Tom Mullen was a guest on the new radio show Greenewave Radio with Christopher Greene on October, 26th 2011.
Tom Mullen Interviewed by Greenewave Radio 10/26/2011
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Perry vs. Romney? What Do Conservatives Really Want?
According to the left-leaning media and punditry, the race for the Republican nomination for president is dominated by right wing extremism. Positions as frightening as phasing out Medicare and getting rid of the Department of Education are being bandied about, with the only solace for liberals being the knowledge that those positions will moderate once the primaries are over and the Republican candidate tries to appeal to voters beyond the Republican base.
Supposedly, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney represent this “hard shift to the right” within the Republican Party, which is why they are in first and second place, respectively, in national polls. However, given the histories of these two men and their present stand on the issues, that narrative just doesn’t jibe with reality. In fact, if average conservative Americans really believe what they say they believe, it is difficult to figure out how any of them could cast a vote for Perry or Romney.
By “average conservative Americans,” I mean those people not in public office and unconnected to the political machine who vote in polls this early in the election cycle. Everyone knows these people. We work with them, socialize with them, live with them. Unlike most people we know, they feel strongly about politics and identify themselves as conservatives. They care enough to follow the nomination races over a year before the general election and can articulate an opinion, as opposed to the majority of Americans who will say something like “I haven’t made up my mind yet” to cover for the fact that they have no idea what any of the candidates in either party stand for.
I think that most would agree that this group of people generally say they believe in small government, free enterprise, traditional family and religious values, and (let’s face it) unqualified worship of the U.S. military, no matter how it is employed. These are the things that conservatives say that they are for.
It is not so much what they are for as what they are against that brought the Republican Party back from the brink in 2010. The Tea-powered victory in 2010 rode a wave of conservative backlash against Barack Obama and his socialist agenda of big government healthcare, environmentalism, and wealth redistribution. More than anything else, it was Obamacare that served as the rallying point. Anyone who attended a Tea Party event can attest to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the signs and speeches (when not glorifying the military) represented opposition to this evil, Marxist scheme. If only Obamacare could be repealed, America would return to the capitalist paradise
that it was under George W. Bush.
With that in mind, one has to ask how Mitt Romney is even in the race. After all, it was the Massachusetts healthcare plan supported and signed into law by Governor Romney that inspired Obamacare in the first place. Despite Romney’s insistence that there are “major differences” between the Massachusetts plan and Obama’s, the only tangible difference that he has been able to cite is that his plan was run at the state level and not forced on every American citizen as a “one-size fits all solution.” Other than that, I don’t believe that Romney or anyone else has been able to point out a fundamental difference between Romneycare and Obamacare.
So that’s what all of the noise was about in 2010? The Tea Party rallies, the signs, the angry town hall meetings? I thought that conservatives objected to the fundamental socialist principles embodied in Obamacare: the central economic planning, the government-enforced mandate, and the wealth redistribution. I don’t remember signs saying “let the states run Obamacare.” It was get rid of government-run healthcare (except for Medicare) or we’ll be living in the 1960’s-era Soviet Union before the next election.
“People can change,” some supporters might tell you, and that is certainly true. But has Romney really changed? As of this writing, the issues page on his website says, “States and private markets, not the federal government, hold the key to improving our health care system.”
Not just “private markets,” but “states and private markets” hold the key. It would seem that Romney hasn’t changed his mind at all about his state-run, big government socialist healthcare program. If Romney’s only defense of his plan is that it was run at the state level rather than the national level, then average American conservatives should be automatically vetoing his candidacy on Romneycare alone. Yet Romney led the race until Rick Perry entered, and is still a solid second.
That brings us to Rick Perry. He has also convinced his conservative supporters that he has changed his views since previously being a Democrat. That is certainly not unprecedented. Conservative icon Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat before becoming what most conservatives perceive as the quintessential conservative president. However, Perry wasn’t just a Democrat.
If there is any one person in second place to Obama as the arch-villain in conservative mythology, it is Al Gore, (or Algore as Rush Limbaugh refers to him). Gore is the undisputed leader of the liberal environmentalist movement, which lays the blame for the global warming that conservatives don’t even believe exists at the feet of free enterprise. If Obamacare was the peanut butter of the present administration’s platform in 2008, then Cap and Trade was the jelly. Conservatives wanted no part of either, and see Gore as every bit the evil Marxist that Obama is because of his leadership on this issue.
Believe it or not, it was this Conservative Public Enemy No. 2 that Perry supported as a Democrat in the 1988 primaries. He not only supported Gore, but actually chaired his campaign in Texas. He could have supported the eventual Democratic nominee, Michael Dukakis, whose most striking difference to Gore was his refusal to bow to environmental interests at the expense of economic development, as documented in the New York Times. In other words, even as a Democrat, Perry backed a radical environmentalist extremist instead of a somewhat more moderate centrist.
Again, people can change their minds, but has Perry changed his? Does he oppose Cap and Trade on principle, as most conservatives say they do? Apparently he does not, according to his actions as governor. As with Romney on healthcare, Perry is completely supportive of a policy that conservatives say they are fundamentally opposed to, as long as the evil is perpetrated by the state governments rather than the feds. The chief difference between the Cap and Trade imposed on Texans and that imposed by the federal government seems to be that Texas measures emissions limits on the whole facility while the EPA measures it on every smokestack. Is that the sole objection that average conservatives have to Al Gore and his global warming (excuse me, climate change) agenda?
As with Romney, Perry’s support for a key plank in the socialist-liberal agenda should be a deal killer for anyone remotely describing themselves as conservative. Yet not only has Perry been able to sidestep any criticism on this position, he’s currently leading the nomination race by a comfortable margin.
So, what do conservatives really want? If these polls are any indication, they want a good-looking former governor with a suspiciously liberal background who is good at spouting hardcore conservative rhetoric and then doing exactly the opposite once he gets into office. In other words, they want Ronald Reagan, the former New Deal Democrat who suddenly became a libertarian-leaning ultra-conservative and rode that rhetoric into the White House, where he promptly doubled the size and power of the federal government, raising taxes six times and further empowering the Department of Education that he promised to abolish.
It’s not as if there are not alternatives. Ron Paul, currently running third, actually believes in the principles conservatives say they hold dear and has voted consistently according to them as a 12-term Congressman. He is on the record vowing to get rid of the Department of Education, along with Energy, Commerce, and most of the others. You won’t hear anything like that from Romney or Perry, yet it’s an uphill battle for Paul, supposedly because of his foreign policy positions.
But what about Herman Cain and Gary Johnson? As a libertarian, I don’t buy into the “government should be run like a business” philosophy, but most conservatives do. Both Cain and Johnson take this approach, with Johnson promising to deliver a balanced budget proposal in his first year, including abolishing the Department of Education. Yet these two candidates aren’t even on the map with conservative voters.
With several nationally-televised debates completed and plenty more coming, conservative voters have plenty of alternatives in selecting a candidate. According to their most fiercely-held beliefs, conservatives should be voting “anybody but Perry or Romney,” yet those two lead the race. One has to wonder where all of these supposed “right wing extremists” are hiding.
Contrary to the liberal media narrative that the Republican Party has shifted hard to the right and is fielding “extremist” candidates to run against Obama, the primary race looks more like business as usual. Former liberals and big government conservatives are railing against government to energize their conservative supporters, while at the same time openly supporting cornerstones of the liberal agenda. If Perry and Romney are an indication of where conservative voters are headed in 2012, then the Democrats have nothing to worry about, even if Obama loses.
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
© Thomas Mullen 2011
Tom Mullen on Jerry Doyle Show Sept. 16th 2011
During the LPAC conference Jerry Doyle invited guest speaker Tom Mullen on to his show for an in person interview from the event.
What is a Job?
The usual chatter has begun following President Obama’s Sept. 8 call for a $417 billion government spending package designed to stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and improve the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. As always, the commentary, both pro and con, focuses on speculation about the potential results of the program.
Will this latest stimulus money actually reach “shovel-ready projects,” or will it again disappear down the black hole of state subsidies for Medicaid and education? How many jobs will the program actually create and what happens to those jobs when the program is over?
There is never any clear winner in debates like this. While the future is still unknown, Republicans will predict failure while Democrats will predict success. Once the program is over, Republicans will pronounce failure while Democrats will declare victory. The retrospective debate about the results of the program will go on until the media moves on to something else, only to be resurrected again at election time when Republicans will characterize the program as another “bridge to nowhere” while the Democrats will claim that it saved the economy.
There is rarely a definitive answer to questions about the results of government action, even after the fact. This may be one reason why most government programs never really end. The answers are much less ambiguous and elusive when the discussion is shifted from results to rights. To do that, we must answer a previous question.
What is a job?
One might assume everyone knows the answer to this apparently simple question, but I doubt it. In fact, judging by what politicians, media, and even friends and neighbors have to say about jobs and unemployment, I’m convinced almost no one in America today understands what a job really is.
As I’ve said before, a job is a transaction between a buyer and a seller. The employer is the buyer and the employee the seller, selling his services to the employer for a mutually agreed upon price. This is a voluntary transaction for both parties, just like the buying and selling of lawn mowers or breakfast cereal. The buyer offers to purchase services at the price he can afford. The seller decides whether to accept those terms or not. Both parties are free to decide not to go through with the sale at any time. Unless a specific term of employment has been agreed to, both parties are also free to cease doing business at any time. The employee can quit the job (refuse to continue selling the service) and the employer can terminate employment (refuse to continue purchasing the service).
There is only one way in which a purchaser of services can continue to employ people on an ongoing basis. The services provided by the sellers must produce products that make a profit. If the firm loses money, then the employer must increase his sales or lower his operating costs. The latter solution most often means purchasing fewer services (layoffs).
The voluntary association between buyer and seller of services (the employment contract) depends upon another voluntary association between the firm and its customers. The firm’s customers must choose to pay more for the firms products than the cost of producing them, including labor, material, rent, administration, and all other costs of production. It is that choice by customers that creates a market value for the products, for the market value is merely the amount of money the highest bidder will voluntarily pay. If no one was willing to buy the firm’s products at any price, then those products would have a market value of zero.
When the opportunity exists to sell products at a higher price than the cost of producing them, it typically attracts more than one firm, and those firms compete with each other for the customers willing to buy their products. Thus, employment opportunities become abundant in that particular industry, as more and more firms enter the market to take advantage of the opportunity.
Before the first product of any of these firms is produced, the owners must purchase the labor, materials, production facilities, equipment, and other capital goods necessary to make those first and all subsequent products. The owners purchase these capital goods and labor with savings – which are the result of consuming less than they produced over a period of time in the past. The only reason they choose to invest these savings into the venture is the opportunity for profits. Without that opportunity, they would consume their savings in the present or hold them for security against future misfortune instead of risking losing them by starting the new firm.
As long as there are customers willing to buy the products the firm produces, the model is self-sustaining and productive. From a societal view, both the owners and employees of the firm and the customers are adding more goods and services to society. Remember, the customers are only able to buy the firm’s products because of the products they’ve produced and sold to their customers, including employers. Just like the firm, they must produce products other people are willing to buy voluntarily. This is what gives them their purchasing power.
There is one word that sums up the entire process of economic growth and job creation: choice. The market price of products, the wage levels that can be sustained in the production of those products, the number of people that can be employed, and the quantity of products that can be produced all depend upon the ability for economic agents to make rational choices in their own self-interest. Without freedom of choice, there can be no market, no division of labor, no prices, and ultimately no jobs. It is the degree to which all economic agents are free to make the best choices they can that determines how productive, efficient, and prosperous an economy will be.
All of this goes out the window the minute one begins talking about the government “creating jobs.” By definition, nothing the government does allows any individual freedom of choice. This is where most people get confused, because they imagine the government to be a wealthy benefactor with money of its own. This misconception is reinforced when President Obama (and neither he nor the Democrats are by any means alone on this) refer to government spending programs as “investment.” It all sounds very prudent and morally sound until one considers what is really going on.
Whenever the government “invests” in a particular industry, whether it is producing “green” cars, bridges, buildings or roads, it is overriding the choices made by customers in the past. What customers and what choices? The choice by taxpayers not to purchase that car, bridge, building or road. As we’ve seen, when there are people willing to buy products at a price higher than the cost of producing them, there are entrepreneurs ready to take advantage of that opportunity and the products get produced. They do not choose to do this in order to help society, but to help themselves. Nevertheless, they do help society by producing the needed or wanted products and employing the people necessary for that production.
Not only are taxpayers forced to purchase products they have previously chosen not to buy, but the entire nature of the employment contract is fundamentally changed. No longer does an employer purchase services from an employee for the sole purpose of realizing a return on his capital investment. Now, the taxpayer is forced to purchase the services of the employee, with no hope of a return. The best he can hope for is somewhere a bridge, building or road he had previously chosen not to purchase gets built. Meanwhile, the employer is able to make profits that would otherwise be unavailable to him, because the government has forced taxpayers to pay at least part of his operating costs.
While society does get a new car, bridge, building or road, the value of those products is lower than the cost of producing them. This is why government-created jobs end as soon as the government stimulus money is removed. If the products produced and the jobs related to producing them were economically viable, entrepreneurs would already be creating them. Therefore, government-created jobs actually make society poorer, because they result in products worth less than the cost of producing them. Ironically, politicians will often boast that they created more jobs than their opponents, which actually means they created more poverty than their opponents.
By definition, all government spending comes from savings, because it is wealth produced by economic agents but not consumed. Therefore, government-created jobs actually destroy capital, as no self-sustaining production or profits result from that capital investment. Not only is that capital wasted and destroyed on the unproductive temporary jobs, but it is no longer available to create other jobs producing products people would voluntarily buy. In terms of the economic harm caused by government stimulus, this is only the tip of the iceberg. For more, read Peter Schiff’s testimony to Congress on this subject as well as one of his primary sources, Bastiat’s That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen.
Once you understand what a job really is, a lot of what you hear about jobs from politicians and the media sounds completely outlandish. You may hear it stated that everyone has a right to a job, but that can’t be true. How can anyone have a right to force other people to buy their products? If such a right existed, then no company would ever go bankrupt. Whenever it began losing money, it would simply appeal to the government to protect its right to force people to buy from it.
More often you will hear that everyone has a right to “a living wage,” but this makes no more sense. The price of any product in a free society is the result of mutual agreement between the buyer and the seller. Either party has the right not to make an exchange if they are not satisfied with the price. Government interventions like minimum wages interfere with this right. In fact, it is the seller of services (employee) whose rights are more infringed by minimum wages laws, which prevent him from selling his services below a certain price even if he wishes to. That anyone believes the government has a legitimate authority to set an arbitrary price level and then forcibly prohibit people from selling their services at a lower price speaks volumes about how little we value freedom in the land of the free.
No, the supposed right to a job or the right to forcibly fix the price of a job are not real rights. They both involve initiating the use of force against other people and no one has a right to do that. In fact, the true rights at issue with this program are the rights of the unwilling buyers of these services, the taxpayers. They have a right not to be forced to buy goods or services against their will. Yet violating this right is the only way any government can ever create a single job. That the only debate between either major party is over how the government can create jobs, rather than whether the government should attempt to create jobs, reinforces that liberty is not even a consideration in the formulation of federal government policy.
Yet, it is its own colossal trampling of liberty in a thousand other ways that has created the economic malaise the government is attempting to respond to right now. If we ever want to see those unemployed people get back to work, we have to understand what a job is and how and why jobs are created. Then, the government’s part in the solution becomes clear: start securing our rights instead of violating them and stop wasting our money in the misguided attempt to create jobs.
Tom Mullen explains the Difference Between Non-Interventionism and “Isolationist”
Tom Mullen joined the Mike Church Show on August 29th, 2011 to discuss his latest article. Tom shares the difference between Non-Interventionism and Isolationism.
Tom Mullen on Liberty Underground Radio Show 8-26-2011
Tom Mullen as a guest on Liberty Underground Radio Show
Lord and Levin Welcome Ron Paul to the Top Tier
Punctuated by his move past Michele Bachmann into third place in the race for the Republican nomination for president, Ron Paul has arrived in the “top tier.” While this is a significant positive for his supporters, it does not mean that opposition to Paul from within the party will diminish. On the contrary, now that it is undeniable that he really could win the nomination, Paul’s supporters should expect attacks from the opposition to intensify. They have.
Beginning with a piece in the American Spectator by Jeffrey Lord, conservative opponents of Paul have fired the first shots in what from here on out will probably be an all-out bombardment of Paul and his platform. I say “Paul and his platform” because along with substantive criticism of his positions, one should expect a generous amount of ad hominem directed at Paul himself. Judging from the Lord piece and Mark Levin’s replies in weighing in on the matter, one can expect even more mudslinging than usual.
That is not to single out Lord or Levin as particularly unique in this regard. Mudslinging or “muckraking” has been a part of American politics since the earliest days of the republic. Contrary to what many Americans seem to believe, there never was a “golden age” of American journalism where reporters objectively reported the facts and avoided all political bias. In fact, early American newspapers were not only unapologetically biased; they were unconcerned about even the veracity of the mud they slung. During the election of 1800, John Adams was reported to have “ordered Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to London to procure four pretty mistresses to divide between them.” [1] Adams laughed off this completely false accusation, saying that Pinckney must have kept them all to himself.
Indeed, Ron Paul is unique among politicians for his refusal to attack his opponents personally, even when he vehemently disagrees with their positions. After Rick Perry suggested that Ben Bernanke’s monetary policies might be treasonous, Ron Paul declined to join in even when invited to. Asked by Wolf Blitzer to respond to Perry’s comments, Paul refused to take the bait, saying “I try never to make it the individual as much as the philosophy.”
In the same spirit, I would like to take a look at Lord’s and Levin’s criticisms of Paul and respond to the substantive parts of them. Generally, both accuse Paul of not being a true conservative due to his foreign policy of non-interventionism. Lord claims that this policy is rooted in “neo-liberal” philosophy and that in Paul’s case, like many of the supposed neo-liberals that Lord cites, the policy is also motivated by racism (anti-Semitism being racism directed at Jewish people). Finally, Lord accuses Paul of being disingenuous in portraying the founding fathers as non-interventionist, citing Washington’s invasion of Canada during the Revolutionary War, John Adams’ prosecuting of the Quasi War, James Madison’s prosecution of the War of 1812, and James Monroe’s Monroe doctrine.
Taking these points in order, the first concerns “non-interventionism.” What is it and what is its motivation?
First, we have to recognize the actual definition of the word “intervene.” It certainly does not mean using force to defend oneself. If an individual is attacked by a mugger and uses force to defend himself, he is not “intervening.” Intervention is by definition the interposing of one party into the affairs of two or more others. Thus, if England and France go to war, and Russia enters the war on France’s side, then Russia is intervening. Likewise, if a revolution occurs in Albania, and Spain enters the war on the side of the rebels, Spain is intervening. However, if the United States were attacked by Russia and used military force to defend herself against the attack, the United States would not be intervening.
Ron Paul consistently states that the United States should have a strong national defense but should also be non-interventionist. Is this philosophy rooted in racism? In my own interview with him in July 2011, Paul confirmed that the underlying philosophy that informs all of his positions is the libertarian non-aggression axiom (this question and answer begins around the 11:50 mark). This axiom holds that no human being has the right to initiate force against another, including against their person, liberty, or justly acquired property. This is what makes Paul’s positions against the welfare state, the Patriot Act, and preemptive war consistent. All of these policies represent the initiation of force.
Mssrs. Lord and Levin do not distinguish the concept of non-aggression from pacifism. This is an error. Libertarians like Paul are fierce defenders of the right to bear arms precisely because they are not pacifists. They recognize the right, even the duty, to defend oneself with force against aggression. This applies both to the relationship between individuals within society and the relationship between nations. Paul does not champion pacifism if another nation attacks the United States. However, he opposes the United States initiating force against another nation, even if that nation’s policies are oppressive or otherwise objectionable.
Lest opponents of this libertarian philosophy tag it as “leftism” the reader should understand that it was the central principle that inspired Thomas Jefferson’s philosophy. In his own words,
“Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”[2]
This was by no means the only time that Jefferson invoked the non-aggression principle. He invoked it in defending religious freedom, saying ““The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”[3]
In fact, on nearly every occasion where he had the opportunity to define the role of government, he invoked this principle. His first inaugural address was centered around it.
“What more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens — a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”[4] [emphasis added]
That this founding principle is completely consistent with non-interventionism is reflected by Jefferson’s support for it in that same speech.
“Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;”[5]
Lord points to Jefferson’s war with the Barbary pirates as an example of interventionism, but this is absurd. Jefferson was not intervening in a dispute between two other nations or an internal dispute within one. He was defending the United States against acts of war that had been committed against them. On May 10, 1801, the pasha of Tripoli formally declared war against the United States. Jefferson’s military response was completely consistent with non-aggression and its sub-corollary, non-interventionism. Again, neither non-aggression nor non-interventionism are synonymous with pacifism.
As Tom Woods and Kevin Gutzman have pointed out, all of the early American wars cited by Lord as examples of the founders being ‘interventionists” were in fact similarly defensive. Lord’s citing of the Quasi War with France as “interventionist” is particularly confused. The whole reason that it was called a “quasi” war was Adams staunch refusal to ask for a declaration of full-out war, even against the wishes of many in his own party. As I have written before, Adams actually considered avoiding war with France the crowning achievement of his presidency.
As I argued regarding Obama’s war in Libya, taxing American citizens to defend people in other countries similarly violates the non-aggression principle. If conservatives actually believe that the U.S. government can tax Americans to provide freedom or security to people in other countries, then what is their objection to the liberal policy of taxing American citizens to provide healthcare or housing to other Americans? In either case, one person is taxed to provide benefits exclusively to another. Is this conservative? It certainly isn’t libertarian.
On the racism/anti-Semitism charge, there is nothing in any of Ron Paul’s public statements, voting record, or writing that can remotely support a charge of racism or anti-Semitism. In his own words,
“Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that all individual who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their intense focus on race is inherently racist, because it views individuals only as members of racial groups.”
Lord and Levin accuse Paul of not being a true conservative and of espousing major tenets of the liberal philosophy. However, it is they who adopt the tactic that conservatives consistently accuse liberals of using: making an unfounded charge of racism in the hope that the mere association of the word with the position will evoke an emotional response in the minds of voters and persuade them to oppose the position, regardless of its merits. I agree with conservatives that this is a dishonest and reprehensible tactic.
They also accuse Paul and some of his supporters of not being conservative for criticizing Reagan. Reagan, who said in this interview that “the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism,” invoked Jefferson’s first inaugural in stating that it was government’s role to keep us from harming each other, but should not try to keep us from harming ourselves. However, as the interview goes on, Reagan is able to put virtually the whole progressive regulatory state into the former category, with very little recognized as part of the latter. This lends insight into his presidency, where the size and the power of the federal government doubled, despite his libertarian rhetoric both before and after his election.
If the heart and soul of conservatism is truly libertarianism as Reagan argued, then true libertarians and conservatives would have to criticize Reagan’s presidency. He did not, as he promised he would, abolish the Department of Education, but expanded it. He did not, as he promised, reduce the size and influence of the federal establishment back within the limits imposed upon it by the Constitution. He did not lower taxes. He raised them. He did not cut government spending – it doubled on his watch, outpacing the spending increases of Carter and Clinton by large orders of magnitude. Both libertarians and conservatives should criticize these aspects of his presidency. Doing so doesn’t make them less libertarian or conservative. It merely confirms that they have a grip on reality.
Finally, the personal nature of Levin’s attacks on Mike Church and Jack Hunter belie their lack of substance. Levin calls Church a moron, accuses him of being intoxicated on the air, and even belittles Church’s supposedly insignificant radio audience. Most people are familiar with the ad hominem attack. While passion for one’s viewpoints is understandable, “attacking the man” rather than the man’s arguments amount to a capitulation that one has lost the debate. Don’t expect this to diminish as Ron Paul’s popularity continues to increase. Supporters of the establishment have good reason to fear a Paul presidency, and one can expect the attacks on him and his supporters to get uglier and uglier. And yes, expect supposed conservatives to act just like liberals in calling anyone who disagrees with them a racist. Welcome to the top tier, Congressman Paul.
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
© Thomas Mullen 2011
[1] McCullough, David John
Adams pg. 544
Adams pg. 544
What Are They Afraid Of?
In this interview, Ron Paul inadvertently coined what should be the new slogan of his campaign.“What are they afraid of?”
He was talking about the blatant suppression by the media of any positive news about his campaign. For the few somewhat principled journalists that have admitted that it is intentional, the excuse offered has been that the media ignore him because he can’t win. However, this is counterintuitive. Is it not largely media coverage that propels candidates to the “top tier” in political races? Does anyone seriously believe that even Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton would have won their respective primaries, much less the presidency, if the media had not covered their campaigns?
And this is not just a matter of ignoring Ron Paul or failing to cover him. Headlines like this one, “Bachmann wins Iowa straw poll, Pawlenty takes 3rd,” demonstrate that the media are not just ignoring Paul, they are tripping over themselves to actively suppress news of his campaign. In what other competition in any context does a headline feature the 1st and 3rd place finishers and not the 2nd? This anti-Paul campaign was so obvious to comedian Jon Stewart that he put together a hilarious (yet disturbing) lampoon of it on his show.
No, Paul’s “unelectability” is not sufficient (even if it were valid) to explain a blackout so pervasive that “ignoring the elephant in the room” is hardly a sufficient metaphor. If nothing else, Paul’s virtual tie in the Ames Straw Poll demonstrates that he is at least as electable as Michele Bachmann, whom every media outlet in the world now places in the “top tier” of Republican candidates, while at the same time going out of their way to avoid mentioning the name of the candidate who trailed her in that poll by an amount of votes that any statistician would deem “statistically insignificant.”
What are they afraid of?
There is an answer to Ron Paul’s question and he knows it as well as anyone. For any government-connected special interest, whether conservative or liberal, Paul is the grim reaper. He openly opposes it all and cannot be bought. He puts conservatives to shame for their hypocrisy about “free markets” and “small government,” while doing the same to liberals for their hypocrisy about “ending foreign wars” and “protecting civil liberties.” Worst of all, both conservatives and liberals know that he is not in the tank with anyone and will actually do what he says if he gets into office.
Conservative media do not want Americans to hear that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush grew the size of the government more than their Democratic predecessors by large orders of magnitude. They do not want to hear that W’s only significant economic policy was Sarbanes-Oxley, which W himself compared to the New Deal. They don’t want Americans to be reminded that the conservative platform used to include eliminating Jimmy Carter’s Department of Education, but that Republicans under George W. Bush greatly expanded its power. Neither do they want attention called to the fact that Republicans under Bush expanded the welfare state more than any president since Lyndon Johnson. They are desperate not to let Americans find out that Ron Paul gets more support from active military than any other Republican, despite his anti-war stance. Most of all, they do not want conservative American voters to know that Ron Paul polls better against Barack Obama than any other Republican candidate.
Liberal media have similar motivations. They do not want liberal voters to know that there is a Republican who is truly anti-war, an embarrassment to their peace-candidate-turned-warmonger president. They do not want liberals to know that it is a Republican who is truly against the corporate state, which Obama has jumped directly in bed with, if he wasn’t born there. They do not want liberals to be reminded that all of the civil liberties violations for which they excoriated George W. Bush have been expanded by “the One.” Most of all, like the conservative media, they don’t want liberals to know that Ron Paul polls better against Barack Obama than any other Republican candidate.
Being a corporatist cabal, like most other industries in the post-New Deal American economy, the media are not interested in the truth being known. They are interested in preserving their government-protected privileges and those of all of their special interest associates, both conservative and liberal. They are terrified of Ron Paul’s message even being heard. Why? Because the truth has a way of “ringing true” that propaganda does not, no matter how much money is behind it.
In short, the corporate media is afraid that Ron Paul will wake up average Americans to the fact that liberal and conservative special interests captured the government many decades ago, that their perception of American society as free and prosperous is a lie, that the leviathan state was never their benefactor, but rather designed specifically to rip them off, and that the whole thing is coming to an end. They are afraid because Ron Paul will open their eyes and minds. Once he does, the party is over for conservative and liberal special interests alike. The days of growing wealthy on the backs of average Americans – and most shamefully, on their blood – start coming to an end the day he takes the oath of office.
What are they afraid of more than anything else? That if Americans actually get the chance to hear him out, he will win.
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
3rd Annual Florida Liberty Summit featuring Ron Paul Aug. 19-21!
I’m excited! I’m headed to the Florida Liberty Summit this weekend in Orlando Florida. This is an event you do not want to miss! Sponsored by the Florida Campaign for Liberty, the event will feature Republican Congressman of Texas and presidential candidate Ron Paul as keynote speaker.
Fresh off his virtual tie in the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll on August 13, Congressman Paul will be bringing his message of individual liberty, sound money, and strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution on both domestic and foreign policy to what is expected to be another huge turnout of supporters from across the political spectrum.
Joining him will be host of powerhouse speakers including Doug Wead, best-selling author and former advisor to Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, Phil Giraldi, former CIA counter-terrorism specialist, Bruce Fein, author and former Deputy Attorney General for the Reagan Administration, Dr. Yuri Maltsev, author and former economic advisor to USSR President Gorbachev, Tom DiLorenzo, author and Loyola University economics professor, Jack Hunter, nationally-known writer and political analyst, and yours truly, Tom Mullen, author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. You couldn’t ask for a better lineup. A complete roster of the confirmed speakers can be found here.
In addition to speeches by experts on subjects ranging from economic policy to foreign policy to civil liberties to the Second Amendment, attendees can participate in the best political training anywhere. There is also an opportunity for a private briefing on Friday and a Saturday morning breakfast with Congressman Paul, as well as a Saturday evening “Author’s Liberty Banquet” honoring the conference’s authors.
Ron Paul’s birthday is August 20, so you can even help celebrate! But don’t tell Ron. It’s a surprise!
Tickets are going fast, but you can still register for this historic event here.
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.
The Tenth Amendment Run Amok?
In between “gotcha questions” and the Pawlenty-Bachman slurfest, an interesting discussion actually occurred during the Fox News presidential debate staged in Iowa on Thursday night (8/11/2011). It concerned Tim Pawlenty’s quite valid criticism of Mitt Romney’s role in expanding government healthcare in Massachusetts. During Romney’s term as governor, he signed into law a state healthcare plan that served as the basis for what is popularly known today as “Obamacare.”
Romney replied with a defense based upon the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution, saying Massachusetts passed a law that was right for Massachusetts, but President Obama forced a “one size fits all solution” on the entire nation, usurping the powers reserved to the states or the people.
Calling him a “constitutional expert,” panelist Chris Wallace asked Congressman Ron Paul whether the states “have a constitutional right to make someone buy a good or a service just because they are a resident.” Paul replied,
“No, the way I would understand the Constitution, the federal government can’t go in and prohibit the states from doing bad things and I would consider this a very bad thing. But you don’t send in a federal police force because they’re doing it and throw them into court.”
Rick Santorum replied that this argument represented “the Tenth Amendment run amok” and paraphrased Abraham Lincoln saying “the states don’t have the right to do wrong.” He argued that the United States is a nation built upon moral laws, implying that he would support the federal government overriding the state government if an action of the state violated those moral laws.
So, what moral law does “Romneycare” violate and should the federal government step in and intervene?
For libertarians, many aspects of both Romneycare and Obamacare violate the moral law of non-aggression. It initiates force against individuals who have not aggressed against others by forcing them to buy a product. It forcibly steals their money to buy healthcare for other people. It forces them to pay for a government-run “exchange” which distorts the market and privileges government-connected health insurers.
Whether most conservatives see it from this perspective is not clear – they rarely make arguments based upon rights, rather than results. But Rick Santorum believes Romneycare is immoral, by whatever moral standard he is using.
So, let’s assume Romneycare does violate an underlying moral law that precedes government and violates the rights of the individuals in Massachusetts. As a libertarian, I certainly agree that it does. I also agree (and I don’t get to say this much) with both Rick Santorum and Abraham Lincoln that “the states don’t have the right to do wrong.” Violation of the rights to life, liberty, and property are wrong regardless of whether they are perpetrated by federal, state, or local governments.
But that’s not what Congressman Paul said. Paul did not assert the state government had any rights. He said the federal government does not have the power to override the states on this issue. This is a crucial distinction to make if one wishes to understand the Tenth Amendment and why violating it has been the chief cause of the national crisis we find ourselves in today.
The Declaration of Independence states that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. It doesn’t talk about government rights because they do not exist. Governments don’t have rights. Only people have rights. Governments are invested with specific, limited powers by the people who establish them. Those powers originate in the people and are delegated to the government for the purpose of securing their rights, as the Declaration also states. If a power is not specifically delegated to the government, the government cannot exercise it. To do so is to exercise power without the consent of the governed.
For the men who declared independence from Great Britain, the consent of the governed was the only way to reconcile government power with liberty. The government was only allowed to exercise power the people agreed to delegate to it. The powers enumerated in the Constitution are those which have this consent, given through the representatives who drafted and ratified it.
Many libertarians today reject the idea that a majority vote can substitute for the consent of the individual. Therefore, they reject all government as the exercise of arbitrary power. Even those who do not hold this view must recognize that calling ratification of the Constitution by majority votes in the state legislatures “consent of the governed” still requires an extremely elastic definition of the word consent. But at least there is some argument to be made that the powers delegated in that document were agreed to by the people.
There is no argument to be made that powers not delegated in the Constitution have the consent of the governed. That is why there is an amendment process; so new powers can be delegated to the federal government if a majority of the states truly wish to do so.
The powers delegated to the federal government deal primarily with issues outside the states. Power is delegated to create armies and navies to defend the republic against invasion. Power is delegated to regulate interstate commerce, which was intended merely to prevent protectionism between the states. There is no power delegated there allowing the federal government to regulate anything within the states. As Thomas Jefferson said, “I believe the States can best govern our home concerns, and the General Government our foreign ones.”[1]
What does all of this have to do with Romneycare? It means Ron Paul was right. The government doesn’t have the power to “prevent the states from doing bad things.” Why not? Because the people of those states never consented to give the federal government that power. The federal government exercising powers not delegated to it, even to repeal a bad law, is not substantively different from Russia or China interfering in the legislative process of a state. Exercising power without the consent of the governed is tyranny, regardless of who perpetrates it.
There is always desire to allow the federal government to exercise this power on those rare occasions when it is actually overriding a bad state law, instead of writing bad laws of its own. As Kevin Gutzman documents in his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution, the states originally had a lot of internal laws that people today might not necessarily agree with. Some of the states had state religions. The Massachusetts Constitution originally required people to attend religious instruction. While libertarians would vehemently disagree with those laws, allowing the federal government to interfere is not the answer. Once that Pandora’s Box is opened, you are on the road to a $3.8 trillion a year federal government with a $14 trillion debt and $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Exercising non-delegated powers was the train it rode in on.
As I’ve said before, the Constitution itself was an enormous expansion of government power at the time. But even its delegation to the federal government of vast new powers had limits. Today, no limits are recognized. If the federal government can ever be fixed, those limits have to be restored. Individuals, local governments, and state governments all do bad things. But a federal government with unlimited power is not the answer. We’ve tried that for the past one hundred years. Not only is it time to start enforcing the Constitution’s limits on federal government power; it’s time to start imposing new ones.
[1] Jefferson, Thomas Letter to Justice William Johnson June 12, 1823 from Jefferson Writings Literary Classics of the United States edited by Merrill D. Peterson pg. 1476
Tom Mullen is the author of A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America.