Sen. Paul Enters the Race & the Totalitarian Itch of Libertarianism | National Catholic Reporter

Sen. Paul Enters the Race & the Totalitarian Itch of Libertarianism | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Rand is running as a Republican, meaning he can be more hawkish on foreign policy and less doctrinaire on liberatarian economic and social theory.  Whether there is any separation between Rand and Ron is doubtful, nor between Ron, Rand and Lew Rockwell.  I doubt, however, that the subject will come up from his campaign and he can always say he was never on the Ron Paul Report staff.  All the neoconfederate garbage that spewed from it that was an attempt to sell the Party in the south (where Rand lives, by the way), although I am sure both Rand and Ron agree on private discrimination not being covered in the Civil Rights Law of 1964.  MSW's notes, of course, do not mention the subject.  Good thing to, bacause the Religious Freedom movement, so precious to the Bishops, reflects that view as passed originally in Indiana - mostly on selling cakes and flowers to gay weddings (which have such a sexual connotation).  I will agree, there is nothing at all Liberal about that - either from Rand Paul or certain Catholic Bishops, like Lori and Chaput.



I could stick out my tongue, give a Bronx cheer to the folks who went to BC and be done, but I have some more to say.



Rand is running, like his father before him, to prick the conscience of the voters, particluarly on the right, about freedom - although I am sure some of what he says will serve the Republican Party interest and turn off that part of its anti-regulatory base which serves the interest of donors like the Koch brothers just fine.  It is good he is entering the race now, because he will likely be out of money with few delegates to show by next year at this time.  He would have a much easier slog by going with the Libertarian Party, which I am sure would love to have him - indeed they seemed open to a Paul campaign in 2012 - and the Paulistas flooded both Americans Elect in 2012 and Unity*08 four years before.  The problem is, any turnout at all would be blamed for the GOP losing in November - which is almost certain anyway - so certain that someone needs to muzzle Lori and Chaput before they turn abortion from a fringe issue to a Lost Cause (it is anyway, but acting like  it is not is good GOP politics). Still, with Rand eventually out and Ryan never in, Ayn Rand will not have a date to the November election unless the LP recruits a really star candidate.



Now, to the conference.  Keynote speaker Alan Ryan criticizes Libertarian as being concerned only with property rights.  Maybe - especially on taxes, although keeping the government out of phones and Interenet accounts and legalizing weed, if not everything, is also on the most libertarian agendas.  What is utmost, at least publically, is the Pledge, whereby every party member (and not all libertarians are party members, I certainly am not) promise not to use or advocate force or fraud against others (which is why real politicians find it hard to take).  Libertarians are very doctrinaire, especially the most committed.  Its not that they don't know about market failure, they don't care to know.  They do have a solution - the same one Mitt Romney had and sadly the one the President is left with (because he won't mark to market) - let troubled mortgages work themselves out, either in bankruptcy or by paying them down.  They are furiously opposed to any taxation, a position I equate with dining and dashing on the dinner check.  Government services are all around us, and not paying for them is not an option - which makes them that much more against welfare programs - a vice even Catholic Republican Paul Ryan and Sam Brownback seem to have fallen for.



Still, while strident, many liberatians (not all) will discuss alternatives - although a libertarian socialist group of Facebook just booted me - or rather proposed it and I had my say and left.  I was once on a radio call in show as a Christian Libertarian and debated that prospect against another Christian Libertarian.  We mostly talked about whether in making all drugs legal, having mandatory treatment on the table was libertarian.  I said yes, they said no and it was about autonomy, not property.  My version of Christian Libertarianism involves free though on moral issues - but no set result highligting liberty - although I do have a bias toward less state action - as my posts on abortion over the years indicate.  The other camp believes that Christ will take care of punishment, not the government.  Really.  On the environment, which Ryan discusses, I am more for cleaning the nest - using technical means and implementing them mandatorily as pollution is not a liberty right.  Forcing others to move because you pump coal is not OK.  I think this is much better than a carbon tax, but this is where I am more liberal.  Carbon taxes are actually a product of conservative Charles Shultz.



Still, there are many types of libertarianism, something the conference ignored mostly.  Indeed, you can find different versions of the same concept.  We have mutualism (which is a form of anarchism), the types mentioned before, just to underline, the Austrians, especially von Mises, and the Geolibertarians - who follow Henry George but the Geo is an environmental reference.  They want a single land value tax with no production taxes or payroll or sales taxes.  Other libertarians favor a sales tax because it is voluntary - you don't have to buy stuff.  We all have fun sparring with each other, so it is not as anti-liberal as you think - although movement and compromise are very rare, which self limits liberarianism as a force in and of itself, although it is often a component of other campaigns.  See Paul Ryan, Rand Paul and the successful campaigns for recreation weed in Colorado and Washington State.



Wolfe is interesting, although there is more than Smith and von Hayek, especially when seen through the lens of the Georgists.  Of course, there are Catholic writers who have all the answers to - like Chesterton and Belloc, who have their libertarian tendencies - OOP!  That said, Hayek is wrong on the free market because he and most libertarian apologists for capitalism (and those are both libertarian and conservative) assume that if you are going to work, it is by free choice and the wage you get is by mutual agreement.  That is probably the biggest piece of crap ever served in an economic agrument.



We live in a time where Ronald Reagan engineered a tax policy and a resulting economic system which ended the government penalty on making too much money, especially by taking it from your workers by restricting their pay and not your own.  As a result, wages have mostly stayed even with inflation (except at the bottom, where more people become poor with a check that covers less each year), while the productivity gains over inflation all go to shareholders, managers (high level, not first line) and mainly to the CEO - who writes his campaign checks to keep this situation from happening - and he does not write them to the Libertarian Party or to Rand Paul - OK, maybe a small one.



Wolfe gets the doctrinaire part right as far as the answers (although anyone with an answer favors it) - I would use both higher income taxes to get those CEOs in line and more imporantly would use Social Security Employer contributions - equalized and insured of course - to give workers employer voting stock to end the tyranny of the CEO and the system Hayek favored.  As far as an opaque social order, the libertarians do seem to favor economic power becoming social power - but they do legitimately believe in minimizing the state - not just the regulatory state but the criminal justice system as well.  If you want opaqueness, look to the USCCB and its religious freedom campaign, its pro-life directorate  and institution for marriage (which luckily has no chance - none of them).  Indeed, the little princes of the Church (the bishops) kind of like having the rich guy in charge - and using that power to do things like force pregnant high school girls to home school and expel anyone who has an abortion (or any lesbian or gay teacher - except priests of course - and some Catholic priests in Africa are famous for raping nuns and forcing abortions on them).  Alan needed to look a bit at the Church too.



For Mary Jo Iozzio, if libertarians don't like ADA sidewalk ramps, it is because they don't like any taxes for roads. Yes, they have a deficit in empathy, until a friend is bound to a wheelchair.  Still, the ADA is not a panacea - my brother's restaurant is now closed because there is not elevator and corporate Best Western did not want him spending the money.  Can guests in a chair order room service?  Of course and it would have been the best meal they ever had.  Not now.  ADA seems to be one of those answers that people are sure of that Wolfe warned us about among libertarians.  Maybe that is a human condition.



Dana Dillon is absolutely correct - and let me add the most essential need to not only pay for babies to come into this world, but to pay the family a fully adequate wage for  each additional child.  Is the Church paying that adequate wage voluntarily?  Nope.  Very libertarian of them.  I would make it a tax credit for each worker paid with wages - but I would get rid of  food stamps, housing assistance etc., which often violate the dignity of the poor (the Libertarians don't mind as a rule, but I do and my situation is more libertarian) - while those who cannot work  get paid to learn and get the same benefits through the training provider (and the same as the training provider, so no paid abortions if the training provider is the Church - assuming they are not offered).



Mark Silk is interesting.  I have to admit, as I discussed above, that the Spiritual Libertarians are a throwback to those who opposed the Civil Rights Act's  provisions on private discrimination, like Rand Paul who says he would not have voted for them - and now they have baptized them. Problem is, so have Bishop Lori and Archbishop Chaput - who should be expelled from the USCCB for being idiots. Not liberal or libertarian of me, however in liberty we have a penalty called shunning. Shun those two bishops or continue to have them as an embarrasment.  Indeed, while back on the subject, cowtowing to the social conservatives, especially those from the Church, have caused many Republicans to leave or to not mention their affiliation or past affiliation with the Republican Party.  Like I said, the USCCB needs to shun these two (and maybe Dolan and the missing Rigali - and especially Burke).



Locke and Madison are not card carrying Libertarian Party members - and neither was Locke or Whig or Madison a Federalist - at least when he was President.  Still, they have ideas that the Libertarians point to, although some like Madison's slaveholder status. Madison also had an amendment, however, that was not adopted that would have prevented the Civil War.  The Slave Power was more of a tyranny than most realize - with opponents of the system facing sometimes fatal consequences.  A bit more free speech at the state level and stupidity might have been averted.  I hope Schneck looks at Epps on this.



I don't know enough of Meghan Clark's talk to know if she understands libertarianism enough to attack it.  I image she does - since Catholic Social Theory advocates liberal action on economics and the LP and company certainly do not.  Of coures I do, but I would do it as a tax credit - because in a free market there is no incentive to pay a living wage for each child born (and not fire large families).  That is the case with libertarianism, but also for most businesses and the Catholic Church as employer.  I think Mary Jo Bane would agree. I love the fact that she quit the Clinton Adminstratation over Welfare Reform.  She is right, a more anti-government stance would do the Church well in the Church itself taking on government functions rather than letting the government do it (like in Criminal Justice - see above on mandatory treatment).  Of course, not only can markets and governments be corrupt - or maybe dysfunctional is better - but the same can be said for the Church.  I would give it both government funding and more and more funding by employee-owners - which may be the only thing that makes them listen to the voices of the dissatisfied.



I would agree that libertarianism is only interesting to libertarians - and that is its problem.  Still, as Mary Jo Bane points out (as well as yours truly) solutions which increase liberty are not bad - even for the Church. Of course, if libertarianism always included a sense of how our dedision apply to others, maybe there is a bit more empathy there than we thought.  In the end, people do things based on the situation before them, not on ideology - even Presidents.  That is what scares both Catholics and Libertarians about a large government that almost runs itself on both peace and war and women's health. While the libertarian epistomology is limited, so is the scholastic epistomolgy we find in the Curia.  Still, training people to think for themselves on both moral ande economic issues is probably a good thing - but hard to do.  Being taught is much more comfortable to both hierarch and student.