Author Archives: Tom Mullen

Rumors of Ron Paul Campaign Demise Greatly Exaggerated

In their mad dash to create the long awaited general election narrative, media outlets have pronounced Ron Paul’s campaign dead. They now speculate about what his supporters may do when he drops out. The Associated Press reports that Romney has over ten times the delegates that Ron Paul has secured. Reuters reports that Paul is far behind in Wisconsin and that his supporters have finally conceded that he can’t win the nomination.

None of this is true. Romney has not secured 568 delegates. Hundreds of those delegates won’t be determined until Republican state conventions, many of which haven’t happened yet. As I’ve reported before, there is very credible evidence that Ron Paul will emerge from those conventions with the majority of delegates in many states. Texas, New York and California haven’t even held their primaries yet. Those three states alone control over four hundred delegates.

In many states, there is no cause-effect relationship between the popular vote and the delegates awarded to each candidate. Delegates are awarded via a completely separate process that doesn’t utilize the popular vote totals in any way. The purpose of the popular vote is to inform the eventual delegates of the preferences of voters in their states. That’s why many of those states allow Democrats and independents to vote. They want the eventual delegates to know who those voters prefer. That tells them who has the best chance to win in the general election.

In most years, the media can get away with reporting on the nomination contest as they are now. They can assume that the candidates will receive roughly the same percentage of delegates from each state as the percentage they received in the popular vote. That isn’t accurate reporting, but it usually comes out in the wash, especially as far as the winner is concerned. However, there are many things different in this year’s race and there is a good chance that much of the media is going to look silly come August.

Continue at Washington Times Communities…

God is a non-interventionist

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As technology has advanced and the world has “grown smaller,” it has become increasingly evident that little miracles don’t really happen. By “little miracles,” I mean people levitating, disappearing, parting seas, or making the sun stop in the sky. If they did occur, we’d be watching them on You Tube. But they don’t. That’s a good thing, because it leaves us less distracted from the real miracles: that we are here, that we live in a universe governed by natural laws that explain the world around us and that we have been blessed with reason to discover those laws.

In addition to the natural, physical laws that cause the planets to rotate around their stars and the plants to photosynthesize sunlight, there are also natural, moral laws. Like the physical laws, we are able to discover these by reason. First, we gather facts that we can observe directly with our senses. We then use reason to draw conclusions from those facts.

One observation we have made is that all human beings are created equal. No, they aren’t all the same color, height, shape, or sex. They don’t all run as fast or play the piano as well. There is a wonderful diversity to human life in that no two human beings are exactly alike. Yet, there is nothing so different about any one human being that gives him any innate right to exercise authority over another. In that respect, we are all truly equal.

From that observation, we can draw the conclusion that comprises the most basic, fundamental moral law of nature. As John Locke put it,

““The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions…”

Reason also leads us to the conclusions that life is good, that whatever promotes life is good, and that whomever or whatever created life, the world around us and the natural laws that govern it must also be good. Some people explain the miracle from a purely scientific point of view. We are here simply because certain materials interacted with others and started a chain reaction. Where those materials came from they do not know. Others insist that it is the work of not only a sentient being, but a loving God.

However, the latter group has always faced a philosophical dilemma. How could a loving God allow terrible things to happen to innocent people? How could he allow atrocities committed by humans, such as those by Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot? How could he allow natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis to kill thousands of innocent people, when he has the power to prevent them?

The only answer most of us are ever given is “It’s a mystery.” Indeed it is, but that isn’t very satisfying. We’ve been endowed by this creator with a natural curiosity about the nature of our existence. This compels us to ask “Why?” While no one can give a definitive answer, I’d like to suggest one that fits the facts. God is a non-interventionist.

What does that mean? It means that God does not override his own natural laws in order to prevent some of their consequences. Imagine if he did? At any given time, a good percentage of the nearly 7 billion people who inhabit this planet are asking him to violate the most fundamental natural law of cause and effect. Were he to grant even a small percentage of those requests, we would live in a chaotic world that would be impossible to understand or predict. One could not even know for sure that the next step would take one forward instead of backward. No human progress would be possible.

Similarly, God does not override the decisions of men, even if it would save lives or prevent suffering. That was the whole point of the Genesis story, wasn’t it? While Adam and Eve were in the garden, they did not know the difference between good and evil. There was no suffering, but no real joy either. God did not want robots that did his will merely because he programmed them to do it. He wanted sentient beings that would choose to do his will. In order to choose to do his will, they had to have the ability to choose not to. That has never changed.

So, God has the power to prevent suffering, but chooses not to because to override man’s free will or the immutable laws of nature would be worse. He has already provided everything necessary for human beings to live in peace, happiness and prosperity. We need only use our reason to discover the natural laws, to continue to understand them better, and to follow them.

The United States is right now the most powerful nation on earth. Whether that will be true in fifty years, we do not know. However, today its government has the power to intervene in the affairs of almost any other nation. Often, there is the temptation to use this awesome power to intervene between a dictator and his people or between an aggressor nation and an ally. When have the consequences of intervention ever been better than those of non-intervention would have been? Never.

Yet, we continue to intervene in a most ungodly way, with those who claim to be most devoted to God exhorting us most vociferously. When will we ever learn?

Tom Mullen is the author of Where Do Conservatives and Liberals Come From? And What Ever Happened to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Part One and A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.

Tom Mullen on Talkback (WVNJ New Jersey)

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Check out my interview with Dr. Lawrence Gelman and Rabbi Steven Rosenberg of the popular NYC/New Jersey area talk show, Talkback. The show focuses on today’s political, social, and economic issues from a traditional and unrelenting conservative perspective.

They are open to libertarian ideas, too. 🙂 Listen here.

Why is health care so expensive? (Washington Times Comm.)

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TAMPA, Fl., March 29, 2012 — The nation waits with baited breath while the high priests of the federal government prepare to issue a pronouncement on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The legislation purports to make health care more “affordable” by among other things, forcing every soul in the United States to purchase health insurance. It also mandates several other new government interventions into the health care market.

While conservatives are arguing that this represents some enormous crossroads between socialism and freedom and progressives are replying that it’s nothing more than “Medicare for all,” everyone has become distracted from the most important questions. Why is health care so expensive? Why does the price continually rise?

The proponents of Obamacare say that it’s capitalism; allowing health care to be delivered in a free market results in “putting profits before people” and other snappy alliterative slogans. In a word, the problem is the age old progressive boogeyman: greed.

That begs several questions. If capitalism is the problem, then why does the price of computers and cell phones continually go down? Aren’t the producers of these products greedy? Does anyone seriously believe that technology corporations “put people before profits?”

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

The Right Has It Wrong on Media Matters Campaign Against Limbaugh (Huffington Post)

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Three weeks after issuing an apology for his controversial statements about Sandra Fluke, Rush Limbaugh still finds himself under attack. The latest development is Media Matters’ $100,000 ad campaign to persuade advertisers and stations to drop him. Conservative media has come out in support of Limbaugh, arguing that the campaign is “censorship” and an attack on rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

There are so many parties wrong in this ugly dispute that it’s hard to take any side. Let’s start with a few disclaimers.

I’m a libertarian and while that doesn’t necessarily mean that I agree with conservatives on everything, I agree with Limbaugh’s substantive position on the original issue. I do not believe that the government should force insurance companies to pay for contraceptives. That’s an easy one, because I don’t believe that the government should force any party to a voluntary contract to do anything.

I didn’t particularly like the way that Limbaugh chose to express his position. I don’t believe it was necessary to hurl such vile insults to make his point. At the same time, I don’t think it calls for a campaign to ruin his livelihood. Throughout all of human history, the remedy for an insult has been an apology, even back when overdressed men in stockings used to shoot at each other at twenty paces over them.

Continue at The Huffington Post…

Ron Paul reveals benefits of brokered convention on Jay Leno

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TAMPA, March 21, 2012 – Following Mitt Romney’s victory in Illinois, the media buzz on Ron Paul has focused on speculation about him dropping out of the race. According to many sources, his delegate strategy has failed and his fundraising is drying up.

However, Ron Paul seemed as upbeat as ever last night during his appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He noted that the delegate counts for many states are still unknown and that a brokered convention becomes more likely every day.

Several media outlets report that Paul has only secured one tenth of the delegates that Romney has secured. This presumably rests upon the assumption that the percentage of delegates each will eventually secure will mirror his percentage of the popular vote.

However, Paul’s campaign maintains that they expect to control a majority of the delegates in Iowa, Maine, and possibly several other states.

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

Ron Paul’s caucus strategy is authentic republicanism

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TAMPA, March 19, 2012 – Give yourself a test. Without doing a web search or whipping out that pocket U.S. Constitution that a wild-eyed Tea Partier handed you, fill in the blank in the following sentence: The U.S. Constitution guarantees to every state in the union a _____form of government.

If you are like ninety percent of the American electorate, you answered “democratic” and you were wrong. The answer is “a republican form of government.” There is an important difference between the two and one would think that the Republican Party would know it. Instead, they are identical to their rivals in not only ignoring the distinction but promoting democracy instead.

In a democracy, the will of the majority is the law. Fifty-one percent of the vote empowers the winners to exercise any power they wish. Not so in a republic. The reason that the founders constructed a constitutional republic was to protect Americans from democracy.

That may sound like sacrilege to most 21^st century Americans, but it’s true. Benjamin Franklin mused that democracy was like “two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.” Thomas Jefferson said that when majorities oppress an individual they “break up the foundations of society.”

Republicanism is the logical form of government for conservatives. Conservatism at its best protects property rights from an unchecked majority plundering the individual. Liberalism at its best protects property rights from the wealthy conspiring with the government to plunder the masses. At their worst, both conservatism and liberalism legitimize plunder; the former for the few, the latter for the many.

Ron Paul’s presidential campaign strategy is rooted in republicanism. He has deliberately focused his efforts on the states that hold caucuses instead of primaries because caucuses do not let the majority rule unchecked. Instead of merely pulling a few levers behind a curtain, caucus participants must complete a multi-tiered process that occurs for months after the popular vote before being chosen for the national convention. Who can doubt that these delegates are more informed than the typical primary voter? The essence of republicanism is for reason to triumph over the transient passion of the majority.

Paul’s platform likewise represents what is best about conservatism. Without exception, it protects the individual from oppression by the majority. He is the only Republican presidential candidate that has actually said the words “role of government” during any debate. That’s because he is the only candidate that seems to recognize that the government’s role is limited; that even a majority vote cannot sanction it to exercise power beyond those limits. Throughout all of human history, conservatives have defended this principle against the ungoverned passion of the majority.

Yet, conservatives today sound just like liberals when they decry Paul’s supporters using the republican nature of the caucuses to overturn the decisions of uninformed majorities. Their opposition to both Paul’s platform and his political strategy begs the question: Does the Republican Party still believe in a republican form of government? Do they still believe that the power of the majority has limits? Or are they just Democrats with a different supporter base?

George W. Bush never once referred to the United States of America as “a republic.” He consistently referred to it as “a democracy” and like Woodrow Wilson claimed to be defending democracy all over the world. If he was representative of what the Republican Party now stands for, then how is it substantively different from the Democratic Party?

These same questions apply to the issues. If the Republican Party truly favors the big government alternatives to Ron Paul, candidates who all supported the expansion of the federal government in the past and who refuse to commit to any meaningful cuts now, then what is the debate about?

The federal government doesn’t need a manicure. It needs reconstructive surgery. Make that deconstructive surgery. You don’t turn $1.5 trillion deficits into surpluses by tweaking the way that federal departments are managed. You do so by completely eliminating departments and redefining the role of government. Only Ron Paul is proposing to do so. If there is anything left of what made the Republican Party different from the Democrats, they should support both Ron Paul’s platform and his political strategy.

The Free Market Resolved the Sandra Fluke Affair (Tom Mullen on the Daily Caller)

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The controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s incendiary statements about Sandra Fluke and Limbaugh’s subsequent apology has reached its second week. In this age of 24-hour news cycles and government involvement in just about everything, we’ve been treated to opinions on this from presidential candidates, pundits, reporters and, of course, the president. Even in the wake of his apology, Limbaugh continues to weigh in.

We’ve also heard this incident discussed from just about every angle. Is this about religious freedom? Is it about a supposed “right to health care”? Is it about “silencing women,” as Fluke herself claimed in a recent interview?

Even Ron Paul missed an opportunity when he opined, “I think he’s [apologizing] because people were taking their advertisements off his program.”

Yes, Limbaugh apologized because he was losing sponsors. But no one on the right or the left seems to be gleaning the most important point here: the free market solved this problem.

Read the rest of the article at The Daily Caller

How the Fed Steals for the 1% (Tom Mullen on the Huffington Post)

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It is ironic that Occupy Wall Street is reportedly very low on cash. This is something that Wall Street itself never has to worry about. They have ready access at all times to as much cash as they need. The Occupiers mistakenly blame capitalism, but it is not capitalism that is behind this inequity. It is the completely anti-capitalist Federal Reserve System.

The Fed purports to stimulate economic growth by expanding the volume of money and credit. This forces down interest rates and makes more money available to start new businesses or expand existing ones. However, while the currency units are created out of thin air, the purchasing power is not. The purchasing power has to come from somewhere.

As I’ve explained before, the expansion of money and credit really redistributes wealth from the holders of existing currency units to whoever receives the new money. When an individual “redistributes wealth” without the consent of its current owner, most people call it “stealing.” Now, the Occupy movement may not have a problem with that if it results in less disparity between rich and poor. However, that’s not what the Federal Reserve System is all about. The Fed steals for the 1%.

Read the rest of the article at The Huffington Post…

Did the Media Black Out Ron Paul’s First Win?

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During the first 2 months of the Republican presidential primary contest, the mainstream media consistently reported that Ron Paul had failed to secure a win in any state. While Paul had likely accumulated the majority of delegates in several caucus states, including Iowa, Maine, Nevada, Alaska, Minnesota and possibly several more, he had not placed first in the straw polls in any of those states.

Despite the fact that the straw poll is non-binding and ultimately has nothing to do with selecting the party’s nominee, the media consistently reported the straw poll winner as the winner of the state caucus. They even went so far as to project the delegates won by each candidate based upon that candidate’s percentage of the straw poll vote. This is misleading because the straw poll results have nothing to do with the allocation of delegates in most caucus states The delegate process is completely separate and takes place after the straw poll is over.

The media has not missed an opportunity to point out that Ron Paul has not won a state in this election cycle, although those listening carefully heard John King admit after the Arizona debate that Paul was in second place in terms of delegates. This was the result of several strong second place finishes and several wins – if one defines a win as securing the most delegates. However, the media recognizes the straw poll winner as the “winner” regardless of who actually gets the delegates.

That is, until Ron Paul wins a straw poll. Then the rules change.

Immediately after the Virgin Islands caucus, the Associated Press reported that Mitt Romney had won. However, there was something curious about this particular story. It reported the number of delegates won by each candidate, but did not even mention the results of the straw poll.

I’ll give you three guesses who won that poll (hint: it wasn’t Romney, Gingrich, or Santorum). Yes, as the Virgin Islands GOP website confirms, Ron Paul won the straw poll with 29% of the vote. Romney came in second with 26%, followed by 6% for Santorum and 5% for Gingrich.

Certainly, the Virgin Islands delegation is numerically insignificant in terms of the 2,286 delegates in play during the Republican primary process. However, so are the delegations from Iowa and New Hampshire. The importance of these wins is the momentum they give to the campaign and the effect they may have on voters in subsequent states

The media can’t have it both ways. They can’t report the straw poll winner as the caucus winner in states where Paul fails to win the straw poll but gets the majority of the delegates and then turn around and report the delegate winner as the caucus winner when Ron Paul wins the straw poll. Any reasonable person would scream bias at that.

However, the media may not be real problem here. With 10 primaries or caucuses being held on one day and several more within a few days before and after, the media has to rely heavily on what local/state GOP officials tell them about the results of these contests. If the media simply relayed in good faith what they were told by the Virgin Islands GOP, it raises the real question. Why was the Virgin Islands the first caucus that did not announce the candidate that finished first in the straw poll as the winner of the caucus?

Perhaps it was an honest mistake, but the honest mistakes that hurt Paul’s campaign are adding up. As I pointed out before the Washington caucus, the only vote-counting or election scandals during this primary season have occurred in states that Paul has been expected to have a good chance to win. As anticipated in that article, Washington joined that dubious list of states before the voting even started. Paul has taken the high road so far, explaining his lack of a win by saying that “changing one hundred years of history takes a little time.” However, after drawing thousands to rallies in one state after another while his opponents have only drawn hundreds, if that, even Paul is starting to get suspicious of the highly massaged caucus straw poll results.

Although his support has increased by orders of magnitude since 2008, Paul admits that the chances are slim that he can win the nomination. They are certainly no slimmer than Newt Gingrich’s chances at this point. However, no candidate could have any chance to win with his own party teaming up with the media to thwart any momentum he might generate.

If the United States had a vibrant political system in which many parties competed on a level playing field, one might say that Ron Paul should take the hint that he’s just not wanted as the Republican Party’s candidate. However, the playing field is not level. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties receive government subsidies and benefit from a labyrinthine set of rules that give them a virtual monopoly on the political process. Without fairly conducted primaries, no American citizen is truly guaranteed “a republican form of govenrment.”

If those lofty ideals don’t resonate with entrenched Republican Party leaders, then perhaps this will: Ron Paul’s supporters may not be a majority within the Republican Party, but you’ll need them to win in November. If they walk, you get four more years of Obama. Treat Paul’s campaign fairly and stop trying to give it extra adversity to overcome. Otherwise, you may be treated to another Obama inaugural address.

Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.