Tag Archives: ron paul

What would it take for Ron Paul to endorse Romney?

TAMPA, April 7, 2012 – GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney continues to win primaries and Ron Paul still won’t go away.

Part of the reason is that the Paul campaign understands the primary process and knows a little history. Romney’s support is lukewarm, while Paul’s actual delegate total is dramatically understated.

As Robert Wenzel points out, Paul is a lot like Warren Harding. Harding went into the brokered 1920 convention with only 6% of the delegates, but emerged as the party’s nominee. Harding won the general election in a landslide and took a very non-interventionist approach to the Depression of 1921.

Free market economists cite Harding’s refusal to intervene in that crisis for the quick recovery that followed.

So, there is no reason not to take Ron Paul at his word when he says that he is still in the contest to win the nomination. Still, speculation persists that he has made a deal with Romney for an eventual endorsement.

In return, Paul would get a speaking slot at the convention, consideration for his son Rand, or concessions in the party platform.

Both Paul and Romney have repeatedly denied this. Paul acknowledges that he is open to talk to the other candidates and that Romney, a personal friend, is easier to talk to. However, anyone who believes Ron Paul will simply endorse the nominee in exchange for political favors doesn’t understand Ron Paul or his Revolution.

Continue at Communities@Washington Times…

Do Republicans really want to defeat Obama?

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TAMPA, Fl., April 2, 2012 —The Republican Party has energized its base around the idea that Barack Obama must be defeated to save America from “socialism.” They won a majority in the House in 2010 by focusing on Obamacare. They claim that this election is a turning point. Obama must be defeated or America will be “fundamentally changed.”

There is only one problem. All of the candidates they are running will lose to Obama, with the exception of Ron Paul.

In order to win the general election, the Republicans need independents and Democrats. They also need a media narrative that shows a clear contrast between their candidate and Obama. They get all of this with Paul and none of it with Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich.

During the 2010 elections, Republicans pulled off a rhetorical coup. They successfully labeled Obamacare as “socialism” while at the same time mobilizing millions of senior citizens against the program because it would hurt Medicare. Hats off to their spin doctors. It won’t be that easy this year. If they want to attack Obama on Obamacare, they can’t run a candidate who signed the same program into law in Massachusetts (Romney), who supported its individual mandate for twenty years (Gingrich), or who voted for the Medicare prescription drug benefit (Santorum).

Santorum hasn’t endorsed the individual mandate, but Obama can argue that he’s all for government healthcare and “spreading the wealth around” because of Medicare Part D. The Republican base might swallow Santorum’s rebuttals, but for the rest Obamacare gets neutralized.

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

Rumors of Ron Paul Campaign Demise Greatly Exaggerated

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

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

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

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

Continue at Washington Times Communities…

God is a non-interventionist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom Mullen on Talkback (WVNJ New Jersey)

Ron Paul reveals benefits of brokered convention on Jay Leno

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

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

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

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

Continue at The Washington Times Communities…

Ron Paul’s caucus strategy is authentic republicanism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Non-Aggression Is Not Pacifism (Libertarians Hit Back)

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Heading into “Super Tuesday,” many conservatives lament that they do not like any of the remaining Republican candidates for president. Romney is too moderate, Gingrich too much a “Washington insider,” and Santorum both an insider and a guaranteed loser against Obama thanks to his willingness to bare his soul about some of his more outlandish socially conservative views.

That leaves Ron Paul, who would seem to be the ideal conservative candidate. Paul’s Plan to Restore America actually cuts $1 trillion from the federal budget in his first year as president, including eliminating the Department of Education that Ronald Reagan promised to abolish.

Paul is the only candidate that actually disagrees with President Obama in principle on “spreading the wealth around.” Paul doesn’t just nibble a few pennies away from financially insignificant welfare programs. He actually has a funded plan to let young people opt out of Medicare and Social Security. This is really a plan to responsibly end these programs. Government-mandated programs only survive because people are forced to participate. If conservatives really do oppose socialism, they should agree with Paul on this. Where do they think Social Security got its name?

For a large group of conservatives, they are with Paul right up until he explains his foreign policy. Suddenly, not only does the courtship end, they stop taking calls and change their phone numbers. That’s unfortunate because most conservatives make this decision upon a completely distorted view of Paul’s foreign policy.

Read the rest at The Daily Caller…

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

[1] 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

Government Cannot Be Run Like a Business

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Despite his big-government record as a governor, Mitt Romney has run for president as a conservative who would allow the free market to work. To bolster his credibility, he points to his success as CEO of Bain Capital. Romney led that company to become one of the largest and most successful private equity investment firms in the nation.

Many of his supporters have been able to look past the fact that he consistently raised taxes and pioneered Obamacare in Massachusetts because of this private sector success. They echo Romney’s argument that “the government should be run like a business” and believe that only a proven, successful businessman can do the job.

There are two problems here. The first is that history has already shown that successful businessmen are terrible for the free market whenever they get anywhere near government power. The second is that government cannot ever be run like a business. Its very nature makes that utterly impossible.

Regarding the first problem, one need only study the 19th century. If you don’t like the progressive movement, you can thank the 19^th century Republican Party for creating the conditions that led to its birth.

The entire period is a record of big business getting together with government to intervene into the free market. Always under the pretense of protecting consumers, the true purpose of these interventions was limiting or eliminating competition for connected companies.

For example, Republicans wrote and passed the Sherman Anti—Trust Act. Standard Oil’s competitors were unable to deliver similar quality oil at the same price, so they went to the government for help. They successfully broke up a company that at the time the Act was passed had over 300 competitors and had lowered its prices for decades. Why? So that they could survive selling their oil at higher prices.

John D. Rockefeller, founder and chairman of Standard Oil, learned from this experience. Contrary to popular myth, Rockefeller was not a robber baron in the oil business. Like Romney, he had achieved his success honestly in the market through reinvestment, voluntary contracts, and his commitment that ““we are refining oil for the poor man and he must have it cheap and good.”[1]

However, when he got into banking, his strategy was different. Having seen the advantages of having government as a partner, Rockefeller made sure that he was well-represented at the secret meetings held on Jekyll Island to create the Federal Reserve System.

Pitched as a consumer protection against bank instability, it set up a government cartel that controls the money supply, interest rates, and most banking activity in general. Free market economists cite the Federal Reserve System as the chief cause of economic booms and busts, including those that led to the Great Depression and the 2008 housing crisis.

Railroads provide another example. 19^th century government-subsidized railroads were plagued by fraud, waste, and recurring bankruptcies, while James J. Hill’s non-subsidized Great Northern Railroad operated profitably. Unable to compete, his subsidized competitors persuaded the government to pass the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and the Hepburn Act of 1906. As Thomas Dilorenzo observes, “What these two federal laws did was to outlaw Hill’s price cutting by forcing railroads to charge everyone the same high rates. This was all done in the name of consumer protection, giving it an Orwellian aura.”[2]

Romney’s economic policy as laid out on his issues page continues in the interventionist tradition. According to Romney, “History shows that the United States has moved forward in astonishing ways thanks to national investment in basic research and advanced technology.” He must read the same history books as Barack Obama. True proponents of free markets argue that entrepreneurs have moved the United States forward despite government intervention, not because of it.

Romney makes the distinction of “investing” in basic research rather than “politically favored approaches” to energy solutions. However, basic research is just another investment that should be made by private capital in the hope 0f profits, not by government for “the common good.” The latter is just more of Barack Obama’s collectivism repackaged. It will yield similar results: more bridges to nowhere, bankruptcies, and waste.

Despite the popular conservative misconception, government cannot be run like a business. Government simply does not exist under the same conditions as private firms. It does not receive its money voluntarily from its “customers.” The ability of customers to choose not to buy is the driving force behind all market innovation and efficiency. Private companies are not owned and run by more noble creatures. They are simply under conditions that force them to innovate and control costs in order to survive.

Contrary to the arguments made by Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich, there is only one role for government in a free market economy: to protect private property rights and enforce contracts. Regardless of good intentions, anything else the government does destroys the market. Only Ron Paul understands this. If you truly believe in free markets, he is your choice for president.

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

[1] Folsom, Burton, Jr. John D. Rockefeller and His Enemies from The Freeman https://www.fee.org/pdf/the-freeman/0805FreemanFolsom.pdf.

[2] Dilorenzo, Thomas How Capitalism Saved America Three Rivers Press New York 2004 pg. 120

Rick Santorum is Unelectable

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Since the beginning of the Republican Presidential Primary race, we have heard that Ron Paul is unelectable. While many conservatives like some of Paul’s ideas on domestic policy, his non-interventionist foreign policy is supposedly a deal-breaker. Even in articles praising Paul on particular issues, reporters have without exception felt compelled to remind us that there is absolutely no chance that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination for president. This “unelectable” label has been used exclusively against Paul.

With only four candidates left in the race, the lead has changed hands several times. The current leader is Rick Santorum, fresh off primary wins in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri. Since those victories, the media have been trumpeting Santorum as the new frontrunner while completely ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room – Rick Santorum is unelectable.

With a plethora of debates behind us, we have had a chance to get to know the Republican candidates pretty well. All of the Republican candidates except for Ron Paul support some sort of federal government prohibition on gay marriage. Paul actually wants to get even the state governments out of the marriage business, taking the libertarian position that marriage is just a contract like any other. This has visibly upset Santorum, who not only opposes gay marriage but seems completely obsessed with homosexuality in general. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t believe, deep down, that Santorum wouldn’t support making homosexuality illegal again if he thought he could get away with it?

Most Republican voters put the federal budget at or near the top of their priority list as far as their political positions are concerned. Not Rick Santorum. The issues page on his website has the budget thirteenth on the page. What is the number one issue? “Enforcing Laws Against Illegal Pornography,” which Rick says “causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences.” Queue the eerie music because we’re just getting started. Update: Since this article was published, Santorum’s staff has changed the order of the issues on his issue page. He has moved “Enforcing Laws Against Illegal Pornography” to last on the page, moving the federal budget up to 12th by default. Gay marriage now comes in at Number Two.

Number two on his list is “No More Leading from Behind for America,” which is basically the standard Republican Party line that the U.S. military should be deployed in just about every nation on earth. I happen to think that is crazy, but most Republicans don’t. However, number three on the list is gay marriage. So, out of the top three issues listed on his page, pornography and homosexuality are two of them.

To say that Rick is “a little uptight” is a gross understatement. Santorum has stated unequivocally that he believes that the federal government can and should regulate the bedroom. In fact, he has also said that there is no area of life that is beyond the government’s reach. Outside of the few states where evangelicals can allow him to get away with these positions, he simply cannot win. Voters in the more moderate states like New York and California – which control the bulk of the delegates – will find these ideas repugnant.

The media has often supported the “Ron Paul is unelectable” narrative by criticizing his supporters. I’m not sure what the beliefs of some of his supporters have to do with Paul’s fitness for the presidency, but the punditry believes it is a valid line of inquiry.

So, some of Ron Paul’s supporters believe in elaborate conspiracy theories. The most prevalent revolves around quasi-secret organizations like the Bilderbergs and the Trilateral Commission. The theory is that very wealthy families like the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers use these organizations to further a plot to establish a world government. Some people think this theory is “a little kooky.” Not all or even most Paul supporters hold these views, but let’s say that a significant minority do.

Now, let’s consider the views of a significant minority of the evangelicals that support Rick Santorum. They are fierce supporters of the U.S. government’s wars in the Middle East because they believe that if Jewish people do not control the city of Jerusalem, then…wait for it…Jesus will not return to earth during the “end time,” which they also believe will occur any minute now. They are willing to elect leaders who will take America to war based upon this belief, which ranks up there with the “precious bodily fluids” theory from Dr. Strangelove.

I’m not even 100% sure that Santorum doesn’t believe this himself. Someone should ask him. Certainly, there have been much sillier questions put to candidates during the debates. I for one would like to at least get this crossed off the long list of idiotic theories that inform the president.

Regardless of Santorum’s answer to that question, which it is only fair to assume would be “no,” his other positions still nullify any chance of him becoming president. From all reports, Santorum is a decent person and a good father, and there is certainly nothing wrong with having strong religious convictions. However, the vast majority of Americans do not believe that those convictions should be imposed upon other people with the force of law. Rick Santorum does. That alone makes it obvious that Rick Santorum is never going to be president. So why hasn’t the media proclaimed him unelectable as they have Ron Paul?

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