to peace, justice, and democracy, than Ron Paul. He puts pretenders like Edwards and Obama to shame. I like a lot of what John Edwards is saying on the campaign trail today, but I don't think he means a word of it. He's a limousine liberal phony when it comes to the rich/poor issue. He supported the Iraq War until it became widely unpopular. He voted for the Patriot Act. He claims to be against outsourcing of American jobs but he voted for permanent normalized trade relations (MFN) for China.

I think Barack Obama would be much preferable to Hillary Clinton as president, but his campaign is built on glossy generalities like "hope," "youth," and "unity." It's more about style than substance. If you study what he's had to say about foreign policy when addressing elite audiences, you see that he's not much different from Clinton and the DLC crowd. He's in the mainstream of the U.S. foreign policy establishment and its perpetual commitment to empire and globalization. Even his strongest selling point for the left – his opposition to the Iraq War in 2002–03 – is suspect upon close examination. In his October 2002 speech, he told the anti-war crowd FOUR times that he was not opposed "to all wars." He summed up his philosophy by saying, "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars." There is nothing about war in general that is offensive to Obama. He objected to the Iraq War only on strategic grounds, not ethical grounds.

Referring to the U.S. Senate authorization vote of 2002, in July 2004, Obama told the New York Times, "What would I have done? I don't know." Asked about the pro-war votes of Kerry and Edwards, Obama told NPR, "I don't consider that to have been an easy decision, and certainly, I wasn't in the position to actually cast a vote on it. I think that there is room for disagreement in that initial decision." Not exactly a stunning statement of the peace position! Obama told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, in November 2006, "We cannot afford to be a country of isolationists right now. 9/11 showed us that try as we might to ignore the rest of the world, our enemies will no longer ignore us. And so we need to maintain a strong foreign policy, relentless in pursuing our enemies and hopeful in promoting our values around the world." So 9/11 occurred during a period in our history when we were minding our own business (practicing "isolationism")? That's a novel explanation of events!

In April 2007, Obama told the CCGA, "I reject the notion that the American moment has passed. I dismiss the cynics who say that this new century cannot be another when, in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth. We just have to show the world why this is so." Spoken like a true neoconservative. This messianic imperialism continues throughout the speech: "In today's globalized world, the security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people. . . . World opinion has turned against us. And after all the lives lost and the billions of dollars spent, many Americans may find it tempting to turn inward, and cede our claim of leadership in world affairs. I insist, however, that such an abandonment of our leadership is a mistake we must not make. . . . We must lead the world, by deed and example."

Obama even endorsed the Persian Gulf War of 1991, a bloodletting that had nothing to do with U.S. national security: "No President should ever hesitate to use force – unilaterally if necessary – to protect ourselves and our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently threatened. But when we use force in situations other than self-defense, we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation of others – the kind of burden-sharing and support President George H.W. Bush mustered before he launched Operation Desert Storm."

In contrast to Obama's narrow and perhaps opportunistic reasons for opposing the Iraq War, Ron Paul has consistently opposed every U.S. military intervention since the 1970s. He's the only major candidate who openly speaks out against the American empire and imperialism. Can you even imagine Hillary Clinton or John Edwards using the e-word or the i-word? Not in connection with our own government! When it comes to foreign policy, Ron Paul sounds as radical as Noam Chomsky. In fact, Paul is more radical because he refused to vote for Bush in 2004 while Chomsky was willing to vote for Kerry over a real anti-empire candidate like Nader. Paul not only talks the talk; he walks the walk. Yet he's more acceptable to Middle America than someone like Chomsky or Howard Zinn because he volunteered to serve in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s and he has an obvious patriotism that makes him less vulnerable to the "hate-America" smear.

Ron Paul is the only major contender who calls for cutting off the billions of dollars of foreign aid we give to the Israeli government each year (and all other foreign aid as well, including the money going to Egypt and Colombia). None of the "progressive" Democrats care about justice for the Palestinians or dare to question the power of the pro-Israeli-government lobby. Congressman Paul does.

None of the leading Democrats voted against the Iraq War or the Patriot Act. Paul voted against both. All of the leading Democrats have voted time and again to fund the war in Iraq, thereby ceding the only power they have to end the war. Paul has always voted against Defense Department appropriations which include funding for the war. Unlike leading Democrats in the Clinton–Gore-Kerry tradition, Ron Paul opposes the death penalty because he believes in the sanctity of life.

Only Ron Paul funds his campaign without the assistance of PACs and the corporate rich. There is simply no other Democrat, including John Edwards, who has an equal record when it comes to relying on grassroots support, opposing plutocratic policies, and earning the enmity of Big Business. This is why the Wall Street Journal and FOX News detest the "Ron Paul Revolution." The revolution includes stripping the overprivileged of many of their political and economic privileges. While the Manhattan-K Street-Hollywood crowd disdain Paul, supporters working on his behalf raise $6 million in a single day from the "common people" (average contribution: $100). If that's not democracy at work, I don't know what it is.

Ron Paul opposes both the warfare state and the welfare state. The welfare state includes much-publicized handouts to poor people (although far fewer than in the past, thanks to the Bill Clinton–Newt Gingrich gutting of AFDC), but even more importantly it includes middle-class entitlements and billions in taxpayer giveaways to the wealthy. Paul's opposition to NAFTA and GATT is motivated not only by his belief in national sovereignty, but also by his suspicion of cozy deals between Big Government and Big Business.

Ron Paul does not play favorites. He wants to end corporate welfare across the board. His monetary policy of using sound, constitutional money would help the poor by curtailing the hidden "inflation tax." A Paul effort to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and other manifestations of federal big government would make special interest lobbies unhappy but they would not hurt poor or average citizens. On the contrary, it would free up money and power to deal with problems at the state and local levels. Lower levels of government have been far more "progressive" than the feds in most policy areas over the years, in things ranging from corporate regulation to health policy to medicinal use of marijuana.

Ron Paul is not perfect as either a candidate or a policy maker. I don't agree with him on everything. He has a few personal flaws and weaknesses. He has some disreputable supporters (e.g., racists and anti-Semites who like his opposition to globalization and plutocracy). As I write in my book, in contrasting the mainstream media's depiction of politicians like John Kerry to more genuine liberals like Cynthia McKinney, "The disingenuous nature of their careers and campaigns is politely ignored while the flaws, real and imagined, of party mavericks are trumpeted by the smug talking heads and the frothy news magazines." (p. 256) As with possible Green Party candidate McKinney, Paul's real and imagined flaws are in the process of being magnified by the mainstream media as his popularity rises.

Journalists with the corporate press are enthusiasts of war, empire, global capitalism, political correctness, Leviathan statism, and other respectable projects of the Power Elite. Such things are the antithesis of Ron Paul. If you're forming your opinion of Paul on the basis of coverage by the New York Times, The New Yorker, and NPR, it's not surprising that you think he's a "lunatic." If you listen carefully, you'll "learn" that he's not only a lunatic, but a dangerous "racist lunatic." It's not true, but the truth is irrelevant when the special interests of the wealthy and powerful are threatened.

Meanwhile, a perceptive leftist like Alexander Cockburn recently wrote, "Huckabee's single rival as a genuinely interesting candidate is another Republican, Ron Paul, who set a record a few days ago, by raising $6 million in a single day. Unlike Huckabee, Paul's core issues are opposition to the war and to George Bush's abuse of civil liberties inscribed in the U.S. Constitution. His appeal, far more than Huckabee, is to the redneck rebel strain in American political life – the populist beast that the US two-party system is designed to suppress. On Monday night Paul was asked on Fox News about Huckabee's Christmas ad, which shows the governor backed by a shining cross. Actually it's the mullions of the window behind him, but the illusion is perfect. Paul said the ad reminded him of Sinclair Lewis's line, that 'when fascism comes to this country it will be wrapped in a flag and bearing a cross.' In the unlikely event they had read Lewis, no other candidate would dare quote that line." (CounterPunch, December 22/23)

Even though they disagree on some policies, Cockburn can respect a Republican who publicly warns against imperialism and fascism, and who views the Constitution as a still-binding set of rules . . . instead of "just a G**-d***** piece of paper," as George W. Bush was quoted as saying to members of Congress in 2005.

I know it's hard for many to see the possibility of any good Republican, but it's worth remembering that the GOP heritage includes not only the plutocracy of Calvin Coolidge but also the democracy of Robert La Follette, not only the Wall Street of Thomas Dewey but also the Main Street of Robert Taft. Paul is in that La Follette-Taft tradition of anti-monopoly at home and non-intervention abroad. If the Gravel or Kucinich campaigns had caught fire during the past year, we would see some anti-war Republicans crossing party lines to support one of their candidacies as the vehicle of choice in 2008. Instead, we're seeing some Democrats backing Paul.

While the stray neo-Confederate may like Ron Paul, he is also the recipient of more African American support than any other Republican. Paul is backed by both realistic veterans and idealistic pacifists, Christians and atheists, John Birchers and NORML members. It's a kaleidoscope campaign – not of pandering or double-talking but of an honest commitment to an array of deeply held American values. Liberty and peace are popular. It's not a cult of personality like Obama.

Who's the real kook: the middle-class woman in Peoria concerned about the unconstitutional monetary system or the neoconservative in Washington who wants to remake the world in our image through the barrel of a gun? Who's the real threat: the yahoo in Mississippi who thinks multiculturalism is destroying our traditional culture or the corporate lobbyist who buys and sells elected officials? Who's the real xenophobe: the young person who doesn't want to tell people in other countries how to live their lives or the intellectual who turns our nation into the pariah of the world by sending Americans off to kill foreigners?

I don't expect that you'll support Ron Paul during the primary season, but I wanted you to at least understand why he could have some appeal for a three-time Nader voter such as myself. Many anti-war, pro-limited-government, grassroots democracy advocates will support Edwards, Obama, or some other mainstream candidate in the coming months, but I think we're selling ourselves short when we do so. We may well end up with crumbs from the table in the end because that's how the system is set up. But if we start the process by making it clear that we'll settle for crumbs, we ensure that we'll never get anything more. Radical change will never happen because the Establishment understands that progressive voters can be taken for granted. In the end, most will fall into line behind the candidate with the (D) behind her/his name, no matter how unprogressive s/he is.

To me, voting for Kucinich, Gravel, McKinney, or Paul makes some sense even though they're unlikely to win. At least we're asking for something honest and principled during the first round of voting. Ron Paul isn't the perfect candidate and his Jeffersonianism is not as full-bodied as I would prefer (e.g., he's too weak on the ecological dimension), but at least he's a step in the right direction and his ability to attract a wide range of grassroots support is commendable. He's not the only good choice, but he's no lunatic and there is some logic behind his campaign. It's not everything, but it is something. In a rigged system with a populace divided by secondary issues and exploited by a bipartisan elite, it may be the best we can do in 2008.

The Ron Paul campaign does not represent a madness brought on by the moon. It's closer to the truth to say it's a hopeful manifestation of the sun shining on the political realm. It brings some clarity and accountability to government.

January 4, 2008

Jeff Taylor [send him mail] is a political scientist. His book Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy was published last year by University of Missouri Press. He contributed a chapter to the book A Dime's Worth of Difference (Cockburn and St. Clair, eds.). Visit his website.