Why You Should Vote for Paul and not Romney

In my article, 'The Republican Election' I pointed out that no one can reasonably deny that Ron Paul is the most conservative of all the candidates, not to mention being the only one who has a realistic plan for cutting America’s national debt. Moreover, he is also the only candidate who takes serious the need to interpret the constitution (especially the 10th amendment) through the lens of authorial intent. (For more about the 10th amendment and the importance of states' rights, see my article here.)

I also pointed out that one hugely overlooked problem with Romney's Mormonism is the simple issue of trustworthiness. Can a Mormon be trustworthy? As a former Mormon missionary for two years, it is probable that Romney will have been taught to lie about his movement. The culture of lying is deeply embedded in the Mormon church and forms a key component of the missionary training program that Romney will have attended at Brigham Young University. Mormons are literally trained to hide key facts about their sect’s teaching and are taught a variety of techniques to obscure the truth. Do Americans want someone with this background to be President?  I don't want to be simplistic, nor to imply that this is the main problem with voting for Romney (it's not!) but the question is at least important to explore in more depth.

Further Reading

The Republican Election

The Republican Election

Americans are probably sick and tired of hearing news about the election, but for the sake of my foreign readers, it may be helpful to see the explanation I wrote four years ago about how the process of electing a president actually works in America.

Additionally, the following summary which I recently wrote for the Christian Voice newsletter may be helpful. (It was written prior to Romney's Super Tuesday victories, most of it still applies.)

Ron Paul on Abortion

The Government just stole from the poor

I just read here that the day after the election, the Federal Reserve made a little-noticed announcement that it’s printing up another $1 trillion. To get an idea just how much money that is, click here.

Not enough people realize it, but every time the government prints money, it is stealing from us. It is stealing the purchasing value of the dollars we already have, and this tends to affects the poor the worst.
The government can choose who receives the new money (friends of government and military contractors) and by the time it trickles down to the rest of us, the new money has already lost much of its value. "To steal from the shoemaker the fruit of his labor," noted Herbert Schlossberg in Idols of Destruction, one can take his product or the money he has received for it. Or else one can so tamper with the monetary system that the money will not serve to purchase economic goods equivalent to the product the shoemaker provides. Outright stealing is widely recognized for what it is, but the economic crime that accomplishes the same thing through debasing the money is not. Yet the motive and the effect are the same."

A Foreign Policy of Freedom

 
Anyone who is concerned about Obama's quiet but steady military buildup, should go and buy a copy of Ron Paul's A Foreign Policy of Freedom.
 

"A policy of foreign intervention has numerous shortcomings. A casual look at the results of interventionist policies, both throughout history and in our American experience over the past hundred years, should convince a thoughtful person that the Founders' policy of nonintervention makes a great deal of sense. There are several reasons, of course, that nations cling to a policy of foreign entanglements. Political power is an aphrodisiac for most politicians, and too many of those with power develop grandiose dreams of world conquest. In the United States, private financial interests frequently benefit from foreign meddling, and foreign nationalistic interests also influence our policies and relationships in world affairs.

Warnings from Ron Paul

Foreign Policy

 

I promised that after Lent was over I would reply to comments that Mike Foil left on my earlier post Is Obama a Man of Peace? Mike raises some very good points and asks some penetrating questions. To start with, he writes, quoting from me:

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“What could quickly escalate into a proxy war against China." This, he concludes, is a result of the US selling arms to Taiwan. Just possibly, could it be that the US sold arms to Taiwan because China was already making aggressive actions toward Taiwan? China, for years, has claimed that Taiwan belongs to them, but Taiwan, claims to be an independent country. The US has a treaty with Taiwan. The US is in business to sell arms to friendly nations so they can defend themselves, to some extent, against an aggressor nation, such as China. China has been building a massive military might. They have threatened to physically take Taiwan. So, does the US honor the treaty or turn-tail and run due to a threat?”

I agree, Mike, the US should honor its treaties. But the whole point is that the United States should never have made those treaties in the first place. Let's not forget that in his Farewell Address, George Washington warned future generations of Americans against becoming entangled in the affairs of other nations. He said, “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.” In the early days of the American Republic, Washington’s advice was heeded. Thus, in 1821, America’s sixth president, John Quincy Adams, could reflect back and boast that [America] has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception...abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.... Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”

You or I may disagree about the ethics of selling weapons to friendly nations so that they can defend themselves, but can we at least agree that this foreign policy is un-American and a departure from the vision of the founders?

"Not content with being the only nation with troops and military bases astride all five continents..." If the US is not defending freedom and liberty in other countries, who would? Who would be the deterrent to keep North Korea out of the south, if not US? Who would support Israel, if not US?”

Texas Secession

On Salvo's 'Signs of the Times' blog, I have just posted some thoughts on Ron Paul's comments regarding Texas Secession. Check it out HERE. If this subject happens to interest you, I have put further resources on States' Rights at Resources for War Between the States.

Ron Paul on Swine Flu

"The Gold Standard

"The gold standard has historically been a bulwark against inflation. It is politically manipulated money such as we have had since the 1930s that causes our inflation. That hsould not be unexpected, or difficult to understand. The supply of gold is relatively fixed and grows only modestly. But in a free economy, capital investment leads to ever-greater productivity, and the ability to produce more and more goods over time. So with gold relatively stable on the on hand and the supply of goods growing by leaps and bounds on the other, the gold will tend to be worth more and more, and the prices of these goods will be lower and lower." Ron Paul, The Revolution, pp. 149.

The Hidden Tax

"When the value of Americans' savings is deliberately eroded through inflation, that is a tax, albeit a hidden one. I call it the inflation tax, a tax that is all the more insidious for being so underhanded: most Americans have no idea what causes it or why their standard of living is going down. Meanwhile, government and its favored constituencies receive their ill-gotten loot. The racket is safe as long as no one figures out what is going on." Ron Paul, from The Revolution, pp. 143-144.
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“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. – As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace.
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"To steal from the shoemaker the fruit of his labor, one can take his product or the money he has received for it. Or else one can so tamper with the monetary system that the money will not serve to purchase economic goods equivalent to the product the shoemaker provides. Outright stealing is widely recognized for what it is, but the economic crime that accomplishes the same thing through debasing the money is not. Yet the motive and the effect are the same." (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols of Destruction, p. 90.)
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But We're At War

"Those of us who still mention the Constitution, even now, and our obligation to observe it, are sometimes answered with the curt reply, 'We're at war.' We are indeed fighting undeclared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an open-ended war against terrorism worldwide. But if the president claims extraordinary wartime powers, and we fight undeclared wars with no beginning and no end, when if ever will those extraordinary powers lapse? Since terrorism will never be eliminated completely, should all future presidents be able to act without regard to Congress or the Constitution simply by asserting, 'We're at war'?" (Ron Paul, The Revolution, p. 124)

Thomas Aquinas and the Limitations of Law

"In the Treatise on Law in his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas explains (citing Augustine) that not all vices should be punished by the law. Human law should chiefly forbid those things that cause direct physical harm to others; Aquinas offers murder and theft as examples. With regard to practices that do not physically harm or defraud others (whatever other intangible grief they made cause), it can be necessary to tlerate them if prohibiting them would lead to still further evils...

"What is more, the law cannot make a wicked person virtuous. According to Aquinas, God's grace alone can accomplish such a thing. The law is simply incompetent here. What the law can do is provide the peace and order within which men can conduct their affairs. But so much of what is important in human life takes place far removed from law, and in the domain of civil society, families, and communities. These salutary influences, apart from the state, have a responsibility to improve the moral conduct of individuals. We ought not to shirk our own responsibility by looking to politicians - who are not exactly known for living beyond moral reproach themselves - to carry out so important a function." Ron Paul, The Revolution, pp. 126-127.

Income Tax

"Abolishing the income tax could cut government revenue by about 40 percent. I have heard the breathless claims about how radical that is - and compared to the trivial changes we are accustomed to seeing in government, I suppose it is. But in absolute terms, is it really so radical? In order to imagine what it would be like to live in a country with a federal budget 40 percent lower than the federal budget of 2007, it would be necessary to go all the way back to ...1997." Ron Paul, The Revolution, pp. 79-80.

The Revolution by Ron Paul

I have just finished reading Ron Paul's The Revolution: A Manifesto, which is the most sensible book I've ever read. Ron Paul brings insight and clarity to everything from foreign policy to the economy to abortion to civil liberties to drugs to the constitution to the war in Iraq and everything else in between. It is rare when I can say this, but there was not a single point in the book with which I disagreed. A challenge to both the political left and the political right, I highly recommend this 173-page defense of freedom.

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