Matt Stoller calls out liberals abuse of Ron Paul:
Modern liberalism is a mixture of two elements. One is a support of Federal power – what came out of the late 1930s, World War II, and the civil rights era where a social safety net and warfare were financed by Wall Street, the Federal Reserve and the RFC, and human rights were enforced by a Federal government, unions, and a cadre of corporate, journalistic and technocratic experts (and cheap oil made the whole system run.) America mobilized militarily for national priorities, be they war-like or social in nature. And two, it originates from the anti-war sentiment of the Vietnam era, with its distrust of centralized authority mobilizing national resources for what were perceived to be immoral priorities. When you throw in the recent financial crisis, the corruption of big finance, the increasing militarization of society, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the collapse of the moral authority of the technocrats, you have a big problem. Liberalism doesn’t really exist much within the Democratic Party so much anymore, but it also has a profound challenge insofar as the rudiments of liberalism going back to the 1930s don’t work.
This is terrible history. It is exactly this sort of limited and often false theoretical approaches to history that anyone with pretensions to use history to grapple with difficult questions should avoid. I'll get into some specific reasons why I find this method of problematic, but first I need to address this:
This is why Ron Paul can critique the Federal Reserve and American empire, and why liberals have essentially no answer to his ideas, arguing instead over Paul having character defects.
The answer to his ideas is that they are wrong on the merits and will not solve any of the problems Paul claims they will solve. In regards to the Fed, Paul's claims about the Federal Reserve and fiat currency are completely at odds with reality, and his economic history is objectively false and distorted. His constant distortion of economic and political history is a habit of Paul's, and its on that basis that liberals who actually know what Paul's Austrian economic theories are based on regard him as a dangerous crank. His critiques on American Empire would get a more sympathetic hearing from liberals if didn't also have some bizarre and again false historical arguments about our participation in World War II and World War I. The fact that he is actually right when he attacks the expansion of executive power doesn't make those other elements any more palatable.
Look Matt, if you want to critique the Federal Reserve, American empire, and liberalism in general, fine. That is a perfectly reasonable set of targets to criticize. I probably share some of those critiques. But please do not pimp this utter pile of noxious crap that I have to stomach a single moment of the wretched garbage peddled by Ron Paul to make those critiques. Those of us who were paying attention to the White Supremacy movement back in the day can tell you we knew decades ago Ron Paul was a racist hate monger, economic history crank, Neo-Confederate apologist, and outright loon way before he tickled your fancy attacking foreign wars and banking regulators. And even if Ron Paul isn't personally a racist, he trafficked in the worst racist demagoguing this side of Nathan Bedford Forrest to enrich himself, which in my book is just as bad. I do not know what is in the mans heart, or whether he is a good person, but its clear Ron Paul's view of the Constitution or the economy should not be implemented, nor should Dr. Paul be allowed to exercise power as President. Not if you value economic or social justice.
Its not enough to simply decide that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Because Ron Paul attacks the drug war and criticizes institutions like the Fed and the Pentagon doesn't make him any less of a collaborator in the effort to overturn the Civil Rights Act and end, yes, permanently end the application of the protections and guarantees of the Federal Bill of Rights to the States. You did know, Matt, that Ron Paul's views on the application of the Commerce clause, the 14th Amendment, and incorporation theory will lead to that, right? That's actually more important to most liberals than whats currently up his or your ass about the Fed. His argument about State vs. Federal power is almost exactly what opponents to the Civil Rights Act argued about the Commerce Clause and the application of the equal protection clause in the 14th amendment. You and Greenwald may have strong arguments about the abuse of executive war powers by Bush and Obama, but those concerns should not trump legitimate concerns about Ron Paul's clear intention to eviscerate the nations civil rights laws. You don't have to take my word for it, listen to the man on these topics. He is clear as a bell on them.
BTW, his attacks on Lincoln are not simply criticisms on an icon. He is making the arguments that Neo-Confederate apologists have made about Lincoln since Reconstruction because they want to tarnish his legacy, including and perhaps most importantly the Reconstruction amendments. They have been aided in the past in that effort by Progressive historians who argued that the Civil War was only about the North imposing economic hegemony over the South. Historians of that period have come to their senses about that Matt, and anyone familiar with the current scholarship on the Civil War recognizes that purely economic interpretations of historical events can lead to terribly wrong conclusions. His argument that Lincoln started the war is a terrible slander and a pure falsehood that even someone with a cursory knowledge of the Civil War should know. The South was threatening secession constantly for decades prior to the onset of hostilities, and they finally seceded because they refused to accept the outcome of a democratic election they did not like. Pinning any of that on Lincoln is a nasty lie to further the ends of people who don't want to accept the fact that the war was fought, at least in part, over the claim made by the Confederacy they had the god given right to impose brutal enslavement on millions of people for their own economic and social benefit. The basis for this claim was pure white supremacy untarnished by any recognition that the people they held in bondage were human beings and deserving of the same rights under the law they enjoyed. Paul's dalliance with this is deplorable and not simply a minor oopsie of having your name attached to some newsletters churned out by a crank associate. He openly declared his beliefs on the Civil War on Meet the Press. I'm not shooting the messenger here, he shot himself.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have some sympathy for Paul's Gold Standard arguments. Gold Standard economics is a system that favors the creditor (banks) as 19th century Populists were correct to point out. Adherence to that system caused terrible deflationary shocks and speculation bubbles, far more brutal than any we have experienced since the Great Depression. Anyone who demonstrates concern about concentrated economic power and financial elites will not find any help for those problems in the gold standard. No matter how bad you think the Fed is, its role in managing the money supply, particularly lately, is preferable to what we experienced under the gold standard. Paul is perfectly happy to blame every economic issue of the post war period on the Federal Reserve when it is in fact a better deal for anyone concerned with democracy to have a bunch of autocratic bankers appointed by Congress and the President managing the money supply than to subject workers to the mercies of the Gold Standard he envisions, which by the way is not the pound sterling system of years past or the IMF version. Bernake is right to expand the monetary base even if helps douchebags on Wall Street, and he has supported efforts at Stimulus by the Government. He should do more, but that's not really what Paul is arguing for. He thinks the Federal Reserve directly cause the crisis by its reliance on fiat currency. That's is plainly wrong Matt, and while the Federal reserves cheap money policies under Greenspan contributed to the crisis, they are not the fundamental cause as Paul argues. Its a critical distinction. His version of the Gold Standard is predicated on ideas we know to be disastrous, and in no way will the gold standard help any liberal or leftist cause I am familiar with.
And on the histiographic front, modern liberalism is not simply a mixture of Federal power and anti-war sentiment. That is purely an economic and political interpretation. It is solely concerned with mechanisms and political aspirations. The essential question it misses, or avoids, is what do modern liberals believe and hope to achieve by these mechanisms, (Matt's definition of those mechanisms I think is problematic, but that's a fight for another day). It has roots in the social movements of the 3rd Great Awakening, the populist movement of the 1890's, and the civil rights movements both for African Americans and women. It is a political ideology concerned, in part, with social justice and equality. It certainly harnessed Federal power to try to achieve those ends, particularly in the form of the judiciary and the application of the Bill of Rights to the states. And that effort as social justice by applying the Reconstruction Amendments to the states and establishing civil rights laws is a deal breaker for liberals when dealing with Ron Paul. I'm not challenged by Paul's views on executive power. I recognize him for what he is, someone who has constructed a false historical narrative on social, legal, political, and economic fronts and has managed to avoid accountability for most of that by playing on the public's general ignorance of his actual views. I cannot imagine a worse ally for liberals than Ron Paul short of Dick Cheney, who probably is as much a racist and a homophobes as Paul's is, which is to say likely not that much. We can do better
