joshhansen.net

Category: politics

  • Ron Paul: From Terrible Ideas to Bad Ideas AND Searching for a Philosopher King?

    Vice President VS? Platon-2 VS? Rp_photo

    After last night reading two disheartening Washington Post articles about the Vice President’s twisted policies, I was interested to learn about Ron Paul. I thought I remembered someone I know mentioning him as a favorite when he watched the debates, so could Mr. Paul be the Messiah candidate who will come to save the Republican party?

    Sadly…

    I’m afraid the answer is no. At least, that’s my view. As we know from the New Testament, one person’s expectations of a Messiah can be quite different from someone else’s. But to me, he would represent a step backward from the ideal. In some ways, maybe not as far backward as currently, but in other ways certainly more so.

    Here’s a summary of his platform from his most recent blog post on the official Ron Paul website:

    I talked about all our ideas: marching out of Iraq just as we marched in; no more meddling in the Middle East; bringing the troops home, from hundreds of expensive bases all over the world, so that we could have the money we need for the transition to freedom in social programs, and to abolish the personal income tax and the IRS. They are not compatible with a free society.

    In a Ron Paul administration, we would also repeal the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act, restore habeas corpus and stop the spying on Americans. No more eavesdropping on our emails and bank accounts, our phone calls, home and businesses. No national ID—€”just the bracing freedom of the Constitution.

    We must have sound money, and not a giant counterfeiting machine called the Federal Reserve that causes recessions and inflation. We must have private property rights, with no pollution or other attacks on property. We should enforce the Second Amendment, and all the Bill of Rights. We can have privacy for us, not secrecy for a corrupt bureaucracy.

    It is all within our grasp, the restoration of the republic and our sovereignty—no UN, no North American Union, no Nafta, no WTO, no World Bank, no IMF. Just federalism, free enterprise, peace, prosperity, and the kind of future we all want for our families, ourselves, and our fellow Americans.

    The dream can be a reality. You can help make it so. … Instead of wars and inflation and spying and poverty, we can have peace and freedom and the blessings for our children and grandchildren of doing better than we have, of secure retirements and childhoods. No more theft… of our savings or our liberty.

    A Tiny Parcel of Common Ground and The Death of Free Trade

    Some of these things sound great. I’m all for privacy. After learning enough about the abuses of various totalitarian governments, it’s clear that the dangers of not protecting the privacy of individuals are quite substantial. I’m all for treating prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention—that means the CIA must come into line as well as the military. I’m a “no entangling alliances” kind of guy in many ways, but frankly the congressman’s desire for free enterprise and prosperity is in some ways at odds with his will to abandon the WTO.

    And, bailing out on the IMF surely won’t bring financial solvency to the Third World nations that are helped back onto their feet through its loan program. Of course these organizations suffer from corruption and mismanagement, but they also seem to have some legitimate functions such as reducing trade barriers and enabling governments to move their populations out of poverty. Perhaps we should reform rather than abolish.

    Can people not understand that the lowering of trade barriers as enshrined in the WTO is one of the great sources of our present prosperity? Yes, even globalization (the ‘g’ word, I know) is part of our current success. Not only that, but it helps bring greater prosperity to people around the world.

    Other Bad Ideas: The Gold Standard?

    Additional atrocities of policy include abandoning Iraq all at once. Throw in the closure of other bases around the world and all of a sudden a picture of self-centered isolationism emerges. Let’s just enjoy our prosperity, keep it all to ourselves. Another component seems to be the dismantling of the federal reserve. WHY? Should people barter in goods and services when there’s no longer anybody regulating the value of the dollar? Are we going to switch back to the gold standard? Check this from The Daily Paul:

    Question: You support returning the country’s currency back to the gold standard. Is that correct?
    Ron Paul: Not exactly. I’m for supporting the Constitution, and the Constitution still says only gold and silver can be legal tender. … The reasons I don’t like to say “go back” is because there were shortcomings in the original gold standard. What I reject, and the founders totally rejected, was a paper standard—creating money out of thin air. Spending money you don’t have. Printing it up. Causing inflation. Causing bubbles. Causing recessions. And wiping out the middle class. The middle class is getting poorer as the wealthy class is getting wealthier. [The advertisement for “The Federal Reserve: Fraud of the Century” at the top of the page sort of scares me. Upon the back of this “fraud” is built an innovative, lively economy. Dear Google, your 172 billion dollars of market capitalization are “fraudulent,” so look out!]

    Okay buddy, you go find the political will and the budget to purchase 600 or 700 billion dollars worth of gold to back the currency. Please, could every politician and presidential candidate take Economics 110 from Dr. Kearl? Some things, like gold, have inherent value due to their scarcity. Other things, like the dollar, have a value because society has agreed that it can be used in exchange. Really, in some ways it’s more secure to let the value of the dollar float. What if it was pinned to the value of gold, and suddenly a vast gold deposit was discovered in the middle of, say, Oklahoma? The value of gold would drop in proportion to the size of the deposit, causing a sudden inflation of the dollar as its purchasing power diminishes. And, wiping out the middle class? I don’t know about you, but I’m still feeling pretty alive. Yes, the rich get richer, but in addition, the middle class are very often becoming part of the rich. I guess if you wipe out the middle class by making it too prosperous that’s not terrible.

    Mr. Paul should also remember that price fluctuations and economic bubbles were definitely a reality of the American economy under the gold standard. Here’s a friendly chart from Wikipedia.

    Please Don’t Go Down That Road

    The man’s interpretation of the constitution is simply too strict. If he wishes to restrict our currency to gold and silver, then I suppose debit cards and checks won’t do? Most of the “money” in circulation in the country, perhaps even in the world, is not cash or even necessarily linked to cash. Loans from the federal reserve and between banks, personal checks, etc., allow our economy have a 6 trillion dollar volume when we actually have less than one trillion dollars in physical currency circulating. I’m glad that our economy is flexible enough to prosper! I suppose I put a little bit too much confidence and trust in our economy. The other evil is failing to understand it, trying to fix what “ain’t broke,” and thus seeking salvation from an unknown danger (is our economy faltering?) by means that will likely cause serious damage.

    Abolition of personal income tax and the IRS: How will the activities of the government be financed? Who will collect taxes? Besides, the constitution as currently amended specifically authorizes Congress to levy an income tax. How is this incompatible with a free society? Of course, I do think some radical reform of tax laws might be in order. But we still need to have tax laws. As much as people despise paying taxes, it seems to keep the lights on, the universities funded, and the troops more or less equipped. I’m okay with that.

    That Lot of Clowns, That Menagerie…

    So I’ve ripped into Ron Paul pretty heavily here. I’m sorry for the violence, but it helps me to see where I stand with regards to at least one member of the coming wave of presidential contenders. You know, maybe I’ll make a series of it. I’ll do an analysis of all of the candidates one by one, so that by November 2008 I’ll know whose policies I can find enough agreement with to vote for. So far, I’m seeing nobody that I could really feel 100% or even 90% good about. But, maybe I just don’t know their platforms well enough. So maybe I’ll get up the energy to write similar reviews (critiques?) in the future.

    I hope that this hasn’t been offensive if any of you are committed Ron Paul fans. I also hope that through all of the scathing words you’ve been able to find something insightful. This post also gives a bit of a feel for my frustrations as far as politics. My lament could be summed up in one line, which some of you should connect with Plato’s The Republic:

    Where, oh where, is our Philosopher King?

    Join me in my search.

  • En españa—totally soaked, newly conscious

    I’m completely wet. Tonight we’re going to see the new Pirates movie, Piratas del carribe 3: en el fin del mundo, as they call it here. So to accompany that, we’re going to watch the first movie on a projector here at the school. Well, we were supposed to meet at 4pm, so I headed out into a nice thunderstorm to get there on time-ish. I had an umbrella, I had a sweatshirt, I rolled up the bottom of each pant leg, but to no avail. The front of me got soaked all the way to my hips, and my backpack was hit just as hard!

    Well, it should be dry at least by the time we watch the new movie at 8:30 tonight. Meanwhile, I’ve had some interesting realizations about America and Europe. To summarize: I’m more grateful for my homeland than ever. There are certainly problems there, but in many ways it’s like a fairy tale compared to the rest of the world. I didn’t realize how much we have, materially, culturally, spiritually. Also, I’m more grateful for our friends here in Europe. While the United States made great sacrifices in the second World War and in providing an alternative to communism, we never had our country overcome by dictators or destroyed by nightly bombing raids. We never lived in the shadow of the Soviet Union or had to endure German occupation. In other words, many of our sacrifices were made from a safe distance. Theirs were made right at home. I’ve had conversations with people here in which I’ve been able to understand a little better their frustrations with our involvement in Iraq. They see the Iraq war as having been a misguided quest for petroleum. They also feel like the Iraq war has been the cause of the terror attacks in London and Madrid by radicalizing muslims into islamists. Europeans speak much of the fall of the American “empire,” which has always confused me. But they (some of them, anyway) also realize that they themselves are part of that empire. The whole of the west enjoys the protection of American strength. Spanish and Dutch people I’ve talked to feel that America has gone in search of terrorists far away in Iraq, while we already know that such people can be found amongst our own populations, in terror cells in Spain, France, Holland, whatever.

    Most people acknowledge that we’re seeing a clash of civilizations. The disagreement is really in the implementation details. The question we have to face is whether it’s best to stay the course in Iraq. If so (and I think it probably is so) then we must decide how to best improve the situation there. If not, we have to find an exit strategy that is minimally harmful, though I don’t know if we can hope to influence things too much as we’re on our way out. Either way we need to keep the confidence of our allies in Europe. While in many ways western culture as embodied in western Europe is quite an embarrassment in its abandonment of almost all forms of morality and in its paranoiac fear of armed conflict. But, western culture is my culture, one way or another. Here in Spain, there are so many similarities in thought and values to those I am accustomed to that it is clear that we and they have some common roots. We, meaning the United States, need to accept that and encourage solidarity amongst all of the West.

    We also want to avoid self-fulfilling prophecies. I think there is truth to the observation that much of the conflict we see right now is a result of East-West culture differences. However, let’s not let that observation guide our possibilities too much. We should do whatever we can do to encourage good relations and cultural and economic exchange with the Arab/Muslim/Eastern world. Let us fight the war on terror in the way it’s being waged against us. This does not mean that we will adopt the tactics of fear and pointless destruction that we face. Instead, it means that we need to work smart. We’ve already given in to the temptation to try to bludgeon terrorism with the blunt end of our military might. Instead, we need a specialized intelligence corps – not the FBI, not the CIA, not Special Forces, but something different. Instead of “terror cells” we need antiterror cells. Instead of letting radical propoganda win on the Internet and in public forums, we need people to communicate our message. What is that message? That there is a better way. That America doesn’t want to control your destiny. Here, it’s yours, take it. Do something good with it. Strengthen your people. Build a beautiful culture. But don’t resort to hate. Instead of a cry of jihad let us make a cry of libertad! Let’s make Western culture something worth defending. We must not only be the guardians of democracy, but let us also be good people. So to libertad let’s add bondad! The jihadists make some accusations against us, such as that we are immoral and materialistic. Let’s make sure there’s as little truth to those charges as possible. Just as NATO provided an alternative culture in contrast to the Soviet empire, the free world needs to provide if not an entire culture than at least cultural elements that members of the Arab world seeking an alternative can turn to instead of jihadism.

    Anyway, I’m sort of rambling. I’ll need to refine these thoughts a bit, but here are some kernels of my latest ideas. Take care!

  • On the War

    Vietnamescape
    The Americans bailed, let’s get out of here! (Vietnam 1975? Iraq 20×6?)

    [Note: this article is a reposting of something I wrote for my family-only blog. It seems to be appropriate for general circulation, though, and I now present it with only the slightest editing.]

    I sort of think fighting over politics is like Bible bashing: totally unproductive. Why fight over the Good News? Why start a war talking about a war? With these risks in mind, I do want to throw in a few thoughts of mine.

    Those Who Cannot Remember the Past are Condemned to Repeat It

    It’s important to keep things in perspective. The failure of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI taught the Allies to do things differently after WWII. The debacle of the collapse of South Vietnam after U.S. withdrawal there should teach us to do things differently with Iraq. What happened when the United States pulled out of Vietnam? The Democratic Congress refused to finance further military operations in Vietnam and the south of that country was swept over by the communist forces, hundreds of thousands of people were sent to “re-education” camps as punishment for “collaborating” with the Americans during the war, and Vietnam embarked on a 20 year epoch of isolation from which it has only recently been emerging, at least economically. Vietnam has yet to grant freedoms of religion or speech, and represses those liberties far more rigorously than the Chinese Communists do. (For more information on the withdrawal and the Communist takeover see Operation Frequent Wind and Fall of Saigon in Wikipedia.)

    Contrast that with South Korea, where the U.S. forces did not withdraw. South Korea allows full freedom of expression and religion, and turns out to be the world’s 13th largest economy, ahead of Australia and Russia. More recent data shows that Russian and perhaps Australia have leaped ahead of South Korea in economic output since I originally posted this.)) If American support for the war declined to Vietnam-like levels, we may have withdrawn, subjecting the entire Korean peninsula to the benighted state currently reserved for the pitiable North.

    Comparing the Costs

    Significantly, nearly 60,000 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam, twenty times the current casualties in Iraq after 2.5 times as many years. Given the current average casualty rate, it will take about 72 more years for casualties in Iraq to equal casualties in Vietnam. Current spending on Iraq is relatively less than in Vietnam as well. (Of course, 1-2% of the GNP of the United States annually is still an astronomical sum.)

    About 100,000 Americans die every year as a result of alcohol use according to some sources. (According to CDC’s more conservative estimates, “excessive alcohol use was responsible for approximately 75,000 preventable deaths” in the United States in 2001.) “The total cost of alcohol problems is $175.9 billion a year (compared to $114.2 billion for other drug problems and $137 billion for smoking).” (Marin Institute) By contrast, the United States is spending about $120 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. We could save twice as much money and hundreds of times more lives by eliminating alcohol and tobacco than we would save by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. What are our priorities? Is this really all about saving lives and money? Or is it about lack of will, unwillingness to stick with a commitment once we’re bored of it? In the Book of Mormon, it’s clear that the problem the Nephites had with the infestation of robbers had more to do with having the will to do what was necessary to eradicate them than it had to do with having sufficient strength to do so or with being morally justified in doing so. (See Helaman 6:18,20-21,37. The robbers of Gadianton described in the Book of Mormon are a stunningly close parallel to Jihadist terrorists, from their organizational structure to their penchant for hiding out in mountainous regions.)

    43% of marriages contracted today will theoretically end in divorce.

    Many war opponents argue that every life is precious, every soldier’s death is a tragedy. True. But at least they are dieing in the hope of helping a nation onto its feet and into a free, prosperous, peaceful future rather than merely in the pursuit of a high or a quick slosh.

    Having mentioned the Book of Mormon already, I’d like to say that that book does seem to condemn the way in which we entered the war in Iraq. Regardless, we’re there, basically the whole nation agreed to go there, and we have a responsibility to leave things better than we found them.

    Post Mortem

    Was that so bad? If nobody else cared to read it, I’m still glad I wrote it. I feel like, given media coverage, people almost have no option but to hate the war, hate the president, and just “want out.” I have too much respect for myself to simply accept what’s handed to me by CNN or even our favorite student paper, The Daily Universe (which mostly just runs Associated Press stories, anyway). I’ve just had these thoughts bouncing around for a long time, so it’s good to get them out.

    There is danger in unquestioningly supporting a war. But there is also danger in merely accepting the bidding of the popular media. Supporting or opposing the war in light of history, costs, benefits, consequences, that’s getting to the core of the issues.

    I conditionally support the war in Iraq and the President. I think the Democratic majority in Congress—while it brings with it some serious annoyances—is good in motivating the Republican leadership to innovate and find more effective solutions. As bad as things are in Iraq, they will get much, much worse if we abandon those people. Genocide? Not a happy thing. I still feel like the lives of our men and women are being sacrificed for something noble and still actually attainable, a dream that President Bush and I still share to a large degree: a peaceful, free, democratic Iraq.