A straight talking interview with Ron Paul. You may not agree with it all, but he is refreshing. (His introductory remarks on pollution were, it seemed, a bit garbled, but it’s not easy to answer complex questions on the fly like that. And it’s a shame that he didn’t get to talk about his strongest topic: a non-interventionist foreign policy.)
A Little Partisan Politics
7 Responses to “A Little Partisan Politics”
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Consistent application of the law of nuisance would go a long way toward dealing with stinky smokestacks and the like. The real problem is things like CFCs, which may affect people in other parts of the world. The common law of property and nuisance slices and dices and is otherwise wonderful, but it was never meant to deal with global externalities, and you could even argue that the US constitution was never meant to deal with those, I think. That makes global externalities such a tricky question for people like Paul. (I also assume that he is not too fond of the treaties-trump-the-constitution loophole.)
I think that from Paul’s point of view, what he should probably say about global externalities is this: the Montreal protocol has shown that if the danger is clear, it is possible to shame independent nation states into regulating a CFCs. Similarly, if you believe the US federal government has no power to regulate CFC emissions, you could say it is incumbent on the environmentalists to go and convince each of the states that they should regulate CFCs. If it can work worldwide, it should definitely work inside a culturally homogeneous federal state.
I wonder if he wants to abolish the IRS all at once or here a little, there a little. Who’s going to take up the slack when there are no unemployment insurance benefits and everyone at Boeing and Raytheon, et al. has been given the heave ho?
I also wonder about his views on “fetal rights.” Late-term abortions are debatable, but what about morning-after pills and first-trimester abortions? If local jurisdictions govern, will women in need of abortions have to have money for the abortion and airfare to travel to a location where more liberal or libertarian ideas prevail?
Re: the environment, does anyone know if he wants to abolish government-certified or sanctified corporate privilege along with the IRS, or is big business going to retain its government-protected privileges and limited liability for pillage, plunder and pollution while big government goes the way of the dodo?
How is a private property owner who owns a few acres of land supposed to convince a corporate property owner to stop spreading carcinogens? Simply ask them politely to take better care of their land?
Who owns the depleted oceans and the polluted air? When factory-fish trawlers dredge the sea to supply Europeans with the seafood feasts they’ve grown accustomed to, where are East Africans supposed to get food when their fish run out? Should they simply expand the bushmeat trade?
All these liberatarian ideas like eliminating the IRS and ending war sound great, but where’s the blueprint or some practical roadmap to get from corpo-government lockdown conditions to a more liveable country?
Southpaw,
the left-pawed cat
I just wish he’d talk about his other strong position: opposition to civil rights for blacks and homosexuals, opposition to a woman’s right to control her reproductive capacity, opposition to the constitutional separation of church and state (he says there’s no such thing), and support for laws that regulate private sexual conduct. The man is a far right zealot. I wish he would talk about these things so people would know what he really stood for. Clearly they don’t bother to read his public speeches and writings to find out.
Thanks for the research, Andrew. What a sorry situation.
@Andrew
I think you misunderstand these positions. There are no civil rights for blacks or whites or homosexuals or heterosexuals. To give someone special rights because of belonging to a group is not in the interest of personal liberty. Every individual has rights because of being an individual. That with abortion is tricky because it depends on whether you regard the fetus as an individual or not. My personal opinion is that abortion should be discouraged but not punished. “support for laws that regulate private sexual conduct”? Where does Dr. Paul support that? Did you made that up?
@Southpaw
What Ron Paul thinks about ending the IRS see here: http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/topic.php?id=0
A private property owner could sue a corporation spreading carcinogens. And as long as the oceans are owned by nobody there will be fishing quotas needed I guess. There is no blueprint from “here” to “there”, therefore I favour that most legislative responsibilities should be transferred to local jurisdictions. I think a jurisdiction of the size of ca 100 000 people (county or city district size) would be practical to find real world solutions to all those problems where no consensus is in reach.
Ending the IRS is rather here: http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=950 The other link in my previous post is the overview over the tax section of this library.
Thank you, Morken, for the library links.
Paul is of the opinion that the GROUP he calls the elitist secular Left is trying to spoil Christmas or establish some kind of rigid orthodoxy that the Founders never intended:
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=337
Yet happily enough for the Paul campaign, that GROUP is not so monolithic that it would preclude linking to nonelitist INDIVIDUALS, or the common man, at Counterpunch:
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/links.php
Perhaps a 2008 twist on multi-partisan partisan politics.
Now, back to the Onion.