The Progressive Critique of Ron Paul: He Isn't Libertarian Enough

[tangent4ronpaul]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/the-progressive-critique-of-ron-paul-he-isnt-libertarian-enough/244110/

They say he is inconsistent and kooky. And they're right. But since they haven't any more consistent champion of liberty, shouldn't they at least cheer his rise?

What's the worst thing that could happen if Ron Paul won the presidency? After I posed the question, writers including Patrick Appel, Alex Pareene, and Pascal Emmanuel Gobrey responded. Each post is worth reading - and if you're the Ron Paul campaign, worth responding to.

How about it, Dr. Paul?

Meanwhile, a couple of my favorite progressive writers, Matt Yglesias and Adam Serwer, have written posts looking at Ron Paul's positions on civil liberties, and they don't like what they see. Theirs is a different critique, and one that should concern all civil libertarians. Let's start with Yglesias:

...

[The Free Hornet]

More quotes:


Despite this, these two progressive policy wonks, writing posts about Paul and civil liberties, neglect to mention the War on Drugs at all. Instead, they spend time on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the fact that Paul's campaign slogan, "Restore America Now," reminds Yglesias of "conservative impulses and nostalgia for the much-less-free America." Am I to accept that the implicit priorities reflected in their posts are plausibly the right ones for any voter in Election 2012?


But it isn't just that Paul and Obama would both execute the laws that keep lots of armed guards on our southern border, and meanwhile deport lots of illegal immigrants. What Obama is going to do, on top of that, is wage undeclared drone wars in multiple countries that kill lots of innocent people because collateral damage in undeclared wars is okay if you're "unfortunate enough to have been born in a foreign country." And he's also going to continue sending the DEA abroad, where its agents will exacerbate a drug war that has killed tens of thousands in Mexico and wipe out the crops of subsistence farms in Latin America. In extreme ways, Obama behaves as if his avowed convictions don't extend to various folks "unfortunate enough to have been born in a foreign country."


Unlike liberalizing drug laws, or ending foreign wars, there is, in fact, no plausible scenario where we repeal the Civil Rights Act or return to the gold standard. And a stronger civil libertarian presence in America would do a lot of good. Its emergence might be hastened if prominent progressives didn't ridicule and dismiss its most prominent advocate for falling short of standards that their own champions don't come close to meeting, even if they ultimately want Paul to lose.

[mtmedlin]

The same stupid argument "Ron Paul isnt Pure enough"....ok, lets choose a completely PURE candidate and then we can be as ineffective as the Libertarians. Then one day we too can sit in the Dennys for our meetup group and think about how kewl it would be to actually win an election.

I'll stick with RP and keep this movement going forward. He may not be 100% of what I believe, but hes almost 100% closer then the other options out there.

[rich34]

I think many get bogged down with Paul's personal beliefs vs. what the role of the federal government ought to be.. Any idiot that would seriously take warmonger Obama over Paul is just that. It's sad how these people now seem ok with all these wars when before it seemed to motivate them.

[Lafayette]

They say he is inconsistent and kooky. And they're right.

Wha ???

[BUSHLIED]

The same stupid argument "Ron Paul isnt Pure enough"....ok, lets choose a completely PURE candidate and then we can be as ineffective as the Libertarians. Then one day we too can sit in the Dennys for our meetup group and think about how kewl it would be to actually win an election.

I'll stick with RP and keep this movement going forward. He may not be 100% of what I believe, but hes almost 100% closer then the other options out there.

What you are getting with RP Presidency would be far better than anyone other candidate that I can think...

#1. Paul is anti-war/pro-peace.
#2 Paul is pro-civil liberties.
#3 Cutting gov. spending.

None of the other candidates have this platform. The critique of Paul are a last ditch effort to harm him. Paul is beyond reproach. Other than his religious beliefs, I agree with Ron entirely...but I doubt he would get involved in social policy on a federal level so the point is moot...

btw this doesn't belong under grassroots central...please move.

[Southron]

That critique starts out making assertions it doesn't prove.

"He's loudly trumpeting his plan to impose criminal penalties on women who terminate their pregnancies."

[jct74]

That was a pretty decent article. Good conclusion.


There isn't much hope for the group of right-leaning civil libertarians within the Republican Party either. But at least Paul and Johnson are running, and the lesser of the two, Paul, is doing surprisingly well in polls. You'd think, given the convictions of Yglesias and Serwer, that the emergence of a libertarian right would excite them. Fewer needless wars! No illegal spying! An end to drug prohibition, and its ruinous effects, especially on minorities! But they're too busy worrying over the return of the gold standard and the Civil Rights Act to see potential allies.

Unlike liberalizing drug laws, or ending foreign wars, there is, in fact, no plausible scenario where we repeal the Civil Rights Act or return to the gold standard. And a stronger civil libertarian presence in America would do a lot of good. Its emergence might be hastened if prominent progressives didn't ridicule and dismiss its most prominent advocate for falling short of standards that their own champions don't come close to meeting, even if they ultimately want Paul to lose.

[MaxPower]

The "critiques" the author (and the writers he quotes) offers as evidence Ron Paul "isn't libertarian enough" are mostly baloney. He has a very superficial- and often inaccurate- understanding of Dr. Paul's positions, as when he claims our man wants to "return to the Gold Standard;" Ron Paul doesn't want to "return" to any formerly-standing policy or institute a strict official gold standard, but rather to legalize competing currencies, from which state a de facto gold standard would likely emerge. Likewise, Dr. Paul has never "loudly trumpeted" any "plan to impose criminal penalties on women who terminate their pregnancies"- rather, he advocates only to enable the states to do so. The bias in these progressives' assessments really show through when they first take one of his states'-rights positions (abortion) and attack him on the basis of what he would like to see done by said states, then take another of his states'-rights positions (gay marriage) and ignore what he would like to see done by said states (where he would not like to see a prohibition on gay marriage/special legal status exclusively for heterosexual couples) in favor of emphasizing the possibility of the opposite outcome.

It is also extremely frustrating to see this author refer to Dr. Paul as a "lesser" civil libertarian than Gary Johnson, who has said, among other things, that he would not close Guantanamo Bay and would be willing to fight interventionist wars in defense of Israel.