(The following is a post from my old Silverwolf blog that seems extremely relevant given the economic and social chaos we are experiencing under the current government. It also lays out clearly the philosophical basis of a Libertarian-Minarchist government and economy.)
Silverwolf recently saw a wondrous sight, and one he relished with gusto, for it was something he had never really seen before: the execution of William F. Buckley, Jr.
Of course, Silverwolf, and many other Americans, had witnessed, over the decades, the constant rapier thrusts and forensic ploys that Buckley laid for his unwitting guests. Anyone whose rapier was not honed equally sharp would soon find himself being lanced to death by one who stood for ‘the cause for which Hampden died on the field and Sydney on the scaffold’. (And what cause was that, Silverwolf? Ah, he’s not telling.) And probably Norman Mailer and Steve Allen were amongst the very few whom one could genuinely say emerged from the ruction able to claim victory. The entire gallimaufry of forensic manoeuvres, both disingenuous and valid, would be employed by Buckley, the arrogant ass, in assassinating any whose views differed with his Highness’.
That is until one day during the Campaign of 1988 for the Presidency, when Buckley invited the Libertarian Candidate to appear on his talk show, Firing Line (notice we call it ‘show’, not ‘program’). The adolescent Libertarian Party, formed by Murray Rothbard and two others in a (smoke-filled?) room in Colorado in 1973, was now 15 years old, and it chose to run an adolescent-looking young Congressman, Ron Paul of Texas, who had served four terms in Congress since 1974 and then quit in disgust to run for ‘the Big One.’
What follows is the execution of William F. Buckley, Jr. Children should be removed from in front of the computer screen during the reading of this next segment. And we strongly recommend pregnant women leave the room too, for fear of miscarriage.
Buckley started this debate with his usual belittling ploy. After presenting Dr. Paul’s background, and some facts on the Libertarian Party, Buckley starts rattling off all the things Dr. Paul would abolish: the CIA, the FBI, the Draft (they had it at the time, and now Obama wants to reinstate that cornerstone of Fascism and Communism, Mandatory National Service, i.e. Forced Labor or a Draft), welfare, farm subsidies, the Department of Education, and the well known list that Dr. Paul has repeated over the years.
And, of course, all this accompanied with those exophthalmic eye-pops Buckley could engineer, and his uncanny ability to move his scalp backwards and forwards two inches at will, something Silverwolf can’t do, and which reminds him so often of Stan Laurel’s ability to wiggle his ears in “A Chump at Oxford”. Buckley could also orchestrate these moves beautifully, by adding a sarcastic half-smile that stopped dead below the nasal septum, while adding at the same instant the eye-pop, usually when he was making his most devastating point, leaving his opponent off-guard and speechless, seeming like a fool appearing on national PBS television. Buckley was great at defending himself with logic, and then making illogical points which most supporters of his views would miss.
But finally to the actually ruction. Buckley starts out (subtle put-down) wondering why the Libertarian Party had done so poorly in 1984, losing roughly 75% of the votes it had garnered in 1980. Paul explains that the euphoria surrounding Reagan in ’84 had been the primary cause (pretty obvious). Then Buckley subtly belittles Paul’s campaign by saying, ah come on, isn’t your campaign really didactic, not serious. “No” comes back Dr. Paul’s direct answer. And then he repeats his oft told story about running the first time for Congress, and telling his wife not to worry, he couldn’t win, but running just to put forth and discuss his views on government. But then he got elected and got “sentenced to Washington for eight years”, which elicited audience laughter. Then Buckley tries again, comparing his own campaign which he ran purely didactically, because he saw no difference between the Democrat and the Republican in the contest he entered. How does that differ from your campaign, he puts to Paul? Well, you were a single candidate, Paul retorts, but the Libertarian movement is a whole new party, and while one must be realistic, the goal is to win, and even if they don’t win, it will grow the party towards 1992. After all, the Republican Party was small in 1856, but four years later it swept to power, he points out. (Touche!)
Then Buckley launches into his criticism designed to appeal to mainstream Republicans and many Democrats alike, claiming that, as one who often has referred to himself as a “Libertarian” and sharing many of their ideas, he regrets the kind of absurd reductionism with which the Libertarian Party treats certain issues (a logical-sounding criticism). And then wonders why Paul would want to get rid of the FBI and CIA. Paul points out that, up until 1914 in the case of the FBI, and 1947 with the CIA, the country got along just fine without them. Then Buckley counters by asking Paul that, were he to be kidnapped, wouldn’t he want a Federal agency, like the FBI, coordinating the search, instead of all the State police agencies, and couldn’t they do a better job? But Paul replies that he doesn’t think so, and doesn’t see why it wouldn’t be alright if the state agencies handled it. But what if he were taken to Canada, Buckley counter-punches? Wouldn’t he want a Federal agency like the FBI to intervene, rather than the states trying to handle it? No, replies Paul. We have extradition treaties with countries like Canada, and the States could also have extradition agreements with other governments, he logically points out. Then Paul gets in his first picador’s pike: he doesn’t know of any vast body of literature discussing how bad the kidnapping situation was in America, or discussing a huge problem of Americans being kidnapped and taken to Canada, just prior to the introduction of the FBI in 1914. Now defeated on his tissue-thin argument, Buckley uses the seed of doubt defense, and says he’s not entirely sure about that, but then asks what chance Paul would have of being found in Canada without an FBI? Paul thinks just about as good a chance as with an FBI, and points out that the FBI is not a perfect institution. Then he goes on the attack, further pointing out that the FBI has been known to violate Civil Liberties. “They have engaged in sting operations, and, of course, they spy on people”; and Paul points out the violation of Constitutional Acts through the FBI’s gathering of information against Dr. Martin Luther King by that perverted Fascist disguised as a Red-baiter, J. Edgar Hoover.
Then Buckley comes out with an extraordinary statement. “Well, everybody violates Constitutional Acts”, as if this is normal and something we should accept as an everyday reality. We can only imagine his words if it had been a Leftist saying this about an unConstitutional Act carried out by a Leftwing politician or government official. Suddenly Mr. Law and Order, when it’s convenient, has become Mr. Realpolitik.
Then Buckley tries the teacher-lecturing-to-the-ignorant-student approach, in pointing out that the FBI is “bound” by far stricter rules than those binding State investigative agencies. But Paul points out that they haven’t done a really great job in following those rules under J. Edgar Hoover, and further points out that it is well known that Hoover used what he knew to intimidate politicians into doing what he wanted from them, and was someone who violated the Constitution and Civil Liberties. Buckley switches the topic off of Hoover quickly, and reiterates his old argument as if it were fact that if Paul were kidnapped, they would need an FBI to get him back.
But to stifle further valid points from Paul he segues, “But moving on to the CIA …”. Buckley wonders, in a world of the Soviet Union and nuclear bombs, why Paul would object to an agency who mission it was to gather intelligence? Reiterating what he had said earlier in passing, Paul treats Buckley like the thick student. “But I think you missed my point which I made earlier.” Paul doesn’t object to the gathering of intelligence, but this should be done by the military, as it was prior to 1947. He objects only to the fact that it is a civilian agency, not a military one.
Still, Buckley puts on the feigned surprise that anyone could object to an organization dedicated to gathering intelligence which could be vital to the survival of the Republic. But Paul counters that their major activities are not gathering intelligence, but engaging in covert activities and interference in the internal affairs of other nations, and serving American banking and commercial interests around the world. And not only that, but the intelligence they gather is so often wrong or useless. Why, if they are so good, Paul queries, didn’t they warn us about the coming attack on the Marines in Lebanon?
One more try. Buckley wonders why the metaphysical opposition to a group dedicated to the preservation of a country in the 20th century? Paul answers, “Because there’s no need for it and because they’ve caused more harm than good. They literally were participants in the escalation of the war in Vietnam. The killing of Diem was orchestrated and very much involved with our CIA. Our CIA does not have a good record.”
Dr. Paul then goes on to point out that technology has advanced so far that many of the reasons for having people walking around in spy coats in foreign countries have disappeared, and he cites the recent (at that time) satellite photograph of Terry Waite getting out of a car, the Anglican minister who tried to get the Iranian hostages released and was himself taken hostage at one point. Paul points out that the CIA is only necessary if you have a foreign policy designed to pick and choose which dictator to support. But foreign policy should be confined to only one topic, Paul argues, the defense and security of America, not the picking and choosing of dictators. If you had such a foreign policy, you’d have far less need for such an agency, and all intelligence could and would be handled by the U.S. Military, as it was prior to 1947.
Buckley then makes the disingenuous argument that, in the case of Diem, the CIA made a “mistake”, but if the CIA had been part of the military, then it would have been the military that made the mistake. Paul counters that the Army is for the defense and protection of America, not for the overthrow of some foreign dictator like Diem. Buckley tries to make Paul look like a fool by saying indignantly, “You’ve just finished telling me that the CIA functions could be carried out by the Army.” But Paul points out the critical point which shows up Buckley’s disingenuousness in making this whole bogus argument. “Only gathering intelligence, not covert activities for overthrowing foreign dictators. I think that is an atrocious act.”
Then Buckley tries an outrageous ploy. He describes the death of Admiral Yamamoto as due to the intelligence function which informed our fighter planes that he was flying into a certain port in New Guinea and they went in and shot him down. (Buckley here completely ignores the fact that this took place when America was in the midst of WWII, prior to the creation of the CIA.) Since this was due to “paramilitary intelligence” as he puts it, it was outside Military intelligence, and therefore, somehow, the listener is supposed to deduce that the CIA should be allowed to exist. As Buckley puts it, “Your quarrel is with an organization simply because it happens to be an independent arm of the Executive rather than an integrated arm of the Executive.”
“No”, replies Dr. Paul, “our quarrel is they’re too big, too powerful, and do too many things that we disapprove of. If we took the very limited function for the protection and security of America, this could be accomplished as it was prior to 1947 through the military; that’s all we’re saying. We believe sincerely that the CIA is involved in way too much activity in the internal affairs of other nations, the selling of weapons to the Ayatollah and being involved in really illegal activities. The CIA was even reported in the Iran-Contra hearings to being involved in dealing in drugs. In some of these planes they were known to be carrying drugs. It’s totally unConstitutional the way it’s run. They don’t have to live up to the law. … It really cannot be justified on Constitutional nor Moral grounds.”
Buckley counters that he really cannot understand that because there is nothing in the Constitution that says you cannot volunteer to serve in the clandestine service under the regulation of the laws and the Chief Executive. And then makes the bogus argument that while he can see that sometimes the CIA does things that are not under strict judicial scrutiny, most of that is done abroad, and therefore when it is done abroad it is not bound by strict Constitutional scrutiny.
Paul comes back to the point that there is no justification for an agency that has no Congressional oversight. Paul says that he was in Congress for four terms, and he was unable to figure out what the CIA was doing. “I wasn’t privy to the information.” Buckley acts with a slight feigned outrage, and points out that he just published a novel which was based on the attempts to assassinate Castro which came out at the Church hearings in 1975. “I don’t understand you when you say there is no oversight”
Paul points out that he represented half-a-million people in the Houston area, and he could not tell them what was going on with the CIA. “I think in a representative government I should be able to report to my people what’s going on, rather than after the fact, and after a very diligent examination.”
Buckley counters, “You concede that there are oversight committees, and you concede that you cannot have a Secret Service with 535 members of Congress advised as to what is going on.”
Paul sums up his position. “I think that something that the people don’t know about and the Congress can’t know about. . . I think there’s something awfully suspicious to have something like that exist in a Free society.” And Paul once again points out that since Buckley brings up the CIA, what about the Bay of Pigs as another foreign policy fiasco in which they were involved. “The CIA is there to support an unwise foreign policy, and I think the two go together. See, if you have limited government, if you have the purpose of the military to defend this country, you really don’t need a CIA all around the world.”
Here, here, Congressman Paul!
Buckley tries to wriggle out by saying that the Bay of Pigs invasion was based on an executive decision made in the Oval Office, and since the President is not part of the CIA, he only runs it, it’s not fair to blame the CIA for a decision made by the Executive.
But Paul gets him. “The information must not have been very good.”
Never one to lose an argument, Buckley sums up and segues all in one sentence, that the CIA failure in Cuba was due to the fact that they were “let down by President Kennedy. But let’s move on to other fields, let’s say ‘tax’.” Something they might agree on, huh?
Buckley says that he has always been impressed with the Libertarian’s argument that the progressive feature of the income tax is against the idea of equal treatment under the law. But to say that you are against the progressive income tax is not to make a case against the income tax, is it, queries Buckley?
“No” replies Dr. Paul. “We are against the tax principle. The progressivity of it of course, is bad, but the income tax is unnecessary. Again, something happened in the twentieth century where the American People changed our attitude on what we want from our government. We’ve ushered in this overwhelming runaway welfare state that we cannot afford, and we also became an American Empire where we have troops around the world, and we pay for the defense of Japan and Germany and everybody else, but at the same time you had to have two ways of financing this. One, we decided you had to have an income tax that we would start subtly and small and escalate to the point where it really is the biggest rip-off in the country, along with a Federal Reserve System and allows us to monetize the debt.”
Buckley: “But that happened 65 years ago.”
Paul: “I know, but since 65 years we have seen the deterioration of the society we love. I mean, the Libertarian Society is no longer with us BECAUSE of these ideas.”
Buckley: In 1922, the top tax was 70%, right now it’s 28%, so how can you say that we’re going down a slippery slope where we’re getting worse and worse?
Paul: Because the amount of tax coming out of the economy is still much greater. The amount of tax that the government takes if over 40%. When the Founding Fathers got sick and tired of the British taxing us, they had a tax of 25%.
Buckley interjects that, first, it’s not 40%, it’s 39%, and second, 16% is by the states and their economies.
Paul asks and answers Buckley, “What was the indentured servant required to pay his master? 25% So, we have enslaved ourselves. Not only are we enslaved by the tax system, we are enslaved because we keep all the records. If we don’t keep the right records …” He points out that with the new “tax simplification bill that just came out, if we don’t learn those forms and records, we have a gun pointed at our head by the IRS who says, ‘You’re going to be put in prison if you don’t learn to fill out those forms’. . . We have to keep the information, we have to turn it over to the government, we then set ourselves up for self-incrimination, then we are guilty until proven innocent if they say you owe such and such amount, we will go to jail and they confiscate money from our banks. . .”
“No, you’ve got it a little wrong there, Dr. Paul. If the IRS contends your tax, the presumption is theirs, but in any criminal prosecution, the presumption is yours.”
Paul comes back with the simple truth. ” The IRS can come and confiscate our money very easily if the IRS sends you a bill, and you don’t pay it. If they send you a bill at the end of the year and say you owe $10,000 in taxes and you don’t pay it, you’d better be able to jolly well prove that you don’t owe it, isn’t that correct?”
Buckley: “Yes, but if they charge you with fraud, the presumption is yours.”
Paul: “Yes, but if they send you a bill, it’s up to you to hire your attorney and hire your accountants, and spend a lifetime, or many years of agony to prove yourself innocent, with your records you turn over to them. But, back to the general principle. Taxation is bad not only because the IRS I think is such a vicious organization, but because ‘taxes’ is confiscation of wealth, because it isn’t part of the American tradition, it wasn’t what the Founding Fathers intended, it isn’t what we had through the 19th century, and it’s totally unnecessary in a Libertarian Society. It’s only necessary if we want a government that’s going to redistribute wealth, and defend the American Empire.”
Buckley: “How was that? When the Supreme Court ruled, in Marbury vs. Madison, that the power to tax was the power to destroy, and the right of the State to tax the Federal Government was removed, it was done by someone who was a young man around in Philadelphia when the Constitution was formed. Now, those people didn’t say: There shall therefore be no tax. They said that tax policy had to be made with reference to Constitutional principles. Now, it wasn’t for 120 years after that before they could have an income tax. But I seem in your literature to be reading as though America was founded on the assumption that there would be no taxes.”
Paul: “No, I never said that at all. I said there would be no income tax.”
And Dr. Paul goes on to point out that there were taxes in our early history in the 19th century, but they were very minimal. “There were excise taxes and tariffs and a few things to manage the minimal government we had and we wanted. But now that we have endorsed the welfare-warfare state, it is absolutely necessary to have an income tax to finance it, and that isn’t even enough. I mean $220 billion deficits last year by Conservatives? I mean there is something going wrong here. That’s why we need a Federal Reserve system to monetize the debt.”
Buckley makes the specious argument here that they don’t have to monetize the debt as long as foreign capital continues to buy it, like Japan. But Paul questions what will happen when Japan finally decides to stop buying our Treasury Bills. (Remember, this was 1988, not 2010 under Obama. Now it’s China that will stop at some point.) And when foreigners stop buying our debt, then we will have a monetary crisis or a stock market crises, or both, he maintains.
Buckley: “And when that happens, you can run for office again and get elected.” (General laughter).
Paul: Well, that might come before November, so watch out! (More general laughter).
Defeated on that front, Buckley tries the “we all agree, you Libertarians and me, on certain fundamental points” conciliation-ploy. And after pointing out that Milton Friedman had stated that the Value Added Tax (VAT) was the most dangerous tax of all, because it could be raised so easily, he asks Paul again, since he concedes that there must be some form of taxation, what his great objection is to the income tax as a form of taxation.
Paul replies first, because the IRS abuses our Civil Liberties, and we don’t like it.
Buckley, in his best put-down teacher mode, says “Once again you are confusing management with theory.”
And here Paul comes in with the really significant point, the point that Buckley, as a big-government Statist, cannot ever bandy about in public.
Paul states, “But that is the Nature of Government, and also of all taxing authorities.” Yes, that is the key point in this whole debate, the key point that separates Jefferson, Paine, Madison and Libertarians, from the Adamses and Hamiltons and Buckleys and modern Republicans who are just as much in favor of Statism as the Democrats are. Only the Libertarians and Ron Paul stand with Jefferson and Madison on this one.
Buckley tries to talk over him, saying “It’s the nature of man. It was proved in the Garden of Eden that man is not a very good manager.”
Paul replies, ”We want to minimize those evils and once you turn this power over to government it becomes much more magnified, so we want to limit it to individuals making mistakes or doing their own wrongs because then the problems aren’t nearly as great, but once we turn this over to Government . . .”
Buckley interrupts, “Well give me a form of taxation of which you would approve?”
Paul says, ” I think it’s interesting that Milton Friedman, worrying about the Value Added Tax, and Dr. Friedman happens to be a good friend and an ally on so many of these issues, but as I understand it it was he who introduced the withholding portion of the tax…”
Here Buckley does catch Dr. Paul with a slight uppercut, as he points out that it was Leon Henderson, in the 40s, who introduced the withholding portion of the income tax, and Dr. Paul concedes that then it is his mistake.
But the point is, he continues, that it is the principle of the withholding element which is the most sinister element of the income tax because it’s less conspicuous that a consumer tax. (And here they both agree for once.) Paul continues, ”I don’t believe the income tax would be less conspicuous because most people believe that the tax they pay is the check they write at the end of the year, because the businessman again becomes the slave of the State by collecting all these taxes, keeping all these records, and doing all the things that I don’t believe we should be doing. But, my position in the campaign right now is to make a very important point: government is too big, taxes are too high, we can eliminate 40% of the taxes by eliminating the income tax. That’s a program . . . (and here the PBS presentation slurred and momentarily faded out, so that the last few words of Dr. Paul were lost to posterity.)
Buckley now queries, “What are you going to do, now having eliminated 40% of the government, about the outstanding responsibilities of the government? What to do about the individual who has paid in to social security all their lives, who says I signed a contractual obligation long ago, and now I’m 65 and I’m entitled to my social security?”
Paul replies, “One thing you can do is be honest with the American people. You know, I was a big Reagan supporter, and I believed a lot of what he said, and worked for him in 1976, and yet he’s in office now, and the deficit is totally out of control, and we added 140,000 new bureaucrats in Washington during his administration. So, the point is, something has to give, and we have to decide if we want to change things. We as Libertarians want to change things. We want limited government. We don’t want to go under the same old program of saying, yes, we want limited government under the Reagan style, which just expands government, rapidly and uncontrollably. This is what has to stop.”
Buckley, in defending Reagan, says that if eight years ago someone had told him we’d have top tax rates of 25% and 28%, he’d have said, “That’s preposterous.” “But it’s also true”, he continues, “that the entitlements, which require a dissolution of structural laws, … are instruments over which Reagan had no effective control, and it’s just not fair to say that something that was built in to grow at a rate of 17 or18% per year is his responsibility for having created.”
Paul responds, “The rates went down, but since then we’ve had four major tax increases, we’ll get another one, revenues went up 50%. So there has really been no tax reduction at all, under Ronald Reagan.”
Buckley, besides himself now, says, “What do you mean there’s been no tax reduction.” Paul: “In rates.” Buckley, talking over him, “John Jones was paying at 70%, now pays at 35%.”
Paul wonders how then you get revenues up 50% from 1980. And Buckley comes up with his best line in the whole show, by dropping his voice and saying in a quiet tone, “Because it’s supply side.” This brings general laughter from the audience, and Paul goes on, “Who supplies the money? The people keep supplying the money for the taxes.”
Buckley: “If you want the exact figure, the richest 5% of the United States is now paying 3% more on total income than it was in 1980, not withstanding that the reduction in rates is exactly what all of us had been preaching for years. You, Friedman, Hayek, Mises and me.”
But Paul pulls Buckley back to the really significant point. “The bottom line”, he continues, “is revenue. See, revenue is the bottom line. The government is up, the size of his administration is up, and you say it’s beyond his control, there are all these entitlements, and I don’t quite buy that.”
Buckley: “Well, he wants a constitutional amendment. Why didn’t you people give it to him? Why blame Reagan when they won’t give him the constitutional amendment that he wants?”
Paul points out that they’re not going to follow that, even if they did pass it. They don’t follow the Constitution now. They’ve ignored the Constitution so long by now, they’re not going to follow it.
Buckley then pulls out Gramm-Rudman, and says they have to follow Gramm-Rudman.
Paul, astonished, responds “They don’t have to follow that, they suspended Gramm-Rudman and re-wrote it. They don’t have to follow Gramm-Rudman.”
Buckley: “Only that part which was unConstitutional.”
Paul asseverates that they don’t have to follow Gramm-Rudman. They can suspend Gramm-Rudman any time they want.
Then Buckley destroys his whole argument again with his realpolitik. “Of course, they can suspend Gramm-Rudman. They can suspend anything they enact.” Well, if that’s true, Mr. Buckley, what is the good of supposedly Constitutional laws that Congress enacts?” one would have liked to ask right then. “The fact is they have not repealed the law, but they cannot repeal a Constitutional Amendment. And that’s what Reagan wanted, a Constitutional Amendment.”
Paul replies, “But that’s a cop-out. We have to ask, ‘What were the number of vetoes that Ronald Reagan used in his term?’.”
Then follows a discussion of Ford’s using the veto on a higher percentage of bills than Reagan ever did , and Paul says he owes Gerald Ford an apology. “So you know that Ronald Reagan did not really follow through.”
Buckley counters that the Bills Ford vetoed were comparatively small bills of $50-$300 million, but Reagan was being sent Bills that were massive, multi-hundred-billion-dollar Bills and there was no way he could veto them, or the animals in the Washington Zoo would start to die. Paul quips “Oh, my goodness.”
But, Paul then wonders, “Why didn’t he ever introduce a Balanced Budget, don’t you think that would have been a good idea for a Conservative? I mean we pushed that for years; that’s why we were for him.”
Buckley comes back, “The entitlements were entirely outside of his control . . .” But Paul interjects, “Why are they outside?”
Buckley tries to answer, “He could ask for a repeal of the entitlements, that’s quite true, but … I think he was elected President above all …, well, among other things, … to restore our military resources, not to leave it as weak as it was in 1980. But the other was not done. … I agree with you.”
Then Buckley goes on to “agree” with Paul on how disgusted he was when Reagan talked of all the farm subsidies he was responsible for in 1986. and also when he gave a social security raise when it was not called for. Paul then asks why he gave that Social Security raise in 1984, when they did not qualify for a raise? Why would a Conservative do that? ”And that shows you the sincerity of the effort,” Paul pointedly points out. But Buckley has his always good reason for not following principles: He did it because Reagan was scared to death of the political reaction, based on what had happened when in 1981 David Stockman had floated a change in the Social Security legislation and the Congress had voted 99-1 against the proposal. It would have been political suicide, etc. The usual cop-out reasons a so-called “Conservative” makes, when his argument is torn to shreds in his face.
Paul coolly points out that for four years, Reagan had a Republican Senate, “So we can’t rely on that.”
Paul then launches into a discussion of the line-item veto. He states that before going to Washington, he thought it was a very good idea, but after four terms in Washington, he feels that it is a very bad idea, because in Washington everything is political. “Everything is leverage, and I believe it would be a political tool. The thing to think about, even from a Conservative standpoint is, ‘What happens when you get a Teddy Kennedy-type President gets in and he gets the line-item veto?’ That’s one problem a Conservative must think about. The bigger problem, though, is that everything is political, and that is, if you have something in the budget for your district, it will be used as a leverage against you for the line-item veto. I think it’s enhancing the power … I don’t understand why a Conservative would want to give this overwhelming power to a President, which would also include a Liberal President.”
“Well, uh, uh, ” Buckley stutters, “in the first place it is part of basically commendable Constitutional architecture that you should pass a bill that talks about farmers to talk about farmers, and not to talk about farmers and also the Grand Canyon. This amalgamation has simply been a way to defy orderly democratic referendums on a particular measure. If what you’re saying is: that’s the way politics necessarily is, I don’t see how you can justify self-government.”
Paul, laughingly, “Well, that’s why we want limited government. Because it is the nature of government. Because it is the nature of Human Beings, to abuse power, and that’s why we want limited power in government.”
Buckley hastens to agree. “I want limited government also. I’ve been wanting limited government for a long time. But my point is that the line-item veto at least bares the manuoeverings of the special interests, so that you can stare them in the face.”
Paul responds that he thinks “a reasonable Congress, which we don’t have would be passing Appropriations Bills, instead of these Continuing Resolutions. I think that’s atrocious.”
“But shouldn’t we reform that?” asks Buckley.
“Yes, but the only reform is philosophical. It’s not a technical or tactical … But philosophical reform has to be of the nature of government. This is not an unusual consequence. This is the natural consequence of government that’s run away in size and we have no control over it. But this is the natural consequence of all governments, and the nature of man. So, therefore, what we need is a body of law, which is a Constitution, to limit strictly the power of the politician to spend and to interfere in the economy, to interfere in our personal lives, to decide who should run the world.”
Buckley interjects and puts forth the Buckley Amendment, which states that any State whose income is above the national average should not qualify for any welfare. He wonders why Paul would not run with it?
Paul accurately responds, “I think it would be an improvement, but I wouldn’t run with it. And the main reason is that it is not the philosophic concept that I want to endorse, ’cause it really does endorse the concept of welfare redistribution, so I want to reject that.”
Buckley, “It recognizes that, yeh.”
Paul, ” Yeh, it recognizes that, so again, yours is a technical approach or a tactical approach to a philosophic problem …”
Buckley interrupts, “So is tax reduction. But it can make the difference between a flourishing America, and an America whose energies are suppressed.”
Paul: “You see, I don’t start with tax reduction, because if you start with tax reduction and don’t deal with the philosophy of government … see, the taxes are high because we have to raise taxes to support the government doing things they shouldn’t be doing. So our concept is Libertarianism, that is, we want a role for government. It should be a compromise between anarchy and totalitarianism, that is, a minimal role for government to guarantee yours and my individual liberty; to let the marketplace alone, and to let other people alone, but to guarantee the security of this country. So, under those circumstances you don’t need a lot of taxes, and you don’t need to expand this government. When we get to the point finally when we get the most Conservative President ever, and we get $220 billion deficits, and we add 140,000 new people into his bureaucracy, there’s something seriously wrong with the philosophy.”
Buckley finally concedes a point. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”
The interview then shifts tack as Buckley calls on Prof. Ernest van den Haag, Professor of Law at Fordham University, and Buckley recites the long list of teaching positions that supposedly qualify the Professor to ask stupid questions of Dr. Paul.
In short, van den Haag wonders why Ron Paul wouldn’t support the covert activities of the CIA? Paul states simply, “Because it’s not a Constitutional function for us to be involved around the world in picking and choosing dictators.” Haag then wonders, supposing we could be involved in picking and choosing dictators, and the choice is between a dictator favorable to our security interests, willing to oppose the Soviet Union, and one who backs the Soviet Union, wouldn’t it be in our interests to back the first dictator and oppose the second?
Paul states, “I think it’s a contradiction to talk about a dictator who is a friend of America. America stands for Freedom, and Individualism, and dictators aren’t friends of Freedom.” The succinct Truth, and one that puts the lie to Reagan, his backers, and all the immoral actions and murderers they collaborated with and enabled.
The Prof tries the argument again. Surely, you’d be on the side of the dictator that supports us.
Paul, once again, and now growing a little testy at the Professor’s stupid, immoral questions and argument, “I think it would be a complete negative because it would put us on the defense of saying we’re defending this dictator’s particular policy, and he has absolutely nothing to offer us.”
Haag responds that we did that with Stalin. (But weren’t we in a World War then that threatened our very existence? Quite a different situation from a nuclear-armed America in the 1980s not involved in a World War.)
Haag then tries the argument: If you were crossing the road, and were attacked by a group of gangsters, and another group of gangsters who opposed the first group came to your aide, wouldn’t you be in favor of the group that helped you?
Paul, now growing hot, declaims, ” Well, I’m going to do whatever I have to to survive, but I will never endorse the concept of gangsterism, or totalitarianism, or dictators.”
Haag responds that in the world of realpolitik, you can’t pick and choose, you have to support the people that support your foreign policy, and you’d be a “damned fool” if you didn’t. He then brings up the case of Nicaragua, and argues that it would be “cheaper” to back the Contras than to launch a full scale military operation against Nicaragua. (Silverwolf didn’t realize that post-Samoza Nicaragua was ever on the brink of a land invasion of America.)
“Hardly is it cheaper”, Dr. Paul responds, “when you think than Kennedy used his CIA to escalate the war in Vietnam, and we lost 60,000 men for a worthless adventure, so I would say that was very, very expensive, and you would have to defend that.”
“I don’t have to defend that,” counters Haag, and tells Paul that there is something lacking in his logic. (Really, Prof? Seems to Silverwolf like it’s the other way around.) You’re saying a particular policy is wrong because it didn’t succeed in this instance. “But since I can’t convince you on this point, let me turn to another issue,” Haag dodges.
He then turns to the income tax, and the programs it supports. What programs specifically, would Paul eliminate?
Paul says that it’s easier to say what programs he would support, and there aren’t many.
Haag then asks about whether he would abolish welfare? And Paul argues that welfare is immoral because, no matter how poor an individual is, if he thinks he wants or needs something, he never has the right to go to his neighbor and steal it. “It’s an immoral principle for him to go to steal from his neighbor. But what makes it moral in the 20th century to send me, the Congressman, to send me, the President, to go and steal from him? It’s just as immoral.”
Haag then tries to make the bogus argument that a tax is not the same as stealing, because one knows before hand what it is, and one has a choice of not earning an income if one objects to an income tax. (Yes, one is free to starve and let ones family starve, and one should obey a rule that was made by bureaucrats 96 years ago.)
But finally, Haag comes to his basic point. Paul, and Buckley, want to abolish welfare. What would they do about orphans who are abandoned by their parents? Let them starve?
Paul says, no, he wouldn’t let them starve, but he points out that the welfare system breeds more and more poor people, and if you wanted to reverse that, you’d have to abolish welfare. Then Haag wonders, how was this handled before the income tax, in the 19th century, when many children were abandoned, and died an early death from starvation? Buckley counters that many things, like slavery, that were accepted in the 19th century would no longer be tolerated in the 20th, and the idea that Americans would let a child starve to death on the streets is preposterous and that charitable organizations could handle the problem. Haag counters with a very bogus argument that he thinks that perhaps for a while charity might support these orphans, but as people saw themselves giving, but not their neighbors, they would eventually ask themselves why only they were giving, and would then cease to give. Buckley seems outraged by this, and points out (correctly) that prior to the welfare system, at the turn of the century, people supported religious orphanages, churches, and parochial schools through their contributions at churches, etc., and the phenomenon that Haag is worried about never actually happened. (And Silverwolf would add, without the income tax, people’s disposable incomes would be far greater, and they would feel even more financially secure, and thus be even more willing to give to a pet charity of theirs.)
But Paul brings out the really critical point in this argument. “The form of your question implies that, if you didn’t endorse your welfare state, and this government program of taking care of everybody, which you concede the more you take care of the more you get, you imply that anything else is less compassionate. I happen to be a Libertarian because of the compassionate nature of the results. I believe that the most prosperous society comes from a Libertarian society where people are free to produce the maximum amount, and that you will have the least amount of poverty, and the greatest amount of charity. No, it’s not going to be a utopia, it’s not going to be perfect, but it’s much better than a system that you endorse where you say the government needs to go in and take care of all these people, and they need to tax and destroy the system that we have. I think it is inevitable that you challenge the morality of the transfer ethic, you challenge the Constitution, and it doesn’t work. That’s the whole point. So if you care about people having houses, and you want to take care of the people that are houseless, and the homeless on the streets, we have to reassess our values. This whole idea that the government has to build houses has literally created the homeless. So therefore we challenge that on moral principles, on Constitutional principles, and really in the area of compassion. If we are compassionate, I think anybody who cares about the poor has to start thinking about the Libertarian message, because that’s where the greatest amount of prosperity is going to come.”
Haag, not one to lose an argument, vaguely says he agrees, but he still doesn’t see how this affects his argument about the orphans.
Buckley, trying to get one more showing of his intelligence, brings up the case of smallpox. Haag says, he doesn’t quite get it, and Buckley points out that while Haag has conceded the point that when government gets involved in subsidizing something, like welfare, you get more of it, in the case of smallpox that doesn’t hold true. Haag, now really puzzled, asks if Buckley is agreeing or disagreeing with him, he doesn’t understand?
No, I’m just saying that your generality is not always absolute, Buckley states. But at this somewhat ludicrous point in the discussion, Buckley says, “I feel guilty, but at this point we have to call it off”, because they ran out of time.
Well, it was a brutal forensic slugfest, but at the end, when one stands the arguments and the points made by both sides side by side, Silverwolf would have to concede that Ron Paul demolished virtually all of Buckley’s bogus arguments, one by one, as well as Professor van den Haags puerile, morally sterile, arguments, while Buckley really could not make one valid point that would hold up against the correct objection to it. Few have been able to pinpoint so accurately the profusion of weaknesses employed by Buckley in his argumentations, which usually had the ability to trick his guests into seeming foolishness, because they were arguing their cases from the Liberal standpoint against Buckley’s Conservatism, but rarely from a standpoint that was far more Libertarian than Buckley’s Conservatism.
But the blindfold had been placed on Buckley decades before. Yet only Ron Paul was ever able to say: Ready, Aim, Fire.
Thus, the reader of this extended blog has witnessed the execution of William F. Buckley, Jr., Conservative, by the logic of the Libertarian Ron Paul Firing Squad.
Something very few people ever got to see.
Hooooooooooooooooooooooww— Silverwolf
America missed a great candidate for President several times over.
=== Paul Grad, Libertarian
Paul Grad for Governor 