Warfare and Policy Coherency: McCain vs. Paul

The debate between the policy positions of Ron Paul and John McCain is emblematic of the Republican divide in the U.S. around warfare. It also epitomizes the selfish myopia of many Republicans voters too ignorant or vindictive to connect the dots. McCain asserts that non-intervention, which he likens to isolationism, is what led to Hitler's rise to power, while Ron Paul advocates a position for the U.S. that rejects global militarism in favor of 'trade, travel and talk'. As these two candidates argued this point last night during the 'CNN/Youtube Debates' (a farcical spectacle if I've ever seen one), both were met by simultaneous cheering and booing.

Now, McCain is a number of derogatory nouns that I could spend hours listing, but he is at least coherent. In McCain's America, the US military would be (likely more effectively than under Bush) deployed throughout the world, reasserting neocolonial domination by imposing ideologically driven value systems on the conquered nations. At home, the federal government would act as the vanguard for the securitization of America in favor of the white christian male minority, and a thinner state would enact economic policy that favors corporate elites. For McCain, war is the endless, belligerent state that the American government should engage in - military and ideological warfare abroad, class and social warfare at home. Coherent, methodical and exacting in its hatred for everyone that does not reflect his power background.

Ron Paul on the other hand is a confusing character. On the one hand he vociferously advocates individual freedom for all as a libertarian, yet on the other he favors subjecting individual freedom to the iron grip of an intense national state that will seek to crush freedoms like immigration and abortion. Furthermore, he advocates the inconsistent and Utopian vision of a capitalist society without government regulation. But, back to the subject at hand, Paul rejects military warfare, arguing that American should only engage in warfare for "defensive" purposes (though, this is precisely how Bush sold Iraq pre-emption at first), all the while advocating combinations of policies that actively propagate class and social warfare on behalf of elites. Those who share the individualist and static conception of human nature that Ron Paul clearly has are undoubtedly familiar with Hobbes's classic phrase "war of all against all". Most of his supporters have failed to reconcile the contradictions implicit in a capitalist-libertarian conception of human nature that would prove Hobbes right. What is scary is that the few ideologues who have come to terms with this eagerly relish the Battle Royale that is to come if they end up in power.

Perhaps, deep down, Ron Paul is as coherent as John McCain. Perhaps he does understand that the policies he is proposing will quite obviously entrench social inequalities and widen the income gap - infringing on a great American constitutional freedom: that of general welfare. Maybe he is merely positioning himself at the top of the pack in the "war of all against all" that he sees occurring. But if so, this is not evident in his policies, nor in the vehemency of his misguided supporters. Coming from a point of principle, the state is a dangerous entity in the sense that it usurps decision-making power from each of us, no matter how "democratic" the process through which this takes place. However, efforts to reduce its influence, and more importantly, what social order will take its place, need to be reflective, purposeful and progressive. Abolishing the state without systematically addressing structural inequalities reproduced within the economy and society will certainly lead to the vindication of Hobbesian thought. John McCain understands this very well, and in response is interested in using the state to further entrench these inequalities. Ron Paul and his followers, at least on the surface, are woefully deluded.