The Meaning Of Ron Paul's Support



By Dr. Marc Guttman Published on 11/18/2007 in The Day




Pundits are speculating about the reasons behind the vast support for Ron Paul's campaign for the U.S. presidency. Deductions I've read about the campaign's impressive $4.3 million dollar online fundraising by donations from 38,000 Americans in a 24-hour period, seem to miss the obvious point. It's more than just widespread disapproval of our current government and the Iraq War. There have been “protest candidates” before, but few have had Paul's success. It's the man and his message. And many who have heard it are convinced.

First, consider that Paul's average donation on Nov. 5 was $103, more than twice as high as his average donation, and that the “money bomb” event was organized independently from his campaign. Paul's supporters are individuals. They are not the weapons industry, corporations, special-interest groups, or anyone else seeking favor or privilege.

Paul's supporters want honesty, openness, fairness, equality, prosperity and peace, not to mention our inalienable individual rights back. And they want America to stop meddling in the affairs of other peoples. This a bottom-up, grass-roots movement. And, it is coming on like gangbusters, a fact that concerns those who love power and authority.

Ron Paul was a flight surgeon in the Air Force, before becoming an obstetrician-gynecologist. The people who know him best have sent him 10 times to represent them in Congress, where he has consistently upheld his oath to defend the Constitution and has unwaveringly defended individual liberty for everyone.

Paul has never taken a government-paid junket. He has not participated in the lucrative congressional pension program. It is well known that lobbyists do not bother knocking on his door. He has never voted for a congressional pay raise, an unbalanced budget or to raise our taxes. He voted against the Iraq War Resolution, the Patriot Act, the Real ID Act, the Military Commissions Act, and any funding for the Iraq War. It is often said about him that “what he says is what he believes, not what he thinks you want to hear.”

He is likely the most principled and reluctant presidential candidate since George Washington.

The message

This candidate does little self-adulation. For Paul, it's all about the message, which he argues, unlike himself, “has no short-comings.” His is the liberty message and is likely the true reason for his support among so many. As liberty is moral, practical, peaceful and universally beneficial, it makes sense to libertarians, like me, that his message is popular.

Paul is a champion of the U.S. Constitution. He has spent his limited amount of on-air media time explaining this, but has not had the opportunity, other than through his writings and speeches — www.house.gov/paul — to explain why adhering strictly to the Constitution is beneficial. So, let me.

The Constitution was not written for the new Americans ratifying it, but for the new federal government. It is a document that describes very clearly the few powers enumerated to the federal government by the people and states, and ensures that the government cannot initiate force against us or infringe upon our rights or property.

In our often well-intentioned attempt to solve more quickly the few problems suffered by any free society, we have created wider-spread, deeper-rooted and longer-standing ones by expanding government's power and reach.

Consequences of breaking law

This disregard for the rule of law has allowed our government to lead us into overseas conflicts that go beyond matters of defense, to infringe on our civil rights, to confiscate our property, to take close to 50 percent of our incomes, to impede improvements in quality and affordability of health care and education, to make it more difficult for people to provide for their families, to allow connected businesses unfair leverage, thus driving out competition and harming consumers, to infringe on our rights to self-ownership and choosing potential medical therapies for ourselves, to allow private banks to print unbacked money causing harmful inflation, to harm the environment, to discourage ingenuity and entrepreneurialism, the ingredients of self-satisfaction and economic development.

Most often the legislation of politicians harms us, harms the least well off of us the most and harms those it aims to help. Many believe we can make our lives on this planet more peaceful, fairer, greener and more prosperous by returning to a society based on individual rights and by establishing a truly free-market economy, free trade and a foreign policy of nonintervention.

Marc Guttman is an emergency physician and vice chairman of the Libertarian Party of Connecticut. He lives in East Lyme.


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