Saturday, February 12, 2005
What I Think of Congressman Paul's Speech
A on the Tagboard asked me my opinion of the speech by Congressman Paul that I posted a few days ago. I said that I would post my thoughts on it, so here they are.
Let me start by saying that I am a Libertarian, for the most part. I agree with the ideals of the Libertarian party, and the general Libertarian viewpoint. When I have taken the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" and items like it, I have always shown up in the results as a Libertarian of some sort. To many people, I have come across as a Republican. I'm not, and never have been. It's easy to make that mistake because the Republican party has done a good job of co-opting the Libertarian message into it's rhetoric. When you look closely at the behavior of the Republican party, though, you find it is anything but Libertarian.
The main problem I see with the agenda put forth by the Libertarian party is it's impracticality. The issues raised by Congressman Paul are a prime example of the kind of things that are impractical in the Libertarian party's platform. The Libertarian party has a utopian viewpoint, to a certain extent, that is almost impossible to put into practice in the type of time frame that they would enact it, if they managed to get elected into any type of national office.
Congressman Paul's reference to Washington's admonition about avoiding entangling alliances is interesting, in that this admonition is a cornerstone of the Libertarian view of foreign policy. In general, I agree with it. That is where the problems start.
Trying to make that real with the situation that America is in today poses two difficulties:
1) We are already involved in a number of "entangling alliances". Finding a way to extricate ourselves from those alliances without causing more problems than just maintaining the status quo would be difficult.
2) Once we extricate ourselves from our entangling alliances, there will be some situations where we will, to maintain our national security and our national ideals, have to become involved in the international arena more deeply than normal. Where do we draw that line? Let me illustrate, briefly. I think we will all agree that getting involved in WWII when we did, on the side we did was the appropriate thing to do. I think most of us will agree that getting ourselves involved in Viet Nam the way we were there was inappropriate. Not every totalitarian state in history or even the last 60 years has been a Nazi Germany, or, on the other hand, a North Viet Nam. Most have fallen somewhere in the middle. The question then becomes where is that line drawn that calls for us, as a nation, to become involved? That's a tough question and there are side issues that complicate it. "Ethnic cleansing", genocide, weapons of mass destruction, national security and economic interests are just a few of those issues.
Now that I have made things sufficiently unclear, let me state here that I agree with what Congressman Paul has to say about what has been done in our country in regards to personal liberty. The way that personal liberties that are guaranteed by our Constitution and are cornerstones of our American freedom, and ideals have been compromised by recent legislation that is supposedly "in our best interests" or in the best interests of our security.
Let me digress for a second. You have to understand some basic things about two documents that are cornerstones of the social construct that we know as America. Those two documents are the Declaration of Independence and the other is the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence is best understood if we think of it as America's mission statement. It has no legal bearing. It is not law. It cannot be used to defend one's self in a court of law. It's words and principles carry no weight in terms of what our government can and cannot do. It is a statement of the American ideal. The Constitution, on the other hand, is the foundation of American law. Every other American law has it's foundation in the Constitution. The Constitution is what gives authority to our government and it's various officials. No single government official or government institution has more power than the Constitution. Those officials and institutions, instead, draw what power they have from the authority of the Constitution. Therefore, the rights guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the Constitution) have more authority than any government official or governmental institution.
Congressman Paul said, "Strict adherence to personal privacy annoys those who promote a centralized state." That's true. If you look carefully at what both of the major political parties have done over the last 30 years, you will see definite moves by both to create a centralized state. They have different goals and agendas in regards to a centralized state, but both are actively pushing for it. That is my main problem with both of the major political parties. They are pushing agendas that are, to put it bluntly, anti-American.
If you want, I can, at a later time, give you my opinion on all 34 questions that Congressman Paul asked. That will take more space than I wanted to devote at this time.
I will close this out by stating that I totally agree with Congressman Paul's final assessment:
"Where do we go from here?" is always a good question to ask at times like this. To address both points that Congressman Paul closes with:
First, we need to do more effective things about our homeland and border security. Another bureau, intelligence chief, or whatever is not the answer. In my opinion, we already have too much of these. It's time to take action that will work. As for the situations that we are in due to the foreign policy, there aren't any easy answers on how to get ourselves out of those situations that will not make the individual situations worse than they are, or were to begin with.
Lastly, I don't think anyone in Washington will take up this discussion, either. It's not that these people don't know the answers. It's not even that they aren't asking the right questions. It's a situation where most of them don't even begin to think that there are questions to ask. At least, that is what their behavior says. The cynic in me says that the discussion will never take place because all of them have too much invested in the status quo to rock the boat by questioning it.
I think it is past time that we, the American people, send them a message through our votes. The message we need to send is a paraphrase of the speech that Michael Douglas gave at the end of the movie, "The American President":
Let me start by saying that I am a Libertarian, for the most part. I agree with the ideals of the Libertarian party, and the general Libertarian viewpoint. When I have taken the "World's Smallest Political Quiz" and items like it, I have always shown up in the results as a Libertarian of some sort. To many people, I have come across as a Republican. I'm not, and never have been. It's easy to make that mistake because the Republican party has done a good job of co-opting the Libertarian message into it's rhetoric. When you look closely at the behavior of the Republican party, though, you find it is anything but Libertarian.
The main problem I see with the agenda put forth by the Libertarian party is it's impracticality. The issues raised by Congressman Paul are a prime example of the kind of things that are impractical in the Libertarian party's platform. The Libertarian party has a utopian viewpoint, to a certain extent, that is almost impossible to put into practice in the type of time frame that they would enact it, if they managed to get elected into any type of national office.
Congressman Paul's reference to Washington's admonition about avoiding entangling alliances is interesting, in that this admonition is a cornerstone of the Libertarian view of foreign policy. In general, I agree with it. That is where the problems start.
Trying to make that real with the situation that America is in today poses two difficulties:
1) We are already involved in a number of "entangling alliances". Finding a way to extricate ourselves from those alliances without causing more problems than just maintaining the status quo would be difficult.
2) Once we extricate ourselves from our entangling alliances, there will be some situations where we will, to maintain our national security and our national ideals, have to become involved in the international arena more deeply than normal. Where do we draw that line? Let me illustrate, briefly. I think we will all agree that getting involved in WWII when we did, on the side we did was the appropriate thing to do. I think most of us will agree that getting ourselves involved in Viet Nam the way we were there was inappropriate. Not every totalitarian state in history or even the last 60 years has been a Nazi Germany, or, on the other hand, a North Viet Nam. Most have fallen somewhere in the middle. The question then becomes where is that line drawn that calls for us, as a nation, to become involved? That's a tough question and there are side issues that complicate it. "Ethnic cleansing", genocide, weapons of mass destruction, national security and economic interests are just a few of those issues.
Now that I have made things sufficiently unclear, let me state here that I agree with what Congressman Paul has to say about what has been done in our country in regards to personal liberty. The way that personal liberties that are guaranteed by our Constitution and are cornerstones of our American freedom, and ideals have been compromised by recent legislation that is supposedly "in our best interests" or in the best interests of our security.
Let me digress for a second. You have to understand some basic things about two documents that are cornerstones of the social construct that we know as America. Those two documents are the Declaration of Independence and the other is the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence is best understood if we think of it as America's mission statement. It has no legal bearing. It is not law. It cannot be used to defend one's self in a court of law. It's words and principles carry no weight in terms of what our government can and cannot do. It is a statement of the American ideal. The Constitution, on the other hand, is the foundation of American law. Every other American law has it's foundation in the Constitution. The Constitution is what gives authority to our government and it's various officials. No single government official or government institution has more power than the Constitution. Those officials and institutions, instead, draw what power they have from the authority of the Constitution. Therefore, the rights guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the Constitution) have more authority than any government official or governmental institution.
Congressman Paul said, "Strict adherence to personal privacy annoys those who promote a centralized state." That's true. If you look carefully at what both of the major political parties have done over the last 30 years, you will see definite moves by both to create a centralized state. They have different goals and agendas in regards to a centralized state, but both are actively pushing for it. That is my main problem with both of the major political parties. They are pushing agendas that are, to put it bluntly, anti-American.
If you want, I can, at a later time, give you my opinion on all 34 questions that Congressman Paul asked. That will take more space than I wanted to devote at this time.
I will close this out by stating that I totally agree with Congressman Paul's final assessment:
Policing the world, spreading democracy by force, nation building, and frequent bombing of countries that pose no threat to us - while leaving the homeland and our borders unprotected - result from a foreign policy that is contradictory and not in our self interest.
I hardly expect anyone in Washington to pay much attention to these concerns. If I'm completely wrong in my criticisms, nothing is lost except my time and energy expended in efforts to get others to reconsider our foreign policy.
"Where do we go from here?" is always a good question to ask at times like this. To address both points that Congressman Paul closes with:
First, we need to do more effective things about our homeland and border security. Another bureau, intelligence chief, or whatever is not the answer. In my opinion, we already have too much of these. It's time to take action that will work. As for the situations that we are in due to the foreign policy, there aren't any easy answers on how to get ourselves out of those situations that will not make the individual situations worse than they are, or were to begin with.
Lastly, I don't think anyone in Washington will take up this discussion, either. It's not that these people don't know the answers. It's not even that they aren't asking the right questions. It's a situation where most of them don't even begin to think that there are questions to ask. At least, that is what their behavior says. The cynic in me says that the discussion will never take place because all of them have too much invested in the status quo to rock the boat by questioning it.
I think it is past time that we, the American people, send them a message through our votes. The message we need to send is a paraphrase of the speech that Michael Douglas gave at the end of the movie, "The American President":
You haven't been interested in our problems. You've just been interested in telling us who is to blame for them. And not because you couldn't fix it, but, because you couldn't sell it. This is a serious time for serious people and your 15 minutes are up.
