Defeatist Reasoning

David Weigel, over at the sometimes libertarian magazine Reason, has an all-too-familiar libertarian perspective on Ron Paul's early successes in his quest to become the Repuglican Presidential candidate.   Quoting a barstool-pundit all-too-frequently seen at LP-style get togethers we get the following:

[Weigel]"...At best, what's he trying to do: Shift the debate three or four inches over to the libertarian side on the war, on whether or not we should have a Department of Education?"

[Pundit]"Maybe he could, if he got to talk about that," he said. "He won't get to talk about that. Once the 1988 campaign gets rehashed, once people start digging through his old Ron Paul Letters, then what's his campaign going to be about?"

He quieted down for his final point. This was obviously what kept him up nights. "At the end of this, if you say you're a libertarian, are people going to say ‘Oh, like Ron Paul?' And are you going to want them to say that?"

Why not?  It's a sincere upgrade over having to answer that same question substituting in that war-mongering, mouth-breather Neal Boortz.  While Dr. Paul and I would most certainly disagree on a number of issues, none of them are germaine to the office for which he is running and should be overlooked in that context.  That he has been able to defend his principles all the while evolving and sharpening them while holding national office is, for me, something to admire, not the opposite.  When liberals like Bill Maher are calling themselves libertarians, how much more damage could Dr. Paul do to the term, really?

This is so unutterably typical of the kind of defeatist nonsense spewed forth by people who have been burned by their own ineptitude in matters political so as to project that onto someone who has been more successful than they at promoting the ideas that they espouse to believe in.  This isn't analysis, it's self-hatred.

Even if at some point in the campaign season the barstool pundit from Weigel's article is vindicated and, indeed, Paul is marginalized over one of his more 'wacky' past moments that still doesn't marginalize the movement or the ideas.  The man is not the movement, nor is he the philosophy. Conflating those things is not only simplistic and illogical, it's counter-productive and elitist.

In essence that person is saying, "Ron Paul isn't my kind of libertarian."

Weigel's own 'paradox' is supporting this line of reasoning because he can't see a way in which Paul could thrive on success.  What confuses me is where that mythical, smear-proof, monied, and charismatic standard bearer for liberty going to come from and why hasn't he stepped up to the plate yet?  Is Weigel so naive as to think that even that even if one found John Galt (and grafted some empathy onto him) that those in power wouldn't make stuff up to smear him with? 

Make no mistake, if Ron Paul were to be so successful that a DefCon 1-style smear campaign be launched against him, it would represent one of the greatest political victories the liberty movement has ever seen.  No LP candidate for president ever mattered enough to be smeared seriously, and that list includes Ron Paul.  So, I have to wonder about the motivations (and intelligence) of those who, like the person quoted above or the bitter old party hacks who are still wallowing in the mistakes of Paul's candidacy in 1988, can't see that very simple point.  The feeling I get is that nothing would make them sadder than for libertarians to succeed in changing the national discourse towards their view, as now the club wouldn't be quite so exclusive.

These people are so convinced there are demons lurking around every political corner that they never even set foot on the road. Their ultimate conclusion is that politics is too dirty and Ron Paul will not survive the mud-slinging. Therefore his running will damage the movement (such as it is... especially from an LP perspective) and he either shouldn't run in the first place or, better yet, fail miserably to protect what's left of their ceded dignity, which is ultimately Weigel's point.  The irony of this situation would be funny if it wasn't so completely pathetic.

It is, in essence, the same reasoning why there was such a push to soften the platform and/or constitution of the LP because weak-minded Repuglicans masquerading as libertarians didn't want to push through the resistance they were going to meet on some of the issues that they weren't committed to (but pledged to uphold) in the first place.  Once those changes were enacted the party lost it's uniqueness in the political marketplace and with it, any chance of ever being a motive force for functional change.  It's the same problem the dominant wing of the Repuglicans have.  With the neocon takeover of the party and neocons being marxists refugees from the Demo(gouge)crats the only way they can distinguish themselves on issues is to embrace wholly un-American ideas like torture and suspending Habeus Corpus (that really just gets Repuglicans back to their roots, as Honest Abe did that very thing) all in the name of fighting a war of ideology.

If Ron Paul has more skeletons in his closet than the ones listed in Weigel's article, I'm sure he and his staff are aware of them and are formulating a plan to counter them.  As the archives here at LRC and Antiwar.com show quite plainly, Dr. Paul is an eloquent and clear-minded spokesman of the message of liberty. 

If they don't like Ron Paul, that is their prerogative, but to not use the energy his campaign can (and is) generating is just short-sighted, spiteful and, franky, stupid.  If they don't want to fight for a man they don't agree with or respect, again, that is their right, but, in my mind, the picture and the stakes are bigger than Ron Paul. 

This is National Politics for chrissakes, not some sewing circle for passive-aggressive know-it-alls.  With the stakes as high as they are, the fight will be that much nastier and more desperate.  To borrow from my other life as a writer, this is Playoff Hockey and the Stanley Cup is only won by those willing to give more than they ever thought they had within themselves to succeed when presented with the opportunity to do so.  But, if the cause is just then making that effort should be axiomatic as opposed to herculean, a point lost some of my beloved Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern Conference Finals.

But, if you're unsure of what you believe in and what you stand for then it's easy to wind up bitter, drunk and clinging to the rag-ends of a movement you didn't love enough to set free and thrive.  Like the Great Gretzky said about goal-scoring in hockey, "100% of the shots you do not take, don't go in." In other words, if you're unwilling to fight, you don't deserve to win. 

Ta,

 

Comments

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