An Open Letter to Walter Block and Ron Paul

Quotes from the article (or other sources) are indented.

Ron Paul's Chances
by Walter Block

Here are some reasons, to be refuted, on Ron Paul's chances.

I. Dr. Ron Paul can't win

1. There's more to life than winning...I would think that as a libertarian, we would want to help this effort, whether Dr. Paul wins or not. We should all get behind him as strongly as we can. This is perhaps the best opportunity in a long while to introduce libertarianism to the wider public.

Libertarianism as it stands, is fundamentally flawed, and Ron Paul is promoting the flaws as well as the strengths.

For example:

1. Ron Paul supports the legalization of vices. He calls them "victimless crimes," a term of art that is basically deceptive. It makes a claim he must prove. As I shall show below, this claim is false.

This is fundamentally destructive of our culture, and has been a major complaint of Muslims, giving them the appearance of legitimacy. People do NOT have the "right" to self-harm. If he is going to support the governmental structure that the Founders designed, he NEEDS to accept it IN CONTEXT. And the context was a society where the practice of vices was a source of shame, and where people lived predominantly virtuous lives. The Founders made it clear that the governmental structure they gave us (via the Constitution) was designed for a virtuous people and was "wholly inadequate to govern any other." What Ron Paul is forgetting is that if the Constitution is NOT being followed in THAT context, IT WILL NOT WORK. In addition, we each have obligations, some of them involuntary. For example, it is our obligation to care for our elderly or disabled parents. If we do not take care of ourselves, if we self-destruct, then we CANNOT fulfill that obligation, and this is a MAJOR reason for the current social security system. Obviously, SS is one of those socialist government programs that we need to get rid of, but it's not going to happen as long as we think it is legitimate for people to self-destruct.

There is another problem, too. Most vices require the purchase of something, whether it be drugs, porn, the services of a prostitute, or whatever. The VENDORS of these are DEFRAUDING their buyers, because they are representing that these things are desirable, when they're not. They are taking advantage of a state of mind that vices are victimless "crimes", just as Dr. Paul is helping to mislead people. Furthermore, some of these vendors are harming other people. For example, vendors who sell drugs to an addict are harming the addict's children, and some vendors sell directly to children. For another example, a prostitute helps a person to commit adultery, and that means that the marriage covenant that person has with his/her spouse has been breached. The spouse is a victim. This is a direct consequence of the activity of using a prostitute. In addition, many prostitutes are basically sex slaves. Many came from other nations, and agreed to take an HONORABLE job in exchange for transportation to come. They had no idea they would be used for prostitution, so they were defrauded. But because of the obligation to pay for the transportation, they cannot become free. Some pimps actually get a prostitute addicted to drugs to hang onto her. And if a porn star wants to leave, she is threatened with blackmail. The photographs and movies can be released to the general public, ruining her reputation. This causes many of them to stay against their will. Furthermore, it is very common for parents to leave porn out where children can get access to it, and we are also being bombarded with porn from the airwaves, which actually are part of the commons and belong to the people, NOT the folks who licensed various frequencies. Perhaps Ron Paul is unfamiliar with the Law of the Commons, but those things which are not under the physical control of individuals are the commons. Property is not the physical things but the right to control the physical things to the total exclusion of everyone else in the universe, according to Bouvoir's Law Dictionary. You cannot physically control the airwaves, because you cannot erect barriers to prevent radio signals from entering your premises, and you cannot prevent one broadcaster from having a more powerful transmitter and destroying the signal of a person of lesser means who claims to own that particular bit of spectrum space. All you can do is license people to use each bit, and then go after anyone who interferes. Just as you cannot control the air we breathe, you cannot control the airwaves. And the practical outworking of insisting that parents control what their children see (absent a supportive society that supports parents, as we used to have), is that the only way to protect children is to lock them in the house 24/7, with no TV, internet, or anything else in the house. And that 's not reasonable. You and he would curtail children's freedom completely in the name of giving people, who want to pursue vices, liberty.

And the rest of us have to live with the consequences of such a policy as well, because people who become involved in vices become animals who attack the rest of us, whether we agree with their viewpoint or not. Rapists are a case in point. They don't just attack women who think porn is OK. They attack women at random. And people strung out on drugs also use the streets and endanger all of us. And people who sleep around spread nasty diseases, and sometimes children are born with them. Likewise, children are born addicted to drugs. I know a boy who was born to a mother who used all sorts of drugs, and he was so heavily addicted he went through hell while he was detoxifying. He would cry inconsolably, for instance. If we are going to protect children from their mothers' drug use, we would have to enact laws making drug use a crime for women of childbearing age. We can't do that because of equal protection. So we are right back to square one. Fortunately, this little boy suffered no permanent damage. That is a miracle all by itself. One of my best friends used to be a drug trafficker. She says drugs NEED TO BE ILLEGAL. She ought to know! And I have a friend whose daughter was carjacked as she left work at a major shopping center. She was taken into the desert, and raped and brutally murdered. If a woman cannot safely walk in a shopping center parking lot at night, she doesn't HAVE true liberty, no matter WHAT kind of liberty she has on paper.

Gambling is also not a victimless crime. Many of the people who are gambling don't have the money to lose. If they throw away their money on gambling, then they become a charge either on family or the public. We have a huge problem with elderly retirees gambling away their life savings. And the casino takes the money, knowing good and well they have stacked the odds so badly against these people that they will NOT get even their own money's worth. It's a HUGE scam. It's fraud.

Family Research Council has something interesting to say about state lotteries:

If those who claim to speak for the poor really want to find "common ground" with us, a good place to start might be with opposing state-sponsored gambling. Gambling addiction is a serious social problem that ruins lives and destroys families. The desire to get something for nothing also raises moral and spiritual questions. A study released last week by the Tax Foundation shows that state lotteries are bad fiscal policy as well. Legislators who want to increase government spending without paying a political price for raising taxes will point to the "voluntary" nature of lottery tickets, but taxing people's greed this way is a legal form of larceny by trick. Lotteries are often supposed to be earmarked for public education, but they end up replacing other revenue for that purpose rather than adding to it. They're not even effective at keeping taxes down, since lottery states actually have a higher tax burden than the eight remaining non-lottery states. Most tragic, though, is the fact that lotteries are a regressive tax that hits the poor the hardest. Left and right should agree--state lotteries are a bad bet for the poor.

Another thing I should point out is that these things are being used to undermine our national security by our enemies. And still another is that controlling vices is often the LEAST intrusive alternative. Right now, we have "child protection" agencies that are part of government. These actually go in and DESTROY families in the name of protecting children, and the amount of damage they do to the children is incalculable, not to mention the many gross violations of our right to be secure in our houses and effects. Controlling vices so that parents don't have access to the means to self-destruct is by far the LEAST intrusive answer to the problem.

We might want to re-examine how the government goes about protecting the people from traffickers, but to say that the government has no duty to protect us from violence (slavery, for instance) and fraud is not consonant with the basic libertarian philosophy, the non-aggression principle. If you want to stop prosecuting the victims of vices, fine. But we should be throwing the book at the traffickers.

My suggestion is that because the federal government made a covenant with the states to protect the borders, the federal government rightfully keeps drugs, porn, what have you, from being shipped across the border and between the various states. In order to define what the government will stop at the border, maintaining a list of prohibited materials is perfectly proper. If you want to turn the rest of enforcement back to the states, that would be fine. But Ron Paul seems not to understand that the government has a duty it must fulfill, and it is not acceptable to abdicate this responsibility.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when people self-destruct, bleeding-heart liberals will DEMAND laws that will cause the government to plunder the rest of us to help these people, and THEY WILL GET THEM. They think they have a right to force the rest of us to be "charitable" because they don't like what they see when a person self-destructs. It's not pretty. And they also are able to persuade a lot of people to do things their way, which is a major reason why our current plunder system is in place.

It is VERY short-sighted to think that we can simply abdicate and let all these people self-destruct. There are a lot of fallacious arguments that if we do that, we can also control the price and quality of the means to pursue vices. Aside and apart from the fact that we are under no obligation to make it "safe" to self-destruct, these arguments are simply FALSE. In countries where some vices have been legalized, the number of people who pursue these has run rampant. You have drug addicts crashed all over the sidewalk in Amsterdam, for instance. And we tried legalizing abortion, and the number being done went from about 100,000 a year to 1.5 MILLION a year. And they're horrendously expensive, and VERY dangerous, but now women are NOT WARNED because they think because abortion is legal, it must be safe. Quite frankly, our current problems with illegals aliens are largely a consequence of the fact we have killed 40 million workers since 1973, and these people have to be replaced somehow.

Then there's the war in Iraq. I'll get into that in a minute.

Basically, libertarianism as it stands today is ONLY for the strong. Everyone else can go hang. Seriously. Most people have sense enough to realize it.

2. Barry Goldwater didn't "win," even though he got the Republican nomination. But, he set the groundwork for Ronald Reagan, who did win, later on. Even if Ron Paul doesn't win, if he does well he can set things up for the next libertarian candidate who can potentially attract masses of people to the libertarian message, and then perhaps even "win." We can all help with this initiative.

There is no guarantee that Ron Paul can prepare the way for any other libertarian candidate, because in spite of the fact many of his views are totally off the wall, he's the sanest of the bunch!

I am a fan of getting rid of socialism and stopping the plunder of the people. That's what libertarianism OUGHT to be concentrating on, but they're not.

For one thing, it is a total negation of the right to property lawfully acquired that we have property tax. But are libertarians doing anything about it? Not really. You have a few scattered efforts here and there. This OUGHT to be a MAJOR activity for them.

3. Don't be sure Ron can't win. No one, right before the fall of the Berlin Wall, or of the USSR, thought that either of these things would happen, even the "experts." No one now thinks Ron can win....

I hope he DOESN'T win. He'd be bad for our nation right now. Very bad. He is right about a lot of things, but not about everything.

Here is a MAJOR gripe I have about his positions.

He elevates form over substance.

People keep arguing that Ron Paul is the most pro-life candidate. He most certainly is NOT. His voting record is very poor.

Take a look at this web site:

http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=296

2006 Representative Paul supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood 20 percent in 2006.

2005-2006 Representative Paul supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 56 percent in 2005-2006.

2005 Representative Paul supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 75 percent in 2005.

2004 Representative Paul supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 65 percent in 2004.

2003-2004 Representative Paul supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 73 percent in 2003-2004.

2003 Representative Paul supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 0 percent in 2003.

2001-2002 Representative Paul supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 81 percent in 2001-2002.

2001 Representative Paul supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood 20 percent in 2001.

2001 Representative Paul supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 35 percent in 2001.

2000 Representative Paul supported the interests of the NARAL Pro-Choice America 0 percent in 2000.

1999-2000 Representative Paul supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 78 percent in 1999-2000.

1999 Representative Paul supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood 20 percent in 1999.

1995-2004 On the votes that the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Assocation considered to be the most important in 1995-2004, Representative Paul voted their preferred position 17 percent of the time.

1995-2003 Representative Paul supported the interests of the Planned Parenthood (House) 20 percent in 1995-2003.

See how his record on abortion has become steadily worse over the years?

You might want to ask WHY this is the case. Well, it's very simple. Ron Paul will vote against federal attempts to control abortion because he thinks it's a state issue! Well, there are several SERIOUS flaws with this.

First of all, NO GOVERNMENT has a RIGHT to PERMIT violence. Thus, turning it back to the states means a tacit acceptance of the fact that some states will keep abortion legal. In fact, it's based on the strange concept of "states rights". Sir, states are governments. They don't HAVE rights! They have only responsibilities. Ron Paul is supporting "federalism" and this means that he is refusing to protect the babies from axe-murder, because this is what abortionists do to them; they hack them apart (and their mothers, each of whom is being medically raped every time she gets an abortion) because of the FORM of government we have been given by our Founders. And what did the Declaration of Independence have to say about the form of government? It said plainly that when a government becomes destructive to the ends of protecting the God-given right to life, liberty, and "pursuit of happiness", we have a right to alter or abolish it. And we have a RIGHT to alter that part of this current structure that is preventing us from protecting the unborn and their mothers. The Supreme Court FEDERALIZED the abortion question, and until we can get the damage undone, we HAVE to deal with it on the federal level. WE HAVE NO CHOICE. And for anyone to offer the excuse that it isn't a federal question simply begs the question.

I DO NOT VOTE FOR PEOPLE WHO WILL ALLOW SOME ABORTIONS. It's as simple as that.

Here's what I suggest. First of all, Ron Paul needs to get his act together. As things stand now, he is NOT pro-life. But there is at least one thing that he can do if he is elected, and he can tell us about it now, and this will be probably the most effective thing he can do. He can, as president, tell the nation that he will NOT ENFORCE Roe v. Wade. and if he does this, the states will be free to prosecute their abortionists under the homicide statutes in their respective states. This will drive MOST of the abortionists out of business, and without abortionists there will be very few abortions. As the executive branch, it would be his responsibility to enforce Supreme Court decisions, and it is part of checks and balances to refuse to enforce those decisions which are contrary to the Constitution (which, by the way, says that it was established, among other things, to secure certain rights to our posterity, and which also says that no person can be put to death without due process of law). If Ron Paul would ANNOUNCE that he WILL refuse to enforce Roe, that would be a huge step in the right direction, but he still has his history to overcome. I don't know how he will do that.

Please keep in mind that conservatives aren't going to support Ron Paul, because they DO NOT BELIEVE in abdicating the responsibility of protecting our people from the traffickers in vices, and the responsibility of protecting the right to life of the unborn and the bodily integrity (protection from medical rape) of their mothers. Without the conservatives, you can try to get out the "message" all you want, but he won't win, and he will have very little influence. Just because young, foolish people like his message doesn't mean that he will change much of anything.

4. Here's the case for Dr. Paul winning the Republican nomination. The Iraqi "police action" deteriorates even further. Ron is the ONLY Republican candidate who will be no Johnny come lately to the anti-war position.

Well, he's DEAD WRONG on this. We have been ATTACKED, and this isn't going to go away. We have a right as a nation to defend ourselves, and the only thing that makes sense is to wipe out the enemy on their OWN soil. That way, we keep the violence from our shores.

Paul introduced a resolution in Congress to issue a declaration of war. Well, I have news for him. We DID declare war, and furthermore, there is no Constitutional requirement that we declare war when we have been attacked first. President Bush went to Congress for the authority to wage war on our enemies, and got it. There is NO FORMULA for what a declaration of war has to say, or how it has to be worded, in the Constitution.

And if Ron Paul thinks we can pull out our troops and everything will be hunky dorey, he has another think coming. The militant Islamists will not stop short of anything but a worldwide caliphate, that imposes Shari'a law on everyone, and if you THINK we don't have liberty now, wait and see what happens then!

And I will stand firm behind any president who will take the war to THEM, and who will win. And you can ONLY do that militarily.

It's real simple. I REFUSE TO BE A PRISONER IN MY OWN CLOTHING. And if they get their caliphate, they will demand that I submit. And I won't. And I have plenty of company.

Mitt Romney changes his mind on this, but is dismissed as the waffler he is. The others split the pro–Iraqi war Republican vote. One by one they fall out. (Even at this early date, Ron Paul already has more money in the bank than John McCain.

John McCain can't win, and the investors know it. McCain has been a traitor to the GOP and in many ways, to the country at large. He's not getting the potential votes to win. His campaign has tanked. He NEEDS to be recalled, for what he did with immigration and the "voter reform" law.

Strange, it turns out that the one Congressman who demands fiscal responsibility of this august body is also the only candidate who is responsible with his own money.) Ron sticks it out until the bitter end. He doesn't need as much money as the others, since his supporters are very committed to him. Let's say, finally, it is Ron vs. Jailiani (aka: Gulag Giuliani, Il Duce, Benito Giuliani, Ghouliani, Gestapo Giuliani.) Then, a new scandal erupts (Rudy did drugs, was divorced even more than we think he was, harassed even more innocent businessmen, whatever). Dr. Paul wins the Republican nomination.

I fail to see how ad hominem attacks help your case. And no, Giuliani doesn't stand a chance, either. He's a RINO, and everyone knows it.

In their defense, it cannot be denied, the other Republican candidates will say that the war was not a bad idea but it was badly executed, "and here's how things will be different when I am President."

Well, no, the war was NOT badly executed! We WON. And our "defeat" is being snatched from the jaws of victory by people who are, quite frankly, traitors. They are undermining our mission, and our enemy knows it. The same thing happened in Viet Nam. And the consequences were not only that we lost 50,000 troops, but after we pulled out, millions were killed. The Cambodian government killed 1/4 of its population. We should have won that war quickly. We could have. We tied the hands of the military leadership. And our action there DID keep the whole of South East Asia from going communist, and that was a significant accomplishment, from which we all have benefited. But our loss in Viet Nam is one reason why the terrorists are emboldened.

But the American people are not infinitely stupid (even Caplan does not go that far). They have already heard this sort of thing hundreds of times. By the time the primaries are over and the convention begins, they will have heard it even more. Eventually, enough of them will tire of it, particularly as the body bags mount up.

The number of troops killed here has been a FRACTION of those in ANY OTHER WAR (except the one we're finishing now, Desert Storm). I decry every single one killed, but make no mistake: this is a BOGUS argument. Some of us see right through this. These people serving over there are all volunteers. They know what the risks are. And one of them is our youngest son, who has already done one tour of duty in Iraq and will be going back in a few months, so I DO have a dog in this fight.

I get outraged at the people who undermine our son's mission, and endanger his life unnecessarily.

5. Here's the case for Dr. Ron Paul winning the overall election, against whoever the Democrats nominate. Now Ron faces, say, a Hillary–Obama ticket. He kicks their butt, again, over the deteriorating Iraqi war situation.

Don't be too sure. I'm not.

And if he does win on the war issue, that is fundamentally dishonest, because once he becomes aware of the information supplied to the president, he has one of two choices: abdicate on the PARAMOUNT DUTY of government to protect us from violence, or, guess what! finish the war! Do you REALLY think Paul will refuse to defend our nation? If so, he is TOTALLY unqualified.

There is no way these war-mongering chameleons will be able to attain the mantle of isolationist foreign policy.

We can't do an "isolationist" foreign policy in today's world. The Founders had the advantage that we were protected by the Atlantic Ocean. That is no longer any kind of protection. And guess what! When the Barbary Pirates started to cause problems, the FOUNDERS took care of them the SAME way we are taking care of our current crop of Islamic terrorists. They had more sense than Ron Paul! And for your information, the Libertarian Party lost support over the issue of abandoning our nation to terrorism by refusing to defend ourselves on the terrorists' home turf.

It's real simple. We live in a WORLD where bringing violence to our own shores is very, very easy. I would much rather we would pursue our protection on THEIR turf than ours.

With a country heartily sick of U.S. Imperialism, the Republicans hold their noses and vote for Ron against the Hated Hillary.

IMPERIALISM???????????

What's imperialistic about putting a nation back on its feet, and then leaving? And that's what we have done, each and every time! We don't HAVE an empire. The most we ever do is maintain one base. I don't have a problem with this. The people of their nation get their government back, and they become democratic.

Mischaracterizing reality isn't going to get any support from me! We don't need someone in the presidency who has been flummoxed by leftist propaganda!

6. Can't happen? [Ron Paul winning] Give me some odds on a bet. (According to some polls, the odds against Ron winning are 200-1). I'm willing to put up $1 against the $200 of all suckers, sorry, I meant takers, that my favorite Texas Congressman will win.

Sorry, but gambling is a vice. Go hawk your vices someplace else.

We might as well bomb all of New York, since the monster responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh, came from that state, as attack Afghanistan since there was support for the 9/11 monstrosity in that country.

False analogy. Can't you argue logically?

A majority of the slaughterers of the innocent on that day (fifteen out of the nineteen) were born in Saudi Arabia; should we unleash weapons of mass destruction on the entire citizenry of that country?

They were TRAINED in Iraq, under the watchful eye of the tyrant Saddam, whom we went in to depose.

And we did!

We did NOT unleash WMD on Iraq OR Afghanistan. And Saudi Arabia can be dealt with in other ways. It makes sense to deal with a nation another way if we can. We couldn't with Saddam. That was proven over and over.

Oh, and another thing. Since when do we have the right to HOARD fundamental human rights to ourselves? We don't have the resources to defeat every tyrant in the world. But when it is in our national interests, the right thing to do is to free the people from their tyrants. I'm rather sickened by the libertarians who say that we got ours (forgetting that it was an unearned blessing they were born here), so everyone else can go hang.

Saddam was up to his eyeballs in planning the attack on 9/11. If you aren't aware of this, you are either hopelessly naive, or not informed. I have done my homework. Please do yours.

George Washington's "Farewell Address" was very libertarian in terms of how we should relate to other nations. He said: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible."

Oh yeah! And then we helped the French with their revolution, and we went after the Barbary Pirates. Yeah, right!

Thomas Jefferson called for: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

And then we helped the French. Yeah, right! And guess WHO initiated the effort against the Barbary Pirates!

Said John Quincy Adams: "America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy… We favor the freedom of all nations, but will fight, only, to protect our own."

Hoarding our blessings for ourselves.

As to domestic policy, Dr. Ron Paul wants to wipe all victimless crimes off the books; can the same be said of Messrs. Thompson and Giuliani? To ask this is to answer it.

I have already addressed this. Trafficking in vices is NOT a victimless crime. If people refuse to recognize the victims, that's not the fault of the victims! Ron Paul needs to FORGET this idea. There are things we should do. Forfeiture laws are unconstitutional, and an invitation to corruption. Repeal them. But DON'T abdicate the responsibility of protecting victims just because we refuse to acknowledge their existence.

It's real simple, sir. Vices enslave. Government isn't the only entity capable of enslaving people. And people who are enslaved by vices won't fight government slavery. They become part of the problem, because they'll steal by proxy, taking the results of plunder to stay alive, because they can no longer take care of themselves.

The whole purpose behind trafficking in vices, as far as our enemies are concerned, is that vices weaken the people, and if they can produce decay and collapse from within, we will be easy to conquer. Don't think they don't know it!

And, as far as economic liberty is concerned, none of the other Republican candidates even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Ron.

That's ONE issue, and unless he is willing to run the presidency in a way that protects the people, this won't even be POSSIBLE. See above.

...

Yes, there are very few people I would trust with such awesome responsibilities. Ron Paul is one of them.

Well, I don't trust him. His ideas are too whacked out.

July 9, 2007

Dr. Block is a professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, and a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He is the author of Defending the Undefendable.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com