The Freedom Bulletin

Photo by Gage Skidmore

At yesterday’s Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, America got to see Ron Paul more assertive than ever before. He was asked almost all negative questions – asked to justify his previous criticism of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, questioned on 20-year-old newsletters that he did not write, challenged on his comments about running as a third-party candidate, and attacked on his foreign policy. And that was just by the moderators. He started out a little shaky but got better as the debate went on.

My favorite moments from last night’s and this morning’s debates:

During an exchange over Paul’s comments that Newt Gingrich was a “chickenhawk” for advocating war while never having served in the military himself, Gingrich said that he did not go to war because he was married with a child. (As a single person I found this remark slightly offensive. Are single people’s lives less valuable than married people’s, so it’s not as objectionable for them to be sent off to war?)  ”When I was drafted, I was married and had two kids and I went,” Paul retorted.

When challenged about some allegedly racist newsletters bearing his name, he gave a perfect response. “One of my heroes is Martin Luther King because he practiced the libertarian principle of peaceful resistance and peaceful civil disobedience, as did Rosa Parks… I’m the only one up here… who understands true racism in this country is in the judicial system, and it has to do with enforcing the drug laws. Look at the percentages. The percentage of people who use drugs are about the same with blacks and whites. And yet the blacks are arrested way disproportionately. They’re prosecuted and imprisoned way disproportionately. They get the death penalty way disproportionately. How many times have you seen a white rich person get the electric chair or get, you know, execution?”

After being interrupted during his first couple of questions, Paul said sternly, “Do not interrupt me.”

At one point, Paul cheerfully and charmingly proclaimed, “I’m doing pretty well. Catching up to Mitt every single day.”

In this morning’s debate, when asked about the fact that only one of his bills has passed during his 20 years in Congress, Paul replied, “That demonstrates how out of touch the U.S. government and U.S. Congress is with the American people.” Right on. Candidates should be judged on the quality of their ideas, not the ideas of the people they happen to work with. If the other people in Congress don’t agree with Paul’s ideas of liberty, that reflects badly on them, not Paul.

When speaking about entitlements, Paul also gave a fantastic defense of his supposed opposition to minority rights: “Entitlements are not rights. Rights mean you have a right to your life, you have a right to your liberty, and you should have a  right to keep the fruits of your labor. And this is quite a big difference, but earlier on there was a little discussion here about gay rights. I, in a way, don’t like to use those terms, gay rights, women’s rights, minority rights, religious rights. There’s only one type of right. It’s your right to your liberty. And I think it does cause divisiveness when we see people in groups, because for too long we punish groups, so the answer then was let’s relieve them by giving them affirmative action. So I think both are wrong. If you think in terms of individuals, to protect every single individual, no they’re not entitled. One group isn’t entitled to take something from somebody else.”

Check out some more highlights from the International Business Times. Also, Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast live-blogged the debate, and even though he comes off as a bit left-wing on some issues, he even said, ”I find the notion that Ron Paul is a racist to be preposterous.”

Congressman Ron Paul, photo by Gage Skidmore

Yet another Republican presidential debate took place tonight, this one in Las Vegas, Nevada. The candidates included Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman skipped the debate, and the awesome Gary Johnson, libertarian and former New Mexico governor, was left out, as usual. Ron Paul Flix has a roundup of everything Paul said, which I would highly recommend watching.

The low point of the debate, in my opinion, was Santorum’s argument against Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. I’m still not sure exactly what I think of the plan, but Santorum didn’t make a good argument against it. He said that Cain’s plan ”doesn’t have anything that takes care of the families,” such as child tax credits. But this should be an argument in favor of the 9-9-9 plan. First of all, population growth is not a good thing for the environment or for people’s quality of life as natural resources and open spaces become scarcer. How can anyone think it is a good idea to have the population keep growing and growing, as the amount of land stays the same? Plus, to use the tax code to reward people for having children is essentially the same thing as punishing people who do not have children. Taxing people the same, regardless of their marital or parenthood status, is much fairer.

Later, Santorum added, ”The basic building block of society is not the individual, it’s the family.” What a completely wrong idea, and completely contrary to the principle of individual liberty.

On a more positive note, here are my favorite quotes from Paul, who is definitely my favorite of the candidates who got to be in the debate:

“I don’t think that we should even things up by raising taxes.” (on the 9-9-9 plan)

“He asked the question, what are you going to replace the income tax with, and I say nothing, that’s what we should replace it with.”

“If you want better competition, better health care, you should allow the American people to opt out of government medicine. And the way to do this is to not de-emphasize the medical savings account but let people opt out, pay their bills, get back to the doctor-patient relationship.”

“Too long, this country has always put people in groups. They penalize people because they’re in groups, and then they reward people because they’re in groups…We need to see everybody as an individual, and to me, seeing everybody as an individual means their liberties are protected as individuals, and they are treated that way, and they’re never penalized that way. So if you have a free and prosperous society, all of a sudden this group mentality melts away.”

“I think Mr. Cain has blamed the victims. There’s a lot of people who are victims of this business cycle.” (on the Occupy protests)

“Foreign aid, that should be the easiest thing to cut. It’s not authorized in the Constitution that we can take money from you and give it to particular countries around the world…I would cut all foreign aid. I would treat everybody equally and fairly.”

“To cut military spending is a wise thing to do. We would be safer if we weren’t in so many places.”

Tonight’s GOP debate at the Reagan Library was a good one, because the candidates – especially Ron Paul – got to discuss a couple of issues that, in my opinion, don’t get nearly as much discussion as they should.

First, Paul took the chance to discuss what is by far the worst thing about Rick Perry: the fact that he signed an executive order requiring all girls in his state of Texas to get the HPV vaccine (Gardasil). “This is not good medicine, I do not believe,” Dr. Paul said. “It’s not good social policy. Therefore I think this is very bad.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sen. Rick Santorum joined in, calling Perry’s executive order a violation of parental rights. While I am glad that they oppose mandatory HPV vaccination, I don’t agree with the reason. No one should have the power to force another person to undergo a medical procedure against their will, not the federal government, state governments, local governments…and not parents. This may sound radical, but if a child does not want to be vaccinated against HPV, they shouldn’t have to be. The Gardasil issue is not about parents’ rights or states’ rights, but about individual rights, which apply to all people, regardless of age.

Romney also joined in the Gardasil debate, but he gave a very wishy-washy (or diplomatic, to put it nicely) answer, not really taking a stance either way.

Perry defended himself, saying, “At the end of the day I will always err on the side of saving lives.” This is exactly the wrong attitude for any person in a position of power to have. To err on the side of saving lives is to err on the side of safety and security. But government should always, always err on the side of liberty. Unless this was a slip-up of words or logic, this quote was very revealing of Perry’s philosophy, and not in a good way.

No matter what opinions the candidates voiced about the HPV vaccine, I am very glad that it got significant airtime in this debate, thanks in part to Dr. Paul. Any law requiring vaccination against a sexually-transmitted disease is not a minor problem that can be ignored, but a gross violation of liberty, which Perry desperately needs to be held accountable for.

A little later, Paul courageously brought up another gross violation of liberty – the invasive, suspicionless searches carried out on innocent air travelers by the TSA. ”Look at the monstrosity we have at the airports,” he said. “These TSA agents are abusive. Sometimes they’re accused of all kinds of sexual activities on the way they maul people at the airport.” He took some flak for saying, ”9/11 came about because there was too much government…They told the pilots they couldn’t have guns…They set up the stage for this.” But I think he has a point. Armed pilots would have a better chance of fighting off hijackers.

The moderator called Paul “the absolutist in the bunch.” If absolutist means sticking to the Constitution no matter what, then yes, Paul is an absolutist. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The debate would have been even better if there were two truly pro-liberty voices. Instead of being able to voice his libertarian views alongside (but with a different spin than) Paul, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson was again left out. But he did give a great statement and tweeted (in several tweets): “What you won’t hear in the debate: A candidate who will submit a balanced budget for 2013…A candidate who will propose cutting military spending by 43%…With possibly one exception, a candidate who will declare the War on Drugs a failure that must be stopped…That the federal government needs to get out of the marriage business and stay out…That individual freedom includes a woman’s right to choose…That a President cannot create real jobs.” I agree with all of this. Go Gary!

Finally, although he’s not my favorite candidate (can you guess who is? ), Herman Cain had a couple of good ideas. He suggested a tax plan which he calls the 9-9-9 plan (PDF) and also wants to phase out Social Security by allowing workers to put money in private savings accounts instead.

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) came in second in the much-hyped Ames Straw Poll in Iowa. He narrowly lost to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), 4823 votes to 4671. This is awesome news for Paul, who came in fifth in 2008 with 1305 votes. He has come a long way from being considered a wacky, extremist, fringe candidate with no chance of winning to, although many people are still reluctant to admit it, a viable candidate.

Paul’s newfound status was evident at Thursday’s GOP debate in Ames, Iowa. The candidates seemed to take him more seriously than they previously have, actually engaging and arguing with him instead of ignoring him as they have in the past.

For example, when Paul said that it is not America’s business to stop other countries, such as Iran, from having nuclear weapons, Rick Santorum shot back, ”Iran is not Iceland, Ron. It’s been at war with us since 1979. Anyone who suggests Iran is not a threat to this country is not seeing the world very clearly.” Paul responded that our war with Iran has ”been going on because we just plain don’t mind our own business.”

When the subject of the Federal Reserve came up, other candidates agreed with him about the need to abolish (or at least audit) it. ”I’m delighted that the mainstream is catching up with this these days for auditing the Fed,” he exclaimed. “This is great!”

Paul’s senior adviser, Doug Wead, praised his performance in the debate, saying that “nobody laid a glove on Ron Paul.” One thing is sure – Paul and his pro-liberty philosophy can no longer be ignored by the GOP establishment, the media, or the public.

It looks like people in the Republican Party who are not as supportive of liberty as they should be are starting to get worried that Ron Paul might have a good chance of winning the presidential nomination. Paul won the straw poll at the Republican Leadership Conference last weekend with 612 votes, compared to 382 for his nearest rival, Jon Huntsman.

Last week, showing that privatization of marriage is becoming a mainstream idea, Ann Coulter attacked Paul for supporting it…and attacked libertarians in general because they ”lure you in with talk of small government and then immediately start babbling about drug legalization or gay marriage.” Those seem like issues that supporters of small government should be talking about.

Paul is picking up support from some unlikely allies. Newt Gingrich, perhaps considered a more “mainstream” Republican candidate, now agrees with Paul’s plan to audit the Federal Reserve, even saying that the Fed “violate(s) the rule of law.” In Congress, Paul is joining forces with Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, to propose a bill ending the federal prohibition on marijuana and turning control over marijuana laws to the states. And Doug Wead, former Special Assistant to George H. W. Bush and instrumental strategist in George W. Bush’s presidential bid, has joined Paul’s campaign!

Jack Hunter writes, “The entire GOP moves closer to Paul’s politics and and away from Bush.” And as Brent Budowsky at The Hill writes, “Ron Paul has won.” I couldn’t agree more.