The Ron Paul Bait-n-Switch

Dave at Orcinus relays a long post from a commenter that is a long list of bills Ron Paul has co-sponsored in Congress. Note, as Dave does, that these are not bills he just voted on, but rather proposals he was happy to attach his name to.

He's sponsored at least three attempts to remove any legal distinction between adults and zygotes. He's proposed amending the Constitution to prohibit flag burning. But some say the latter proposal was just a stunt and that he wasn't serious about it. Ok, Dr. Paul, I'll take your word for it -- and, in any event, there are more serious policy proposals to address.

In this post, I want to focus on H.R. 7955, his omnibus legislation designed "to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life." The first thing to say is that, unlike the left-wing crowd at Orcinus, I actually approve of many of the proposals that can be found in this bill, like the idea of giving a tax credit for tuition paid to private schools.

On the other hand, I wholeheartedly reject other measures in the bill. For example:

• It would make it harder for private schools to lose their tax exempt status for having "racially discriminatory policies."
• It would prohibit the Federal Government from imposing "any obligation or conditions upon any child care center [or] orphanage...which is operated by a church or religious institution."
• It would prohibit the Federal Government from spending money on "any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style."

Now, don't get me wrong: I accept some version of the Libertarian Principle (LP), which would prohibit the government -- any government -- from doing much of what Ron Paul wants to forbid the Fed from doing. So shouldn't I like Ron Paul? The answer is no, but allow me to explain.

In practice, LP yields lots of concrete policy proposals. Let's note that fact in this way: LP{a..z}, where LP is the principle and a through z are policies that follow from the application of that principle.

LP is a broad principle and many of its policy proposals could find support on the basis of other principles. For example, what we can call the Neo-Nazi Principle, NP, might support policies q through w, i.e. NP{q..w}. But the NP also supports some policies that are directly the opposite of policies that find support in LP. So a realistic NP (with policies attached) might look something like this: NP{q..w, not a..not k}. Thus, the overlap between LP and NP is no reason for me to support neo-Nazis in any way.

Ron Paul's supporters tell me that the overlap between LP and what we can call the Ron Paul Principle, or RP, is much, much higher than between LP and NP. This may even be true. But not all issues are created equal. Of the policies that follow from LP, some are more important to me than others. Some are nearly essential. If RP cannot support those policies, then that is a good reason for me to reject that principle, and hence also reject Ron Paul.

Yet there is an even better reason for me to reject Ron Paul, which I call the tactic of bait-n-switch. Suppose a person wanted my political support in some way. One way to gain that support is for that person to convince me that he and I actually hold almost identical principles -- that we both subscribe to LP, in other words.

So the first thing he does is try to show me that our positions match on as many issues as possible in the set a through z. There are a few issues on which we don't match, but he doesn't emphasize those. At best, he tries to tell me that those specific differences simply stem from different ways we interpret the same set of more general principles.

But here's what I quickly notice. While the policy profile my friend proposes matches that which follows from LP in certain ways, it is an even better match for another principle, call it RP. Thus, the situation looks something like this:

My principle and policy profile: LP{a..z}
His principle and policy profile, as he tells it: LP(?){a..g, r...v}
What it begins to look like: RP{a..g, not k-not p, r..v, not w-not z}

Or, in words, as I begin to discover more about my friend's position, it begins to look like it has little in common with my view at all, in some very significant respects. Reading through Dr. Paul's omnibus bill is like coming to that same realization about Ron Paul, and not for the first time. His policy positions reveal principles much opposed to my own, even though there may be overlap between his proposals and my own in some limited set of cases.

This, then, is the bait-n-switch: by emphasizing the areas of overlap in specific cases, a person like Ron Paul can convince others that more overlap is present than actually exists. At the same time, others -- neo-Nazis, for example -- will pick up on overlap in different areas.

The question remains, how do I feel about the Ron Paul principle, as exhibited in his voting record? I have to reject it: both Ron Paul and I might want to reduce government regulation, but if his proposal involves giving priority to reducing regulations on religious institutions, that's a sign we don't actually have the same principles at all.

At the same time, if his principles support making it legal again for states to set up segregated public school, that's not just a sign that we have a difference of opinion; rather, it is a clarion call to oppose him in every way I can.

[At the request of Jaworski, a commenter, this post was edited to add a discussion of Ron Paul's whimsical reason for proposing a flag burning amendment. That wasn't really the substantive point of the post, though, was it?]