Answering John Murphy

A little background - John Murphy is an independent candidate for Congress running against Joe Pitts here in PA. He sought the support of our Ron Paul group, based on his opposition to the Iraq war, his support for "civil liberties" and his hope to do something about the national debt. He seemed very confused at the groups lack of enthusiasm, and has been urging us ad nauseum to quit holding to "19th century ideology" and vote for him because he has an MBA, likes to "solve problems" and is running an "issues-driven" campaign. He sent the following list of questions (in blue, below) to several of us, presumably hoping to change our minds. The black text is my response.

John,

I don’t have much time but I’ll do my best.

Who or what precisely do you see as the enemy -- internal -- of the United States or, as some of the folks put it, "the Republic"?

Any influential entity who rejects our founders’ understanding of individual rights, and/or who works to undermine the constitutional framework of our government, is the enemy. There have always been politicians who fit that description, but we are now at a crisis point where a large minority, if not a majority, of participating citizens have been thoroughly indoctrinated with collectivist/statist propaganda. That is where groups like ours come in. We are here to educate, inform, and encourage others to start washing their own brains.

Why is small government better than medium or large government?

Because humans are basically self-centered and seek to meet their own needs/wants/desires with the least possible effort. In a true free market (where government punishes violations of individual rights and mutual contracts, defends the citizens against outside threats and otherwise leaves them alone) this tendency of human nature improves efficiency and productivity. But when government moves beyond those boundaries, opportunities are created for those who exercise the legislative powers to satisfy their own needs through the political means rather than the economic means; or in other words, to exploit the physical or mental labor of others rather than using their own labor productively. The Law by Frederic Bastiat (Nicole recommended it already) is the best treatise ever written on this subject – and it isn’t long. If you promise to read it, email me your address and I’ll mail you a copy tomorrow. Really.

Why shouldn't we be more concerned about the relationship of corporate America with our government rather than the relationship of individual Americans with our government?

Corporations are not inherently dangerous – in a true free market such as we defined above they are no threat at all to a nation. The danger comes when government forms an improper relationship with any economic force, whether individual or corporate, and begins to legislate, adjudicate or enforce in a manner that favors that individual or corporation over others. The reason we see corporatism as a larger threat is because corporations, by their nature, generally have much greater incentives to offer politicians in exchange for favorable interference in the market.

If there were only three possible values that we could hold: freedom, equality and justice and we were forced to eliminate two of them what would be your rationale for getting rid of those two?

You pose a false dilemma. True freedom, equality and justice are inseparable. Freedom is the absence of coercive force in the life, actions and decisions of an individual. Creative equality is the basis for asserting that freedom, and justice protects the first two by punishing violations of them. These values appear to be in conflict only when they are improperly defined (e.g. financial or conditional equality substituted for legal equality).

Do you make a distinction between personal freedom and civil liberty? If so how do you distinguish between the two?

Not dogmatically - I think they are closely related. The term “civil” liberty may be inaccurate because it usually implies that liberty is the gift of government rather than inherent in the individual. But if by civil liberty you mean a society where individual liberty is respected and protected by government, then I would say civil liberty is the legal aspect of personal freedom.

Given that our Constitution was written by the landed aristocracy as a means of protecting their property from those Americans who were less unfortunate. ("The people who own the country ought to govern it" said founding father John Jay while Alexander Hamilton said that a permanent check over the populace should be exercised by "the rich and the well-born".) Isn't it time that we had a new constitution whereby we got rid of tyrannical elements like the Senate and the electoral College? (Four senators from North Dakota and South Dakota representing approximately 500,000 Americans can outvote two Senators from California representing 36 million Americans.)

Hamilton did not represent the majority of the founders by any stretch of the imagination. Neither the Senate nor the Electoral College were “tyrannical features” as they were originally designed. Senators weren’t supposed to be representing the people. The purpose of the Senate was to be the voice of the States in the limited federal government, and the House of Representatives was to be the voice of the people. The 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified April 8, 1913, defeated that purpose and helped lay the groundwork for the silent coup d’etat begun the same year. The Electoral College has been rendered worse than useless by the modern party system, but originally it was a brilliant effort to guard against the sort of demagoguery that had destroyed earlier democracies like Athens. I can’t take time here to go into that in detail.

If Thomas Jefferson hadn't been as incompetent a president as he was a governor he would have scrapped the 1789 Constitution and called for another Constitutional convention whereby anti-democratic elements would be eliminated. What do you think of a statement like that?

Partially true but irrelevant.

From my point of view I see the infringement of special interests -- the US corporations and outside organizations like the Israeli lobby (AIPAC) -- as the greatest threat to our republic because roughly 57,000 Americans along with AIPAC are responsible for 95% of the campaign finances of both major political parties (AIPAC alone provides 60% of the funding of the Democrat party and 25% of the funding of the Republican Party this will keep us in near constant war in the Middle East). Consequently both old parties aim to serve the interests only of those people who finance their campaigns. What do you think about that statement?

True – but the root problem isn’t the fact that campaigns are funded by the wealthy; rather it is the fact that we the people have allowed our public servants to work for those financiers instead of us. If government were restricted to its constitutional limits there would be very little incentive for corporate and special interest donors to contribute to political campaigns.

As a political scientist I can tell you that studies performed by researchers specializing in voting behavior indicate that fewer than 25% of voters are “rational voters”. Most "rational citizens" are so "rational" that they have determined that voting is futile and stay home. The people who are motivated enough to constitute the majority of the people that show up to vote are so motivated precisely because they are irrational and/or single-issue voters (love Jesus, hate gays, love Israel, love guns, hate foreigners -- whatever it is that floats their boats). What do you think about that conclusion?

We know it to be true – not because we’re political scientists but because we’ve been talking to those voters. I would respectfully suggest that question #4 indicates the problem of irrationality may be closer to home than you realize. Be that as it may, I agree with your conclusion.

Because we disagree on some issues like health care and education does that mean we cannot work together to solve mutual problems?

Not at all. But we’ve got to agree on the problem to be solved. The message we’ve all been trying to send you is that we have come together precisely because we are sick and tired of “issues-driven, problem-solving” politics. We are looking for statesmen who understand the core principles of freedom, because we are convinced that government will never solve our problems. Too many honest but naive politicians have been sent to Washington with a mandate to get the government off of our backs, only to be swept up in the tide of philanthropic tyranny and add their personal issues to the already out-of-control list of “problems” to be “solved” through more government interference. Enough is enough. We’d like to solve our own problems for a change, starting with the problem of big government. It appears that you are looking to become part of that problem, which is why I can’t support you.

Regards,
Patrick G. Kocher