Category Archives: Non-Aggression Principle

The Right to Be Racist?

With Ron Paul well positioned to win the Iowa Caucuses, the Republican establishment is in full panic mode. They are well aware that Paul actually means what he says about cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget during his first year in office, including removing U.S. troops from the active wars in the Middle East and from their decades-long deployments in Europe and elsewhere around the world. In other words, for the beneficiaries of big government, both liberal and conservative, the party will be over. Desperate to prevent this, they are looking for something, anything, that they can attack him on.

The trouble with attacking Paul is there is not much to attack. He has no closet full of ex-wives, tawdry affairs, or dirty political deals. More importantly, he has been a consistent conservative throughout his political career. He doesn’t have to explain away a Romneycare or television ads promoting the liberal environmentalist agenda. He doesn’t have to explain why he has changed his position on issues conservatives deem crucial to their ideology and platform. He can’t be attacked for his economic plan because it is precisely what conservatives say they believe in, but never do. While his foreign policy is out of step with the current Republican establishment, it is consistent with that of conservative icons Ronald Reagan and Robert Taft, which Paul takes every opportunity to point out. It is also resonating with the American people, including active military personnel, who donate more to Paul’s campaign than to all of the other Republican candidates combined.

So, in a desperate attempt to find something to attack, Republicans are resorting to the old, liberal trick of implying that he is a racist. They can’t call him a racist outright because the allegation would be ludicrous. Paul and his positions have become too well-known, including his own denunciation of racism as “an ugly form of collectivism.” Instead, the establishment seeks to associate Paul with racism indirectly, citing campaign contributions from white supremacists that Paul didn’t return or the famous newsletters, an issue that was put to rest a decade ago.

However, the one question of substance that the establishment can raise and which Paul should expect to be heavily emphasized should he win the nomination is his stance on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here, Paul’s strict adherence to libertarian principles would seem to mean that Paul recognizes a right to be racist, regardless of how distasteful he may find racism personally. If that’s true, then it is going to hurt Paul politically, especially in the general election when the full power of the liberal media is aligned against him. Paul should expect to be questioned on this in every interview. The strategy was effective against Barry Goldwater, who also opposed the Civil Rights Act, and will be effective against Paul if he cannot answer it more effectively.

It is a testament to the character of the American people that any association with racism immediately elicits aversion and disgust. The idea that a human being might somehow be inferior because of a superficial genetic variation like skin pigmentation, which is about as significant as attached ear lobes, is the height of ignorance, leftover from a more barbaric past. The majority of Americans have decided long ago that this is something that they want no part of and ought to be banished from civil society. But what about the minority who do not agree? Does Ron Paul or the libertarian philosophy in general recognize a right to be racist?

The short answer is no. The whole line of reasoning comes out of a misunderstanding of libertarianism and, more fundamentally, rights. Libertarianism does not recognize the existence of “positive rights.” To libertarians, all rights are negative. Thus there is no right to be racist, just as there is no right to be charitable, tolerant, or honest. There is only the right not to have force used against you unless you have previously initiated force against someone else. This is the essence of liberty and libertarianism. It is the only theory of rights that can be reconciled with reason.

Consider the right to life. Regardless of how they feel about the supposed right to healthcare, a living wage, or other controversial “rights,” everyone recognizes the right to life. But what is this right? Is it a right to live under all circumstances? No. When someone dies of natural causes, no one alleges that their right to life has been violated. Similarly, if one dies of a fatal disease or is killed by a flood or eaten by a lion, no one would allege that their right to life was infringed, however tragic their death may have been. The right to life is specifically the right not to be killed by another human being. Even this definition of the right to life has a limit. Your right to life does not protect you from being killed by another human being if he is defending himself against you while you are trying to kill him.

This reasoning applies to all rights. The right to liberty is the right not to have another human being forcefully inhibit your actions if they do not harm another person. The right to property is the right not to have another human being take your justly acquired possessions away from you against your will.

Thus, libertarianism does not defend the right of an employer to discriminate based upon race, it defends his right not have violence initiated against him if he does. Understanding this point requires a recognition of reality – that every law is backed up by the threat of violence if it is not obeyed. While the vast majority of libertarians – in fact, the vast majority of all people – find racial discrimination distateful, libertarians recognize that it does not constitute violence against other people and therefore its practitioners have a right not to have violence used against them. Thus, there can be no just law against racism or racial discrimination. That is not an endorsement of bigotry. It is merely a consistent application of the principle of liberty.

So would a libertarian society include signs on restaurants saying “No Blacks Allowed” or vast inequities in employment opportunities for racial minorities, women, or the disabled? No. Why not? Because a libertarian society would include an unregulated free market, with no privileges or artificial advantages for connected corporations, which means unlimited competition among firms selling similar products and services. As I’ve said before, the racist employer loses in such a market economy. Any employer that consistently chooses to hire less talented employees based upon their race will, by definition, have a less talented workforce than its non-racist competitor. This does not rely upon altruism, boycotts, or any other sacrifice of individual self-interest. The employer that hires the most talented people, regardless of race, sex, or other non-essential characteristics does so because it is in his economic best interests to do so. A more talented workforce increases his profits and allows him to gain market share, eventually putting the racist out of business.

Similarly, the restaurant or movie theater that turns away customers based upon race (or other non-economic factors) puts itself at a fatal disadvantage against the restaurant or movie theater that sells to all consumers willing to buy its products. This doesn’t even account for the societal aversion that would result from anyone putting up a sign saying “Whites Only” or “No Blacks Allowed.” Even discounting the fact that most Americans would boycott such an establishment merely on principle, the racist restaurateur or movie theater owner loses, for purely economic reasons. In other words, even assuming that all economic players act only in their own self-interest and no one makes any decisions based upon moral aversion to racism, the market will still defeat racism, every time.

The only other solution is totalitarianism. If government regulation is really the answer, then the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not nearly go far enough in fighting racism. Regarding employment, the legislation is arbitrarily selective in the racism that it prohibits. As I’ve said before, the employment contract is merely a buyer-seller arrangement. Employers are buyers of a product (labor) from sellers of that product (employees). Why should this buyer-seller contract be treated any differently from any other buyer-seller arrangement? Why should the government not be regulating every purchase we make, ensuring that we buy approximately 12.5% of our food, gasoline, or toilet paper from black-owned firms, or approximately 50% of those products from women-owned firms? While that might seem ludicrous, it is not substantively different in principle from the idea that the government can prohibit racism when employers purchase labor. Neither is the prospect of punishing black or female consumers for not buying enough products from white-owned or male-owned firms.

If Americans take the time to think these issues through, they will continue to abhor racism but will join Paul and libertarians in their opposition to those sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that deal with private property and personal decisions. Liberty does mean that some people will do things that we don’t like, but it affords us the ability not to associate with those people, to disapprove of their actions, to voice that opposition openly, and to persuade others to condemn it as we do. It gives us the ability to make our own decisions about who we associate with, who we do business with, including who we buy from and who we sell to, and forces us to live with the consequences of those decisions. By prohibiting racism under the threat of violence, the government actually gives racists cover. If given the freedom to hire, buy, and sell based upon race, as they wish to, the market will more quickly put them where they belong – out of business.

So how does Ron Paul handle this deeply divisive philosophical issue without compromising his principles, and do so during the average one-minute soundbyte during an interview? While I would not presume to be able to articulate the principles of liberty better than Ron Paul, who has been doing so for over 30 years, I humbly suggest the following:

“Personally, I agree with the vast majority of Americans that abhor racism and other forms of discrimination against people based upon superficial characteristics that have nothing to do with the content of their character. However, we have to find a way to fight this problem without trampling the rights to liberty and property that are the bedrock of a free society. So, I’ll make you a deal. You give me an unregulated free market where everyone is free to dispose of their person and property as they see fit, as long as they do not invade the person or property of others. If, under those circumstances, someone actually puts up a sign that says “Whites Only” or “No Blacks Allowed,” I’ll be open for business the very next day, right across the street. My sign will say “Everybody Welcome.” We’ll see who’s still in business a month after that.”

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

Free Excerpt – A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America

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Kindle edition now available here!

Paperback here!

Hello friends,

Americans are waking up to the reality that our once free republic is in serious trouble. They are searching for answers to what seem like unsolvable problems: economic depression, unending war, political corruption, and vanishing liberties. What if there were just one answer – freedom? The American republic was founded upon that principle, yet few suggest it is the solution to any of our problems, much less all of them. But if freedom is the answer, we first must know what it is. Sadly, most Americans do not. That is why I wrote this book.

I hope you enjoy the Introduction and Chapter One: What is Freedom?, which I am making available for free below. The subsequent chapters discuss how freedom can solve the many challenges we face.

To read the rest of this book, you can get the Kindle Edition here.

I look forward to fighting with you to restore our liberty. – Tom Mullen

Reviews

“Thomas Mullen is a knowledgeable and passionate libertarian and A Return to Common Sense is a valuable addition to the libertarian literature. Those new to the freedom movement will benefit from Tom’s introduction to both the practical and moral arguments for freedom. Long-time activists will benefit from Tom’s explanation of why strict adherence to principle is vital to the future success of the liberty movement.”

– Representative Ron Paul (TX-14)

Congressman and author of The Revolution: A Manifesto and End the Fed.

“A well written primer on economics, liberty, and government that even avid Austrians will enjoy. If you have been blinded by government and Wall Street propaganda, A Return to Common Sense will help open your eyes. I not only recommend that you add this book to your freedom library, but that you buy a few copies for your friends.”

– Peter Schiff, President of Euro Pacific Capital, Inc and author of Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse.

Tom Mullen has written a thorough and useful book. Those for whom a discussion of liberty is a new experience will discover in A Return to Common Sense a clear, easy to understand guide to the nature of freedom, and why it is essential to our fondest hopes for a civil society of opportunity, peace, and prosperity. For those who already share these values, it’s a welcome resource for perfecting our own knowledge and advancing our cause.

– Charles Goyette, author of THE DOLLAR MELTDOWN: Surviving the Impending Currency Crisis with Gold, Oil, and Other Unconventional Investments and RED AND BLUE AND BROKE ALL OVER: Restoring America’s Free Economy

Chapter 1 What is Freedom?

“And what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world?”

– Frederic Bastiat¹ (1850)

If there is one thing uniquely associated with America, it is freedom. From the moment Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, America has been a symbol of liberty to the entire world. Since the end of World War II, when the United States assumed a worldwide leadership role, it has been the leader of the “free world.” At sporting events, standing crowds begin their ovation when the vocalist singing the national anthem gets to the words, “O’er the land of the free.” Even in everyday conversations, scarcely a day goes by that one does not hear someone say, “Do what you like, it’s a free country.”

Although we all agree that America is the “land of the free,” there are questions about freedom that might be more difficult to answer. What is freedom? How is it defined? What makes America the land of the free? How would we know if we were to lose our freedom? What is it that our soldiers die for and our politicians swear to defend?

We have been told a lot of things about what freedom is not. From the end of World War II until 1991, most Americans understood that freedom was not communism. For almost three generations, Americans lived in the “free world” during its cold war with the communist Eastern Bloc. Without further thought or instruction, many children of the 20^th century think of freedom merely as the antithesis of communism. In some ways, this is not completely untrue, although it hardly provides a complete answer to our question.

Certainly, the mere absence of communism doesn’t necessarily guarantee freedom. The 18^th century British monarchy wasn’t communist, but the American colonists nevertheless considered it tyrannical enough to rebel against. Likewise, the Royal House of Saud may be an ally of the U.S. government, but most Americans would not regard Saudi Arabia as a “free country.”

In addition to monarchies, there are plenty of dictatorships around the world that don’t enforce a communist system but are nevertheless oppressive. While they also may be allies of the U.S. government, they certainly aren’t free countries, either. So, a society is not free merely because it is not communist.

On the other hand, monarchy doesn’t seem to necessarily preclude freedom, either. Great Britain has been a relatively free country throughout much of its history, even when the monarchy was much more than a figurehead. The American Revolution notwithstanding, Great Britain was at that time one of the freest societies in the world. Therefore, rather than conclude that no freedom is possible under a monarchy, one might instead conclude that monarchies neither guarantee nor necessarily exclude freedom. Freedom or tyranny seems possible under almost any system of government.

Perhaps we can define freedom more easily by looking at its antithesis. Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists slavery among antonyms for freedom. Surely, we have found a start here. Most people would agree that slavery is the complete absence of freedom. Who can we imagine that is less free than the slave? This is helpful in beginning to try to frame an answer, but freedom cannot be merely the absence of slavery. Surely our founding fathers bled to give us a higher standard than this!

If we are told anything about what freedom is, it is that freedom is democracy. If you ask most Americans, this is the answer you will get. This is reinforced ad nauseum by politicians, media, and teachers in our public schools. When Iraq held its first elections after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, politicians and journalists universally celebrated the Iraqis’ “first taste of freedom.”

Certainly, democracy is a vast improvement over the autocratic rule of a dictator. But does democracy automatically mean freedom? If democracy is rule by the majority, what about the minority? What if 51 % of the people voted to oppress the other 49%? Would that society truly be free?

Most Americans would be quite surprised to learn what our founding fathers thought about democracy. Any objective analysis would conclude that their feelings lay somewhere between suspicion and contempt.

James Madison said, “Democracy is the most vile form of government … democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths,”²

In a letter to James Monroe, he also said,

“There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current one, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.”³

While often extolling the virtue of majority rule, Thomas Jefferson nevertheless wrote,

“…that the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”⁴

Can this be true? The founding fathers were ambivalent about democracy? For many people, this is tantamount to sacrilege. More shocking still is what the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution say about democracy: nothing. Nowhere in our founding documents will you find the word “democracy” or the assertion, implicit or explicit, that our government is a democracy. How can this be?

Despite what we are taught virtually from birth, the United States of America has never been a democracy. As only contrarians point out these days, it is a constitutional republic. We choose our leaders using the democratic process of majority vote, but that is the extent to which the United States involves itself with democracy.

Like monarchy, democracy neither guarantees nor necessarily prohibits freedom. Our founders actually feared that democracy poses a danger to freedom. Apart from the pure heresy of the idea, it leaves us with a problem. We are no closer to defining freedom. If even democracy is not freedom, perhaps freedom doesn’t really exist! If we are not to find freedom in democracy, where else can we look?

We certainly won’t learn what freedom is from our politicians. While terrorism, healthcare, unemployment, gay marriage, and a host of other “major issues” dominate public debate, freedom is just too quaint, too academic, or too forgotten to get any airplay. Yet, as we shall see as we explore the different subjects of this book, freedom is the fundamental issue. In fact, despite what we perceive as a myriad of different problems facing the United States of America today, freedom is actually the only issue. That may be hard to accept, given the decades of shoddy history, obfuscation, and plain old bad ideas we’ve been bombarded with. Nevertheless, our greatest challenges and their solutions revolve around freedom. If freedom is really that important, we’d better be absolutely sure we know what it is.

In order to answer the question posed by Bastiat at the beginning of this chapter, we will have to go back to the beginning. Our founding fathers faced no such quandary about the definition of freedom. They knew exactly what it was. They were children of the Enlightenment, and derived their ideas about freedom directly from its philosophers, especially John Locke. While these philosophers were powerful thinkers and their ideas were (no pun intended) revolutionary at the time, the principles of liberty are relatively simple. They are, as the namesake of this book concluded, common sense. It was an understanding of these revolutionary ideas by average American colonists that inspired the revolution that gave birth to a nation.

The idea that opens the door to the true meaning of freedom is individual rights. Despite the emphasis today on the “general welfare” and the “common good,” the American tradition of liberty has nothing to do with either. Instead, the founders believed each individual was born with natural, inalienable rights. The Declaration of Independence states,

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” ⁵

This passage is quoted widely in popular culture. Invariably, the words emphasized are “that all men are created equal.” Certainly, these are fine words and worthy of veneration. However, the rest of this passage is equally important. Every human being, because of his equality with all other human beings, has rights no earthly power can take away. These rights are “unalienable,” so that governments, even democratically elected governments, have no power to revoke them. To the founding fathers this was self-evident. It was true based purely upon man’s existence itself.

This idea is drawn directly from the philosophy of John Locke, who wrote,

“A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection,”⁶

While these rights are endowed by a Creator, the founders did not specify who the Creator was. Too often, those arguing for the ideals of our republic make the fatal mistake of basing the natural rights upon belief not only in God, but specifically upon the Christian God. While the founders were by no means opposed to Christianity, belief in it or even in God is not a prerequisite for the existence of the natural rights. The beauty of this idea is that it transcends religion and thus welcomes members of all religions, and those with no religious beliefs at all. Therefore, the first building block of freedom, individual, inalienable rights, can be claimed by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, by every person on earth.

So what are these inalienable rights, which cannot be taken away? The Declaration goes on to say, “That among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”⁷

At first glance, this statement might be a bit deceiving, maybe even a little disappointing. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness? Is that all? Surely we have more rights than these! Of course, the Declaration says “among these,” so it does not limit the natural rights to these three. But these three are important. It is worthwhile to determine the meaning of each.

The right to life is pretty easy to understand. Most civilized societies have laws against murder. Each individual has a right not to be killed by another human being, except in self-defense. So far, so good. What about the other two? We are in the midst of trying to define liberty, or freedom, so let us put that aside for the moment. The third right listed is “the pursuit of happiness.” What does that mean? Does it mean nothing? Or does it mean everything? What if it makes me happy to steal cars or blow up buildings? Surely, I don’t have a right to pursue happiness like that!

No. There is a natural limit on liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Again, we can find the answer in Locke,

“To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.” ⁸

While people are free to do what they want, they must do so “within the bounds of the law of nature.” What is the law of nature? Locke goes on to tell us,

“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…” ⁹

Finally, we have some indication of what freedom is, rather than what it is not. Liberty is not the unlimited ability to do whatever you want, nor is it confined to the arbitrary limits placed upon people by governments. Contrary to the spurious argument that unfettered liberty would result in chaos, we see that the law of nature, Reason, very clearly and unambiguously prohibits some actions, even for people in a state of absolute liberty. They are:

1. Initiating the use of force or violence

2. Infringing upon another person’s liberty

3. Harming them in their possessions.

This last limit upon the actions of free individuals is important. Locke spends an entire chapter of his Second Treatise talking about it. It is related to property, which is arguably the most important right, while at the same time the least understood. Property is important enough that we will spend the next chapter examining the subject. To do this we will have to come to a clear definition of property, including how it is acquired, how it is exchanged, and what right the owner has to it.

More importantly, we have arrived at a definition of liberty. It is the right of any person to do as they please, as long as they do not violate the equal rights of anyone else. The latter half of this definition is generally referred to as the “non-aggression principle.” Political activists associate this principle with libertarians, while intellectuals associate it with Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. Certainly both movements recognize and venerate it, but it is important to realize that neither is its source. In fact, the non-aggression principle has been articulated with very little variation by all writers in the liberal tradition, including Locke, Jefferson, Paine, Bastiat, Mill, and later Rand and other 20^th century writers and thinkers.

By applying this principle, the most complicated societal issues become astoundingly simple. The ambiguous becomes unambiguous. The answers become clear. Virtually every problem facing America today can be solved by applying the principle of freedom.

There are a few points we should review for emphasis. First, the rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and drawn out of Locke’s philosophy are inalienable. They cannot be taken away by any power on earth, including a majority vote. The reason the founders were suspicious of democracy was because of their fear that the majority would oppress the individual by voting away the individual’s rights, especially property rights. This was the reason for the separation of powers and the limits on government authority. Even a majority vote can be a threat to freedom.

The difference between a right and a privilege is a vital concept to understand. A right is something you are born with, that you possess merely because you exist. A privilege is something that is granted by another person, group, or a government. Our country was founded upon the principle that all people have inalienable rights that cannot be taken away, not privileges granted by their government. As John Adams so eloquently put it,

“I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe.”¹⁰

There is no need to be “thankful for the rights we have in America.” All people have those rights and gratitude is neither necessary nor appropriate. Rather, people are justified in demanding their rights, and any violation of them should be recognized as an act of aggression.

Second, in any conflict between individual liberty and the will of the majority, individual liberty prevails without compromise. The majority has no right to violate the rights of the individual. This is to some extent merely making the first point in reverse, but it is important enough to say in more than one way. Society doesn’t have rights; individuals do. Society is nothing more than a collection of individuals, so protecting each individual in society protects society.

Despite these seemingly undeniable truths, individual liberty is today under constant attack because of its perceived conflict with the common good or “the needs of society.” While living together and agreeing not to initiate aggression against each other seems astoundingly simple, our politicians would have us believe there is something incredibly complicated about it. They create a world in which civil society is a maze of moral dilemmas that only their astute guidance can lead us safely through. Once liberty is properly understood and applied, all of these supposed dilemmas disappear.

End Notes

Introduction: The American Crisis

1 Paine, Thomas The American Crisis “The Crisis No. 1” December 19, 1776 from Paine Collected Writings edited by Eric Foner Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. New York, NY 1955 pg. 91

Chapter 1: What is Freedom?

1 Bastiat, Frederic The Law 1850 from The Bastiat Collection 2 Volumes Vol. 1 Ludwig Von Mises Institute Auburn, AL 2007 pg. 79

2 Madison,James Federalist #10 https://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fedi.htm https://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fed10.htm

3 Madison, James Letter to James Monroe October 5th, 1786 James Madison Center, The https://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/home.htm Phillip Bigler, Director, James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA https://www.jmu.edu/madison/center/main_pages/madison_archives/quotes/supremacy.htm

4 Jefferson, Thomas To Dupont de Nemours from Jefferson Writings edited by Merrill D. Peterson New York, NY: Literary Classics of the United States, 1984 pg. 1387

5 Declaration of Independence, United States 1776 National Archives and Records (website) https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

6 John Locke Second Treatise on Civil Government from Two Treatises of Government C. and J. Rivington, 1824 (Harvard University Library Copy) pg. 132

7 Declaration of Independence, United States 1776 National Archives…

8 Locke Second Treatise pgs. 131-32

9 Locke Second Treatise pg. 133

10 Adams, John A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law 1765 Ashland Center for Public Affairs (website) Ashland University https://www.ashbrook.org/library/18/adams/canonlaw.html

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What If Barack Obama Had Not Been Elected?

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Most conservatives abhor Barack Obama’s presidency. They believe that Obama is leading the United States to its ruin and that nothing is more important than defeating him in the next election. They believe that our very way of life is threated if they do not succeed. I don’t happen to share their opinion that there is a substantive difference between the Bush and Obama administrations, or that anything today would be different if John McCain had been elected.

However, let’s say for the sake of argument that conservatives are correct. The Obama administration is bent on altering American society in fundamental and irreversible ways. Nothing is more important than removing him from office.

Still, conservatives do not look to violently overthrow the present administration. They recognize that, whether the choice was a wise or a foolish one, a majority of those Americans who cared enough to vote chose Barack Obama as their president. So, no matter how relentlessly the Republican Party attacks Obama through its vast network of think tanks, talking heads, and media outlets, no matter how nasty or allegedly unfair conservative talk radio may be, when all is said and done, conservative efforts to remove Obama from office are peaceful.

But what if Obama had not been elected?

What if John McCain had won the election, but was then removed from office in a coup d’état fomented by covert agents of a foreign government? What if that government then installed Barack Obama as president, overriding the wishes of the American electorate? What if that foreign government propped up the Obama administration for decades and American citizens were unable to depose him peacefully through the electoral process?

What if Americans decided to rebel against this tyranny and overthrow Obama in a revolution? What if the foreign government called the American rebels insurgents or terrorists for removing the tyrant, when it was obvious to the whole world that the Americans had been justified in deposing Obama as a usurper backed by foreign interests?

What if, after the revolution, Americans elected a leader that they felt represented their values but that people in other countries did not like? What if the foreign government that had previously overthrown John McCain joined with other countries and imposed sanctions upon Americans, using military force to prevent voluntary trade between the United States and other countries? What if that foreign government sent billions of dollars to Mexico, allowing her to arm herself with nuclear weapons, but forbade the United States to similarly arm herself in her own defense?

What if that same foreign government armed and supported Canada in waging a decade-long war against the United States? What if that government then turned on Canada and invaded her, setting up military bases on her soil, with tens of thousands of troops capable of striking at the United States at any moment?

What if Americans resented the sanctions and threats of violence directed at them and responded with threatening statements of their own? What if Americans were vilified as terrorists for opposing these aggressive actions with manly firmness? What if the United States had not invaded another country in over 200 years, but was still characterized as a threat to the whole world by a government that routinely invaded other nations, had already overthrown the U.S. government once in the past, had armed America’s neighbors with weapons of mass destruction, and regularly issued official government statements calling for “regime change” in the United States?

What if there were credible rumors that a preemptive nuclear strike by Mexico was imminent? What if the foreign government pledged its full support for Mexico and warned Americans not to attempt to arm themselves adequately to prevent this unprovoked attack? What if it was apparent to all Americans that they had no chance to fight their enemies in a conventional war and win?

What would Americans be prepared to do then?

For more thought-provoking “What Ifs?” see here, here, and here.

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

Is the Patriot Act Unpatriotic?

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Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul had an interesting exchange at the National Security Debate hosted by CNN on November 22nd. Not surprisingly, Gingrich supported the Patriot Act, going so far as to say that it should be “strengthened.” Paul argued that “the Patriot Act is unpatriotic,” because the legislation undermines American liberties. He thinks it should be abolished. Both men did well making their points and each got enthusiastic applause from their supporters. But who was right?

At first glance, it might have seemed as if Paul had stumbled into a “gotcha” by bringing up Timothy McVeigh. In supporting his assertion that one must never give up liberty for security, Paul argued that Timothy McVeigh, the terrorist who blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, was prosecuted, convicted, and executed under the existing laws, without the “tools” that the Patriot Act provides to law enforcers. Gingrich replied:

“Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That’s the whole point. Timothy McVeigh killed a lot of Americans. I don’t want a law that says after we lose a major American city, we’re sure going to come and find you. I want a law that says, you try to take out an American city, we’re going to stop you.”

Paul responded:

“This is like saying we want a policeman in every house, a camera in every house, because we want to prevent child beating and wife beating. You can prevent crimes by becoming a police state. So, if you advocate the police state, yes, you can have safety and security and you might prevent a crime, but the crime then will be against the American people and against our freedoms and we will throw out so much of what our revolution was fought for. So don’t do it so carelessly.”

It is likely that uncommitted observers – those not passionately for Paul or Gingrich – thought that both men made good points and that the right answer is “somewhere in the middle.” To be moderate is always viewed as being more reasonable. But is that really true? I believe that the question debated here between Paul and Gingrich is a fundamental question and compromise is impossible. To use a well-worn but appropriate cliche, Gingrich wants America to cross the Rubicon. Once we do, there is no going back.

The crux of the matter is preemptive government. Not just preemptive war, but the ability of the government to act preemptively in any situation. Paul takes the libertarian position that is based upon the non-aggression principle. Government force may never be employed against anyone until that person has invaded the person or property of another. Gingrich takes the more Hobbesian-conservative position: if the government is not all-powerful, we will all be killed.

If “patriotic” means the love of one’s country’s ideals, the highest being liberty for Americans, then you have to agree with Paul. That’s because not only is non-aggression the libertarian position, it’s the founding principle underlying the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. The meaning of the word “liberty” is to be free from coercion, which is free from other people initiating force against you. Once the government or anyone else is legally empowered to do so, rather than limited to responding with force in defense against an aggression that you’ve already committed, then liberty as Thomas Jefferson understood it is gone.

Non-aggression is the concept expressed in the statement that “no person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” In other words, the government can’t use force against you until it is not only asserted but proven that you have committed an aggression against the person or property of someone else.

If you’re reading this to mean that the government is powerless against individuals until after they’ve committed a crime, then you’re correct. That is the price of liberty and there really is no way to compromise it. Force must always be initiated by someone. To be free means that it is never initiated against the innocent, at least not with the endorsement of the law. A person is innocent until they actually commit a crime. You cannot prosecute someone for what might be in his mind – at least not in a free country. As Paul argued, once you throw out the principle of liberty, you have invited the police state, complete with ubiquitous surveillance, unwarranted searches, curfews, and the rest. It is astounding how much of it is already in place in a nation that calls itself “the land of the free.”

The obvious concern with this line of reasoning is that it would seem that to be free, one must set oneself up as a sitting duck for criminals and terrorists, powerless to resist them until it is too late. Ed Meese cited the “42 terrorists attacks, amied at the United States…thwarted since 9/11,” and went on to say, “Tools like the Patriot Act have been instrumental in finding and stopping terrorists.”

I don’t know how Meese arrived at that number, but it doesn’t jibe with reality. I suspect that it includes all of the entrapment schemes that have been perpetrated by federal law enforcement officers, whereby an undercover agent poses as a terrorist and approaches a mentally unstable person for the purpose of convincing him to participate in a phoney terrorist plot. Once the hapless “terrorist” agrees, the undercover agent arrests him and charges him with a crime.

All of the attempted terrorist attacks that the American public know about since 9/11 have defeated the Patriot Act and other security “tools” insituted since that crime was committed. The shoe bomber and the underwear bomber were both overpowered by private citizens acting in their own defense, after the would be terrorists had defeated the security measures within the Patriot Act and the TSA. Even on 9/11, with the federal government already in charge of security, albeit without the “tools” of the Patriot Act, the only crime that was prevented was the one that would have been perpetrated using Flight 93. Again, it was private citizens acting in their own defense and defense of their neighbors that thwarted the attack. While they were unsuccessful in defending their own lives, they prevented the loss of many, many more.

This illustrates another fundamental element of liberty – the right of each person to be allowed to provide for their own defense. The right and duty of each individual to defend themselves to the best of their ability replaces absolute power in the hands of the government. Consistent with this idea, Paul has been a staunch advocate of the 2nd amendment, while Gingrich, although he supports the right to bear arms in rhetoric, also voted for the Lautenburg Gun Ban and the Criminal Safezones Act, sponsored by Nancy Pelosi.

Gingrich tries to qualify his position on the Patriot Act by drawing a conceptual line between criminal law enforcement and national security. He says that “criminal law – the government should be on defense and you should be innocent until proven guilty. National security – the government should have many more tools in order to save our lives.”

In other words, if the government decides that “national security” is threatened, you are no longer innocent until proven guilty. He also says that Americans must “build an honest understanding that all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives.”

Do the math.

This exchange between Paul and Gingrich represents a fundamental choice that the American people have to make. They can take personal responsibility for their security and take power back from the federal government or they can hand unchecked power to the federal government along with their liberty. There is no “centrist” or “moderate” position, because once the principle is conceded, liberty is gone.

As Benjamin Franklin warned, the choice between liberty and security is a false one. No, there were not nuclear weapons in 1755, but to think that the existence of nuclear weapons changes the principle is counterintuitive. Franklin spoke those words in 1755 because the same choice existed then as now. Those who sacrifice liberty in the hopes of greater security deserve neither and will get neither. The most immediate threat to one’s security is always the closest one – the government itself.

In deciding who was right in this debate, Americans are really deciding whether liberty is something they cherish or whether Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and the rest were wrong. If they were wrong or if we’ve decided that there is something fundamentally different today that trumps those timeless principles, let’s at least dispense with the notion that we live in the “land of the free.” At the next sporting event, let the singer end with “o’er the land of the secure, and the home of the safe.” It may not be pleasing to the ear, but neither is Gingrich’s plan for a “secure” America.

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

What is a Job?

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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.

Lord and Levin Welcome Ron Paul to the Top Tier

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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.

[1] McCullough, David John
Adams pg. 544

[2] Jefferson, Thomas Letter
to Francis Walker Gilmer June 7, 1816 from The Works of Thomas Jefferson edited
by Paul Leicester Ford G.P. Putnam‘s Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker
Press 1905 pg. 533-34

[3] Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
Virginia, Query XVII 1782

[4] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp

[5] Ibid

The Tenth Amendment Run Amok?

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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.

Tom Mullen: Disband the Army

Road to Independence Sets the Record Straight (Movie Review)

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Today, we celebrate another 4^th of July holiday with less understanding of what we’re celebrating than ever. For most 21^st-century Americans, the 4^th is simply a day off from work and an excuse to drink beer, eat hot dogs, and watch fireworks. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with pursuing such happiness. However, an understanding of exactly what it’s all about could only add to the enjoyment of the festivities.

If you want to do something different this year and discover the true meaning of the 4^th, you would do well to watch Road to Independence – The Movie, directed by Sirius Radio personality Mike Church for Founding Father Films. This animated feature bills itself as a “Docudrama,” defined as a historically-accurate dramatic film. For the majority of Americans who have been taught an incomplete or distorted version of American history, this film is not only historically accurate but highly entertaining.

The film opens with a prologue focusing on 4^th of July speeches by President’s Lincoln and Reagan, with voiceover narration warning that many U.S. presidents attempting to evoke the meaning of the Declaration of Independence “have gotten it so wrong.” The film thus sets up its purpose – to get the story right and allow the viewer to recognize past, present, and future departures from the ideals of the American Revolution by those leaders supposedly charged to uphold them. It is noteworthy that Church, known primarily for his conservative talk show dominated by criticism of the left, picked two Republican presidents as examples, demonstrating how pervasive the misunderstanding or distortion of those ideals has become.

After a clever animated sequence in which the film’s credits are written in script upon the parchment version of the Declaration itself, the film moves to an 1821 interview with Thomas Jefferson. His narration will frame the rest of the story, with frequent cutbacks to the interview to remind us that we are getting the story from Jefferson. However, while Jefferson’s autobiography and other writings were apparently one source for the content, the producers have obviously researched the events depicted in the film far beyond Jefferson’s own recollections.

Within the framework of Jefferson’s narration, the film also makes frequent departures from strict chronology in order to show the viewer how events in the characters’ pasts affected or were relevant to events happening in the present. For example, the film depicts the sad state of Washington’s army at Cambridge in January, 1776. Washington discovered upon taking command that not only was his army poorly fed, clothed, and equipped, but that they were also outrageously undisciplined, frequently drunk and infrequently bathed. From that scene, the movie flashes back to John Adams’ nomination of Washington for the command. At that time, Washington expressed reservations due to his modest military skills. He now finds that not only might he be inadequate to the task, but that his entire army might similarly be found wanting.

One of the film’s outstanding successes is the bringing to life of these iconic, quasi-mythical personalities. For most Americans, Washington, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams are larger-than-life epic heroes. Other, equally important founders like George Mason and Richard Henry Lee are all but forgotten. Road successfully puts the importance of these characters in perspective and brings their personalities to life – showing how the different characters and temperaments of these historical titans affected the course of history. Particularly successful is the depiction of John Adams, at once brilliant and boorish, obnoxious (by his own estimation) and charismatic. As the Jefferson character relates in his narration, he was also a “colossus for independence,” without whom it may not have been accomplished.

In terms of historical facts, the film is chock full of them, both crucial and trivial. Among the latter category, the viewer learns that the Declaration of Independence was not in fact signed on the 4^th of July by most of the Congress, but only by the president and secretary. Other members signed it in August. As to more important revelations, we are startled to learn that even upon the eve of the July 2^,1776 vote to declare the colonies independent states, there were still many colonies unwilling to take that step. Out of 13, only 9 were ready to declare independence. South Carolina and Pennsylvania were both against independence on July1, while Delaware was split and New York abstained. The film does an outstanding job of depicting the political wheeling and dealing at the zero hour, including Ben Franklin’s persuading John Dickinson to leave the Congress before the final vote on independence that led to its unanimous passage.

The reluctance of the colonies to take the final step of separation from Great Britain is part of a larger motif that runs throughout the film. As the film’s voiceover narrator explains at the very beginning, the struggle was about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In other words, the colonists were primarily concerned with securing their rights, with separation from England only one possible means of doing so. Throughout the film, we are reminded of the lengths to which the colonists were willing to go to obtain redress of their grievances without leaving the British Empire. The division at the end was really between those who believed that they had no other choice but to separate and those, led by John Dickinson in the Continental Congress, who believed that protection of their rights could still be restored without resorting to rebellion and war.

The viewer also learns that the Declaration of Independence itself was not a groundbreaking piece of philosophy born solely in the mind of Thomas Jefferson, but rather the culmination of a long philosophical tradition that took shape over centuries. Jefferson himself tells us that “Virginia led us to independence,” and one cannot help but note the similarity of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written largely by George Mason, to Jefferson’s more famous Declaration of Independence. Indeed, we learn that it is inaccurate to attribute the Declaration solely to Jefferson, as it was heavily edited first by Adams and Franklin and then by the Continental Congress as a whole. Rather than the work of one brilliant mind, it was an expression of the general ideas about liberty shared by virtually all of the founders in 1776, put into words by one chosen for his brilliance with the pen.

The film sets out to set the record straight on the American Revolution in general and the Declaration of Independence in particular for Americans whose leaders have “got it so wrong.” It accomplishes its goal not with heavy handed pronouncements, but with the facts themselves. The viewer is left to ponder the questions, “What did President’s Lincoln and Reagan (and most other presidents) get so wrong? What have I learned here that corrects those errors?”

Assistance is provided by the young man interviewing Jefferson in 1821. He asks if the Declaration “defined America’s mission.” Jefferson responds emphatically to the contrary. The founders were not interested in founding an empire with a collective “mission.” Instead, they were men who sought to live in a state of liberty and who quite reluctantly, after exhausting all other alternatives, decided that leaving their country was the only way to do so. The film captures this brilliantly when depicting the grave expressions on the congressmen’s faces after passing the resolution to separate.

As the father of a five-year-old girl, the fact that the film is animated immediately piqued my curiosity as to whether it would be appropriate for young children. It probably is a bit beyond the early grammar school student, not because of any “mature content,” but because the ideas expressed are just too complex for that age group. However, this film would be a perfect supplement to any junior high or high school American history course or for homeschool students age 12 and older. Its entertaining style and rich factual content would provide a strong foundation in understanding this crucial period in American and world history.

Overall, Road to Independence is an overwhelming success. Despite Church’s reputation as a highly-opinionated conservative radio host, this film succeeds in teaching without preaching and letting the facts speak for themselves, leaving the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions. Resisting the temptation to embellish the facts or invent composite characters for dramatic effect, the film successfully tells a story that already has all of the drama that it needs. Rather than semi-legendary figures who live only in paintings or marble busts, the founders come alive in this docudrama as flesh and blood human beings, complete with strengths and weaknesses, individual quirks, and a wide range of personalities. We experience first-hand the real people, historical twist and turns, and evolution of ideas that culminated in the Declaration of Independence and founding of the united States of America. I would recommend this film to all students of American history, both young and old alike.

For more information about this film or to order your DVD copy, visit Mike Church’s Dude Gear Store here.

Check out Tom Mullen’s book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

Can Ron Paul Really Be Right About Everything?

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I was in Jacksonville last Friday for an event called “Ron Paul on the River.” The Republican presidential candidate was supposed to speak there, but had to cancel at the last minute due to a Libya vote in the House scheduled on short notice. While it was disappointing that the congressman would not appear, the keynote speaker that appeared in his place was well worth the trip.

Doug Wead is a self-confessed former member of the Establishment. In addition to being a best-selling author and world-renowned speaker, Wead has worked as a special advisor to President George H.W. Bush and on the campaign of George W. Bush. According to Wikipedia, Time magazine called Wead “an insider in the Bush family orbit.”

A good portion of Wead’s speech in Jacksonville focused on issues on which he had formerly disagreed with Paul. At one point, he made the startling statement, “but now I agree with him on everything.” He encouraged Paul supporters to persevere through the difficulties of supporting an anti-Establishment candidate and to remember that “logic and the truth are on your side.”

It is not fashionable to admit that you agree with someone “on everything.” To say that you do is to invite the accusation of belonging to a personality cult whose members blindly follow their leader no matter what position he takes. Indeed, this criticism is leveled at Paul’s grassroots supporters, who are called “Paulites” by detractors, implying that they have a pseudo-religious devotion to Paul rather than informed positions on the issues.

In modern American political thought, where only the results of political action are considered rather than the rights of the parties involved, it is not considered reasonable to agree with anyone 100% of the time. For someone like Wead, whose living depends upon his credibility as an expert on those things he writes and speaks about, there is a certain amount of risk in making this statement. Yet he did it in Jacksonville without hesitation, emphasizing the words “on everything” to ensure that no one missed the point.

This immediately struck me, because it was the second time in as many weeks that I had heard a statement like this from someone who had something to lose by saying it. Appearing on The O’Reilly Factor, John Stossel answered O’Reilly’s assertion that Ron Paul hadn’t won the New Hampshire debate by saying, “But he’s right about everything and you’re wrong.” O’Reilly retorted, “Everything?” Stossel repeated, “Everything.” When O’Reilly pressed yet again with the same question, Stossel finally backed up to “Just about everything.”

Stossel is a television journalist, so credibility is arguably even more important to his living than it is to Wead’s. That is not all the two have in common. Stossel also admits that he regrets much of the first 20 years of his career when he attacked the free enterprise system and championed increased government regulation over business. Like Wead, Stossel was a member of the Establishment, albeit from the other side of its aisle. Now, despite the risk to his credibility, he says that Ron Paul is right about everything.

So is this some sort of quasi-religious devotion? Are Paul’s followers simply caught up in a mass hysteria over someone who is likeable and has demonstrated his integrity for so long that they abandon their reason to avoid critical examination of his positions? Isn’t it impossible for an intelligent person to agree with someone on everything?

The answer to all three of these questions is “no.” In fact, contrary to what conventional wisdom tells us, it is actually illogical to agree with Paul on some things and not others.[1] As I’ve said before, Paul is simply applying the central libertarian axiom to each issue. As long as he applies the axiom properly and does not make an error of logic, he is going to come out with a position that is consistent with libertarianism 100% of the time.

For those in the grip of this “conventional wisdom” that has led us to the brink of societal collapse, Paul’s answers are anything but consistent. On economic policy, he seems like a hardcore conservative, surpassing all other Republicans in his zeal to eliminate regulation and taxes. On foreign policy and social issues, he seems to be some sort of lefty hippie, arguing to legalize all drugs, allow homosexuals to marry if they wish to (he wants government out of marriage even at the state level), and to immediately order home every soldier stationed on a foreign base.

Those just learning about libertarianism might conclude that it is some sort of “compromise” between conservatism and progressivism/liberalism. This is untrue. Libertarianism evaluates political issues from a completely different perspective than either mainstream political philosophy. Sometimes, conservatives happen to agree with libertarians, but for different reasons. Sometimes, the same is true for progressives/liberals. Libertarians care not for who agrees/disagrees. They follow one simple principle and let the chips fall where they may.

Walter Block sums this up best in terms of understanding how libertarians like Paul formulate their positions.

“This is because libertarianism is solely a political philosophy. It asks one and only one question: Under what conditions is the use of violence justified? And it gives one and only one answer: violence can be used only in response, or reaction to, a prior violation of private property rights.”

In order to understand Ron Paul’s platform, there are two conclusions one must reach. The first is that libertarians are correct that violence is only justified in response or reaction to a prior violation of private property rights. Block does not limit the definition of “private property” to land ownership or even physical property in general. Instead, property includes all of one’s life, liberty, and justly acquired possessions. So, any murder, assault, theft, fraud, or coercion would be violation of a private property right. Based upon that understanding, ask anyone if they agree that violence should never be initiated, but instead only used in defense, and you will almost always get agreement. So far, so good.

The second thing that one must conclude in order to understand Ron Paul is that all government action is violent action. This is where it gets difficult for conservatives and liberals alike. While it is easy to see the government’s use of its military as an act of violence, it is harder for people to see that other government activities represent violence. How could providing healthcare, ensuring workplace safety, or licensing barbers be violent acts?

This is the great truth that hides in plain site under every human being’s nose. In order to recognize it, one must disengage the deep, emotional attachments that almost everyone has developed to some or all government activity. Once you get someone to that point and they are truly ready to reason, they will come to the libertarian conclusion every time. To the genuinely interested and rational person, only one question is necessary:

“What if you do not cooperate?”

I cannot count how many times I have asked this question and received in response a stare – not a blank stare, but a thoughtful one. You can see the wheels turning. Sometimes they will begin to speak, then stop themselves while they think some more. They are looking for a hole in the theory. They are unable to find one. They are genuinely interested in either proving or disproving your argument. By that time, you have won.

For those who do not immediately “see the light,” you can pick any government action and walk them through that reasoning process:

You: Suppose that I do not wish to participate in Medicare and withhold only that percentage of my payroll taxes that would otherwise go to fund it. In return, I agree not to make use of any of the Medicare benefits. What will happen to me?

Him/Her: You will be charged with income tax evasion.

You: What if I don’t answer the charge?

Him/Her: You will be arrested.

You: What if I do not agree to submit to the arrest?

Him/Her: You will be physically forced to submit.

You: And if I resist further?

Him/Her: (reluctantly) You will be killed.

You: So, you now agree that we are forced to participate in Medicare under the threat of violence, correct?

Him/Her: (Even more reluctantly) Yes.

You: Is there any government tax, law, or regulation that we are not similarly forced to participate in under the threat of violence? Are not all of these answers the same in relation to even the least significant government regulation, like a parking ticket?

Recall the final scenes in the 1999 movie, The Matrix. After Neo’s “resurrection,” he stands up to once again face the agents that had apparently killed him a moment before. However, when we see the matrix through Neo’s eyes, as he sees it now, the whole world is made up of lines of green code. Neo had been told early in the movie that the matrix is a computer-generated illusion. He heard it, but did not know it. He is now seeing that world as it really is for the first time. His mind has reasoned through and understood all of the implications of what Morpheus has told him. Once he truly understands, he is invincible.

This is a wonderful metaphor for the libertarian “conversion.” Once one has had the epiphany that all government action is violent action, there are only three choices. 1) You come to the same conclusions that Ron Paul does on every issue, 2) You disagree with Walter Block and conclude that it is morally justifiable to initiate violence against other people, or 3) You abandon logic and stop acknowledging reality. This is why Paul told the Today Show’s Matt Lauer that “economic liberty and personal liberty are one and the same and foreign policy that defends America and not police the world [sic] – that’s part of the package as well.”

Doug Wead, John Stossel, and millions of Paul’s supporters have had this revelation. This is why they agree with Paul without exception. They refuse to accept the other two choices available to them: to support the initiation of violence or to abandon logic and refuse to acknowledge reality. This is not fanaticism. It is the inevitable conclusion that one must come to if one employs logic and faces reality. That is why Doug Wead said, “logic and the truth are on your side.”

During his 2008 presidential campaign, Ron Paul lost the Washington state primaries by a considerable margin. However, he won big in Spokane. Why? Because that was the one part of Washington in which Paul’s campaign was able to schedule an appearance. During that campaign, Howard Stern remarked about his exposure to Paul’s message just as Wead, Stossel and millions of Paul supporters have: “I think I agreed with everything that dude just said.” Stern went on to say that he had never heard of Paul before and that it was a shame that the Republican Party was not taking him seriously.

Once a reasonable person hears the libertarian message, it is inevitable that they will not only agree, but agree completely and without exception. This is the antithesis of fanaticism. It is reason. It is recognizing the real world for what it truly is and applying logic to those observations. It is the consistent application to separate political issues of one undeniable principle, which can only lead to libertarian conclusions. It is actually illogical and fanatical to come to any others.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the Establishment media had a strategy to combat this very troublesome dynamic: Don’t let the message be heard. That is no longer a viable strategy. Paul’s grassroots supporters have forced his platform into the mainstream. The media is simply unable to ignore Paul’s campaign this time around. The libertarian message will be heard. Whether or not Paul wins the presidency is secondary. Every day, more Americans are hearing the truth for the first time and its power is irresistible. The revolution is underway. Whether it takes a year, a decade, or longer, liberty is going to prevail.

Check out Tom Mullen’s book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!

[1] This assumes that Paul continues to apply libertarian reasoning consistently. It is certainly possible to disagree with him if he misapplies the theory. There are also fine points of theory that libertarians would take Paul to task for, but not on his general positions on the domestic and foreign policy of the federal government.

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What If Barack Obama Had Not Been Elected?

Is the Patriot Act Unpatriotic?

What is a Job?

Lord and Levin Welcome Ron Paul to the Top Tier

Tom Mullen: Disband the Army

Road to Independence Sets the Record Straight (Movie Review)

Can Ron Paul Really Be Right About Everything?