Ron Paul Votes Against Free Markets and Free Enterprise
Republicans of a certain economic libertarian stripe fondly sing the praises of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. They say he is the only politician who really, truly understands freedom and the need for free markets and free enterprise. They like to say that if Ron Paul were elected president, America would once again freely let free markets and free enterprise operate free of government intervention and regulation.
In contradiction of this fawning depiction, Ron Paul voted yesterday FOR the Stupak Amendment, a measure to prohibit private insurance companies from offering abortion coverage to anyone in a health care plan if just one person gets a single dollar in federal subsidy to help buy in to that plan. This is a significant restriction to end freedom in health insurance markets, to make private enterprise less free.
Will economic libertarians absorb this information about Ron Paul, or will it simply bounce off the shining image they have created of him?
Ron Paul will vote against the bill in the end.
He also believes that HMOs and other 3rd party providers which receive federal funding should not be allowed to pay for abortion. Of course this wouldn’t be an issue if Congress followed the Constitution and never subsidized these companies, but as it is an issue, there is nothing wrong with Ron Paul trying to prevent tax payer money from being connected to abortions.
and by the way, of course abortion shouldn’t be a federal issue- but at the state level, if a libertarian believes a fetus is a life, the libertarian would oppose abortions and favor a law preventing them- because if a fetus is a living being, it has rights to be protected from aggression (that’s the CENTRAL TENANT of libertarianism) So I appreciate this website, but please don’t use this example as something that libertarians will just ignore b/c of the “shining image” around Paul-accusing us of something like what the Obamabots are still doing (ignoring Iraq, civil liberties, etc, b/c their guy is in).
First, you’re factually incorrect in your depiction of the Stupak Amendment. The amendment would not only “prevent tax payer money from being connected to abortions,” but would also prevent women from obtaining abortion coverage when they pay for it themselves.
Second, you’ve just articulated a new standard: that Ron Paul is for free markets and free enterprise, except when it’s OK to be against them because you don’t like what those free markets offer.
Third, you’re offering a very loose articulation of when it is acceptable to curtail a woman’s liberty — when a “living being” has to be protected. But a cow is a “living being” — so I suppose that means vegetarianism must be the law of the land according to libertarian principles? Horses are “living beings” — so I suppose that means horse racing, a sport taking its toll on horses, must be outlawed according to libertarian principles?
Oh, you mean something else than what you literally said? What, then? That a “living human being” has the right to protection? Then you’d better outlaw the removal and killing of cancer tumors — they’re living human tissue, after all. Does that not count? What do you mean, then? That Independent and separate human living beings have to be protected so much that the liberty of a woman should be quashed? But fetuses aren’t independent and separate. Do you mean, perhaps, a conscious, thinking human living being? But surely you’re familiar with embryology enough to know that individual neurons in the developing brain don’t begin to connect until the 10th week of gestation and that neurons haven’t structured themselves for cortical brain function until at least halfway through a pregnancy.
However you slice it, Marc, your stance doesn’t make sense… unless your threshold for violating a woman’s right to self-determination is very, very low. That wouldn’t make you much of a libertarian, would it?