Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom
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An alliance between Israel and moderate Arab nations may well have developed to deal with Saddam Hussein. That type of a solution would have been a blessing to all Americans.
Voluntary support for Israel either by joining its army or sending money there is quite different from taxing, borrowing, and inflating to pay for the additional debt burden to support both sides of this constant fight in the Middle East.
Zionism and the politics of the entire Middle East are international. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be separated from the general acceptance of our two major political parties that our obligation to support Israel at all costs is deeply embedded in our political culture. The threats toward Iran and the sanctions come at the constant urging of the Israeli right-wing government and their supporters here in the United States. The dissidents who speak out in Israel are rarely quoted here in the United States, and any opposition arising in the United States is rarely reported in our media.
As historically controversial and emotionally charged as the Middle East is, logic is not likely to prevail and allow a peaceful solution anytime soon. Misplaced religious passion of the three great religions—which are theoretically supposed to worship the same God—prohibits the universal sharing of the Golden Rule, love for our fellow man, and desire for peace.
But first, we must see more admission of mistakes made as Ronald Reagan did after the Marines were killed in Beirut in 1983. In his memoirs, he admitted he did not realize how complicated Middle East politics were and that he had made a serious error. That is why he went against his own proclamation that he would never “turn tail and run,” because he decided that it was in the best interests of the United States to change a failed policy.
If we were to stay out of the Middle East, militarily and politically, I’m convinced it would be most helpful, in that a “neighborhood” solution would more likely occur without us stirring the pot and jeopardizing more Americans being killed in wars yet to come. This policy, I am certain, would be in the interest of Israel and the United States and world peace.
Carter, Jimmy. 2007. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Saenz-Baillos, Angel. 1996. A History of the Hebrew Language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Slezkine, Yuri. 2006. The Jewish Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
AFTERWORD
Many people are deeply discouraged at the state of affairs in America. They look at goings-on in Washington and see graft, power grabs, senseless regulation and spending, and a government completely out of control, having grown far beyond the size and scope that a free people should ever permit. They are confused about ongoing wars around the world. They are puzzled by the dampening of economic opportunity. People are worried about the future.
These people are right. Some are active in politics and trying to make a change. Others are discouraged to the point of utter cynicism. There is a third path here that I highly recommend, and that is the path of winning hearts and minds through education, first of the individual, and then of others through every way possible.
We must recapture what it means to be free. By this I do not mean that we should all become policy wonks or waste our time studying the details of this or that political initiative or sector of life. I mean that we need to form a new approach to thinking about society and government, one that imagines that we can get along without such central management. We need to become more tolerant of the imperfections that come with freedom, and we need to give up the illusion that somehow putting government in charge of anything is going to improve its workings, much less bring on utopia.
To embrace the idea of liberty is not a natural condition of mankind. In fact, we are disposed to tolerate far more impositions on liberty than we should. To love liberty requires an act of the intellect, I believe. It involves coming to understand how all the things we love in this world were given to us under conditions of liberty.
We need to come to see government as it is, not as we wish it to be and not as the civics books describe it. And we need to surrender our attachments to government in every aspect of life. This goes for the right and the left. We need to give up our dependencies on the state, materially and spiritually. We should not look to the state to provide for us financially or psychologically.
Let us give up our longing for welfare, our love of war, and our desire to see the government control and shape our fellow citizens. Let us understand that it is far better to live in an imperfect world than it is to live in a despotic world ruled by people who lord it over us through force and intimidation. We need a new understanding of what it means to be a great nation; it should mean, as George Washington said, that our nation is a beacon unto the world, not that we conquer the world militarily, impose our will on everyone, or even remain number one in the GDP rankings. Our sense of what it means to be great must be defined first by morality.
We must come to imagine liberty again, and believe that it can be a reality. In order to do this, we do not need songs, slogans, rallies, programs, or even a political party. All we need is access to good ideas, some degree of idealism, and the courage to embrace the liberty that so many great people of the past have embraced.
Liberty built civilization. It can rebuild civilization. And when the tides turn and the culture again celebrates what it means to be free, our battle will be won. It could happen in our time. It might happen after we are gone from this earth. But it will happen. Our job in this generation is to prepare the way.
APPENDIX
The ten principles of a free society:
1. Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government.
2. All peaceful, voluntary economic and social associations are permitted; consent is the basis of the social and economic order.
3. Justly acquired property is privately owned by individuals and voluntary groups, and this ownership cannot be arbitrarily voided by governments.
4. Government may not redistribute private wealth or grant special privileges to any individual or group.
5. Individuals are responsible for their own actions; government cannot and should not protect us from ourselves.
6. Government may not claim the monopoly over a people’s money and government must never engage in official counterfeiting, even in the name of macroeconomic stability.
7. Aggressive wars, even when called preventative, and even when they pertain only to trade relations, are forbidden.
8. Jury nullification, that is, the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, is a right of the people and the courtroom norm.
9. All forms of involuntary servitude are prohibited, not only slavery but also conscription, forced association, and forced welfare distribution.
10. Government must obey the law that it expects other people to obey and thereby must never use force to mold behavior, manipulate social outcomes, manage the economy, or tell other countries how to behave.
Young people, especially, ask me what I read in pursuit of these goals of freedom, peace, and prosperity. I reference many important works, old and new, in this and my other books, of course. But on the Internet, about which I am questioned the most, I especially value Lewrockwell.com, as well as Mises.org, Antiwar.com, and Campaignforliberty.com.
CONTENTS
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Introduction
Abortion
Assassination
Austrian Economics
Bipartisanship
Business Cycle
Campaign Finance Reform
Capital Punishment
Central Intelligence Agency
Civil Disobedience
Conscription
Demagogues
Democracy
Discrimination
Education
Empire
Envy
Evolution versus Creation
Foreign Aid
Four Freedoms
Global Warming
Gun Control
Hate Crimes
Immigration
Insurance
Keynesianism
Lobbying
Marriage
Medical Care
Monetary Policy
Moral Hazard
Morality in Government
Noble Lie
Patriotism
Political Correctness
Prohibition
Public Land
Racism
Religion and Liberty
Security
Slavery
States’ Rights
Statistics
Surveillance
Taxes
Terrorism
Torture
Trade Policies
Unions
Zionism
Afterword
Appendix: Ten Principles of a Free Society
Also by Ron Paul
Copyright
ALSO BY RON PAUL
End the Fed
The Revolution: A Manifesto
A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship
Pillars of Prosperity: Free Markets, Honest Money, Private Property
The Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the United States Gold Commission
1. An excellent overview of the history of the idea of liberty and its right is Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005) and Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism (Mises Institute [1929] 2010)
1. Akinrinola Bankole, et al., “Reasons Why Women Have Induced Abortions: Evidence from 27 Countries.” International Family Planning Perspectives (1998).
2. Susan A. Cohen, “Repeat Abortion, Repeat Unintended Pregnancy, Repeated and Misguided Government Policies.” Guttmacher Policy Review, Spring 2007, Volume 10, Number 2.
1. Glenn Greenwald, “Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen.” Salon, April 7, 2010. Salon.com.
2. This statement was made in Congressional testimony and is widely documented. See, e.g., http://www.democracynow.org/.
1. The Causes of the Economic Crisis, “Stabilization of the Monetary Unit,” (Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2006), p. 14.
1. There are many, many more examples of this archived at FreedomRadio.com, with complete citations to each case.
1. “Secrets of History: The CIA in Iran,” New York Times, April 16, 2000.
2. “Total U.S. Intelligence Bill Revealed for First Time,” Associated Press, October 28, 2010.
3. Coletta Youngers, Eileen Rosin, eds. Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), p. 206.
4. Jacob Hornberg, “More CIA Killings, Lies, and Cover-Ups,” November 21, 2008, FFF.org.
1. “Muhammad Ali: The Greatest,” Time, June 14, 1999.
2. “The Greatest Is Gone,” Time, February 27, 1978.
3. A good roundup of the case can be found at Wikipedia /Ruby_Ridge, accessed December 15, 2010.
1. SSS.gov says: “Almost all male U.S. citizens, and male aliens living in the U.S., who are 18 through 25, are required to register with Selective Service. It’s important to know that even though he is registered, a man will not automatically be inducted into the military. In a crisis requiring a draft, men would be called in sequence determined by random lottery number and year of birth. Then, they would be examined for mental, physical and moral fitness by the military before being deferred or exempted from military service or inducted into the Armed Forces.”
2. Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, “The American Militia and the Origin of Conscription: A Reassessment,” Journal of Libertarian Studies, Volume 15, Number 4 (Fall 2001): pp. 29–77.
1. All of Spooner’s writings are worthy of study. George H. Smith, The Lysander Spooner Reader (San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1992).
1. Elie Wiesel, One Generation After (New York: Random House, 1970), p. 72.
1. “Obama Administration Weighs Indefinite Detention,” NPR, November 24, 2010. Story by Dina Temple-Raston.
1. The evidence of manipulation here is overwhelming. But consider Ralph Alexander, Global Warming False Alarm (Royal Oak, Michigan: Canterbury, 2009).
2. Daniel K. Benjamin, “Eight Great Myths of Recycling,” Jane S. Shaw, ed., PERC Policy Series, number PS-28 (September 2003) http://www.perc.org/pdf/ps28.pdf.
1. The National Rifle Association writes: “Since 1991, when violent crime peaked in the U.S., 24 states have adopted “shall issue” laws, replacing laws that prohibited carrying or that issued carry permits on a very restrictive basis; many other federal, state, and local gun control laws have been eliminated or made less restrictive; and the number of privately-owned guns has risen by about 90 million. The numbers of gun owners and firearms, RTC states, and people carrying firearms for protection, have risen to all-time highs, and through 2008 the nation’s murder rate has decreased 46 percent to a 43-year low, and the total violent crime rate has decreased 41 percent to a 35-year low. Preliminary data reported by the FBI indicate that violent crime decreased further in the first half of 2009.” http://www.nraila.org.
1. See, for example, End the Fed (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2010); The Case for Gold (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1982; Auburn, AL: Mises Institute, 2007).
1. National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Task Force on Disorders and Terrorism, Disorders and Terrorism (Washington DC: GPO, 1976).
2. Robert Pape and James Ke Feldman. Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
1. “Elite Club Conceals CIA Torture Cells.” ABC News, November 18, 2009.
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by The Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, Inc. (FREE)
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ISBN: 978-1-4555-0443-5
Table of Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Introduction
Abortion
Assassination
Austrian Economics
Bipartisanship
Business Cycle
Campaign Finance Reform
Capital Punishment
Central Intelligence Agency
Civil Disobedience
Conscription
Demagogues
Democracy
Discrimination
Education
Empire
Envy
Evolution versus Creation
Executive Power
Foreign Aid
Four Freedoms
Global Warming
Gun Control
Hate Crimes
Immigration
Insurance
Keynesianism
Lobbying
Marriage
Medical Care
Monetary Policy
Moral Hazard
Morality in Government
Noble Lie
Patriotism
Prohibition
Public Land
Racism
Religion and Liberty
Security
Slavery
States’ Rights
Statistics
Surveillance
Taxes
Terrorism
Torture
Trade Policies
Unions
Zionism
Afterword
Appendix: Ten Principles of a Free Society