Ron Paul’s Vision of a Federal Republic

Congressman Ron Paul correctly writes that �tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control.� Paul rightly concludes that �only armed citizens can ultimately resist tyrannical government.�

President Barack Obama has appointed two Supreme Court justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, whose position on the second amendment makes me uncomfortable. They join wildly out-of-touch and scary Justice Stephen Breyer on the bench.

Ron Paul is the only candidate for president who offers a platform of Federal Republic thinking, including a strict interpretation of the Constitution and powerful support of the second amendment. There is an excellent summation in The New Yorker of�Paul’s Federal Republic approach to governing.

The New Yorker‘s Kelefa Sanneh lays out Paul�s long-held support for states� rights and constitutional government in an article titled �Party Crasher.� Sanneh notes that Paul was the godfather of the Tea Party but that the movement has drifted away from Paul and become subsumed in the Republican Party apparatus.

Paul has remained true to his small-government message, calling for the dissolution of the departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, and Interior. Sanneh also points out Paul�s consistent support of a strong dollar since Nixon�s decision in 1971 to take the dollar off the gold standard for good. Perhaps the most poignant passage in Sanneh�s article is this:

�Unlike many of his Republican colleagues in the House, Paul cares more about cutting spending than about cutting taxes, because he knows that tax cuts don�t necessarily make government smaller — sometimes they just make the deficit bigger.�

Spending cuts are direct reductions in the power of the federal government. A proper federal republic can be achieved only with a constitutionally sized federal government and strong sovereign states.

This article originally appeared on RichardCYoung.com.

The opinions contained in this column are solely those of the writer.

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