Friday, January 27, 2012 / 6:00 am

Why Ron Paul Is Wrong About Everything Ever, Foreign Policy Edition

Libertarians like his foreign policy stance precisely because he has none.

by Tony Chavira

Tags: 2012 election | foreign policy | why Ron Paul is wrong about everything ever

photo: Gage Skidmore

Except for Milton Friedman, who felt that Americans had the right to propel the free market forward at the cost of annihilating the rest of the planet, most libertarians are vehemently anti-intervention and anti-war. At their ideological core, they believe that America should leave the rest of the world alone to do whatever it wants. We have no moral responsibilities, no allies, and no business in other countries. And Ron Paul believes this as well, more or less.

Taking an anti-war position should be an easy decision for Ron Paul, considering that wars cost the government so much money. End wars and you can cut away at the defense budget, thereby reducing the role and might of all government. Aside from that, taking a stance against endless war is a great rhetorical device. Our government used it to start World War I and it worked like a charm.

I’ve read very adamant comments throughout the internet that call Ron Paul’s foreign policy “untouchable,” and his great unifying issue (since so many Americans are ultimately against the idea of war). I’ll even admit, stepping away from Afghanistan and Iraq and closing bases in peaceful countries seem like generally good ideas.

What I find strange is that libertarians like his foreign policy stance precisely because he has none. He wants to leave the world alone, to its own devices, methods and madness, and focus on America. Well, reducing the scope of government services in America, anyway. Ron Paul would argue that non-intervention is always the answer, and in many cases he’d likely be right. Except in the case to authorize the use of military force in Afghanistan immediately following September 11^th.

For most other politicians, I’d leave the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists bill off the table when discussing their records. It was immediately after September 11, 2001, and our aggressive, short-sighted nation had a primal knee jerk reaction to seeing images of the third world we consistently exploit celebrating while we wept.

But Ron Paul’s supporters consider him to be a different kind of politician. And he considers himself to be different as well. He steps on stage and speaks truth to the other Republican contenders, outlining how years upon years of intervention led to a world where we’ve developed enemies we never intended to have. Here’s exactly what I mean, straight from the horse’s mouth:

There really is nothing for us to win in Afghanistan. Our mission has morphed from apprehending those who attacked us, to apprehending those who threaten or dislike us for invading their country, to remaking an entire political system and even a culture … This is an expensive, bloody, endless exercise in futility. Not everyone is willing to admit this just yet. But every second they spend in denial has real costs in lives and livelihoods … Many of us can agree on one thing, however. Our military spending in general has grown way out of control.  –Ron Paul

But where was this Ron Paul immediately after September 11? Did he suddenly decide that his convictions weren’t as important as taking Al Qaida’s bait? Did he feel that military entanglement in a country that had weakened the world’s largest civilizations was the right step forward for the U.S.? Or was the pressure from his bloodthirsty constituency too great to ignore? Did he simply put his convictions aside to give the people the war they wanted?

Where in the hell was his libertarian, non-interventionist spirit when it mattered most? Where was his supposed far-sightedness? His understanding of historical intervention? His interest in securing the homeland first?

Maybe he never had that conviction in the first place. Maybe he votes based on whims and not conviction. In 1998, he voted to call out China’s human rights violations in Tibet. Noble, sure. But baiting larger countries isn’t exactly the move of a non-interventionist. The same year, he voted to pull troops out of Bosnia. Then, voted again that year to compel then-President Clinton to snub the Chinese government until they recognized the atrocities of Tiananmen Square. Then, as I’ve mentioned in previous articles, he voted for the National Missile Defense System to protect America against long range missiles.

So I want to get this straight so that it’s completely unambiguous: Ron Paul is not comfortable deploying troops to small third world countries for any reason, but he’s comfortable baiting and politically snubbing large, aggressive and easily insulted countries to make a point? He doesn’t want to invest in hot wars in any country (which is fine), but he’s cool stockpiling weapons and building up our forts at home to prepare for new potential cold wars while he baits larger potential enemies? Someone please tell me how this is smart foreign policy.

It’s not that we shouldn’t care about the atrocities committed by other countries, we should! We should help out any way we can, and it’s great that Ron Paul cares as much as he does. But does he want a large, powerful government or not? Naturally, his arguments are commonly framed using false dichotomies: “why close bases at home only to open bases abroad?” But are they the only options we’re given? Bases at home or bases abroad? Is he really anti-war if he wants to triple our military might at home while openly snubbing large international players?

But in 1999, he did something I really don’t get: he voted to disapprove extending normal trade relations status to China. That’s right: he advocated using government power to control how the U.S. and China conducted business. Intra-nationally, Ron Paul cannot stop himself from touting the rights of the free market. He states often and openly that our government should get out of the way and let the market work its sweet magic. And yet, his vote indicates to me that he secretly believes the free market cannot correct international problems. He believes, in fact, that our government has the right to regulate international trade. Maybe the capitalism’s just in America and no one else gets to have it.

And yet, Ron Paul wants out of the World Trade Organization and the UN, who can largely be seen as the world’s most powerful trade negotiator. What a mess this man is.

But things get more complicated from here, and we’re about to get really technical on Ron Paul’s fallacious worldview for a moment. His “End the Fed” stance largely focuses on the Fed’s ability to utilize Quantitative Easing (which he thinks it evil incarnate). Quantitative Easing is, simply, when the Fed (which is monitoring our debt constantly) tells the Treasury to print a ton of money and then then lends that money to banks for low low rates. Banks will then buy Treasury bonds (i.e. government securities) and lower our long-term interest rates to stabilize the U.S. government’s financial integrity. This is why bonds are always the safest investments. Ron Paul and his like worry constantly that quantitative easing causes inflation (which is a legitimate concern), but (for the most part) that has never happened in the history of America. Why? Because our Treasury and the Fed primarily utilize quantitative easing to convince foreign countries that our investments are safe and worthwhile. And it works: China owns $1.16 trillion in America securities. Combined, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Oil Exporters, Caribbean Banking Centers, Brazil, Hong Kong, Russia, Luxembourg, and Taiwan own trillions of dollars in U.S. securities.

You can call that money debt and you can call it a vested interest: these guys would never try to start a war with us because they need their investments in us to pay off. They need to protect us because we are the future of their financial security. We are the innovators, the makers of things, the corporate giants, the geniuses… we are the world’s safe investment. Does that mean it’s cool to piss off our investors by snubbing them on the international political scene? Does that mean we should start legally restricting the way we trade with them?

Only a politician like Ron Paul would hold a double standard like this. No company would hire an asshole that consistently insulted its investors. No company would keep an employee that put restrictions on how its investors worked with us. Or an employee that kept trying to destabilize the long-term security of its own investments.

A free market corporation would have fired Ron Paul ages ago.

But above all, Ron Paul’s free market rhetoric is especially nerve-racking to me for this reason: it seems to advocate turning our allies into free market competitors. In other words, Ron Paul (rhetorically) is willing to put America’s political and financial stance on the line to compete in the free market, winner take all. Maybe a better-organized government like Norway, with stronger social services, better education and more available resources for growth and development, will turn us into capitalism’s international market losers.

Most of us don’t want to spend our whole lives competing with everyone around us though and, in reality, we don’t. On the international scale, we’re not competing with anyone. We are a globally interconnected market. If one of our countries tanks, all of our countries tank. As the economic collapse has shown, competing with each other is actually the opposite of how our globalized economy works. And yet that, my friends, is the foundation of Ron Paul ideology.

It’s possible that Ron Paul finds it ironic to believe that the world is full of competitive governments, while he votes to deliberately gut our government’s infrastructure. It’s possible that he finds it counterproductive to vote for Missile Defense Systems while offending our foreign investors. Maybe publicly snubbing international leaders while trying to destabilize their investments is all part of his huge absurd joke he’s playing on us.

Or it’s possible that Ron Paul is fundamentally wrong about the way the world works. You decide.

Oh, and one last thing. Quantitative easing has another danger: that banks will just hold onto the money they borrowed for low low rates, then not re-invest in Treasury Bonds to stabilize our securities for foreign investment. That’s exactly what our free market decided to do with TARP and TARP 2: Son of TARP.

This is the free market Ron Paul wants us to trust.

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