What Part of Ron Paul’s Platform Is Crazy?
What Part of Ron Paul’s Platform Is Crazy? By Greg Albert of the American Chronicle
I seriously want to know which of Ron Paul´s ideas are crazy. I read a lot of empty assertions in the media that Ron Paul´s ideas are fringe, nutty, or kooky. I couldn´t disagree more, but it´s hard to say because those terms don’t really mean anything and the press ain´t exactly full of rhetorical geniuses.
To me, it seems that Paul´s platform is the genuine position of anyone who subscribes to an individualist ethos. Sure, plenty of politicians claim to believe in individualism, but they jump into a collectivist perspective as soon as they get a question from the media. In contrast, Paul´s positions strike me as the natural consequence of anyone who believes in the Lockean theory of self-governance upon which our Constitution was more-or-less predicated. From that theory, almost directly, issues libertarianism/conservatism
So here is my simplified breakdown: Individuals have a right to do anything they want so long as they don´t infringe on the rights of others and they keep their agreements (contracts). Through those agreements, they can abrogate their rights to other people and they can create entities like states or corporations. They agree to charters to create states that will abrogate some of their rights for the purpose of protecting civil rights through their legislative and executive functions and enforcing contracts through their judiciary functions. In turn, those states contract to create a Constitution to bind them all.
