Posted on 05/18/2011 9:12:16 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The 2012 presidential candidate has gone off the deep end in defending the right to sell sex and drugs as personal liberty—and stretched libertarianism past the breaking point, writes Michael Medved.
How would you describe a perennial presidential candidate who insists in a televised debate that government has no more right to interfere with prostitution or heroin than it does to limit people’s right to “practice their religion and say their prayers”?
The phrase “crackpot” comes immediately to mind—and in any contemporary political dictionary that term would appear alongside a photograph of Congressman Ron Paul.
The Mad Doctor, who proudly consorts with 9/11 Truthers, announced his third race for the nation’s highest office on Friday the 13th (appropriately enough) by declaring that if he were president he never would have authorized a lethal strike against Osama bin Laden. The firestorm over this remark distracted attention from previous controversial comments just eight days earlier, when he used the first debate of the 2012 race to stake out exclusive territory on the lunatic libertarian fringe.
Asked by Chris Wallace of Fox News about his insistence that “the federal government should stay out of people’s personal habits,” and his specific opposition to restrictions on cocaine, heroin, and prostitution, the candidate claimed that social conservatives would nonetheless vote for him “if they understand my defense of liberty is the defense of their right to practice their religion and say their prayers where they want to practice their life. But if you do not protect liberty across the board it’s the First Amendment-type issue… You know, it’s amazing that we want freedom to pick our future in a spiritual way but not when it comes to our personal habits.”
In other words, as long we’re free to seek salvation in heaven, we must be free to enjoy drugs and hookers while we’re alive?
This addle-brained attempt to equate religious freedom with liberty to pursue profit as pimps or pushers counts as daft rather than deft. As a preening “Constitutionalist,” Paul ought to understand that the First Amendment explicitly protects “free exercise” of religion but says nothing about a right to operate bordellos or market recreational drugs.
Wallace also asked the crotchety candidate if he was “suggesting that heroin and prostitution are an exercise in liberty?” In effect, Paul agreed that they were. “Well, you know, I’d probably never use those words, you put those words some place,” he stammered, “but yes, in essence, if I leave it to the states, it’s going to be up to the states.”
This suggestion of leaving regulation to local authorities makes no sense at all when it comes to the drug trade, which usually involves international (or, at the very least, interstate) commerce. Moreover, his invoking of the First Amendment in the need to “protect liberty across the board” means that the states would have no more right to outlaw bongs and brothels than the federal government. The Supreme Court has federalized Bill of Rights protections since 1925 (Gitlow v. New York), meaning that First Amendment protections restrict state power (under the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection”) just as much as they limit the Washington bureaucracy. If the feds can’t interfere with selling smack or sex (under some bizarre misinterpretation of a constitutional right to free expression) then states can’t touch those activities either.
Reasonable people might disagree on the advisability of restrictive drug laws and the criminalization of prostitution; many thoughtful conservatives believe that society would benefit by decriminalizing recreational drugs (especially marijuana) and authorizing the sex trade under medically regulated circumstances. But the suggestion that such reforms amount to a sound shift in social policy isn’t the same as Paul’s provocative (and preposterous) claims.
The only possible argument for this constitutional interpretation would involve a sweeping expansion of the fictitious “right to privacy”—a whole-cloth invention of the Warren Court that conservatives (and originalists) generally hate. If the Constitution actually hints at a right to privacy so comprehensive that it protects a previously unrecognized right to sell sex, then how can it not guarantee the freedom to terminate your pregnancy? But Paul insists he remains fervently pro-life and speaks with (appropriate) contempt of Roe v. Wade.
Did the Founders ever intend to guard “personal habits” from governmental regulation? If so, then why did prior generations fail to employ Paul’s argument to challenge the long history of strict local, state, and federal supervision of the sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages?
Enjoyment of booze (yes, I just poured myself a delicious Barleywine Ale from Full Sail brewery) represents perhaps the most commonly practiced “personal habit” in American culture, but that hasn’t stopped authorities from limiting the hours of bar service or, in numerous “dry” counties or states, prohibiting the marketing of liquor altogether, both before and after our ill-fated experiment with Prohibition.
At its rotten (in fact putrefying) core, the Paul logic obliterates the crucial distinction between private, intimate activity and commercial enterprise.
When it comes to alcohol, for instance, there’s a world of difference between enjoying ale in your dining room and operating a bar or liquor store. Even those who maintain that purely private activities (like sex between consenting adults) deserve constitutional protection can recognize that selling sex or drugs on street corners is hardly private, nor is setting up bordellos or pubs to lure customers.
Commercial transactions are by their very nature public, with an inevitable impact on the larger community. That’s why rules against growing and using weed in your own home seem far more intrusive and unreasonable than laws against mass marketing of marijuana.
In this context, one could argue that a “need to protect liberty across the board” should include a near absolute ability to do what you please in your own home, but it wouldn’t involve untrammeled freedom to make money in any way you choose. Building wealth inevitably involves others, and significant, impactful social interaction. Would anyone claim that protecting liberty guaranteed a right to advertise some phony, falsely packaged “miracle cure” for cancer that did significant harm to those who purchased it, or for a public market to offer dead cats labeled as ground sirloin?
Congressman Paul’s refusal to acknowledge any role for government in restricting drugs or prostitution—and his insistence that these “personal habits” deserve the same protection as prayer or worship—represents a sad caricature of conservative and libertarian ideology.
The good doctor added to the reckless pattern when announcing his candidacy on ABC’s Good Morning America by claiming that the successful raid against bin Laden represented the beginning of a planned “massive invasion” of Pakistan by the U.S. military. The Pakistani press will no doubt focus on his remarks, arousing an already alarmed public with reports that a “high American official” predicted the imminent occupation of their country.
Pakistanis don’t understand that Ron Paul isn’t a serious political figure, but most Americans do. Last time he ran for president, he raised and spent more than $28 million, but won far less than 1 percent of convention delegates (21 of 2,830). This time he’ll fare even worse, since his campaign rhetoric already seems to make less sense.
Dr. Paul will be 76 by the time of the election next year, so the good news is that 2012 will likely represent Dr. Demento’s Last Hurrah, or more precisely, his Last Harrumph.
-- Michael Medved hosts a nationally syndicated daily radio talk show heard by more than 4 million listeners. He is also the author of 12 nonfiction books, most recently The 5 Big Lies About American Business.
Liberty as our founding fathers defined it was accountability and responsibility; first each individual’s accountability directly to God, then to ourselves. If you are accountable to God and yourself, then the authority others can wield over you is limited.
The founders did not agree with you! All drugs, including hard drugs, were entirely legal during the time of the founders. Drug prohibion only came during the era of the nanny state progressives. You are out of step with their vision on this issue, not the libertarians.
There...fixed it for you.
All this is fine and swell but the fact remains, the nut known as Ron Paul will never be president.
Okay, now THAT was funny!
I have psoriaic arthritus...and I am allergic to aspirin and aspirin products. This removes 90% of all pain relief medicine from my use. There is really only one class of pain relievers left for me. Try to get a doctor to prescribe them for an extended period of time. The feds will be all over them. I currently am stuck living with the pain..
I said nothing about legalizing drugs and prostitution, did I? I spoke to the reasoning I see behind the movement. Before accusing me of something get straight what I said, and don’t assume to know me with the intimacy you have assumed.
Three arguments.
1) In our society, any adult can voluntarily have sex with an unlimited number of other adults, legally. Like it or not, as tacky as it is or not, it is how the law is written. Likewise, people can give money to each other for anything or nothing, as long as any applicable taxes are paid on it, as long as the consideration is inherently legal.
But put the two together, and it is “prostitution”. Importantly, there is nothing more than is directly inherent in prostitution than that, despite arguments that unrelated things, like drug abuse, etc. are involved. No, they are not part of the transaction, and nothing directly relates them to it.
2) Right now, government around the world, including our own, are in the midst of a “frenzy of control issues”. They literally want to have a hand in everything and anything we do, in an obsessive-compulsive manner. And this is wrong and evil. It is not their job, but to them it is becoming, or has become, *more* important than their fundamental purpose. Our nation is suffering because they have neglected their job.
Just yesterday, news came out that the Australian government has decided to ban thousands of plants, because they contain trace amounts of illegal to possess chemicals. This includes their national flower. Irrational and bizarre, but this is just one insanity among vast numbers.
This is why drugs, and many other things, should be legal. NOT because there is any legitimate value in the abuse of them, but solely to prevent government involvement in what is NOT a government prerogative. As such, it has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars to do something that should not be done, *by them*.
3) I used to be in favor of America as international policeman. This attitude was based in the fear that small wars can become large ones. But now, with US military forces deployed to over 100 foreign nations, on the most insignificant of pretenses, it has become obvious that we are trying to prevent anyone from fighting anyone, for any reason. This is not a legitimate use of our treasure and blood.
It is time for us to pick and choose our fights. Unless we have a stake in a fight, then we should allow the combatants to use whatever savagery they want against each other. And while we may contribute to war crimes investigations after the fact, intercession on our part is just futile.
“... complete autonomy from authority.”
That is inaccurate. That is not libertarianism, be it from Ayn Rand, Richard Epstein or Walter Williams, just to pick three. Limited government doesn’t equal no government.
My understanding comes from personal contact with Libertarians, so if I got the wrong impression, mia culpa.
Another thing, you are completely high, if you are going to try to tell me that the Founding Fathers thought drug abuse and prostitution were not morally reprehensible. If Libertarians are willing to substitute God’s authority for that which the state has taken, uprightly, then I recant my statement, otherwise, I stand by it.
If your school age daugther is sick and I say a prayer for her, you may be offened, but neither you or she is harmed in any manner.
If I suggest to that same daughter that she sell her body for money and snort a little coke is it possible she may be harmed by that?
We have an idiot as President now. Why go for another?
Yes they did agree with him. Public drunkeness, comminting acts while intoxicated, and prostitution were all illegal at the time. None of the founders sought to change that.
All drugs, including hard drugs, were entirely legal during the time of the founders.
Which drugs? You mean the ones that didn't exist at the time, don't you? Refined drugs like cocaine and heroine didn't exist at the time. You're right, the ones that didn't even exist were legal.
And there was minimal use of other drugs (marijuana, for example, was not smoked to any significant extent in the US until after the Mexican-American war). They weren't an issue at the time of the founding, because they were rarely found in society.
The Libertarian Party should be renamed the Libertine Party, because that is really what they espouse.
A libertine is someone that is free from restraints--legal, societal, religious, or moral. That's what the Libertarian Party espouses, but that is never what the founders espoused--not even close.
Well, there’s plenty of info out there. Thomas Sowell is a good starting point, as is Williams, if you like economics, and Williams hosts Rush’s show a lot.
My challenge to Medved and others is this: defend the War on Drugs without sounding like a liberal defending the War on Poverty. Good luck with that.
WORTH REPEATING
Ron Paul, a crack whore’s best friend.
Unseemly for silly pants Medved to be calling anyone Dr. Demento.
Huh? I never said or implied anything of the sort! Being against legal prohibition of a particular behavior doesn't necessarily mean that you don't find it "morally reprehensible." For example, I think devil worship, failing to give presents on mothers day, and lying to friends or family is "morally reprehensible" but that doesn't mean I'd make these behaviors illegal. Do you feel otherwise?
Unlike the founders, who lived in a world of completely legal hard drugs and apparently had no problem with it, you seem to completely confuse this obvious distinction.
Medved usually has strong arguments for his positions, but this article is lame. I think he intends a smear job on Ron Paul, who is simply arguing that, because regulation of dope and prostitution is not among the enumerated powers of the Constitution, Congress has no authority in regulating such matters. Medved is smart enough to have a deeper understanding of libertarianism and the concept of enumerated powers than he describes here, but knows that a some conservatives are ignorant or prejudiced enough to lap it up. I suspect that he’s really far more concerned about a particular aspect of US foreign policy. He’s certainly not so hard on candidates with dubious records on the right to life.
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