Photo: Ron Paul at his desk.
Connecticut-born Joe Spiegel works in finance in Boulder and New York City. He’s voting for neither John McCain nor Barack Obama.
A registered Libertarian, Spiegel won’t even be checking the box for party candidate Bob Barr.
Come Tuesday, he’s writing in Ron Paul.
Spiegel, who is in his mid-thirties, has said that of all the structural political ideologies and belief systems floating around the states, the one that resonates most deeply with him is that of Republicanism in its most traditional, 18th century form.
John Adams once defined a republic to be “a government of laws, and not of men.” The original sentiments behind Republicanism put personal freedom and the power of written law over the finicky whims of politicians and other such go-betweens.
Similarly, Libertarianism, also born in the late 1700s, remains true to its name: Libertarians prize “liberty,” despise authoritarian governments, believe that people possessing free will may coexist without the need for a governing body, and encourage respect for property, privacy, and the minding of one’s own business.
Joe Spiegel explains that of all the candidates he’s seen bursting into the political arena, Congressman Ron Paul’s views—anti-NATO, anti-UN, anti-federal income tax, anti-Federal Reserve (in favor of hard currency), anti-Patriot Act, anti-gun regulation, anti-No Child Left Behind, anti-War on Drugs, anti-Roe v. Wade (supporting state decisions), non-intervention—hew closest to his own.
We spoke on the phone about his support for Paul:
Do you think you’re wasting your vote by going for a candidate not likely to win?
The only vote that’s wasted is the vote not cast. Sitting something out says ‘I don’t care,’ but I do care. He’s the only candidate I’ve ever given money to. The purpose of an election is not to vote for someone who’s going to win, but to support a candidate whose ideas most closely espouse your own. I think that in the last 50 to 100 years, people have gotten confused about that. We’ve moved away from what a representative government really is. Politicians have to go to Washington to do what their constituents tell them to do.
And Ron Paul…
…Most closely matches my ideas. He’s one of the last real Republicans. He and [Dennis] Kucinich vote only for what they believe in. There’s no background deal. With most politicians, you can tell they’re looking at each other and agreeing ‘you vote for mine; I’ll vote for yours.’ People who think anything’s going to change with the new president are lying to themselves. You can see people’s voting records, but nobody seems to bother to look. Ron Paul’s been consistent: he’s voted against every spending bill and everything that goes against civil liberties (like wire tapping).
It’s really unfortunate that people have developed the idea that Republicans are religious maniacs. It’s an ‘equality of opportunity’ party. It’s become confused with religious zealotry, but in most parts of the country, that’s not true. There’s a lot of misunderstanding; there’s a huge schism in both parties. The people who associate Paul with that kind of zealotry are ignorant about what he believes in.
What do you dislike about McCain and Obama?
I hate all of Obama’s policies. I agree with him on nothing. I find that on the margin, McCain’s ideas are less bad. They’re not great, but they’re less bad. His government would be smaller than an Obama government. But neither one of these guys has fleshed out his ideas. Neither of these guys has real policies. I don’t see either candidate righting the mistakes of the last 60 years.
Schools are a local matter. Libertarians still believe that. You’d think Democrats would like ‘No Child Left Behind,” but they maintain the world view that everything that Bush does is bad. [Warrentless] Wiretapping was a Clinton invention. It’s a bad thing, but no one complained. A lot of things people find distasteful about Bush, like the horrific Patriot Act, only happened because of a Democratic Congress. Congress makes the laws.
You go to New York or Boulder or Berkeley, and that’s all they talk about, how the Patriot Act and wire tapping are bad. So why are they pro-Obama? He supported both.
For the Democrats to turn around and say that it’s all Bush…it should be called a Pelosi policy because both side of the aisles, and law-passing Congress, bear some responsibility.
What do you like about Paul’s internal economic policies?
His promotion of a small government. The past few weeks have shown us that Americans don’t want huge interventions in the economy. They didn’t want a $700 billion bail out using their money. The stock market’s going down anyway. The bank made bad loans, and that was a mistake. Taking out loans you can’t afford is a mistake. Both sides of the transaction cause problems, and I guess both sides deserve to fail then. People get hurt. They’re the collateral damage. But on the whole, [neither] I [nor] Ron Paul like huge interventions.
Do you think Libertarianism, and thus Paul, promote a sort of selfish antithesis to good Samaritanism? That is, how do you feel about welfare or Paul’s approach to it?
I think morally, people can be asked to intervene and help those in need. But I don’t think the welfare system is a good one. There’s a big difference between unemployment benefits, a safety net you pay for, and block grants. The latter are terrible. They’re massive transfers to people that are based on nothing. Moreover, that kind of system is really demeaning, and it’s not structured in such a way to get you out of a difficult situation.
There’s no mandate in the Constitution that says something like welfare should be a federal responsibility. It doesn’t make sense. What will someone in one place know about how to deal with life at the other? It boggles the mind to think a centralized bureaucracy would know how to deal with that kind of thing. You have to attack the problem on the level on which it is suited. A centralized army? Yes. Welfare? No.
What Ron Paul would suggest, and what I would support, is making each individual community and state responsible for their own. It’s not the federal government’s responsibility. The people helping need to be closer to the problem. The system needs to become more localized.
Does it bother you that he opposes Roe v. Wade?
Well I’m totally pro-choice. But no, it doesn’t bother me because I hate Roe v. Wade too. The ruling establishes a precedent. It implies that the Supreme Court can make something up out of thin air. People are so absorbed by the end that they don’t understand the means. They don’t care how they get there, and that’s very dangerous. By giving the court that kind of power, even if the ruling supports something you believe, it opens the door to a terrible thing. Like, ‘We’re going to pretend you have the right to privacy,’ but by saying the Supreme Court can grant rights, you’re allowing it the same power to take them away.
The Court’s job isn’t to infer a right; it oversteps its power. But the truth is that neither side is really interested in resolving this decision, so they save abortion and gun control as emotional issues to get people riled up and emotionally involved in an argument that no President or Vice President really has any power over.
The President doesn’t have the power to regulate firearms. It doesn’t matter whether or not the President or pro-choice or pro-life, he or she doesn’t have the ability to do anything about it [except through the appointment of Supreme Court justices. But see above argument against giving Supreme Court justices the power to make that decision]. If you’re pro-choice, you’ve had 35 years to enshrine this nebulous decision into an actual law. But no, both sides thus have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
The Constitution doesn’t say anything about abortions. I agree with Paul that Roe v. Wade’s a terrible court ruling. It should be decided state by state. If you live in a state that doesn’t support abortion and you have to move, so be it. There’s no perfect solution. No one’s forcing you to stay there. It’s not Big Brother’s business what you do.
What’s your reaction to Ron Paul and foreign policy?
By and large, I agree with him that there’s no reason to maintain a presence in other countries. Let’s start with the 1940s. After WWII, there was no reason to maintain that presence in Germany. Fighting Japan was a good idea. The Korean war was crazy. In 2001, the Middle East attacked us, so we had to retaliate. We’re already in Iraq, but we should find a way to get out. It’s very murky and messy. If we’ve had the ability since 1945 to subdue enemies without putting our troops’ lives in jeopardy, we should consider doing so.
People fight; it happens. But there are certain ways of doing it without requiring massive amounts of people anymore. We can use technology to our advantage without committing ourselves to large expenditures or putting lives at risk. I think there’s little need for us to have a far flung military presence in most places.
And in the case of foreign genocide?
That’s a slightly different ball of wax. I think we would have gotten into WWII even if Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor. In terms of something like Darfur, while I don’t think it’s technically the U.S.’ responsibility, we could have a moral obligation to help. Could we be asked? Yes. Should be asked? Yes. Being asked and responding are, however, very different from unilaterally deciding to do things our way and just stepping in.
Being a Libertarian doesn’t mean you have to be hawkish. There will be times when people aren’t going to live and let live. Strong isolationism means hiding your head in the sand. But I am, and I think Ron Paul is, a supporter of weak isolationism.
How do you feel about the media’s coverage of Paul and the election in general?
Every newspaper, magazine and TV station has a bias against the Right in favor of Obama, especially the New York Times. I have to stay that if you take out the editorial section and just leave the news pages, the Wall Street Journal does a pretty good job of keeping it simply about the news and not about opinion, as does the Economist.
