Leonard Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, said principles are not compromised; they are abandoned. Principles, by their nature, are utilized or they are not.

That is an important reminder for those who believe the maximum role of government should be the protection of life, liberty, and property — which I think, logically construed, means self-government; however, I respect that others disagree. Our time is going to be most wisely spent improving ourselves and building relationships with like-minded liberty people. Even still, while the conventional political process is still dominant, there are ways for principled people to use political tools for their own benefit.

The conventional political dichotomy is a struggle between short-term opportunism and long-term progress. I think there is a simple reconciliation that can be made between the two camps. That is, under no circumstances, never ever, should we ever support an expansion in the role of government or a further restriction on a peaceful person’s liberty. Second, any policy support should be done with the explicit purpose of decreasing the role of government and directly benefiting peaceful individuals.

Any strategy or policy goals that we recommend or follow should be consistent with the purpose of restoring individual liberty and responsibility. I understand the importance of intermediate goals or markers to help fully achieve our ultimate purpose. But our means of achieving that purpose should not be contradictory to that end. For example, a lot of politicians try to justify tax cuts because they believe it will actually increase the total revenues to the government treasury. I believe this is wrong and sends an inconsistent message.

The goal of a tax cut should be to reduce the burden of government. Again, we should not advocate the re-legalization of cannabis on the grounds that it will raise tax revenues, but because prohibition is immoral and counterproductive. Expanding government and further restricting the liberty of others to correct another ill-fated government policy is an abandonment of principle. As Ron Paul said, “Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive.” Reducing the level of coercion in people’s lives is a worthy goal.

Principles in Practice

The goals that we have should be radical — not liberal- or conservative-lite. This serves two purposes. First, it provides cover for not-so-radical views to be considered more mainstream, thus limiting the fear of ostracism people might have for holding these slightly less radical views. It provides an objective guidepost — like a lighthouse — for gauging the success of our efforts during darker times.

I would also like to suggest two methods of communicating these ideas. We should definitely take the time, on an intellectual basis, to refute anti-liberty or collectivist ideas. But we must acknowledge that the people advocating these mistaken ideas are not dimwitted. In fact, many know exactly how they benefit from these policies. They are ripping us off, so we must make direct, populist appeals that reveal that fact.

By its nature, government is crude and unaccountable, so there will be an infinite supply of aggrieved individuals. Ideally, that means that we don’t have to convert individuals fully to the virtue of liberty before taking action together. Over time, I hope that those who are “liberty minus one” or “liberty minus whatever” come to see the error of their ways.

Some Ideas to Bat Around

Sometimes, pick losing issues to get the message out by presenting a pro-liberty analysis. I’m not saying be a stick-in-the-mud. The situation might provide an opportunity to get some free media publicity or lay the groundwork for winning progress on the issue in the future. Liberals have deployed this technique by pushing socialized health insurance and environmental regulations.

Now, I don’t even know how possible this next one is. Those arrested for committing consensual crimes could be high-target prospects for the liberty message. When I’m passing out Fully Informed Jury Association literature on jury nullification, those called for jury duty are naturally receptive to the material I am providing. I’ll usually stay a little past the time when potential jurors are due to report in downtown Fort Worth in order to catch any stranglers. When I do, I just happen to pass out literature to defendants, and they are just as interested in the concept of jury nullification as potential jurors, if not more so. There has got to be a way of contacting those folks by getting ahold of  some public records.

(Image credit: john curley, with Creative Commons license)

Super activist John Bush, of Austin’s Texans for Accountable Government, posted a commentary on the prevailing notion that liberty could be achieved by seizing control of the Republican Party. I have less care for electoral politics than might Bush, but I think his critique is well founded and should be heeded by those participating in electoral politics, including myself to some degree.

Disclaimer: This note is not meant to devalue or discredit the work that has already been done by activists in the GOP. Any action in this liberty movement is much appreciated. It is also worth noting that everything in this note applies to those from the left attempting to use the Democratic Party as well. Myself and many others are merely trying to point out the damage that can be done to the movement if we adopt the “restore the GOP” strategy as our primary means of affecting change in this country.

1. We give up our leverage as the majority maker.

From Chuck Young’s blog [post] “Lessons of the Paul Campaign – r[evol]ution within the reForm“:

“There is a branch of game theory called coalition theory. It ponders questions like the following: if we have 3 groups, with 49, 49, and 2 ‘votes’ respectively, all seeking to win an election with 51 votes total, which of these 3 can be said to have the most ‘power’? And the answer is (drum roll): they all have equal power, because any one of them that wishes to win must make a deal with some other group.

“In this little theoretical truism lies a possible answer to the riddle of how a dedicated and united cadre might wedge and manipulate two bloated, corrupt ’superpowers’ like the Democratic and Republican parties. What is required isn’t a majority, but rather a minority substantial enough that both powers must continuously bargain with this third group to gain its temporary allegiance. Of course, the two superpowers could always come out in open alliance with each other once and for all — but that in itself would be a victory for the good guys with immense ramifications.

“The difficulties in launching and sustaining a viable third party are well documented; what is called for probably isn’t another political party. Indeed, such a thing would likely be undermined, as have the Libertarian Party, Constitution Party, and similar entities of the left, e.g. the Greens. But while a third party is probably untenable, it’s clearly suicide to remain in this abusive relationship with the Republicans.

“Why? Go back to coalition theory. By trying to ‘reform’ the Republican Party, our movement COMPLETELY SURRENDERS THE LEVERAGE IT HAS AGAINST THE TARGETS OF SAID REFORM. There is a shockingly naive assumption in all this, as the criminal elements in the GOP get away with political murder. It’s believed that somehow they will surrender their authority because they ‘need us.’ Some coalescing may indeed happen, but expecting those who run the GOP to just ‘come around’ to our way of thinking because they’re in the process of getting the crap kicked out of ‘em flies in the face of repeated experience. Most people in 1976 wouldn’t have given the GOP another shot at the presidency for 12 years at least; yet they were right back in the saddle in 1980, with a ‘revolution’ … of sorts.”

2. We will never be able to ignite the mass movement necessary to enact genuine change as we will always be plus-or-minus 50 percent of the voting postulation. We will always be trapped in a reactionary paradigm against the other half of the FALSE left-right paradigm.

Which leads to 3 ….

3. The party in power will inevitably waver on its principles if only to maintain its position as the dominant party.

From “A Disquisition on Government” by John C. Calhoun:

“A written constitution certainly has many and considerable advantages, but it is a great mistake to suppose that the mere insertion of provisions to restrict and limit the power of the government, without investing those for whose protection they are inserted with the means of enforcing their observance will be sufficient to prevent the major and dominant party from abusing its powers. Being the party in possession of the government, they will, from the same constitution of man which makes government necessary to protect society, be in favor of the powers granted by the constitution and opposed to the restrictions intended to limit them …. The minor or weaker party, on the contrary, would take the opposite direction and regard them [the restrictions] as essential to their protection against the dominant party …. But where there are no means by which they could compel the major party to observe the restrictions, the only resort left them would be a strict construction of the constitution …. To this the major party would oppose a liberal construction …. It would be construction against construction — the one to contract and the other to enlarge the powers of the government to the utmost. But of what possible avail could the strict construction of the minor party be, against the liberal construction of the major, when the one would have all the power of the government to carry its construction into effect and the other be deprived of all means of enforcing its construction? In a contest so unequal, the result would not be doubtful. The party in favor of the restrictions would be overpowered …. The end of the contest would be the subversion of the constitution … the restrictions would ultimately be annulled and the government be converted into one of unlimited powers.”

4. The party will shape the change agents more than the change agents will shape the party.

From Chuck Young’s blog [post] “Lessons of the Paul Campaign – r[evol]ution within the reForm”:

“This brings us to the very disturbing turn Paulism has taken: the invocation of that same ‘Reagan Revolution,’ the ‘Robertson takeover’ and the like, to ’sell’ Paulism to the GOP ‘conservatives.’ Groups like the Republican Liberty Caucus are even openly equating Ron Paul with Ron Reagan – with REAGAN, super neoconservative, warmongerer extraordinaire, the most profligate spender the nation had ever seen (until the record was broken by a certain successor), a man that sold out so-called conservative principles so profoundly, that Ron Paul himself quit the Republican Party in disgust and ran as the Presidential candidate for the LP in 1988!!!

“What a long, bitter history the movement for LIBERty has when it tries to be ‘conservative!’ And yet, because we’ve convinced ourselves that we’ve nowhere else to go, we find ourselves chanting this mantra: ‘we really are conservatives, we are real conservatives, be a conservative like us.’ And always in this equation of the movement with ‘conservatism,’ ALWAYS, there is a softening of the anti-war, anti-empire stance. And so one wonders, vis a vis this GOP ‘takeover’ – who’s zoomin’ who, hmmm?
The signs are all around the paleocon ’surge.’ It isn’t only that Ron Paul is being equated with Reagan and Goldwater (can you hear that…? it’s the sound of Rothbard turning over in his grave). We have Bob Barr as the nominee for the LP – Barr, ex-CIA, who voted for the Iraq ‘War’ and the Patriot Act. And the rising star in the LP is Wayne Allen Root – note his initials, ‘WAR,’ and rest assured that ‘peace’ will never be his middle name. It seems the deeper we commit ourselves to this dysfunctional ‘conservative’ assertion, the more we are moved towards the ‘libertarianism’ of Neil Boortz – not the other way around.”

5. The hierarchical structure of the two major parties is easily susceptible to co-option, as only those at the top would need to be compromised in order to steer the party. This is evidenced by the current state of both parties.

Potential solution?

Remain a tight united libertarian cadre which works on single issue coalitions at a local and state level all the while applying the philosophy of liberty in a manner which will cause those of the statist persuasion to appreciate the consistency of libertarianism and question the hypocrisy of their collectivist mindset. Eventually the tight united cadre will grow as those beginning to appreciate liberty more and more will be picked off from the fringe of the parties.

All the while we must begin to build and create parallel institutions based on mutually beneficial voluntary associations so that we may offer an alternative to the people when the current system inevitably collapses. We must be prepared to offer an alternative as our enemies surely will be. [Editor's note: A few edits have been applied to Bush's note to conform to the punctuation style on this site.]

My take is that the Libertarian Party is largely a waste, save as a protest vote or an education tool. Participating in the primary elections of the major parties leverages the most impact from voting, which is still about as equivalent to a suggestion box on a slave plantation. Bush has said he is “beginning to explore the revolutionary possibilities associated with agorism, counter-economics, and the creation of parallel institutions which will rival and compete with the state.” I wholeheartedly agree; we should be spending our time agitating and organizing, not begging the state.

He is also beginning to take some heat from Ron Paul apologists (not all Paul supporters, including myself, are apologists) for questioning Paul’s support of welfare-warfare Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). For as beneficial as Paul is at spreading the message of liberty, it is just as important that liberty activist hold themselves accountable to at least the same standards by which they hold others. I believe attempts to confine or marginalize different opinions shows a lack of confidence is one’s own ideas. To paraphrase Zeitgeist: The Movie, take truth as the authority, not authority as the truth.

My discomfort with so many of the state and national “liberty” candidates for office is their general willingness to appeal to collectivism on issues like immigration, otherwise known as “moving.” Even Ron Paul was plagued by this, in part to be taken seriously by Republican voters. Of course, I may be too cynical in calling it a total affectation. I don’t think it comes from a xenophobic fear of foreigners, either. He probably recognizes that the people who most blatantly and systematically usurp our liberty are mostly middle-aged white men, not day laborers at Home Depot. Nevertheless, it is just as safe to assume that Paul’s harsher immigration policies drove away as many potential liberty supporters as they attracted.

Immigrants and their friends and families, many of whom have experienced or witnessed government persecution, could have been the most receptive audiences of a consistent message of liberty. Instead, they may have permanently associated the message of liberty with a perceived hostility toward immigrants. In the long term, that is going to create some challenges for future candidates wanting to promote a message of individual autonomy. They recognize the common objection — that some immigrants take far more from the government trough than they contribute — as a spurious argument, at best, since some government employees and some government contractors take all of their resources from the government, yet immigration foes do not propose deporting them. For that matter, legal immigrants are far more likely to acquire government welfare than unsanctioned movers.

What brings this to mind is the announced immigration platform of one of Paul’s supporters, Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, someone to whom I have donated my own time and money. For the most part, she sounds a lot like Paul in that she really dislikes the federal government. She wants to nullify the enforcement of some federal laws she believes are unconstitutional and to end property taxes. Thumbs up on my end, though I would prefer nullifying all federal laws and ending all taxes. As someone opposed to non-consensual monopoly government, I can’t enthusiastically endorse any policy other than to disband. However, that shouldn’t discourage me from critiquing existing political proposals or from identifying that some ideas are better or worse than others.

Some of her proposals, like wanting to reduce the scope of gun regulations and to nullify sham free-trade treaties like NAFTA that primarily benefit corporate special interests, would be great. Her most disagreeable idea is to assign “sufficient numbers of Texas National Guard and Texas State Guard” to help local law enforcement. Ethically, it is an abandonment of the non-aggression principle (NAP) as she openly calls for the use of aggressive force to solve what she perceives to be a social problem. The troops and all their resources are funded by the use of force, taxation. In turn, they will initiate force against peaceful movers and foreign entrepreneurs. (Insert the obvious caveat that not all individuals wishing to cross the border are peaceful.) The result will be failure, as all government prohibitions are. It will increase the violence on the border, breed corruption among those guarding the border, and cost a fortune. She also plans to target documented movers convicted of a state or federal law. So for those who break a non-violent federal law, which is done by each individual on average three times a day, they could get tossed, again violating the NAP.

What a Consistent Immigration Policy Looks Like

Since Medina has already shown her support for nullification of unconstitutional federal law, let’s start with all federal immigration laws. The constitution provides no existing expressed powers for the federal government to make immigration policy, only for the naturalization process of becoming a citizen. In fact, the Texas constitution that congress approved after Reconstruction had a Bureau of Immigration, as did most other former Confederate states.

Step two would be to end all government welfare benefits. Then fully re-legalize the prostitution, drug and arms trades. It would completely eliminate the need for anyone to enter the country by sneaking across the desert or trespassing on private property. The vast majority wanting to cross the border conventionally would be those wanting to earn their own way. The fear is that gangs would run wild, causing chaos in the streets. That is unfounded since dishonest criminals who could no longer sustain themselves on inflated black-market profits can in no way compete on the open market. Those wanting to live off the government or engage in criminality would remain in their own country.

We could reduce the scope of government, relieve taxpayers of an extra burden, and demonstrate the fruits of freedom. Government meddling and excuses to circumvent the Bill of Rights would be curtailed, which might get the ire of conservatives in the Republican Party who would rather imprison strangers rather confront the reality of emancipating themselves. If there were ever a litmus test for empathy for the oppressed, immigration surely is it.

An Examination of Alternatives

But maybe I am being too hard on Medina. She’s running a state-wide race in Texas, after all. It is extremely unlikely voters would support a candidate who took such radical steps. We can’t expect someone to be agreeable on every issue, and she would certainly be better than the any other credible choice. The other candidates in the running would have no qualms about some academic non-aggression principle. I agree with all that. But I presume that she has read Paul’s books and articles, in which he has advocates his support for the NAP. In End the Fed, he said for example, “We must reject the initiation of violence by individuals or governments as morally repugnant.” Apparently, even Ron Paul does not get the full impact of that idea. His claim is that it is an “invasion,” yet his emphasis is on curtailing it through economic means by removing the welfare incentives. Medina lists that at the very bottom of her of proposals and puts the state guard patrol at the very top, a complete reversal of Paul’s priorities.

My primary and probably only significant purpose in participating in electoral politics is to spread the ideas of liberty. I readily concede that if I want to participate in electoral politics, I can’t expect ideological purity. Engaging the government in any manner, driving on government roads or attending government school, is a regretful concession. I suppose that “When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spread,” as Paul declared. The temptation is to bite one’s tongue. That is my source of resentment for electoral politics. It offers this simple, elegant solution, making it very seductive. The danger is that by not expressing criticism of supposed pro-liberty candidates who abandon that message, assuming that is their highest political goal, we come across as just another empathetic-less political movement wanting to impose our beliefs on others. I don’t even ask that a politician be opposed to all forms of aggression to receive my support, only that he or she oppose increasing the present scope of violence against the peaceful. In this respect, Medina readily and consistently advocates increasing the use of government violence against largely peaceful immigrants. If I were to vote for her in the March primary or the November general election, I would necessarily be sacrificing the interests of an already exploited group of people for my own interests.

I think it is more practical to practice libertarianism consistent with its principles. There are steps that have already proven more effective and more immediate. Primarily, they focus on liberating ourselves to demonstrate firsthand how beneficial living by these principles can be. That is, if you want freedom, you don’t have to participate in the elaborate resource-depleting, shame-inducing rituals of voting and petitioning for a band of thieves to recognize your humanity. Those rituals and institutions are in place to obscure the violence behind it all. Once the glaring blessings of liberty are realized, all mystic pretenses for an intrusive government will be shattered. Now I’m not saying that being right is easy, for if it were easy then it would have already been done.

An insightful resource for understanding why Republican politicians haven’t ended the welfare state in all their years in office is a free book called The Conservative Nanny State.

Some examples in the book demonstrate how big-government conservatives work to transfer wealth from the poor and exploited. The author, economist Dean Baker,  described how the Federal Reserve increases unemployment and inflation among low-wage workers. He also made the case that limited-liability corporations, patents, and copyrights, which are all artificial creations of the government, serve to concentrate wealth. Another interesting point is that conservatives have been instrumental in constructing bankruptcy and tort laws to protect special interests. There are so many more examples to cited in the book.

After reading this book, it becomes clear that anyone wanting to promote peace and prosperity ought to engage all aspects of the political spectrum and not just political conservatives who give lip service to the free market. Of course, some conservatives support the market process more greatly than others. The political implications are revealing, I believe. There is a case to be made that conventional Republicans are more heavily invested in big government (to advance an interventionist foreign policy, to impose a particular religious or social doctrine, or to administer police-state policies) and thus are less willing to reduce the scope of government than big-government liberals might. While they might support Rep. Ron Paul’s effort to audit the Fed for the sake of political populism, they will never favor ending the Fed, because it is critical to finance their plunder.

This confirms my own experience when dealing with big-government conservatives, who more stealthy conceal their agenda for centralizing power. They tend to favor lower taxes rates, but they do so to increase taxes receipts by growing the economic base from which to tax. I find that liberals are just more open, maybe callous, about wanting to control others, even if their solutions have the opposite effect from their stated goals of helping the poor. (Insert the obvious caveat that this is not universally true for either side.) The conservatives, by and large, have been more adept at controlling others for the benefit of the wealthy. I have more patience with big-government liberals to the degree that their policies tend to have a lower mortality rate. The same can’t be said of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the American military or the millions punished for committing consensual yet illicit acts. I disagree with plans to socialize heath insurance, but at least it is intellectually and politically honest. It would probably work far better than the disjointed Frankenstein monster that is bound to come out of a congressional committee or the current fascistic health insurance model in place now. So when their socialism fails, because it will, then the politicians couldn’t blame it on the free market.

Without it, the superhuman state, individuals would have probably never conceived of the means to create and to manage transportation systems, to help the poor, to clean the environment, and to defend against coercion, without a supra-agent present to oversee interpersonal relationships within a defined geographic area. Oh, wait!

The impression that only government can solve large public challenges, called “public goods” in economics lingo, is one of the reasons people will continue to believe an intrusive government is necessary, until libertarians break down people’s reflexive attitude of yielding to authority, that is. The assumption behind this support is that only government can provide these so-called public goods, which some people believe could not otherwise be provided, and thus society would be worse off if government didn’t forcefully compel financial support.

The problem is that people in government don’t really come up with workable, affordable solutions to things like transportation and security. How could they? To quote Frederic Bastiat, “Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” They have no incentive to solve any problems. Empirically, they have quite the opposite personal incentives, in fact. The government can’t provide lasting solutions because it has no solutions, only force. Force cannot inspire or innovate; it stagnates. When the government steps in to solve a problem, when it applies force, any progress halts and new problems arise. In the late 1800s, the advent of mass government education, teachers wrote with chalk on blackboards in front of classrooms of students who sat in neat little lines. Sound familiar today, one hundred years later? Force is a distraction from real solutions. If the government can’t provide answers to these legitimate questions, then the true purpose in forwarding statism is simply to obscure the question.

By trying to solve the question of public goods with government, greater public goods are created, including the public goods of a well-informed electorate and just laws. Taking the time to become informed on the issues, studying the economic and social impact for each of the differing policies, and investigating candidates’ records, just to know which candidates to support can be very consuming. Yet an individual’s vote makes an insignificant difference in the outcome of the overwhelming majority of races. Cost-benefit wise, it just doesn’t make sense to put that much effort into it. Many times, votes are cast based on some superficial trait or because the candidate confirms a voter’s bias. Even then, voters are inclined to support only someone with a good chance of winning. The second public good of government is the creation of just laws. For argument’s sake, let’s imagine that trustworthy candidates who have the best interest of all their constituents at heart, not just their supporters, are elected. Those lawmakers are beholden to the narrow interest of their distinct constituents. Lobbyists have a much greater incentive to push for special interests that are at the expense of everyone else or future taxpayers. Together, these public goods create a third public good of limiting the power and abuses of government. Of course it would be in everyone’s best interest for government to be restrained to certain powers, but meanwhile private interests are at work to see that government is not limited for long. It becomes socially acceptable to use coercion of government, which subsidizes the use of violence (via legislation and regulation) against competitors.

Maybe business could be convinced that special interests legislation is actually bad for them in the long run. You never know. Maybe voters could be made aware of the benefits of lower taxes and free trade. But the people who have no interest in seeing the government shrink are the government bureaucrats, their families and friends. Including benefits, the average federal worker makes more than twice the compensation as a private-sector employee. They have a big stake in expanding government, all 2.7 million of them.

Some Alternatives

I also think there is a case that so-called public goods would be significantly less important in an stateless society, where I believe workers would have much greater influence over their working conditions and wages than in limited-liability corporations. Different enterprises would have different aims, not only the maximization of its monetary wealth. It would also be true that in a stateless society individuals would become much more wealthy than they are today and would be more inclined to support environmental preservation. Private property rights would also become better defined because government regulation has often been used by well-connected special interests to lobby for protection from liability where common law tort cases were used to recoup damages. In other cases, governments have simply granted license to polluters.

Most everybody likes to hang their hats on national security. To be considered a credible candidate, even “Internet Constitution Jesus” Ron Paul had to say he supported a strong defense. The fact is that the only security people in government provide is for themselves. They’ve got all the big guns, mind you. There was a case just a few weeks ago of a Northwest Airlines crew that lost contact with ground control for over an hour. No military jets were scrabbled to intercept the plane. We’re talking post-9/11. Nothing. They were luck they were not headed toward Washington, D.C., or New York—else they might have been shot out of the air. To some degree, I understand why people in government would react that way. To conquer a nation, you have to control its capitol. That is the seat of the government, where the main bureaucrats operate, and you can bet the tax records are going to be pretty nearby. Because when nations are at war, they are fighting over who controls the tax livestock in the country. That is one of the advantages of a stateless society; there is no central headquarter on which to lay siege, no infrastructure in place to seize property and taxes.

Besides, if we are to believe that we could cultivate this total activist population, which valued liberty vigorously and made personal sacrifices to secure that liberty for its posterity against an entrenched government, then why would they roll over when an organization a fraction of the size of government with no perceived legitimacy tried to usurp those liberties? It seems to me that if there were such an organization that tried to aggress against others, it takes a lot less effort to prevent. You literally wouldn’t have to lift a finger. You just stop doing business with them.

A Faded Hope

What limited-government activists offer is an uninspiring vision for society, a limited slavery, one in which the best they can hope for is a constant struggle to halt the expansion of the state. It should be self-evident why the “eternal vigilance” struggle is a losing battle. A radical limited-government mindset is neither consistent philosophically nor convenient politically. It does not distinguish itself in principle, as it sanctions the use of violence to solve social problems, and is outside the mainstream of political reality. What are its chances of sustaining a groundswell of support if it is fundamentally no different than other political beliefs yet it hampers the political viability of its supporters? I don’t believe the chances are positive.

Bless those in the battle for limited government. I’ll be cheering for them, no doubt. I’ll be with them 90 out of 100 times. But if I got bribed well enough, I might even starting pitching socialized healthcare when in office. Until then, I don’t feel like idolizing a theoretical government that never existed in practice.

Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul, the son of 2008 Republican presidential contender Ron Paul, is not as principled as his father, it appears.

In a recent statement, Rand Paul said that terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay prison, many of whom have been ordered released on a lack of evidence, do not deserve simple civil rights, saying “Foreign terrorists do not deserve the protections of our Constitution. These thugs should stand before military tribunals and be kept off American soil. I will always fight to keep Kentucky safe and that starts with cracking down on our enemies.”

With all the negligence and shameful acts at these prisons, it is hard to interpret Paul’s assumption of guilt as anything but pandering to the torture wing of the Republican Party. For example, in the case of Chinese-born Huzaifa Parhat, the government’s evidence was so flimsy that the most damning proof it could produce was that while fleeing from the religious persecution of his home country, he had camped at the same village as another suspected terrorist who had no relationship with Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. That was grounds to hold him as an enemy combatant for nearly seven years. He was released in June along with three others worshipers who simply sought religious freedom.

I really wish this was my only nugget of contention with Paul. Bizarrely, he also calls for a declaration of war and continued presence in Afghanistan. Elsewhere on his site, he says he supports a law mandating English be used on documents and contracts and wants to build electric border fences patrolled by helicopters. He says that “illegal” immigrants should be punished for breaking a law they had not part in constructing, yet he does not support upholding the constitution and prosecuting the Bush administration for cases of admitted torture. What we see here is a repeated pattern that foreigners should be denied their liberties and any civil protections under the constitution, but the ruling elite are given a pass when the highest law of the land explicitly calls for the president to “faithfully execute” the law. He is caving to the party line. In essence, he is a neo-con on these fundamental issues.

If you ask me, it’s becoming more and more clear that even leading Ron Paul Republicans refuse to acknowledge they do not own other people’s bodies.