I read an article from Fox News earlier this evening regarding Mitt Romney’s energy independence plan. According to the article:

In a campaign speech in Hobbs, N.M., a few weeks ago, the GOP presidential nominee told the crowd, “I will set a national goal of North American independence by 2020. That means we produce all the energy we use in North America.

Seems like every presidential candidate since Carter has had one of those. None of them achieved it but they did bring us close. In spite of its many critics, NAFTA did do one good thing for the United States: made Canada and Mexico our two biggest oil providers, providing us with more than half of our oil. Saudi Arabian imports are now between 13-15%, which means less American money being redirected to terrorist groups and theocratic uprisings. Venezuelan imports are even less. OPEC’s stranglehold over us has been substantially reduced. And North American energy production is rising. All of this is good. But someone with no understanding of basic supply and demand or cost-benefit analysis decided to attack the GOP nominee.

Here’s what the beef was all about:

In addition to opening up new areas for offshore drilling, Romney says his energy independence goal can be accomplished by speeding up the time it takes to get permits to drill on federal lands. The way to do that, he says, is by putting state regulators in charge of the federal process just as they already are on state and private lands.

Said the article.

My immediate reaction: FINALLY! This is the Mitt Romney I’ve been wanting to see. After a mediocre campaign with mediocre positions, not much detail on how to get government out of our lives, and poor understanding of the duties of the federal government, Mitt Romney took a tenth amendment position that is much needed. A great deal of the mountain west is federally owned land. It should be given back to the states and the states should be in charge of any resources within their borders–with the federal government only involved in cross-border disputes.

But Pete Maysmith, executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters wasn’t exactly happy. He said:

“Governor Romney’s energy proposal … ignores the facts and is a giveaway to his big oil campaign supporters at the expense of our air, land and water. Energy production in the United States is at a 20-year high. So the problem is not regulations, the problem is not lack of access to federal lands.”

I don’t care what your political views are or who you are voting for. And there are many reasons not to like Mitt Romney. However, this is not one of them!

I don’t know if Mr. Maysmith is right or wrong about energy production being at a 20 year high. What I do know is this: IT DOES NOT MATTER!

That’s right. His conclusion might be partially factual in this and only this: most large energy companies are more than willing to comply with basic safety regulations. I’m a member of the Houston Economics Club, and such was the position that Andrew Slaughter, a former Chair of the National Petroleum Council, took at one of our meetings last January.

Most of the anti-fracking hype has been factually incorrect; I won’t get into detail on that but I’m just giving you an example: energy companies have engineered new methods of groundwater protection. So the private sector has addressed the problem, to the point where regulation should be toned down to a property-damage perspective. Not all regulation is bad. Property rights are paramount, and property damage must be prevented.

If you want more information on groundwater protection you can find it in this presentation by Slaughter found here

The point of my article is simply this: his premise is patently false, as is his conclusion that we should not increase access to federal lands.

It is not a matter of energy being at a 20 year high it is a matter of IT COULD BE HIGHER!.

Just because an industry is doing better than ever is no excuse for them not to try and do even better. America needs cheaper energy to prevent an economic collapse. I’m going to go through the dynamics here to justify my premises.

Our demand is probably higher than its even been, which means unless the supply goes up the price of your electric bill or filling up your gas tank will never be lower. It’s bad enough that Ben Bernanke’s quantitative easing policies devalue the dollar and enable speculators to drive up the price. It’s also bad enough that because of the globalized 21st century economy, prices rise even further due to the unrest in the Muslim world driving down production in the OPEC countries. Finally there is the rapid industrialization of several large emerging economies: China, India and Brazil. Brazil has a growing offshore oil supply and is ramping up its production, but China and India are not oil rich nations and cannot do the same.

So your energy prices are high, and they will only go higher if there isn’t more expansion of domestic energy production, not just in oil, but in natural gas, wind, nuclear, clean coal, and even–when cost effective–solar. Quite frankly, claiming our production being at a 20 year high (if that’s true) as a reason to stop expanding is pure economic dumbassery.

With our rising national debt, our lackluster job growth, our politicians’ inability to lessen the uncertainty on the private sector, and the Federal Reserve’s massive injections of new dollars into the market–that aren’t backed by economic growth–we face a much bigger problem than the problems conservationists tackle on a regular basis. We face the threat of an economic meltdown, the fall of the United States as a superpower and a much more difficult way of life than anyone in this country who is under the age of 70 or didn’t grow up in an undeveloped country could ever imagine. Its not a matter of Democrats vs. Republicans (and I know the irony of me saying that from a Republican website), its a matter of supply and demand.

Fiat money, when not backed by a hard asset such as silver or gold, is only good if there is demand for it. Demand for the US dollar is not rising as fast as the Federal Reserve is running its printing presses. This will lead to inflation, as long as the Fed continues to pursue this while keeping its interest rates low. Even Keynes, whose followers today laugh at the thought of a dollar collapse and who didn’t predict the housing bubble or 2008 economic crash (with the exception of Nouriel Roubini and few others), knew that increasing money supply should be done during a period of strong economic growth, not the anemic year-to-year growth we have seen over the past couple of years. If you increase the supply when the demand isn’t nearly as strong, you devalue the dollar.

Some Austrian school economic alarmists believe hyperinflation is inevitable. While they deserve credit for predicting the 2008 crash years before it happened, I can’t say I agree with its inevitability. However, I do see it as a possibility. Continuous increases in the money supply, with weak increases in demand for that dollar, and politicians’ inability to tackle our national debt could lead to a fall in confidence of our dollar. That’s the difference between hyperinflation and inflation. The latter is rising prices, the former is when other countries see a significant reduction in the value of your currency, and begin to dump it for other currencies or commodities. Demand for your currency plummets and as a result, the price of everyday living requirements skyrockets.

It’s not a risk worth taking, and neither is inflation. So while our politicians bicker like children and fail to address the debt, economic growth is the only thing that will stop the two.

Increasing our domestic energy production is perhaps the best shot we have at this for many reasons.

Ramping up energy production will create jobs in the industry. More unemployed people go back to work, start paying taxes again, and revenues to the federal government increase.

When people aren’t unnecessarily wasting as much of their money on gasoline and utilities they can be more productive with that spending by spending it on other industries or investing it into new capital. This creates even more jobs. And I do say we are wasting because if the price can be much lower, you’re being inefficient. Inefficiency is a waste.

Lower energy prices  cause the price of other goods to come down across the board, because transportation costs pretty much affect everything. So this offsets some of the inflation that will happen as a result of quantitative easing.

The growth in the economy will strengthen demand for the US dollar, further offsetting  Bernanke’s disastrous easing policies and preventing a dollar collapse prior to his replacement in 2014 (in the case of a Romney victory).

I imagine that Bernanke’s replacement in the event of a Romney victory will be Martin Feldstein. My familiarity with his work suggests to me he would finally allow interest rates to rise and roll back QE3. If this were to happen, we could prevent a debt crisis and a dollar collapse provided our politicians finally figure out how to balance the federal budget. With economic growth, balancing the budget comes much easier.

What I hope everyone takes away from this article is: WE SHOULD NEVER STOP! We should never stop trying to ramp up energy production so long as it cannot meet the demand at the cheapest possible price–and for you conservationists out there, I mean we will do it in a responsible manner. Pete Maysmith–who I hope reads this and learns a thing or two–made a huge error in his premise by ignoring the laws of supply and demand. This line of thought is poisonous, and I ask of my readers that you share this article with as many people as you can. The less people believe his ridiculous notion, that the goal for any or industry to stagnate or decrease production at any level, for any reason, other than falling demand or maxed out capacity, the better off we will be. And as the research shows, rising global energy demand is inevitable and we are far from incapable of increasing the supply in a responsible manner.

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Aaron Alghawi obtained a B.S. in Economics from Texas A&M University in 2012, and is a National At-Large Board Member of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Drawing on the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld, the US District Court of the Southern Region of New York has granted a permanent injunction against the exercise of the indefinite military detention powers claimed by the United States government in section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The 112 page decision goes into great detail on how the threat of indefinite detention without due process of law imposes a chilling effect on the free speech rights of critics of the government, as exemplified by the plaintiffs who include prominent government critics and radicals like Noam Chomsky.

During the Congressional debate over the passage of the NDAA many in Congress claimed that the bill did not contain provisions for the indefinite detention of civilians in violation of their Constitutional rights. The proponents of the bill went to some lengths to rearrange the text and obscure the presence of those provisions to give them grounds for denying their existence. As demonstrated in the video accompanying this article, some supporters of the bill like Rep. Allen West (R-FL) were insultingly dismissive of those who complained about the NDAA. The court’s ruling definitively refutes any contention that the NDAA does not include these provisions, confirming the opinions of many civil rights lawyers and explaining in detail how section 1021 of the NDAA could be used to deprive citizens of their liberty at the whim of the Executive Branch.

At the time the NDAA was being debated groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Republican Liberty Caucus went to great lengths to provide legislators with detailed and up to date information on the dangerous content of the bill and organized extensive write-in and call-in campaigns opposing its passage. These efforts were coordinated with the efforts of legislators like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) who spoke up against the bill in Congress.

There is really no excuse for those legislators who voted for the NDAA. The flaws in the content were too well known and well publicized for them to plead ignorance. Voters are unlikely to find the self-serving arguments of the bill’s authors that terrorism is such a threat that we need to give up our basic civil liberties to be persuasive now that the court has issued this injunction.

Those who claimed the NDAA did not include this provision should read the detailed explantion of the content of the bil in this ruling and at the very least they should publicly apologize. It would not be unreasonable for some of the more outspoken advocates of the bill like Rep. West to resign. The ruling is absolutely unequivocal that the NDAA does give the President the power to suspend due process and allow the military to arrest civilians and hold them indefinitely without charges or trial.

If you have time to read the ruling, the summary of the arguments made by lawyers from the Justice Department is eye-opening. Their presentation of their position is so arrogant and they seem to be so callous in their disdain for the rights of citizens that they raise questions about their fitness and public servants and the failure of Attorney General Eric Holder to uphold his responsibility as the chief advocate for the people and their rights. He seems to have forgotten that he is the people’s lawyer and become nothing but a mouthpiece for the government.

The ruling concludes:

“Military detention based on allegations of “substantially supporting” or “directly supporting” the Taliban, al-Qaeda or associated forces, is not encompassed within the AUMF and is enjoined by this Order regarding § 1021(b) (2). No detention based upon § 1021(b) (2) can occur.”

In granting an injunction the court not only makes clear that the NDAA contains these powers, but also blocks their exercise, protecting the rights of citizens. It is a travesty that we should have to rely on the courts to protect us from such a clear violation of our rights. Our elected representatives ought to be looking out for our interests and should never have passed the NDAA in its current form. Far too many of them failed in this basic responsibility to their constituents.

For the time being we are free of this gross abuse of government power, but it is likely that Attorney General Holder will appeal the ruling and attempt to reclaim this power, and it’s probably inevitable that the Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee of Senatorial malfeasance, John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) will look for new ways to incorporate indefinite military detention powers in the NDAA when it comes up for review next year.

On Tuesday the Rules Committee at the Republican National Convention will meet to work out final details of proposed rules changes which were produced over the weekend and widely greeted with outrage by the grassroots of the party.

We have provided extensive coverage of this situation (see our News and Opinion sections) and between our efforts and those of other groups and activists the media has taken a strong interest in the situation.

As a result a compromise proposal has been offered by party insiders in the Rules Committee, which only partially addresses some of the concerns raised in the Minority Report.

This small compromise is not a sufficient response. It leaves the RNC with the ability to change rules at will between elections and still imposes onerous top-down restrictions on state parties which reduce grassroots participation. It is like a thief offering you a slice of the loaf of bread he stole from you and expecting gratitude.

At this point there seems to be no good reason for the delegates to back down and accept a compromise. If they want their media showcase convention then the party elite cannot afford the negative press which would come from prolonging this confrontation.

If we can persuade delegates and committee members to stand firm the opposition will back down.

At this link you will find a PDF file with the phone numbers and emails of the members of the committee. Please take a few minutes in the morning to call or email the ones from your state or any others you might wish to reach out to and urge them to vote to withdraw all of the proposed rule changes.

Fellow Republican:

You may have thought that the story out of Tampa this week was going to be a celebration of the Romney-Ryan nomination, maybe spiced up with a bit of contention from the liberty wing of the party, but ultimately a celebration of party unity moving forward to defeat Obama in November.  That’s what we all expected and that should have been the story.

But for grassroots Republicans the story out of Tampa is becoming something very, very different.  The presidential nomination, which was supposed to be the focus, is taking a backseat to a growing controversy over an attempt by a small group of elite party insiders and the Romney campaign to fundamentally change the rules and structure of the party to disenfranchise grassroots Republicans activists and turn the GOP from a party of the people into a party of top-down governance from a select class of professional political organizers.

One of the cornerstones of the Grand Old Party is a belief in republicanism and the idea that power is distributed and limited by checks and balances.  Those values are embodied in our Constitution and they were the basis of the Republican Party when it was founded and for most of its history.  Historically this has meant that most of the power in the Republican Party has rested with the party members in the states, working as delegates through their local and state caucuses and conventions to generate policy for the party in a unique collaborative process where the voice of the people could be heard strongly.

It appears that most members of the Texas delegation are now opposing these changes.Now there are those in Tampa who seek to overturn this traditional structure of the party, set restrictions on the free choice of party members and introduce a new and alien process which would minimize the input of the party’s rank and file and put power in the hands of party leaders and wealthy special interests who can buy the loyalty of the mob.  They have borrowed the organizing structure of the Democrats and authored rules which would cause our delegates to be bound by the votes of primary voters who may not be Republicans or share our values.  They have also proposed that the presumed presidential nominee could remove our elected delegates at whim.  Finally they want to remove control over the rule making process from the state parties to a small elite within the national committee of the party who can change the rules under which the party operates at any time.  Without fixed rules arrived at by the consent of the rank and file of the party we become pawns rather than participants in the political process.

These proposals which have come out of the Rules Committee in Tampa are contrary to the basic character of the party and they are opposed by many delegates who were not part of the handpicked group of insiders which dominated the committee.  Delegates from many states are speaking out in opposition and members of the committee who believe in a bottom-up party structure have issued a minority report to challenge what amounts to a powergrab by elite insiders and the Romney campaign.

I hope that all delegates in Tampa will join me in opposing this coup within the party.  If you are a delgate, please join with others in supporting the minority report and opposing these changes which will be voted on from the floor on Monday.  If you are watching from home, please realize that the media is not covering this issue and reach out to any delegates you know and encourage them to stand up for the rights of the state parties and the many dedicated Republicans who took part in the grassroots process which makes our party unique and protects the interests of all of its members.

I have attached copies of the proposed rules 12 and 15 which make these changes.  Please read them for yourself and see if they represent the kind of party governance you want to be under.  If you agree with me that they disenfranchise our party members and empower people who do not have the best interests of the party at heart, please join me in taking action to raise opposition before this issue is raised for a vote on the convention floor in Tampa on Monday.

Dave Nalle

Travis County Texas Precinct 105 Chairman

Proposed Rules 12 and 15

“12: The Republican National Committee may, by three fourths (3/4) vote of its entire membership, amend Rules 1-11 and 13-24. Any such amendment shall be considered by the Republican National Committee only if it was passed by by a majority vote of the Standing Committee on Rules after having been submitted in writing at least ten (10) days in advance of its consideration by the Republican National Committee and shall take effect thirty (30) days after adoption. No such amendment shall be adopted after September 30, 2014.”

“15(a)(1) Any statewide presidential preference vote that permits a choice among candidates for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in a primary, caucus, or state convention must be used to allocate and bind the state’s delegation to the National Convention in either a proportional or winner-take-all manner, except for delegates and alternate delegates who appear on a ballot in a statewide election and are elected directly by primary voters.”

“15(a)(2) For any manner of binding or allocating delegates permitted by these Rules, no delegate or alternate who is bound or allocated to a particular presidential candidate may be certified under Rule 19 if the presidential candidate to whom the delegate or alternate delegate is bound or allocated has, in consultation with the State Party, disavowed the delegate or alternate delegate.”

“15(e)(3) The Republican National Committee may grant a waiver to a state Republican Party from the provisions of 15(a) and (b) where compliance is impossible, and the Republican National Committee determines that granting such a waiver is in the best interests of the Republican Party.”

Whenever the so-called progressive mindset is challenged in modern debate, big-government supporters turn to 20th century welfare programs, which they say led to our country’s great success. If anything, these programs and their modern iterations, such as Obamacare, have held back the country—and more importantly, its citizens—from progressing further than we have.

Our nation is now in decline because we are spending more money than we can print on progressive entitlement programs that encourage dependency on government rather than hard work, innovation and discovery. Even our state is struggling to stay afloat because the progressives in state government have convinced us to collect as many federal grants as we can, even if we lose 25 cents on the dollar and get heavy strings attached to the 75 cents we receive.

As of the most recent count, nearly 110 million people—more than a third of our population—received a welfare benefit in 2011, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This figure doesn’t include subsidies such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or the health insurance premiums in the president’s progressive health insurance law. The latter program will add 25 million people who receive premium subsidies by 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Is this the progress that progressives are working toward? Do they intend for every citizen to depend on the federal government for their care, with the states simply serving as subsidiary organizations? What freedom will citizens have to pursue their own interests when everything is paid for and controlled by the government? What fulfilling charity, paid for and executed by real people, will remain? Will any real human progress result if individuals are compelled to act according to the whims of a centralized government rather than the dictates of their own conscience?

Only liberty lived out by a moral people, which conservatism seeks to preserve, can truly lead to progress. Liberty means government stays out of the way while individuals take risks and even fail—sometimes repeatedly. After all, one lost opportunity creates a new one, and opportunity, properly grasped and cultivated, will always lead to human advancement. These advancements benefit everyone because they generate wealth, which not only allows people to create jobs and opportunities for others to work toward their own well-being, but also provides more people the resources to privately help those less fortunate, which we know is the most humane way to provide for the needs of those most vulnerable in our society.

In traditional America and traditional New Hampshire, which conservatives desire and groups such as the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire seek to restore, government’s job is to make sure no one is taking what doesn’t belong to them, that no one is using coercion to get what they want, and that no one is conspiring to prevent others from trying to improve on what they’ve already done. This limited government allows people to achieve as much as they’re able and keep the fruits of that achievement, which inspires them to achieve more.

Contrary to what so-called progressives will have you believe, these conservative ideas are actually quite revolutionary when put into the context of human history. It is a new idea that common men and women should be able to achieve the good life according to their ability, that they should keep the property they’ve earned and do with it what they wish, and that they should elect their own leaders who are held to the same legal standards to make sure no one person takes advantage of government for their personal benefit. Unfortunately, while a relatively new idea, human liberty has been short lived.

Progressivism has been creeping into America since the day our forefathers signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but it has become most pronounced within the past 100 years—since we lost our ability to trade with real money following the creation of the Federal Reserve bank, allowed for direct federal taxation, and destroyed the delicate state-federal balance via direct election of U.S. Senators. Ever since then, an American ruling class has slowly grown in power as the remaining Americans have slowly lost their wealth, their power and their freedom.

Most governments that we’ve observed since the rise of man have been large and oppressive like ours has become, preserving the good life for a small group of people who hold the rest in mediocrity, dependence, and inevitably, injustice and oppression. This is the oldest system in human history: a type of totalitarianism that shows complete disrespect for human dignity. It is this system that is endemic to the so-called progressive philosophy today.

We seek to conserve and restore what is really a new idea—the ideas of limited government, individual liberty and personal responsibility, which once led to the most prosperous people the Earth had ever known.

Dear Congressman Scott,

Last week I attended a meeting of the Dorchester County GOP, as I regularly do, and I appreciate that you took time out of your schedule to come and visit us and keep us up to speed on how things are going in the U.S. House. During your remarks, you hit on many key points, and one in particular that struck me as exceptional in comparison to the average politician. Rather than just pointing out how bad the Democrats are, you asserted that we Republicans need to improve our marketing of our message of conservative principles and American Values. You said (paraphrased):

“We have to stop talking just about the current election cycle and we need to present a long term plan for America. We should talk about 30 year goals, and give people an idea of where we want to take this Country.”

I absolutely agree. This is the difference between petty partisan politics and real leadership. This is the kind of thing that can win over not only the independent voters, but the trust of the American people. If this mission is carried out honestly, genuinely, and enthusiastically then the GOP won’t just win elections, it will win back the direction of the country, and hopefully restore freedom and the American way.

The question before us is: what is the long term vision? What is the 30 year plan?

I urge you to consider this question very carefully, and to not answer too hastily, bending to the influences of the current political moment. Do not create a plan that emphasizes “less government” or “more competition” and don’t use blanket answers such as “return to Christian values.” Do not mince words, do not present patchwork solutions, do not aim for the easily attainable. Nobody was ever inspired by pragmatism or compromise. No, people are inspired by ideas, integrity, honesty, consistency, and bold solutions that are based on right and wrong, not “popular right now.”

The truth of our current situation is that most people aren’t tuned in to Politics. Most people aren’t card-carrying members of the Republican or Democrat party. Most people don’t really follow the issues that closely, and really, who can blame them? What is there to be inspired about with our current state of partisan bickering, special interest lobbying, and endless thousand page bills that nobody reads?

I ask you to recognize that one of the most inspiring documents in history, the Declaration of Independence, does not say that we have the right to “more life” or “more liberty” or “more pursuit of happiness.” It says that we all have the unalienable right to our own life, our own liberty, and our own pursuit of happiness. It doesn’t say that, when a government violates those rights, the solution is “less government.” On the contrary, it says that when the government crosses those boundaries, we should remove the government!

Don’t take me the wrong way, I’m not asking you to introduce a bill to dissolve the government. What I am requesting is that as you formulate your 30 year plan to restore prosperity and freedom, you do not partake in the same sort of political thought that has dominated the discourse at the federal level for so long. I’m asking that when you present a picture of what things will look like 30 years from now it doesn’t leave every government institution in place with simply minor adjustments, tinkering around the edges, with some reductions. I’m asking you to plant yourself firmly in the perspective of individual rights and examine each and every aspect of the federal government and ask the fundamental question: is this the proper role of government?

If not, then take out your eraser, and wipe that particular function, or regulation, or department off of your long term vision. If it is wrong, just remove it. Then figure out a transition that will take us from today, to a future without that injustice. Do you want to inspire Americans to vote for Republicans to restore prosperity and freedom? If so, then show them a future where wrongs are eliminated, not simply reduced. Give us a vision that inspires our support, so that people will vote for Republicans, not just against Democrats.

As an example, let’s take the income tax. During every election in my life, Republicans have said that they won’t raise taxes. Sometimes they even say they are going to lower taxes! Unfortunately, that rarely happens. But is this really a message that inspires people? If a robber robbed you every month, then one month decided to tell you “don’t worry, next time I wont’ take quite as much” would that really make you feel any better about the situation? I doubt it.

When you set out your 30 year plan, you have the opportunity to propose the elimination of the income tax! After all, taking property from people just because they are productive can’t be rationalized as morally right. We also can’t say that we live in a capitalist country when people earn a paycheck and the government takes a large chunk of it, otherwise known as potential capital savings. So don’t offer us a vision that says you will “lower the income tax.” Instead paint a picture where we live in a free country, without an income tax, where the common man can accumulate capital! Of course we can’t do this over night, but we didn’t have an income tax until 1913, so surely you can come up with a plan that will abolish it over a 30 year span.

I could go on with many examples such as this but I think my point has been made. I appreciate your time and the amount of effort you put into communicating with your constituents. I hope that this message finds you well, and that it inspires you to be bold, and to fight for those principles that made this country great.

Sincerely,
Tom Utley

A common failing among political activists is the inability to see political decisions and situations from the point of view of those they may disagree with. Activists are by their nature ideological rather than pragmatic and frequently the decisions made by political leaders who have moved beyond their activist roots are made based on considerations which are purely practical and are based on only a very loose understanding of what will really satisfy the activists who make up the various grassroots constituencies they are trying to appeal to.

So if you’re a highly motivated Liberty Republican, a Ron Paul supporter or an ideological libertarian working within the Republican party, I’m going to ask you to try to think outside the box for a little while here while looking at the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate.

From our liberty activist perspective Paul Ryan is pretty much just another establishment Republican hack. With 7 terms under his belt he’s been in office too long. His voting record is utterly uninspiring and shows no real sign of acting on fiscally conservative principles. He’s a big military supporter and never saw a domestic security clampdown or foreign military adventure he didn’t like. Plus he’s about as hardcore a religious conservative as you can find in office. Despite all these indisputable facts, I’m going to suggest that Paul Ryan is still a major concession to the liberty movement within the Republican Party.

Remember that the party establishment is not ideological. All they care about is getting things done, particularly getting their party in power and being able to satisfy the constituencies which keep them in office year after year. They are not inherenly hostile to the best interests of the country or to ideological principles, but they are more loyal to those who provide the enormous amounts of money it takes to get elected or who can provide them with blocks of reliable votes in their home districts. They are made very nervous by any politician who seems too ideological and whose decisions are likely to be unpredictable and deviate from the general strategy of maintaining power and avoiding change.

Now try to get into their heads. From their perspective politicians like Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn and Jeff Flake and even Paul Ryan are radical firebrands because they occasionally come up with an innovative idea or stand firm on an issue for reasons of principle. Not very often, but just enough to make the leadership nervous while still largely satisfying their desire for people to stick with the program. From this vantage politicians like Rand Paul or Justin Amash are positively terrifying because they will consistently challenge the system and operate on an alternative agenda which the establishment is constitutionally incapable of understanding.

The establishment of the Republican party has a general idea that the grassroots are not happy with them. They have encountered the Tea Party and it scared them. They have heard about the liberty movement and dismissed it as so far outside of their worldview as to be irrelevant. They cannot deal with the more ideological elements of the grassroots because operating on ideology is so far outside their experience that they have no tools to deal with it. There’s no way to fit it into their strategy except as a force to somehow be placated with the right rhetoric and symbolic gestures, but most of them don’t have enough contact with the party base to really know what it is asking for. They got huge numbers of phonecalls and emails for Audit the Fed, so they voted for it to throw us a bone, not really understanding that it is merely the tip of the spear of legislative reform which many are demanding, and figuring that somehow that one vote protects and legitimizes them. They stepped outside their box to support that issue and from their perspective that is a huge concession to popular demands.

They have established a norm for the party and varying even slightly from that norm is viewed as dangerously radical. Here’s where Paul Ryan comes in. Paul Ryan came up with a budget plan which included actual Medicare reform and budget cuts. From our perspective the plan is kind of pathetic and inadequate, a mostly symbolic gesture in the right direction which produces mediocre results. But from an establishment perspective it’s absolutely revolutionary because doing anything except voting for more spending and more pandering is very radical.

From that viewpoint, selecting Ryan as the vice presidential candidate is an enormously bold move and a major concession to what their very limited worldview tells them are the concerns of the grassroots. Ryan is more fiscally conservative than they are comfortable with. He is more of an initiator and policymaker than they feel safe with. He’s effective enough that they find him somewhat threatening. From the establishment’s myopic point of view Paul Ryan is an absolute flame breathing radical. He may not seem that way in comparison to Ron Paul, but most of them are not even capable of understanding the ideological views which drive Ron Paul. They don’t take his views or the views of those who support him into consideration at all, because they dismiss them as aberrant and outside of the political mainstream.

The idea of compromising with Ron Paul or making a concession to Liberty Republicans is absolutely inconceivable. It would be like pandering to cows or chickens. Only the most perceptive among the party leaders have even noticed that the liberty movement can raise money and turn out votes, and even they have no idea how to court that constituency. In that position of uncomprehending ignorance the selection of Ryan represents what the establishment sees as an enormous concession. They can’t imagine selecting someone more radical than Ryan and they assume that Ryan is such a strong libertarian (OMG, he reads Ayn Rand!) that he will make everyone happy, bring the Paul supporters on board, fire up the tea party and win over libertarian-leaning independents.

In reality the response in the grassroots has been fairly tepid. Some of the more sold-out tea party groups which have been taken over by the religious right are genuinely excited. But the more ideological groups and those who are real Liberty Republicans have reacted with anything from boredom to outrage. From the perspective of real radical activists Ryan is so close to the establishment norm as to be indistinguishable, just as from the establishment perspective he’s far enough out of the norm to appear like a real concession to the radicals.

The problem with these two conflicting worldviews is that ideological voters are not likely to be terribly forgiving or understanding of an establishment they view more and more as a major part of the problem in our political system. We don’t see what a huge concession Ryan is from the perspective of those in power, we just see how far he is from our ideals and feel disappointed. It’s possible that this is not the right reaction. In analyzing any action the intent behind that action is enormously important. Yes, Ryan isn’t what we wanted, but acting within their limitations, the selection of Ryan shows a clear intent from the establishment to offer a concession to the more radical pro-liberty elements within the party.

That said, it’s possible that we ought to be scoring the Ryan selection as a major victory for liberty because it is a sign of the establishment stepping outside of their comfort zone and offering us something they think is significant. It’s like when your senile grandmother gives you a pair of used socks for Christmas. You don’t like the socks and you don’t want the socks, but you have to appreciate her intent to do what she thought was something nice, even if the result was horribly disappointing. You welcome the old socks with enthusiasm and don’t express your inner dismay, either because you respect her and feel sorry for her, or at the very least because you hope she’ll leave you some money in her will.

Ultimately, if we object to Ryan, if we raise the roof with outrage, they’re sufficiently out of touch that they won’t understand and will just get confused and offended. If we accept their lame gift with a winning smile that makes them think they did the right thing, that makes them feel good about us and next time the gifts may be more generous and they’ll write us into the will and we will eventually inherit it all.

With the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate in the 2012 election, Romney is hoping to strengthen his credentials as a budget cutting “deficit hawk” through association with Ryan’s famous budget plan. Given the other choices which Romney was considering this is probably a good overall choice. As Republican Liberty Caucus Chairman Dave Nalle said in response to the announcement:

“While Paul Ryan is by no means the most exciting or creative choice for a running mate, his selection does suggest that there would be an emphasis on budget cutting in a Romney/Ryan administration. Using the Ryan plan as a starting point and with the addition of deeper cuts and more significant reforms to entitlements, Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the Presidency might be able to pull the country back from the brink of the fiscal abyss.”

The problem is that Ryan’s reputation as a fiscal conservative may not have much substance to it and his positions on other key issues are at the very least worrisome. He has received a great deal of press for a budget plan which does include some cuts and restructuring of medicare, but despite fearmongering from the left, the cuts are far too small and the reforms too limited to really pull us back from the edge of the abyss of debt which faces the nation.

The Ryan plan might be a good starting point if it was augmented with more substantial spending reductions and more comprehensive entitlement reform, but that would require a very proactive and fiscally conservative Congress. By itself it is just not sufficient. It takes a decade to balance the budget and potentially 40 years to deal with the debt, by which time there may be no economy left to save.

In addition, Ryan’s record on spending and other budgetary issues gives little hope that he is terribly serious about promoting limited government. In 2010 the Republican Liberty Caucus of Wisconsin published an analysis of his record and the report is not encouraging. I am reprinting it here in its entirety for those who are concerned about Ryan’s real credentials as a fiscal conservative.

Ryan’s record of fiscal irresponsibility has continued beyond 2010 when this article was written.  He has since voted to raise the debt ceiling multiple times and approved ongoing extensions of military spending on unnecessary foreign wars.  To be fair his record on fiscal issues has become increasingly mixed.  He has voted against foreign aid, farm subsidies and some other specific spending increases as well.

Possibly of even greater concern is Ryan’s ongoing record of absolute irresponsibility in the area of civil liberties.  Since 2010 Ryan has been on the wrong side of almost every important vote involving basic Constitutionally protected rights.  He voted to extend the PATRIOT Act, for CISPA, for DOMA, for the NDAA (three times), to expand the Department of Homeland Security, to extend troop commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and to give the President the power to appoint department heads without Senatorial approval.  At a time when more and more Republicans are waking up to the threat of expanded government power to operate without observing traditional limits on their police power these votes are a major concern.

TARP, bailouts, entitlement expansion, endless military spending and bigger, more intrusive and less constitutional government. Is the Ryan record an example of the kind of policies a financially imperiled nation needs and which grassroots Republicans are demanding? Ryan is probably a gesture in the right direction, but Liberty Republicans should be concerned that the gesture is more symbol than substance and demand a clear and aggressive fiscal plan from the Romney campaign.

For Release: July 30, 2012

Contact: Dave Nalle (chairman@rlc.org or 512-656-8011)

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