This post has been inspired by Don’s diary entry titled “Liberty or Tyranny”. The primary subject I’m going to discuss here and in future posts is actually Ron Paul’s views and how I think they relate to liberty, tyranny, and scale of government. I don’t mean to maliciously single out Representative Paul for examination, but he is running for President and he does have views that are very much outside the mainstream--and therefore is attractive to a lot of voters who might not really have looked into his positions. He is also identified as being a strong libertarian and, therefore, on the side of individual liberty. But I have my doubts about this and want to use what I see as the weaknesses in his stances to share my own thoughts on the subject. To be sure, he is not necessarily opposed to liberty as the title of this post might suggest. Instead, I'm going to let his words duke it out with my own conception of the term on various topics.

I recently went to Rep. Paul’s website and browsed through several years of topics in his Texas Straight Talk section. He is prolific and puts out one a week, so despite reading for a couple of hours I really only scratched the surface of his writings. But what I did dig up is interesting.

To my first point, from Don’s post: Ron Paul has gone on record as being very strongly anti-abortion. However, he has also said that he would leave the issue up to the states to decide and would not enforce any law at the Federal level—pro- or anti-abortion. Some who are pro-choice see this as a mitigating factor that means he simply won’t force his abortion views on people if he were President. But here’s the kicker: “Let the states decide.” It sounds nice because it means that decisions will not be made on the federal level and thus will be "closer to the people." However, there are certain rights that must be universally enforced, and the right to control your own body is certainly one of them. At least, for something as fundamental as reproduction.

The state of Texas, or the state of Maine, or any other state is just as capable of taking away a woman’s right to control her own reproductive functions as the Federal government. Let’s be honest here: If it’s left to the states, do you see South Carolina allowing abortions? Utah? Texas? Sorry to pick on those states, but I think most people reading this will agree that at least some would ban abortion within their borders. Possibly a majority of the 50.

Not everyone who lives in an anti-abortion state will be able to travel to a state that provides them. And that's when the clothes hangers start coming out again and women start dying because they happen to live in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because banning abortions at any level doesn’t stop them—it just moves them underground and makes them terribly unsafe. Depending on how extreme the ban is, women can even be criminalized for daring to control their own body.

The history of appeals to "leave it to the states" isn't always bright anyway. I understand the principle itself is quite valuable and think that as many issues and decisions as possible should be left to state and local government, but securing universal rights for individuals is not one of them. The "leave it to the states" motto has been used time and again in our history by those seeking to deny equal rights to a disempowered minority.

Most recently, gay marriage has been confronted with this motto—even from many of its proponents. Couples that get civil unions are now finding that employers aren't always willing to recognize them—especially if they move to another state that explicitly denies their legality. And traveling in a state that does not recognize a union means that if a partner gets hurt and medical decisions need to be made by someone else, the other partner will be denied that right. Leaving it to the states is curtailing their liberties. If gay couples want to be married and have all the rights that come with it, they are relegated to living on whatever islands of tolerance they can find among the 50 states and take large risks when leaving those safe areas—much, much larger risks than heterosexual couples. And even in those areas, they are finding that civil unions are just another manifestation of the “separate but equal” fallacy—namely, that it is always “separate and unequal.”

And I don’t really have to go into how slavery and segregation were both defended via appeals to states rights, do I?

Given that Ron Paul wants the states to decide whether or not a woman can get an abortion and that he himself is opposed to any such procedure, I seriously question whether or not he is standing for liberty on this topic. In my view, having the right to get an abortion secured at the federal level is a step toward liberty--it is the opposite of government encroachment. But "leave it to the states" are weasel words that passively allow authoritarianism to take root. He is saying that he’s fine with removing the right to control your own body from 50% of the US population—just so long as the Federal government doesn’t do it. That is not pro-liberty by any stretch.

I also do wonder if he really adheres to his principles. For example, the following is an excerpt from his campaign website under “Issues” and then under “Life and Liberty:”

In Congress, I have authored legislation that seeks to define life as beginning at conception, HR 1094.

How is this keeping the Federal government out of the picture? He is willing to use Congressional legislation to dictate his views on the beginning of life. He may be against Federal laws on abortion, but this legislation is just one tiny little step away from that and would certainly enable many states to point it out as justification for their own bans, should that day ever arrive.

To wrap this up, my own views on abortion are short and simple: Pregnancy and birth are very complicated. People will make the decisions that they deem are correct for them. I respect their decisions, and believe that women should have the final say on their own reproductive status. I also believe that a fetus is not a human being until it can be removed from the womb and live on its own. Even that definition, as broad as it is, constricts things too much—what of infants that require breathing tubes, etc.? It’s complicated, and I don’t have all the answers. But so long as the fetus remains in the womb it is up to the woman to decide what to do with it. It’s her body.

And I think my views are much, much more on the side of liberty that Ron Paul’s. In fact, I do believe that Rep. Paul is passively authoritarian on this issue. Rather than being pro-liberty, he is simply anti-big government--two concepts that are not necessarily related. This is a theme which I'll be returning to in whatever future installments I end up writing, as it crops up repeatedly in his statements. As a result, he still thinks that the state should be allowed to control a woman’s body, so long as it’s not the biggest state of them all—the United States. But California? Texas? No problem. On the other hand, on this topic I think that all states should just butt out, take their hands off, and let people decide what is best for them.