Lie # 23001 Ron Paul thinks 'all government is oppression' - Hillsdale College newsletter
'Imprimis' is the monthly digest of Hillsdale College and the author of this lie about Ron Paul is Charles Kesler, a Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College.
This from LewRockwell.com:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/020345.html
and the article in full here:
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp
The gist of this article is that Ron Paul is not a Constitutionalist; the author would like people to believe that Ron Paul has a neurotic and strange hostility to ALL government. I wasn’t going to post this but I just watched that interview with I.N.N. manystrom posted where Dr. Paul says ‘the government has a very important role to play….’ and it reminded me this man shouldn’t be getting away with writing stuff like this.
The author, Charles Kesler, writes:
"Utterly missing in this election season is a serious focus on limited or constitutional government. "
Oh, ok.
"... the view associated this year with Ron Paul—every dollar that government spends comes at the cost of freedom. The premise of this view is that government and freedom are opposites—that all government is oppression. By this way of thinking, limited government is simply limited oppression, differing in magnitude but not in kind from tyranny. Interestingly, this notion does not come originally from any libertarian thinker or friend of freedom. It comes from Machiavelli, the great analyst of open and hidden power, of force and fraud. "
This digest has 1.2 million subscribers. Hopefully most of them don't read it and throw it in the trash.
Charles Kesler's email address is charles.kesler@claremontmckenna.edu.
You might also want to point out to the President of Claremont McKenna College that their Professor of Government, Charles Kesler, is either a) too lazy to find out the facts or b) disingenuous. Her (?) email is president@claremontmckenna.edu.
Also, the President of Hillsdale College which publishes Imprimis is Larry P. Arnn – this is his email address, larnn@hillsdale.edu.
Personally, i sort of agree with assesment that
Fortune Favors the Bold
"all government is oppression" if you accept the definition of government as force, which is how I personally look at it. In other words, a street mugger is a "government' in the sense that he is using force to impose his will on you. The general theory behind governments is that it is superior to have one government who has a monopoly on the use of force over smaller governments competing with the use of force. While ideally, the best scenario would be no government, this would require all individuals to choose never to use coercive force to impose their will on anyone else. Since humanity is not at that stage yet, and some (not me) believe they never will be, the next best option is a government with a monopoly on force that is restrained so as that force is only used to defend the liberty of it citizens.
From what I've read of Paul's opinions on government, for example in the Manifesto, he seems to hold this opinion.
I think the quote about Machiavelli is somewhat disingenous. While Machiavelli may have understood what government was without illusion, he was it's biggest advocate.
Fortune Favors the Bold