The Ron Paul Question

Nearly eight years ago, flush with the zeal of the newly converted anarchist libertarian, I passionately advocated for abstinence from voting under any circumstances—forever. Four years ago, I expressed my doubts hither and yon about Dr. Ron Paul’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, sniffing as I had done a few years earlier that it was somehow not properly anarchist/libertarian to ever vote for anyone in any government election for any reason, even if it was for a candidate who was vowing to do whatever he could to roll back state tyranny and oppression.

As the song goes, I was so much older then but I’m younger than that now. 

Like monks debating the meaning of a catechism, there’s been an awful lot of debate and hand wringing over the past several months as to whether or not libertarians, particularly anarchist libertarians, should tread to local polls and sully themselves with the electoral process and cast a vote for Dr. Paul. With no apologies whatsoever to my former self, I will be casting a vote for him in Illinois’ open primary come March 20th. In light of Paul’s 52% win in the state’s GOP straw poll this past November, right in the heart of Obama country, I have a strong suspicion that there will be far more than a few others doing likewise.

Dr. Paul achieved a respectable third place finish in the Iowa GOP caucuses with 21% of the total votes cast and finished second in the New Hampshire primary, where he won 23% of the vote. Polling for the upcoming South Carolina primary in just a few days doesn't look as promising for him, where he's supposedly only looking at winning 12% to 16% so far. This comparatively low percentage may very well be due to that state's deep economic entrenchment in the military-industrial complex.

But Paul is winning far more votes this time around than he did four years ago. Most of the mainstream media, with very few exceptions, have been downplaying his gains as a revolt of masses of people who are just too dumb to vote the right way. There is something in the air here and it has a strong whiff of insurrection. That is, insurrection against the ruling establishment that for nearly an entire century now, if not longer, has arrogantly presumed that there is no power too great for them to assume, no morals or ethics too sacred for them to violate, and no foreign country too far out of reach for them to exploit and subjugate.

What have I got to lose? My anarchist soul? Hardly. None of us, whatever our political ideology, ever chose or consented to this state that we have lived under since birth. We have never had any choice in the matter, not in any meaningful way. Should any anarchists, then, really damn other anarchists for taking up the offer of the first man in who knows how many generations to stand up and fight to push back the creeping tyranny we have tolerated for far too long and widen the margins of liberty? A man who, in fighting this fight, is mocked mercilessly on nearly a daily basis as crazy, a kook, unfairly derided as a “racist,” smeared as an “isolationist” who supposedly wants to cut off America from the rest of the world, and yet he still goes before the cameras day after day after day, in the face of all the mockery and insults, to make the case for liberty and peace before a national audience.

In light of the steam that Ron Paul's presidential campaign appears to be gaining, it looks like there's a genuine opportunity here and it holds too much promise to let it slip away in the name of some abstract, impossible-to-achieve purity of the stateless soul. We should seize upon every strategy for maximizing liberty that’s available to us and clearly the Ron Paul campaign is one highly viable vehicle for that goal, even if it’s surely not the only one. There are many different paths available to those who love freedom and liberty, and right now the Paul campaign is one of the most effective we have. It takes the struggle straight to the den of liberty’s enemies, which is the electoral arena. Like it or not, that is still an arena that is paid much attention by the vast majority of Americans. Even if Paul ends up departing that arena in defeat, he will still have scored a great victory for liberty for having exposed that many more Americans to what he calls the freedom philosophy. As far as we anarchists are concerned, that should be seen as all to the good.

If none of what I’ve written above persuades my fellow anarchists very much, then they should keep in mind that there are quite literally human lives at stake. As president, Paul wants to bring the troops home from the Terror Wars abroad, cease the U.S. government’s unnecessary saber rattling toward Iran over their non-existent nuclear weapons program, roll back the inhumane, stupidly destructive War on Drugs and restore the now nearly destroyed protections of civil liberties in this country. Even if his campaign does not end in an electoral victory, with each additional vote he receives the rebuke against the current rulers is louder and louder, and the more and more their confidence in their wars and persecutions wanes. 

And I am frankly sick and tired of helplessly standing by while the government that taxes me uses those revenues to assault and mutilate defenseless children. If Ron Paul is the guy who's volunteering to do whatever he can to end that evil madness, then hell yes I'm voting for him.

If you thought a vote had the potential to save a single human life, would you soil your pristine anarchist soul to participate in a government election?

I’m pretty sure I could live with that trade-off.