|
The Paradise Perspective: Commentary from a Free and Compassionate Alternate Reality Volume 1, Number 36 Day One by Glen Allport Exclusive to STR October 15, 2007 Inevitably,
a day will come when Day
One might arrive via the ballot box, as most Americans would expect, or it
might arrive in a different fashion. Certainly, there has been little to
suggest that the American electorate would snap out of its stupor and
insist on a reversal of the big-government and corporatist policies
imposed upon them with stealth and cunning by the power elite. Some
believe that by now even a libertarian-minded president could do nothing
to improve our situation. Given that this country has had several small-government libertarian presidents – Washington
and Jefferson, to name two – we already know that such a president is
not enough to prevent the federal government from eventually growing like
a cancer. Likewise, many past presidents have talked
about reducing federal power or (as with Bush) employing a humble foreign
policy only to behave very differently once in office. Even
the tiny The
question is: How can we best move things in the direction of liberty –
of no coercive government? What
approach has the best chance of leading to a voluntaryist society – not
merely a dysfunctional, post-collapse society where survival of the most
ruthless becomes the norm, but a society where compassion
and respect are the norm? Which path will best serve the cause of
abolitionism and ultimately create a world of love and freedom, without
coercion by government or anyone else? What
can we do to hasten that day? -
2 - Some
believe the current system must collapse in order for a free society to
emerge, but history does not support such a position: Social and
governmental collapses typically lead to tyranny and widespread cruelty
and hardship rather than to freedom and widespread compassion and
prosperity. An outright collapse is seldom a life-enhancing event for the
people of a nation, even when compared to the tyranny that preceded the
collapse. The German collapse after WWI is a well-known example: With war
and hyperinflation
having destroyed the If
an outright collapse is not in our best interests, then what about
reversing course and systematically dismantling
our descent into tyranny? Not everyone thinks that would be a good idea.
Jim Davies recently wrote a column
for STR claiming that a libertarian president (and in particular, Ron
Paul) would actually cause harm. Davies describes Paul as offering
"vague half-promises" that would, even if implemented, hinder
rather than help the cause of freedom. Davies
also bemoans the fact that, unlike Harry Browne and his 1996 Why
Government Doesn't Work, Paul hasn't written a campaign book. Yet
Browne's book failed to bring the topic of freedom into the mainstream the
way Paul's GOP presidential bid has; in comparison to Dr. Paul, Browne was
nearly invisible to the American public. Paul has appeared in several
nationally televised Republican debates, has been interviewed repeatedly
on national television, and has become by far the most popular candidate
on the internet by almost any measure. He has won several state straw
polls outright and done well in others. Paul's growing army of volunteers
around the country (and even overseas) already provides millions of
dollars in publicity and marketing savvy without cost to the campaign.
They do this because they are excited about Paul's message of freedom.
Both the message (coming from a viable national candidate) and the
dramatic popular response to that message are new in my lifetime. In
short, Paul has already done
more for the cause of liberty than Browne (or Davies or I, for that
matter) ever did. That isn't to slight Mr. Browne, who I supported and who
was, I believe, an excellent spokesman for the cause of freedom. Browne's
relative obscurity shows mostly that third parties in If
you doubt the passion or intelligence of Paul supporters, check out the comments
left by readers of this short Wall Street Journal article (Learn
from Ron Paul, Internet Icon by Ben Worthen) on Dr. Paul. Sixteen
hours after the article went up, my wife printed it out and found sixty-four
pages of erudite, civilized, intelligent, and often insightful
commentary from WSJ readers. These people sound far more clear on the
value of freedom than I would have expected, and reading their commentary
lifted my spirits. This is just one positive example of hundreds I could
cite about the Paul campaign. The real-world, decentralized, spontaneous,
and enthusiastic response to Paul's message of freedom is unlike anything
I have ever seen. Best of all, as Dr. Paul himself has pointed out, it is
indeed the message of freedom itself that people are responding to. Paul
supporters are not looking for a demagogue; much as they may like Paul as
a person, what they really want is their heritage of freedom back. Although
Ron Paul has not written a book for this campaign, he has written several books,
along with scores of columns and articles on liberty and related
topics (for example, here is Paul opposing
creation of the Department of Homeland Security). There are also dozens
of videos of Paul describing his positions and saying specifically
what he would do if elected (such as abolish the Perhaps
the best argument that Paul is truly a force for freedom is the
barely-disguised hatred and fear being shown to Paul by the power elite in
the media and in government itself (including by some of his fellow
candidates, who openly
laughed at Paul as he spoke at a debate about restoring constitutional
restraint to the federal government). Paul won the latest CNBC poll with
over 70% in some categories, at which point the
poll was taken down from the internet. Here is Allen
Wastler, Managing Editor at CNBC, on the topic. The excellent DailyPaul.com
– one of many independent, unofficial Paul websites – has posted
several responses to Wastler. Among the best short observations on the
CNBC story comes from Szandor
Blestman at the American Chronicle website: "It
seems to me that poll after poll shows that public sentiment is more and
more against the war. I’ve seen numbers between 65-80 percent of the
public are against the war. Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate that
has come out against the war. You took down your poll when Ron had 75
percent of the vote. That falls right in line with the numbers against the
war. Perhaps
the poll makes more sense to you now." -
3 - So
Paul might have a chance to reach the White House, and he has a record of
actually working to reduce
government power – not just talking about it. Still: Could a principled,
libertarian president really make dramatic improvements in our situation?
Absolutely: a president could repair liberty in powerful ways on his first day – even before lunch. In addition to his campaign book
(and other books), Harry Browne wrote a column on the subject of "the
president's first day" seven years ago; quite a lot of that column
fits, unsurprisingly, with what Dr. Paul has written and said during his
campaign. Browne's column is worth re-reading not only as a reminder of
what could be done but of how contemptuous of liberty our presidents have
been in recent decades, and of how much liberty we have lost in the It
should be no surprise that presidents have real power to make changes for
the better because for decades, presidents have been making incredible
changes for the worse. For example, presidents have inserted thousands of executive
orders into the Federal Register, most of which "give federal
employees powers for which there is no constitutional authority,"
says Browne (a recent example: Executive
Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization
Efforts in Iraq). Browne would have removed these orders – an
obvious action that any president with integrity could do easily. Removing
unconstitutional executive orders is just one small step on the road to
freedom. In The
President's First Day in Office, Browne tells us that, for starters,
he had planned to: "Pardon
everyone who had been convicted on a federal, non-violent drug charge,
order their immediate release, reunite them with their families, and
restore all their civil rights. (Anyone convicted of using violence
against someone else in a drug case would not qualify as
'non-violent.')" Browne
would have next pardoned "everyone who had been convicted on any
federal gun-control charge, tax-evasion charge, or any other victimless
crime, order their immediate release, and restore all their civil
rights." No
legislative or judicial oversight is required for pardons.
It makes no difference whether Congress is supportive or strongly against
a pardon; if the president has the backbone to pardon people innocent of
any real crime, he can do so, and nothing in the Constitution allows for
anyone to stop him. (For that matter, other than in cases of impeachment,
the president can pardon anyone for anything; even innocence or guilt has
nothing to do with the power granted to pardon). Furthermore, any
president elected on a platform that included abolishing the War on Drugs
and the IRS would clearly have wide popular support for such actions. Dr.
Ron Paul is running on just such a platform (that is, on a platform that
includes abolishing
the IRS and the War
on Drugs). I don't know if Paul plans to do all the things Harry
Browne discusses in his First Day
column, but the point is: the level
of change a president can effect, on his own and despite
the wishes of Congress, the courts, or anyone else, is huge. Pardoning
and freeing millions of political prisoners is just the start of what
Harry Browne had planned for the morning of his first day. He also planned
to "immediately remove all American troops from foreign soil,"
"order that no federal asset forfeiture could occur unless the
property's owner had been convicted by full due process," and
"announce a policy to penalize, dismiss, or even prosecute any
federal employee who violated the Bill of Rights by treating you as guilty
until proven innocent, by searching or seizing your property without due
process of law, by treating you as a servant, or in any other way
violating your rights as a sovereign American citizen." There
is more to Harry's morning to-do list, not to mention what he had planned
to do after lunch. Even if some
of it took weeks or months instead of a single morning, ending the war,
stopping the War on Drugs, getting rid of the IRS, and all the rest of
that sounds like a LOT more than "nothing" to me. It
sounds like a good start, actually. With
over ten million pot
arrests since 1990, and more arrests for possession last year than
ever before (nearly three times the number in 1990!), simply ending the
drug war would have a positive impact on millions of people. Ending our
aggressive foreign wars and occupations would have an even greater impact.
Just these two policies would (based on recent history) literally save the
lives of millions over the next
few decades and prevent the devastation of millions more. Given
the broad support for ending the war in They'll
want freedom. Knowing
that freedom is possible,
knowing that many others share their desire, and seeing the actual
benefits of a decrease in tyranny in their own lives and throughout
society, they will, I believe, create a decentralized, spontaneous
movement for real freedom that will dwarf even the astonishing, unexpected
response to Ron Paul's candidacy. The exponentially-growing public
response to Ron Paul's candidacy (oddsmakers have upgraded
his odds of success from 200-1 to 6-1 in only a few months) suggests
such a response is indeed possible. When people believe genuine freedom is
actually in their grasp instead of being a completely lost cause, they
stop being "apathetic" and start getting energized. If
we want to see more people putting
forth the effort it takes to create a free society, we need to show
them, in no uncertain terms, that movement in the right direction is
possible. Ron Paul is doing that already and the results are, even at this
early point, electrifying. -
4 - It
is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The
institution marks a certain stage of civilization—is natural to a
particular phase of human development. It is not essential, but
incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to
government, so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct. —
Herbert Spencer ANY
coercive government is too much
coercive government; coercion against peaceful human beings is evil no
matter what the excuse. Henry
David Thoreau, Auberon
Herbert, Lysander
Spooner, Herbert
Spencer, and many other abolitionist and voluntaryist luminaries have
always been right about that. Even a carefully restrained government soon
grows beyond its founders' initial intent. Our current predicament is a
case in point. In
turn, anything that moves us back in the direction of freedom is positive.
To say otherwise is to suggest that we must make the jump from tyranny to
total freedom instantly or not at all, in which case we are simply doomed.
Massive change does not happen instantly; change takes time and hard work.
Our "democratic" prison was not built in a day, and we will not
be freed from it in a day either. Does
anyone really believe that letting
the neo-con juggernaut continue with its plans for detention
camps, its labeling
of libertarians as "terrorists"*, its fiscal
insanity, its use of torture
and war, and all the rest of its continued destruction of America (and of
nations abroad) will bring us
closer to freedom? If that were true, wouldn't Putin's
post-Soviet *
By, at least until public outrage made them stop, the Alabama
Department of Homeland Security; see also here
for how we are seen by the "Terrorism Awareness and Prevention"
website, which "is provided by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime
and Delinquency in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Health
as a Crime Prevention & Safety Initiative." Instant
perfection is not possible, and the all-or-nothing approach thus leaves us
with nothing. Movement in the right direction is not, as Davies believes,
counter-productive; for a start, it would quickly save or improve the
lives of millions by (among other things) bringing home the troops and
ending the War on Drugs. Human
perfection is not possible either – Paul is no more the perfect
candidate than was Browne, for example – but doing nothing until
perfection arrives is an excellent way to fail. -
5 - Day
One – the day Ron
Paul's run for president has made millions of Americans aware of what they
have lost over the decades. By talking directly and clearly about liberty
and human rights – and about ending our many unconstitutional foreign
and domestic wars, and about so many other important things – Dr. Paul
has generated a groundswell of enthusiastic support for freedom. As
Walter Block put it recently in Ron
Paul and Matching Funds, "One of the major benefits of Ron’s
candidacy is that so many, many people are now hearing about
libertarianism for the first and only time from one of the best and most
attractive spokesmen for this philosophy we have ever had." Do
you want to see, or at least help create, a non-coercive world of love and
freedom? Supporting Ron Paul is a good way to start, not least because it
helps get the message of freedom out into the public eye. If we can't at
least do that, what makes
anyone think we can abolish tyranny and create a truly free society? -
- - - - Next week: Money. Glen Allport is the author of The Paradise Paradigm: On Creating A World of Compassion, Freedom, and Prosperity and maintains paradise-paradigm.net. This is one in a series of columns on the human condition.
|
