by Ron Paul
One group calls terrorist attacks vicious criminal acts against innocent civilians in an attempt to draw attention to injustices for which the perpetrators see no resolution. The intensity of their conviction becomes so great that they sacrifice their lives for a cause they believe in. The horrendous tragedy is that many innocent bystanders are killed on purpose as the terrorists vent their anger and frustration.
Presidential war powers, already excessive, are tolerated as our Presidents use signing statements on new legislation (written pronouncements issued by a President upon the signing of a bill into law), executive orders, departmental regulations, and abuse of the powers of the CIA and FBI. The constant exaggeration of the dangers that are said to be coming from third-world nations that cannot even feed themselves or refine oil nevertheless convince many Americans that it’s necessary for the President—whether a Republican or Democrat—to keep us safe at all costs.
Even ignoring the real cause of the threat from foreigners who want to terrorize us, few want to put the danger in proper perspective. Nine years without a single terrorist attack in the United States and with innumerable deaths on the highways and homicides in this country is a lot of misplaced effort to “fight” terrorism in the Middle East for which we suffer horrendous casualties and financial burdens.
It’s impossible to make our country safer, freer, and wealthier if we aren’t willing to admit the mistake and come to understand how flawed our policies are. This is a far cry from “blaming America.” Bad policy by a few of our leaders motivated by ignorance, special interests, and self-serving desires is not equivalent to blaming the American people. Closing one’s eyes to this truth is the biggest part of the problem. The American people have to become informed and reject the bad policies of the few who are driven by the special interests. That’s what true patriotism requires—not blind obedience to government-driven war propaganda.
For a little bit of reassurance—even with all the bad mistakes that contributed to the terrorist dangers—it is more likely an American will die from being hit by lightning than from a terrorist attack. I recognize this is a dangerous statement to make—surely there will be someone in Washington who will write legislation to declare a “war on lightning.”
Another way to put this danger in perspective is by noting that out of the 14,000 homicides committed in the United States last year, only fourteen were attributed to terrorism. Between 35,000 and 40,000 deaths occur every year on our government-owned and -operated highways, with minimal concern compared to the danger of terrorism.
Years ago, a member of Congress slipped a laminated quote into my hand that he must have thought I would find meaningful. I paid little attention at first and unfortunately I don’t recall just who gave me the quote. I placed it next to my voting card and have carried it ever since. The quote came from Elie Wiesel’s book One Generation After.1 The quote was entitled “Why I Protest.”
Author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the one righteous man of Sodom, who walked the streets protesting against the injustice of this city. People made fun of him, derided him. Finally, a young person asked: “Why do you continue your protest against evil; can’t you see no one is paying attention to you?” He answered, “I’ll tell you why I continue. In the beginning I thought I would change people. Today, I know I cannot. Yet, if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me.”
I’m not that pessimistic that we can’t change people’s beliefs or that people will not respond to the message of liberty and peace. But we must always be on guard not to have others change us once we gain the confidence that we are on the right track in the search for truth.
Cicero lost his struggle to save the Roman Republic and was assassinated for his efforts. Though imperfect in his political career, he left a great legacy known to this day. He heroically refused to join Julius Caesar’s betrayal of the Roman constitution and the rule of law. Caesar’s personal triumph was solidified and he was appointed dictator for three years. Two years later he was appointed dictator for life and was assassinated soon afterward on the Ides of March.
At the age of sixty and in the year Caesar was crowned dictator, Cicero started writing a series of books on history and politics up until that time. Intellectual study for Cicero was every bit as important as politics and war. By this time in his life, especially since the end of the Republic was at hand, Cicero opted for documenting his thoughts on the significance of a republic that honored the rule of law. He wrote compulsively and once remarked that he wrote more in that short three-year period knowing the republic was doomed than during his lifetime when the republic was in place.
Cicero would have been remembered for what he did actively as a politician and orator in his effort to save the Roman constitution and the republic. But his legacy was sealed for more than 2,000 years by his philosophic dissertations that, once it was clear to him that the Roman Republic was dead, sprang from his effort to reflect on it.
We cannot know exactly what tomorrow will bring, nor in what time the consequences of bad policy will evolve, so we must strive for truth and the preservation of those values that we are convinced have benefited mankind. We could be successful and preserve the American Republic as it was intended, giving up the militarism of the American Empire. The odds are slim that that will occur without a bloody reaction from those who wield the power over the military-industrial complex, our political process, the media, our economy, our monetary system, and our personal lives. But regardless, since the principles of liberty are based on morally correct ideas, anything we do to preserve them will benefit mankind.
Making progress in promoting civilization is a much higher goal than the limited desire to “save the Republic.” Technological advances, the consequences of economic liberty, have far surpassed our ability and concerns for understanding the importance of the moral values required to maintain the process. Concentration on our material well-being and neglect of the moral principles that underpin material abundance will result in the loss of prosperity, peace, and liberty. Already the signs are ominous: a sharply decreasing standard of living for millions worldwide.
The American Empire is the enemy of American freedom. It is every bit as much the enemy of American citizens as it is of its victims around the world.
Denson, John. 2006. A Century of War. Auburn, AL: Mises Institute.
Eland, Ivan. 2004. The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed. Independent Institute. http://www.independent.org.
Mises, Ludwig von. 1945. Omnipotent Government. New Haven: Yale University Press.
ENVY
Envy is the painful awareness of another’s good fortune. It is usually associated with the desire to bring an end to that good fortune through some means. Thus is it worse than jealousy, which is wanting what another has. Envy seeks to take away what another has out of spite and hatred, and is driven by the desire to destroy. It is an extremely destructive emotion, one that cannot bring personal happiness and is sure to bring social harm. The exercise of envy only ends in satisfying a kind of lust for bad to come to others. All the world religions condemn the impulse. It is one of the seven deadly sins. It is something we train our children not to feel. No good can come of it.
I raise it in this context because envy is one of the driving forces of redistributionist politics in the United States, an emotion and motivation endorsed every day on the editorial pages. It is the secret motivation behind the unrelenting attacks on the rich heard every day inside Washington, a town whose population includes some of the most well-to-do people in the entire country. The emotion that is behind the attacks on the justly rich, and the emotion that such attacks seek to stir within the population, is envy.
Envy is sometimes called the green-eyed monster. Many religious traditions have given rise to charms and methods for warding it off. That’s because the envious will stop at nothing in order to achieve their goals of harming those who succeed, even when achieving that goal is itself persona
lly harmful. Policies driven by envy, such as the progressive income tax and the inheritance tax, do not help society. They gather revenue but arguably less than would be gathered if all taxes were low and friendly to overall production. But such policies do accomplish the goal of harming people who are rich and successful.
There are dangerous social consequences to the private exercise of envy. People fear driving a nice car or living in a nice home because these behaviors might elicit reprisal. So it is in public policy. Policies rooted in envy discourage the accumulation of wealth, punish success, and cause people to pull back from doing great things. People who might otherwise pursue wealth think twice, knowing full well that the force of law stands waiting to crush success.
To hate is always injurious to the soul. To hate because another person or class of people has done well for itself compounds the injury. But that is precisely what policies that survive solely to punish people for making money, or for living well, are really all about. It’s been going on for a very long time. It strikes me as a form of institutionalized immorality. Under ideal conditions, our law should elicit from us the best that we have to offer, always appealing to the highest impulses of our nature. Policies that harm people solely because they are winners in life appeal to the lowest impulses in our nature.
It is hard enough for people to come to terms with success, especially in a market setting in which superior traits such as foresight and prudence and good judgment really do lead to profitability. We should learn the virtue of celebrating success or, as the ancient philosophers said, learn to be inspired by the success of others. We should try to emulate success, not punish it. This is the American way and a major reason for the wealth and success of Americans.
It is the same with international politics. We don’t have to be number one and we sure don’t have to regard every country that does well (think China here) as a threat to be kicked and punched. In a true market economy, gain does not come at anyone’s expense. We can all win together, provided we keep the green-eyed monster at bay.
De Jouvenel, Bertrand. 1990. The Ethics of Redistribution. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Schoeck, Helmut. 1987. Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION
No one person has perfect knowledge as to man’s emergence on this earth. Yet almost everyone has a strong religious, scientific, or emotional opinion he or she considers gospel. The creationists frown on the evolutionists, and the evolutionists dismiss the creationists as kooky and unscientific. Lost in this struggle are those who look objectively at all the scientific evidence for evolution without feeling any need to reject the notion of an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator. My personal view is that recognizing the validity of an evolutionary process does not support atheism nor should it diminish one’s view about God and the universe.
From my viewpoint, this is a debate about science and religion (and I wish it could be more civil!) and should not involve politicians at all. Why can’t this remain an academic debate and not be made the political issue it has become?
The answer is simple. Both sides want to use the state to enforce their views on others. One side doesn’t mind using force to expose others to prayer and professing their faith. The other side demands that they have the right never to be offended and demands prohibition of any public expression of faith.
Fortunately, in this country, there’s no effort to establish any official state religion as has been done elsewhere. In many parts of the world today theocracies are still being imposed on many people. It is not a mythical threat, and I understand the impulse to resist. At the same time, the past hundred years have also seen secular dictatorships that banish religion in the name of shoring up allegiance to the state alone. I also understand the very real threat of that terrible reality.
The real problem comes when government gets involved in this issue, whether the goal is to push theocracy or merely prayer in a public place, or the opposite, to crush all traces of faith expression in public places.
One of the silliest questions posed to the Republican presidential candidates in 2008 dealt with evolution. Why should an individual running for the presidency in the United States be quizzed as to whether or not he or she believes in evolution? The question was designed in an attempt for the supporters of evolution to embarrass a candidate who supports creationism, or, if the candidate backs away, to drive a wedge between the candidate and the religious right.
The way the question was asked made it even sillier. It occurred May 3, 2007, in the first presidential debate in Simi Valley, California. The debate was moderated by Chris Matthews and John Harris. One of the moderators called for all the candidates who believed in evolution to raise their hands. At the time, my first impression was that this sounded like a third-grade class exercise. I interpreted raising one’s hand as an all-or-nothing answer and as an insult and didn’t bother to answer the question; nor was I called upon to discuss my views.
Most of the conflict between atheists and believers comes up because of public schools. This issue doesn’t exist in private settings such as homes, homeschools, private schools, churches, and art studios, to name a few. In the private sector, every point of view can find a place and these ideas are not a threat to others. As Thomas Jefferson said: “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.” In a public school setting, however, it’s a major hot-button issue because the school curriculum and all standards of behavior are dictated by the federal government, the Department of Education, and the federal courts.
Though the Constitution in no way prohibits religious expression in public places, the modern interpretation of the Constitution, pushed by the evangelical atheists, demands strict prohibition of public expressions of faith. Athletes can’t even say a prayer before a sporting event according to current court rulings. It’s hard to understand the great danger in a voluntary prayer while it’s considered no threat whatsoever for a minority to use a government power to impose its views on others.
A broad-based tolerance in all directions would go a long way toward eliminating many of the problems, but public schools and public places will continue to exist. In a private setting, the “owners” set the rules and participants come with an understanding of the rules regarding prayer and religious expression and what one wants to hear about evolution.
This still leaves some problems with the possibility that local schools will overstep the bounds of etiquette or will use some textbooks considered to be offensive to one group or another. In this case, the closest one can come to having the “owner” decide would be for the local school board to make the decision and be subject to public challenge at the polls. The Supreme Court handing down edicts that apply to every single circumstance around the country is not a solution.
This will seem to be less than perfect. But it’s a far better solution than having the Supreme Court or the Congress dictate proper decorum with regards to religious expression or picking the books our children will be using in the classroom. Universalization of educational standards and curriculum is exactly the goal of those who seek tyranny over liberty. And if they can use an issue such as prayer in the schools or teaching evolution, they’ll not hesitate to do it.
There is one argument against evolution that deserves consideration. If man is evolving and progressing, why is man’s involvement in mass killings of one another getting worse and the struggle for peace more difficult? Government wars and exterminations in the twentieth century reached 262 million people killed by their own governments and 44 million people killed in wars. I fear that doesn’t say much for the evolutionary process.
Larson, Edward J. 2007. The Creation-Evolution Debate: Historical Perspectives. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
EXECUTIVE POWER
A dictator enjoys unrestrained power over the people. The legislative and judicial branches voluntarily cede this powe
r or it’s taken by force. Most of the time, it’s given up easily, out of fear in time of war and civil disturbances, and with support from the people, although the dictator will also accumulate more power with the use of force. Rarely does an elected leader truly resist the temptation to exert power over the people.
History shows the lust for power to be a human trait, and Jefferson’s argument for “binding our leaders down with the chains of the Constitution” was his answer to this temptation. The Constitution was an effort to do just that. But when the mood changes and the people become fearful, they allow the eager leaders, tempted by power, to grab as much as they can, seeing themselves as the only ones who can rescue the people.
Because the Founders understood this, they made an earnest attempt to write a constitution in which the various powers were separate and designed to place checks and balances on all the activities of the government in order to strictly limit the powers of the President and the executive branch. They did not want a dictator to evolve out of the constitutional republic they were designing. Article I, Section 8, defines the limited area over which the Congress, and therefore the whole federal government, was granted authority.
Without a clear limitation on the powers of the federal government, the Constitution would never have been ratified. To further emphasize the limits of Article I, Section 8, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were added. The debates and the language of the Constitution never suggested that “the general welfare” clause and the “interstate commerce clause” could even hint at justifying a federal welfare-warfare state.