Ron Paul’s position on what I’ll call unauthorized immigration—or immigration sans government permission--is indeed strange. He calls for “secure borders” but opposes employer sanctions, Real ID, and a border wall (which he says could be used to keep people in as well as out). He also minimizes the importance of unauthorized immigration by saying it wouldn’t be such an issue if the economy were healthy (people are worried about jobs now) and the welfare state didn’t exist.
That odd mix leads me to wonder if Ron Paul is actually for open borders but doesn’t want to say it. (He was for open borders when he was the Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988.) True, there are arguments against my speculation. His website says, “A nation without borders is no nation at all,” he’s against birthright citizenship, and he opposes amnesty, which it claims “will only encourage more law-breaking.” (I oppose amnesty too. There’s no need to forgive people for doing what they have a perfect right to do.)
But can one really be against unauthorized immigration if one opposes steps that seem necessary to even begin to stop it? Who wills the end, wills the means, it is said.
Hence my suspicion that Ron Paul secretly favors open borders. That may be the good news. The bad news is that if it is so, it doesn’t speak well of the candidate. Why not say what you think—that people, no matter where they were born, have a natural right to move in freedom? Imagine what a splash he would make with such a statement at a debate.
What does he have to lose? He's not even running for reelection to Congress.
4 comments:
I haven't heard RP say anything that would make me think he's for open borders, and even if he was there's nothing he would be able to do about it as president, especially since the rest of his party would strongly disagree.
Think of the immense pressure on Ron Paul....
#1 As he becomes a more viable candidate , pressure will be applied to alter his message to become a more "winnable" candidate.
#2 No is attacked more personally than Ron Paul.
#3 As he becomes a more likely winner .... the danger that he will be assassinated increases. He is threatening industries that gross $2 Trillion per year.
He is not a perfect candidate ..... how does he endure the pressure ? What did Perry say to him during commercial break ?
99guspuppet
He does pander from time to time. The recent mini-kerfuffle over evolution demonstrates this, his emphasizing the benefits to Israel of the US ending foreign aid is another example. There's no way a guy with an MD from a really good university doesn't accept the main thrust of biological evolutionary theory, whether he thinks Yahweh guides the process or not, but sometimes one might state their case obliquely so as to pacify Jack Chick types. I appreciate much of what Ron Paul has done for the furtherance of liberty and I do think that, barring Mary Ruwart running again, he'd be the "best" person running for a job that no one could possibly be qualified for, but I wish that there were other nationally prominent voices for libertarianism, who delivered a bit less conservative interpretation. And, no, I'm not going to vote.
Hmmm ... "perfect candidate" ... hard to find. Jesus doesn't live here any more.
If only every voter had the integrity to not vote for 'the least bad', but to resolve they would not vote for any candidate that had a single policy they disagreed with ...
Suppose they gave an election and nobody came?
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