Preach On Brother!

As I recently blogged, I'm not all that happy with Ron Paul's actions regarding the ongoing presidential election. But as I've said many times, politics is about working toward common goals. When it comes to sound money, economic sense, and free markets -- Ron and I are on the same page, and I wholeheartedly support him.

Today's House rejection of the Bush Corporate Welfare Act was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. If you're ever looking for a concise summary of why the proposed bailout was a bad idea, please check out Ron's comments on the matter. Keep it in mind regarding future bailouts as well.

Warts and all, this man should still be our next president.

The Cult of Ron Paul

While it's taken me many years to learn this, I'm happy that it's finally computed: no one is above criticism, and no one is exempt from scrutiny. In fact, the endless quest of large numbers of people for a messianic leader has historically been one of the greatest threats to liberty. And no -- I'm not just talking about the Obamamaniacs who really believe that Barack can do no wrong. This also applies to many of the folks who have become so enamored with Ron Paul that they can't see the trees for the forest.

I've been a Ron Paul supporter for years. I enthusiastically worked on his 1988 Libertarian Party bid for the White House, and when he declared himself a candidate for president in this election cycle, I was 100% behind him. He's been right about so many things over the years that I'm willing to overlook the few points of disagreement I have with him (mostly involving his religion-based opposition to abortion).

The "Paulistas", on the other hand, are a different story. There is something -- well -- disquieting about people who build a cult of personality around an individual who is promoting individualism, capitalism, and liberty. It's not unheard of though. Were it not for George Washington's unwillingness to be made king, he probably would have been. Many great leaders in the fight for liberty have refused to be made into semi-deities. I always figured Ron would resist the urge as well. Maybe he's just getting bad advice from his staff -- maybe his success has gone to his head a bit. I don't know ....

When he called his press conference a few weeks ago to encourage Americans to abandon the two-party system and support a third party of their choice, I could appreciate his message. It wasn't a bad media stunt, and I certainly can't fault anyone for encouraging people to think beyond the typical democrat-republican / right-left / lesser of two evils mindset.

And if it had stopped there I could have bitten my tongue and lived with it. If there's one thing I've learned over the years is that politics is an endless series of compromises, and I've abandoned the notion that one must be ideologically pure in order to be a good Libertarian. I guess that's why, if Ron wasn't going to seek the Libertarian Party nomination for president, I can live with Bob Barr. I'd never claim that Bob is the perfect Libertarian. I just met him for the first time a few days ago, and after chatting with him a bit, I'm think he's still discovering some of the nuances of Libertarian thought. But he's doing a reasonable job of promoting a relatively consistent Libertarian message (in many ways it's pretty similar to what Ron has been saying for years), and that's good enough. After all, no one who advocates constitutional government, individual liberty and free markets is going to win the presidency. In a nation divided between those who worship government and those who worship an imaginary man in the sky, liberty is nothing more than a fire a few of us keep burning in the hope that some day it will again be appreciated.

But apparently there's bad blood between Ron and Bob. Maybe it's between Ron's staffers and Bob's staffers. I'm not really sure, and it's a shame that it's come to this. After all, Ron is still a member of the Libertarian Party, and he often embraces the small-l libertarian label. There's no political or ideological reason I'm aware of that the two of them shouldn't be on the same page most of the time. And hence, I'll commit heresy and assert that Ron should have, once the fun in Minnesota was over, endorsed Bob Barr for president and thrown the support of his PAC behind Bob's campaign.

But he didn't. I was, to put it politely, appalled (pardon the pun) to go to the Campaign for Liberty site and discover that Ron had endorsed Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party. By all means, please to go their website and read what they stand for. While they cloak themselves at times in libertarian-sounding rhetoric, they're really just religionists who want to create their own version of a christian theocracy in America. In many ways, they're just a slightly more superstitious version of George Bush with less socialism on the economic side of things.

But what's really frightening (as though Ron's endorsement of Baldwin isn't frightening enough), is the reaction of the Paulistas. I heartily invite you to read their comments. How can anyone claim to be a supporter of liberty (which includes the notion that one can be non-religious or enjoy a non-traditional lifestyle and still enjoy equal protection under the law) and possibly vote for Baldwin and the CP?? These are the folks who, on their home page, proudly declare that their intention is to "... restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundations". But many Paulistas line up, like the microcephalic lemmings they are, and thank Ron for - essentially - telling them what to think.

There's something very, very wrong going on here. Liberty and christianity are inherently opposite concepts. Christianity (much like Judaism) is an authoritarian mindset. Sure, believers try to emphasize the "love" theme, but the bible is replete with reminders that "god" is jealous, vengeful, and unwilling to share the spotlight with anyone else. The believer has a simple choice: knuckle under to the supreme dictator of the universe, or burn for eternity. These authoritarian beliefs are most definitely NOT the foundations of the Constitution (which is a product of the Enlightenment -- and was a definite move away from religiosity), and how Ron can overlook this escapes me.

However, the fact that many of his supporters are willing to let him think for them is even more disturbing. Maybe Napoleon was right when he noted that: “Vanity made the Revolution; liberty was only a pretext.”

Cultural Genocide for Jesus

Being close to Gainesville in the fall is never an easy thing. Not only does the town become overrun by thousands of new, expensive-car-owning, cell-phone-yakking, text-messaging-while-driving, semi-literate undergraduates, but it's also football season. I guess if you're one of those Gator fans who bleeds orange and blue it's a good thing, but since my alma mater stopped playing college football in 1956, I just never got into the whole rah-rah school spirit thing. And when I find myself stuck in an endless traffic jam surrounded by the faithful members of the Gator Nation, let's just say my sympathies aren't with them.

What's even worse is the ridiculously high pedestal upon which quarterback Tim Tebow has been placed. The fact that he won last year's Heisman Trophy has pretty much elevated him to god-like status in the Gator Nation, and I suppose that's all well and good. Unless he learns how to play quarterback between now and graduation, he's not going to light up the NFL, so he might as well enjoy it while he can.

But what really infuriates me is the fact that this young man is endlessly lauded by sportscasters and other molders of public sentiment for the fact that he travels around the world doing missionary work with his father. From the average American, christo-fascist, cultural imperialist viewpoint this is great stuff I suppose. I mean, he plays football, and he brings Jesus to people -- whether they actually want Jesus or not. Christians refer to this as "spreading the gospel". I disagree.

Theology aside for a moment, let's reflect a bit upon the role that wealth plays in human relationships. Let's say you're a poor villager in the third world nation of Tooweaktostan. When I say "poor", I mean really poor -- as in living in a hovel and not having anything -- rather than the American definition of poor (roof over your head, car with spinny rims, cell phone, TV and air conditioning, plus food stamps, aid to families with dependent children, earned income tax credits, and a big Obama for President sign on the front lawn). Suddenly these strange foreigners walk into your village, and offer to help you out. They bring food and medicine, they build you better buildings to live in, and they want to be your friend. Since you have no education to speak of and don't really understand much about how the world works, who are you to argue (or perhaps more importantly, know any better)? Besides, they also have things you need to survive, like food and medicine and the ability and means to build shelter. But there's a price for their friendship and charity. They've got this religion they're rather fond of, and they're really eager to make it your religion too. Whether or not it screws up your culture, rewrites your values system, or does some kind of long-term damage (like inciting your neighbors in the next village to kill you for forsaking your native faith) is totally irrelevant, as we all know that there's only one "real god" out there, and naturally it's the "god" of the Christians. It's good for you -- in fact it'll save your "soul" -- and it insures that more missionaries will come with more stuff in the future.

This attitude toward missionary work confuses me. After all, we'll work to preserve dying languages, protect cultural artifacts, and support independence movements of small ethnic groups who want to run their own flag up their own flagpole. If we're not careful, we'll wind up in a shooting war over whether or not South Ossetia and Abkhazia belong to Georgia or Russia. We're constantly deluged with reminders to respect cultural diversity, and large numbers of Americans may even buy into the argument that Islam itself really isn't an evangelical faith that calls for the world to be subjugated in the name of Allah ... it's just being abused by a small minority of fanatical hotheads who are giving it a bad reputation. To sum it all up, in most areas of human interaction taking advantage of the poor and ignorant to promote your own best interests is seen to be unethical and perhaps even immoral.

But once again, Christianity gets a free pass and is exempt from rational examination or critical inquiry. As long as we're spreading the gospel, it's all OK. And history lends great support to the value of missionary work. In Europe, spreading the gospel contributed greatly to a particularly bloody period known as the Dark Ages. It destroyed the lives and cultures of countless native peoples of North, Central and South America. In Asia, it adds more fuel to a brightly burning fire -- helping even more people die at the hands of others who pray to a different imaginary man in the sky. And in Africa, evangelism and other forms of western cultural imperialism have rendered a continent rich in natural resources and native cultural traditions an impoverished, politically fragmented mess. But who cares? As long as they go to heaven when they die, it was worth it.

So the next time you hear some half-witted football commentator droning on about how wonderful it is that Tim Tebow does missionary work, please ask yourself this question: How would you like people from a distant land coming into your community, lauding their wealth and power over you, and telling you how to live? How would you like being told that your belief system is wrong, and being force-fed a new one that reflects the world view of the outsiders?

Because that, gentle reader, is what missionary work really is: cultural genocide for Jesus.