A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

It's impossible for me to support Ron Paul in his quest to become the Republican Presidential nominee in 2008. While the "libertarian" part of my libertarian-conservative self is interested in certain discrete aspects of the Paulian message--free trade, free markets, fiscal discipline and small government being those aspects--it seems to me that in too many instances, Ron Paul's policy goals are frustrated by the very proposals Paul puts forth.

Consider free trade. Paul supports it very strongly and says that he wants to trade freely with other countries. A laudable position. And yet, he also argues that the United States ought to withdraw from institutions like the World Trade Organization. The problem, of course, is that membership in the WTO is a great way to resolve trade disputes without resorting to destructive tools like unilateral tariffs--as we learned in the case of China. Without American membership in the WTO, the United States was more likely to resort to unilateral tariffs to address the issue of alleged Chinese export subsidies. And in case you need reminding, unilateral tariffs are a clumsy policy tool.

Take as well Paul's foreign policy of non-interventionism. I am a non-non-interventionist myself, since non-interventionism is not even remotely a palatable foreign policy option for the United States. Non-interventionism and neutrality was a smart move when we were starting out as a nation and had to navigate between the Scylla of Britain (a great empire, our maternal country and the one with which we had the closest cultural ties even after the American Revolution) and the Charybdis of France (our indispensable ally in the Revolution and yet, a country with which tensions arose in the wake of the XYZ Affair and in the wake of the French Revolution and the attendant Terror). America projected little power abroad and by maintaining a policy of neutrality, it left no vacuum for others to step into. The policy made sense and the reason why Washington's Farewell Address was and is so respected is because it took such a realistic and cold-eyed view of the state of play regarding American foreign policy:

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? 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, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

Matters--to say the least--have changed since Washington's time. We are the most powerful country in the world, perhaps the most powerful in history after all relevant factors have been taken into account. If we withdraw from the world and pursue Paul's policy of non-interventionism, we will leave a gigantic vacuum and we have to wonder about who will fill it.

And once again, even if one embraces Paul's vision of non-interventionism, one finds that Paul's specific policies will undermine the very cause of non-interventionism he advocates. Paul wants us to pull out of various international organizations. But the next time a crisis develops that demands an international response, thanks to our non-intervention, we will be in no position to exercise any influence whatsoever--and I include diplomatic influence in the mix. After all, we would no longer have any kind of membership in international organizations through which we traditionally exercised influence, assuming that we follow Paul's policy of non-interventionism. If we are in no position to exercise diplomatic influence, we will also be in no position to help elevate diplomacy over force when the former is called for over the latter. End result: The increased chance of more war in potentially cataclysmic circumstances where American "interventionism" could have helped bring about a peaceful outcome--either purely through diplomacy or through a threat of force combined with diplomacy that ultimately resolves a situation without actual shots being fired and actual blood being shed.

I understand the appeal of Ron Paul. But ultimately, his cause is sabotaged by the candidate espousing it. That's not a candidacy I can get behind. And I don't see why anyone else would want to.