A reader writes:
In your [Dollars and Sense news item] “Libertarians for Dictatorship,” you libel libertarian Rep. Ron Paul as being pro-dictatorship because he [opposed] a symbolic resolution in support of freedom in Hong Kong.
This is misleading, for Ron Paul opposes all symbolic resolutions because he believes it is not just to spend taxpayer money on unconstitutional resolutions. He calls this his “continuing and uncompromising opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution.”
Can it be any clearer that libertarians’ preoccupation with nonessentials and disdain for philosophy makes them enemies of freedom?
If Congress has the Constitutional power to declare war, and the power “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution [its] powers,” then it has a legitimate foreign policy role. Saying that the House has no business passing such a resolution is tantamount to saying that whether or not foreign governments are dictatorships is irrelevant to America’s national security. Whatever “freedom” means to Rep. Paul, it has nothing to do with reality.