Ron Paul: His anti-interventionist positions can't salvage a reactionary philosophy by Gary Weiss
from salon.com
snips:
I wonder how many of his young liberal fans are aware of his views on scholarships and low-interest loans for college students—that there shouldn’t be any? In a speech inserted in the Congressional Record of April 22, 1998 entitled “Education in America is Facing a Crisis,” Paul talked up his rather innocuous (and sensible) idea to exempt from taxation income earned by farm kids at 4-H and Future Farmers of America fairs. “We say the only way a youngster could ever go to college is if we give them a grant, if we give them a scholarship, if we give them a student loan. And what is the record on payment on student loans? Not very good. A lot of them walk away.”
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Paul again channeled Rand on July 20, 1998. Explaining his opposition to a child nutrition and WIC plan reauthorization bill, he attacked the “flawed redistributionist, welfare state model that lies behind this bill.” Then he launched into another monologue:
“Providing for the care of the poor is a moral responsibility of every citizen,” he said. “However, it is not a proper function of the Federal Government to plunder”—that’s straight out of Rand—“one group of citizens and redistribute those funds to another group of citizens. Nowhere in the United States Constitution is the Federal Government authorized to provide welfare services. If any government must provide welfare services, it should be State and local governments. However, the most humane and efficient way to provide charitable services are through private efforts.
...
Paul’s views are rooted in the narrow, Randian view of liberty as extending only to the person, not to groups of people. That sounds elegant until you realize what it means: no consumer legislation, no civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and, as was a hot topic in 1998, no hate-crime legislation.
His foreign policy views don’t salvage him. Some on the left conflate his 1930s-style, right-wing isolationism with their opposition to the “American empire.” Pretty much everything that Paul has to say about America’s role in the world could have, and did, come from Charles Lindbergh at America First rallies. Or Robert Taft, the New Deal foe and leading isolationist of the pre-war era, whom Paul cited by name in a speech to his supporters Tuesday night. Paul’s isolationism is the isolationism of Ayn Rand, who, like Lindbergh and Taft—and Paul—opposed U.S. participation in World War II. Like Paul, she was opposed to the United Nations—and yes, also opposed the Vietnam War, the military draft, and the war on drugs.
read full article:
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/05/progressive_beer_googles_for_ron_paul/singleton/
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