The more carefully you look at the libertarian political philosophy of Ron Paul, the more thoroughly it unravels.
Consider Ron Paul’s position on the issue of immigration.
Ron Paul’s supporters have justified his bizarre claims about the nature of liberty by saying that liberty is based upon property rights that include the inherent self-ownership of all people. Yet, these same people turn right around and support Ron Paul’s anti-immigrant agenda.
That’s not logically or morally consistent.
If liberty is truly based upon inherent human self-ownership, then the liberty of individuals ought to be recognized by all truly free governments, regardless of where those individuals happen to come from. A human being is a human being, after all. Only serfs are owned by their land and by their lords. Free people are not.
That’s not the policy that Ron Paul supports, of course. He supports the policy of sovereignty and the ownership of people by their governments. He advocates shipping people he calls “illegal aliens” back to the countries where they belong… or rather, the countries to which they belong.
These people Ron Paul wants to deport are living, working, and often paying taxes right here in the United States, a nation which Ron Paul says is dedicated to the ideal of property rights, the most important of which is the right of self-ownership. Yet, Ron Paul wants to deprive them of their liberty. He wants them to be imprisoned and then forced to go someplace they don’t want to live.
If Ron Paul really believed that liberty comes from the inherent rights of human beings, than he would recognize these immigrants as having equal rights to liberty. Ron Paul doesn’t do that, however, because what he actually believes is that sovereignty is more important than individual liberty. He believes that liberty is a gift granted by sovereign governments, not an inherent set of rights people are born with regardless of where they live. Liberty, as Ron Paul really sees it, is granted through citizenship, and citizenship is a gift of the government. People, under Ron Paul’s operational philosophy, are property of the state.
Ron Paul’s plan to ship immigrants back to their countries of origin is much like the efforts before the Civil War to ship people born as slaves in the American South back to their owners, even when they had escaped into Northern states where slavery was illegal.
For Ron Paul to justify his anti-abortion politics with claims of the inherent self-ownership of a fertilized human egg cell, but then to deny the opportunity of liberty to people because they are the property of their native countries is not just logically inconsistent. It is cruel.
Ron Paul adopts the pretense of a consistent libertarian political philosophy, but the truth is that his supposed philosophy is just a cover for his personal preferences. There’s nothing wrong with people having personal preferences. Ron Paul ought to be honest about it, however, and not claim that high ideals justify his dislike of foreigners.
Ron is consistent on the issues. Immigrants have to get in line to come here, they can’t come illegally and can’t come here to avoid being punished for crimes they’ve committed elsewhere. A fetus is a living human, and has a right to live just as any of the rest of us do.
In a utopian world of no government (anarchy), every individual could correctly assert complete self-sovereignty. I think most libertarians (as I have described myself for 30 years) theoretically base their world view on the notion of individual sovereignty. At some basic philosophical level, I believe Ron Paul accepts and embraces the ideal of self-sovereignty. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of a society that exists on the planet that has come close to achieving the goal of individual sovereignty. And it may only happen in the wake of a complete collapse of civilization, which I’m not advocating. Ron Paul offers the only mainstream hope of reestablishing the USA as a small-government republic, based upon its founding principles as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and codified (imperfectly) in our Constitution and its first ten amendments. If we are to maintain our status as a nation (deriving, as Jefferson said, its just powers from the consent of the governed), one of the legitimate functions of our national existance is to define and protect our boundaries, and define and enforce requirements for citizenship. Doing so, however, does not nullify or contradict the inherant rights of individuals anywhere on the planet. Here’s an analogy — I recognize your right to walk up and down my street, but you have no right to enter my home uninvited. Correspondingly to this example, I can recognize a person’s right to emigrate from his country, but unless he is compliant with the rules of entry and/or citizenship in the USA, I don’t recognize his right to immigrate here. Nor do I assert a right for myself to immigrate to another country in defiance of its laws. I truly don’t see this as a disqualification of Paul on libertarian grounds, nor do I see it as an inconsistency in his approach to and advocacy of limited government.
You’ve got it backwards. It isn’t that people are the property of the state, it’s that the state is the property of its people. The property controlled by the US government is in reality the property of the US citizenry. To say that non-citizens don’t have an inherent right to the US citizens’ roads and medical facilities and public services without paying anything for them is clearly not an unjust position. You claim that some of them pay taxes, but the fact is that the overwhelming majority do not, and even those who do are breaking the law. If these people are so disdainful of the conditions in their countries then they should band together to fix them rather than running away from the problem.
I think you are missing the points of Dr. Paul’s philosophies. He has never said, nor could I ever imagine that he would say that people are property of the state. He is a constitutionalist and believes that government is the server of the people. Which people? The citizens of The United States. Dr. Paul supports legal immigration, in a orderly manor. What is the opposing view? That the borders should be opened without restriction? That would be a recipe for disaster.
You would do well to inform yourself more before you write, that is if good writing is your intention.
The immigrant thing is indeed a non-anarcho-capitalist-Kosher platform piece. But so what? I can see that it is a valid criticism of people living in this country, even if I don’t agree with it. But again, this is like deciding on a candidate based on their position on abortion. It is ridiculous and foolish in the extreme, because right now, and I mean at this very instant, your tax dollars are paying to kill people in foreign countries, and getting our own military personnel killed in the process. THAT is what we must stop. Again, I challenge you to point out any other politician, republican or democrat, who will repudiate this doctrine of eternal war.
Right, so the Iraqis should stop bitching about all the Americans in their country, since they have an inherent liberty to be there. Good thinking.
Bret, why don’t you ask Alan Auguston, Green Party candidate for President, whether he repudiates the doctrine of eternal war? Why don’t you ask Dennis Kucinich, Democratic candidate?
“duh”, I don’t agree with Ron Paul’s philosophy. I’m just pointing out that it is internally inconsistent and has cruelly absurd consequences.
Bret,
It is better to keep one’s mouth shut and appear ignorant, than to open it and remove all doubt. Do yourself a favor and do much more research on your subject matter before putting pen to paper.