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In Defense of Ron Paul, Part
Three: The Case for a Left-Right Alliance Against the Empire
Keith Preston
Lew Rockwell.com
Saturday January 5, 2007
There can be no doubt that the United States presently maintains
the most far-reaching empire in world history. Roughly eight hundred
US military bases are located around world. These can be found
everywhere from remote Central Asian countries to friendly nations
like Germany and South Korea where such a military presence has
long expired its historical purpose. Nearly all of the world's
nations are on Washington's dole by means of the system of international
bribery known as foreign aid. The United States has troops stationed
in approximately three quarters of the countries on earth. This
imperial system is detrimental to both Americans and to residents
of other nations. For Americans, it is costly in terms of blood
and treasure. For foreigners, it helps maintain corrupt and incompetent
governments whose reactionary policies impede genuine economic
and social development. If there is one thing both major political
parties in the US agree on, it is their common desire to maintain
the empire. Imperialism is special interest politics at its worst.
Relatively few people in the US or in other nations benefit from
the empire. Hundreds of millions suffer under its boot.
Ron Paul is offering us a unique opportunity to dismantle the
empire. This is not an opportunity that comes along very often
in the life of empires. Most empires simply run their course,
do their damage, and then fall apart, taking their economies and
civil societies down with them. Few, if any, American politicians
besides Ron Paul would ever go so far as to consider the idea
that maybe the empire is something we can and should do without.
Rarely, if ever, has there been a nation that went down the imperial
road that did not become a dictatorship. One reason the British
chose to liquidate their empire following World War Two came from
widespread realization that the empire and Britain's internal
democracy could not be simultaneously maintained. The United States
is now reaching a dangerous tipping point. In recent years, we
have seen rapid and unprecedented power grabs by the executive
wing of government. The damage done thus far may already be irreversible.
All the more reason why the next President needs to be someone
committed to radical reform. Only Ron Paul fits that description.
(Article continues below)
These are questions on which the Left and Right should be able
to agree. Of course, the Left and Right disagree on many other
things related to economic, social or cultural matters, but should
such issues prevent us from putting up a united front against
our common enemy, the American empire and the ruling/political
class that profits from it to our detriment and to the detriment
of the rest of the world? What disagreements do we have among
ourselves that are so significant that we should wish to forfeit
this historic opportunity to back a potential head of state whose
primary political aim is to dissolve the empire? Are our differences
really that profound or irresolvable?
Considerable disagreement exists over economic matters. Libertarians
and many conservatives are opposed to the welfare state that ostensibly
provides for the needy, the unemployed, the homeless, the elderly,
etc. while socialists, liberals, Marxists, some left-wing anarchists
and not a few right-wing populists take a more favorable view
of the welfare state. However, government programs for the disadvantaged
are miniscule compared to government assistance to the not-so-disadvantaged.
Examples of the latter include central banking and what Benjamin
R. Tucker called the "money monopoly," patent monopolies
and intellectual property laws, the military-industrial complex,
the World Bank, IMF and WTO, the prison-industrial complex, transportation
subsidies, Taft-Hartley, federal land monopolies, corporate welfare,
crony capitalism, deficit spending and regulatory and licensing
schemes that have the effect of centralizing control over wealth
and resources. The majority of these things are opposed by virtually
the entire spectrum of the "radical right" (libertarians,
paleocons, populists and anarcho-capitalists) and the "radical
left" (socialists, greens, Marxists and anarcho-syndicalists).
The majority of the "radical middle" (the kinds of folks
drawn to people like Ross Perot), rank-and-file Democrats and
Republicans and mainstream Americans off the street would be opposed
to these as well if they only knew what they were and if such
policies were explained and criticized in an articulate and comprehensible
way, as Ron Paul would be able to do.
As for the question of social welfare, food and drug regulations,
environmental laws, job safety, etc., whether Ron Paul opposes
any or all of these or not, he is not running for the position
of a dictator who can simply eliminate all of this by decree.
If such policies are indeed popular and widely supported by the
public at large (which they may be), then obviously a President
Paul would not be able to convince a reluctant Congress to go
along with dismantling them. Even if they did, so what? If there
was overwhelming public demand for such policies, they could easily
be reinstated at the state or local level. Many of the American
states, indeed many American metropolitan areas, are larger and
more densely populated than many other countries. Many on the
Left will often cite the welfare states of Scandinavia as a model.
Okay, fine. Let California become a Sweden without the cold weather.
And let Texas take its chances with deregulated produce and pharmaceuticals.
One reason for the apprehension of many Leftists concerning Ron
Paul seems to be that many on the Left equate Ron with another
Ron, i.e., Ronald Reagan or his cohort from across the Atlantic,
Margaret Thatcher. But this is an absurd comparison. Reagan was
a right-wing military Keynesian who never had anything but good
to say about the military-industrial complex. Thatcher was a disciple
of the right-wing corporatist "monetarist" outlook of
the Chicago School. This is worlds apart from Ron Paul's devout
Austrian economic outlook. If you want to know what Austrians
think of the likes of Reagan and Thatcher, I'd suggest you browse
through the archives of LewRockwell.com and take a look at what
the late Murray Rothbard had to say about those two.
Ron Paul's support for constitutional federalism also offers
an institutional framework for a cease-fire in the culture wars.
Both the Left and the Right have valid criticisms of the state
and of one another. Most people, rightfully or wrongfully, define
"freedom" as the ability to live according to the norms
of their primary reference groups and community-of-origin. The
Left favors feminists, racial minorities, gays and lesbians and
other sexual minorities, immigrants, abortionists, counterculturalists,
humanitarians, environmentalists, labor unions, animals, health
nuts, agnostics, adherents of alternative religions, and consumer
advocates. The Right favors taxpayers, small businessmen, farmers,
church-goers, gun owners, fetuses, hunters, property owners, smokers,
traditional families, patriots, communities, veterans, southerners,
poor Appalachian whites and NASCAR fans. If all of these people
cannot get along, then why don't they simply peacefully separate
and go their own way? As mentioned, the US is larger than many
other countries combined. It makes perfect sense that red states
would have more conservative governments than blue states, and
that blue states would have more liberal governments than red
states. Heavily populated areas with culturally mixed populations
could be decentralized into semi-autonomous neighborhoods and
townships reflecting a plethora of cultural values. Why wouldn't
this be a preferable alternative to a perpetual war for control
over the central government that no one is going to win and will
leave everyone dissatisfied until the time the empire eventually
implodes, the economy fails and real social strife begins to set
in? Surely, we can do better than that. And why not start by making
a common effort to support Ron Paul's noble ambition of dismantling
the empire that reigns tyrannically over us all?
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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