Why the Tea Party Should Support Ron Paul’s Foreign Policy

National Security is too important to entrust to the state

Ron Paul is rising in the polls, and the only thing holding him back in the Tea Party is his unpopular foreign policy. But let’s take a look at it — he advocates simply that the state should be non-interventionist in its foreign policy.

This is definitely unpopular, but it is precisely the same as George Washington’s view:

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world…. Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice?

– George Washington at his farewell address, September 17, 1796.

Washington was well aware that when politicians are vested with the power to make foreign policy, they turn foreign policy into a personal profit center. War is a big money-maker for those who finance it and those who build the stuff used in wars. When states have the power to farm people like animals by taxing them, the territory in which those people live is another profit center for the state.

What do you think states will do? Duh. They’ll make war to make money. This is nothing new.

What is new is that in the last century the world has filled up with nation-states that have permanent war-making capability…. and economic incentive. The worldwide proliferation of central banks has turned the world into a giant borrower. What the central banks need is a reason or two for the nations to borrow, and the only thing more expensive than war is social welfare. So we have world wars and social security, medicare, medicaid, Obamacare, food stamps…. need I go on?

Giving the state the power to make foreign policy unites the profit potential with the means to realize the profit. The state has the economic incentive to make war, and the political means to do so.

What Ron Paul advocates is simply that we divest the state of the power to establish our foreign policy. And he also advocates the abolition of the US central bank. In other words, Ron Paul understands perfectly what the state and all statists don’t want you to know — that state control of foreign policy and the economic incentive for war are the cause of war, not the solution. Clearly, the state is incompetent as a peacemaker. Indeed, its most powerful incentive is to make war.

Statists, especially establishment Republicans, respond to Ron Paul’s call for state non-interventionism by fear-mongering; they say it will weaken our national security. Of course, this is a fearsome prospect, but it is grotesquely false. Even if intervention is required in order to assure our security, there is no reason to entrust that task to the state.

First of all, the state has no business providing national security. It is absolutely incompetent to the task. Would you trust the government to provide your food and clothing? Or look at it this way. If you were on a deserted island with Obama and Biden, would you turn over all your guns to those two lunatics and have them protect you? Of course not. And if it was Obama, Biden, and the 535 members of Congress? Like me, you’re laughing. So why should the entire nation do so?

Second, if the state was truly concerned about our security, the solution would be to respect the Second Amendment instead of abolishing it in practice.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

What we have here, in black and white, is the constitutional solution to the problem of national security, and it is the antithesis of our current policy. This is not complicated, but merely distasteful to those in power and to their mindless, robotic, state-indoctrinated supporters. Make no mistake about it — our state-run foreign policy has nothing to do with national security.

Third, we in the Tea Party all agree that the government is essentially incompetent to manage most of what it manages. Social Security is bankrupt. Our currency is grossly inflated. Our national debt is going to bankrupt us. The EPA is a nightmare. Welfare is just a vote-getting racket. Education is in shambles. It’s hard to find a single thing the government does well — what is so cosmically different about foreign policy that the government should suddenly find its groove?

None of this is to say that foreign intervention must be avoided even at the expense of our security. But if foreign intervention and alliances are required in order to make us secure — as they well may — it is abundantly clear that our security is far too important to entrust to the state. A free people will provide their security far more effectively than a state whose every economic incentive is to make war.

Have you ever wondered why a drunk keeps drinking himself sick? His hangovers are miserable affairs, but he keeps inflicting them upon himself. You can explain it in various ways — he’s depressed, he’s addicted, he’s self-hating — but all of these explanations reveal the foolishness of his actions. None of them are based on his being sensible. The United States abandoned what was left of its non-interventionist foreign policy in the run-up to World War I, and our troops have been engaged 24/7/365 ever since — that’s more than a century. I don’t know about you, but I think we should have learned our lesson by now.

Ron Paul has, and because he recognizes the state as the primary threat to our liberty — and security — he’s vilified and marginalized by Democrats and Republicans.

Hey, that sounds familiar.

For Liberty,

Manny Edwards