It’s from February, but still funny.
I don’t just think that the Ron Paul movement is silly. I find it troubling. The fact that a far-right movement can exist on a college campus, complete with demonstrations and graffiti, is what worries me.
It means that the people who are most motivated to have their ideas heard are anti-egalitarians who flaunt their message beneath a banner of freedom. Although they’re a minority, this group meets no resistance in promoting an ideology that, when executed around the globe, has been the greatest rival of democracy and resulted in the most tyrannical regimes in the past half century.
These ideas are mostly native to our country, but have had to be exported to nations in a state of shock, such as Pinochet’s Chile, where the nuisance of democracy was a minimal inconvenience as opposed to the tyrannically stable liberty of the United States.
The odd thing is that the Ron Paul movement, on its surface, resembles a sort of left-wing activism. Poster-makers and graffitists seem to be working spontaneously, recalling such non-ideological causes as the Civil Rights movement or early trade unionism.
In fact, the opposite couldn’t be truer. The ideology is rock-hard and ruthlessly self-contained (and self-perpetuating). The Friedmanite insistence that poor people are too ignorant of the economy to effectively decide what ought to be done brings Paul’s supporters more in line with the stubborn anti-democracy of Lenin than the florid idealism of Martin Luther King Jr. or Emma Goldman.
The facts of history must be ignored in order to back such a cause. Working people fought for the progressive income tax; Paul’s supporters insist that it is a tyranny. Americans adore their public services, from the city bus to the post office to libraries. My argument only falls short on one point: I can’t think of a single moment in history when a “states’ rights” argument was used by the benefactors of oppression. Oh, except for that one. And that one. And that one. (Goodness, remember that one?)
I think it would be appropriate here to mention a few reasons why I personally hate Ron Paul so much. It’s because I hate freedom. I really do. I hate the Constitution as well. But Ron Paul sure loves them. Boy, does he ever love freedom and the Constitution. Just ask one of his supporters. Did you know he delivered 4,000 babies? Dennis Kucinich doesn’t come close.
So where do I get off, calling Ron Paul’s backers a far-right movement? Don’t they seem to be off the conventional political spectrum, something un-categorical? After all, Paul is against many things the Republicans are for, from the Iraq War to NAFTA.
There should be no doubt: A fascinating (particularly for college students, my God!) disdain for the scientific method, together with a fanatical cynicism toward democratically-earned public institutions, means that Ron Paul is, at the very least, a conservative. Match this up with conspiracy theories (always characteristic of far-right ideologies) like the North American Union or the absurd anti-patriotism of income tax denial, and Ron Paul is squarely at the far right of the spectrum, practically infrared.
I want to emphasize what it is about Ron Paul that troubles me. I’m not worried that he’ll win (naturally). What I find disconcerting is that the tactics of the left have been fully appropriated to the opposite end of the political spectrum, without anyone really taking notice. The egalitarian, participatory character of these tactics gives a movement that rejects basic democratic principles a misleadingly democratic character. And if the Paul movement is integrated into mainstream conservatism, without a reaction from the left, we could be dealing with more graffiti, larger marches, and less democracy.