Joe Carter from The Evangelical Outpost posted one of the most uninformed articles I’ve ever read. He accuses Ron Paul, and libertarians in general, of holding to Utopian ideals, but does very little to actually refute them, other than to throw ad-hominem attacks like “they should grow up.”

Is this argument from an economic or philosophy textbook that I don’t know about?

Joe himself might want to grow up a little bit and learn how to do some research before making some of his own childish claims and assumptions.

Let’s go through them one by one.

• “Third, she is dead wrong in saying that the candidates should engage his views in a serious way. The last thing that they should be doing is wasting time treating his bizarre utopian libertarian beliefs as if they were politically tenable.”
  
  And what bizarre “beliefs” would that be? That government bureaucracy is inefficient? That lowering taxes promotes economic growth? That free trade is preferable to preemptive, aggressive, and perpetual warfare? That each man is responsible for his own actions? That each man has the right to political self-determination?
  
  Regardless of whatever so-called “bizarre belief” Joe has in mind, political tenability should not be used as a measuring stick for anything, as politics is usually only interested in the status quo. I’m sure King George III thought that the Founding Father’s ideas were politically untenable as well.




• “Conservatives and libertarians agree that the government should be smaller. But Paul wants, a minarchist, would cut it to the bone by eliminating the FBI, CIA, FAA, FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Education and just about every other federal agency in D.C.”
  
  Joe, like the Fox News debate “moderators”, wants you to think that Ron is some crazy person living in political dreamland. While Ron would like to cut as much bureaucracy as possible, he knows the limitations of the presidential office, and, in fact, is in favor of bringing back the traditional constitutional limitations on the office. There is no way Congress would even let him start with this kind of agenda.
  
  What these stated goals do, however, is bring awareness to the fact that even with all of these intelligence gathering organizations, you have to have intelligent, motivated people interpreting it. While there are certainly intelligent people in government, the incentive structure is such that they are never motivated properly. It’s just the way it is with government agencies.




• “He would put the government back on the gold standard, a position that most economists agree would completely destabilize our economy.”
  
  Notice how he makes assumptions here, and doesn’t even cite any studies or writings on the topic. They’re pretty easy to find. It’s ironic that Joe says that Ron is “not a buffoon or a clown but an honorable man”, but them claims he holds a view contrary to “most economists.” But given the fact that Ron is well read and even quotes several economists in his own writings and speeches, maybe Joe should actually read up on the topic before deciding what is so “destabilizing” about it.
  
  While there is certainly much dissent in this area, there are plenty of cases for a return to the gold standard. May I recommend Ron’s own work on the subject, Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the United State Gold Commission, and this small case study about how Panama has no central bank, yet maintains a stable currency. That’s just for starters.




• “Paul’s opposition to the war in Iraq is just the tip of his isolationism”
  
  To label Ron’s foreign policy views as isolationism is like saying Jesus made it his business to oppress the poor. The label obviously doesn’t fit and again shows the lack of research. Again, may I recommend Ron’s own work A Foreign Policy of Freedom: Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship, outlining his desire for a policy of pure defense (no aggressive, preemptive wars), coupled with free trade with all nations. Free trade forms bonds of mutual prosperity and respect that make war less and less likely the longer it continues.




• “Paul opposes military conscription on principal, so he wouldn’t have instituted the draft even during WWII. He also says the Civil War was a “mistake” and that the country should have just paid Southern slaveholders to give up their rights to their…what exactly, “property”? (Libertarians never were very good on civil rights)”
  
  Wow. Where to start with this one? How about the irony displayed when Joe seems to be favoring one form of slave labor (military conscription) while condemning another (African-American slavery). You cannot be consistent when you say you hate slavery but favor a draft. It’s simply incompatible.
  
  As to the Civil War, all of the civilized world had already abolished slavery peacefully. Only the United States had to kill hundreds of thousands of people to do it. And that’s just if you recognize that slavery was even the reason for the war to begin with, which it demonstrably WASN’T.
  
  There another bit of inconsistency and irony in Joe’s statement here. He ridicules the idea of paying southern slaveholders to voluntarily relinquish their “property”. But then he thinks it’s ok that we killed them all instead. Is that really the world view of an evangelical Christian?
  
  The last statement in this quote is probably the most underhanded and unsubstantiated attack in this article. Libertarians have never been good on civil rights? Huh? Ok, now we have to seriously question whether he actually knows what the word even means. The sole aim of libertarians is to ensure the civil rights of people by scaling back government involvement in personal lives, thereby preventing governmental and majority tyranny.




• “The main problem with Libertarianism is that it is the rightwing equivalent of Marxism, a utopian ideology that makes a fetish of a particular virtue (in this case, libertas!) and refuses to acknowledge that, if followed consistently, the philosophy would cannibalizes itself and destroy the very thing it seeks to venerate: individual freedom. It is the politics of adolescence, amusingly suited to precocious teens who think Ayn Rand is a “philosopher.” No mature adult, however, should take it seriously.”
  
  Rightwing equivalent to Marxism? Again, I have to question whether Joe actually knows the meanings of some of these words. And once again, he offers no proof but his opinion and amateurish attacks. Saying that no mature adult should take it seriously is asking people to ignore hundreds of years of history and economic thought, much like Joe is doing in this article. Does Joe really want to perpetuate the stereotype that Christians ignore reason and don’t like to think for themselves?
  
  He makes another assumption by insinuating that the libertarian movement is simply made up of people who have read Ayn Rand. Did Adam Smith pull from Atlas Shrugged for his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations? Did Thomas Jefferson consider Ayn Rand a philosopher? What about Mises when he wrote Human Action: A Treatise on Economics? Or could it be that Ayn Rand pulled from ideas that have been tried and true for centuries and simply delivered them in another medium?
  
  I don’t really know the answer to the last question, because this libertarian has never read Ayn Rand, so it would be dishonest for me to make judgments.




• “A distinction needs to be made between economic libertarianism (which can work when society is moral) and political libertarianism (which espouses an untenable minarchism).” First of all, this distinction simply doesn’t exist. Economics and politics are forever married in a world where humans actually live. Second, I think this is the foundation from which most of Joe’s fallacies are built upon. He assumes that libertarianism is a Utopian ideal and so can only work if society is “moral”(whatever that means).
  
  But libertarianism and economics begin with the assumptions that people will inherently act selfishly and continually act to improve their situation. This especially includes politicians and government. Politicians don’t get tapped with some magical “benevolence and altruism” wand when they get elected. They are always working in their self interest, except now they have the power of government behind them to force people to do what they want. “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It’s like a huge, legalized criminal “protection” racket.
  
  So here’s the basic problem. If you think that free markets and libertarianism can’t work because society is immoral, why do you wish to place these same immoral people behind the reigns of the awesome power of the state where they will experience almost no negative consequences for their actions? Again, free markets work precisely because people are immoral and selfish. Big government is a bad idea precisely because people are immoral and selfish.

Why are we so afraid of other people’s freedoms? Why do we have so much faith in the establishment when they have failed time and time again?

This article just reminds me of the lack of faith exhibited by Israel when they asked for a King in 1 Samuel, and then our own need for an idol. We are so wrapped up in our fears that we will turn to anyone or anything that promises to solve our problems, and government certainly loves to make them so it can keep our blind trust.

But by reacting in fear, we turn our backs on the true King, becoming less human, and nothing more than slaves.

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