Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Would Murray Rothbard Support Rand Paul for President?

By Robert Wenzel

It is no secret that I have not been a supporter of Rand Paul's early campaign for the 8 Year Throne. Many Rand supporters have pointed out to me, to justify their support for Rand, that the founder of the modern day libertarian/anarcho-capitalist  movement, Murray Rothbard, once supported George H.W. Bush for president.

Up until now, I simply chalked this up to the fact that, although Murray was an anrcho-capitalist, he was addicted to the game of politics. For him, in my view, it was something akin to a board game.

As evidence, I point to Murray's hilarious infiltration of the Maoist wing of a New York City Leninist-Trotskyite party (SEE: Murray Rothbard and Third Parties). Could the man who was such a great scholar, theoretician and historian actually think that his infiltration of a Maoist wing of the communist party was going to make a dent in real world NYC politics? Of course not. It was just Murray's thirst for being part of the game that led to this "infiltration."

But it is important to note that even in this infiltration, Murray's goal was to advance libertarian ideas. That was always first and foremost Murray's goal. Always.

Thus, I bring to you the reasons that Murray supported George H.W. Bush. Although, I believe it was Murray just feeding his addiction to the game, it is instructive how he saw the libertarian angle to endorse Bush. He wrote in the essay Working Our Way Back to the President the positive reasons to support Bush:
[Bush] is the only president since Kennedy not to serve as a lick-spittle for the State of Israel, the only one not to function as an abject tool of the powerful Zionist lobby, led by AIPAC.
Murray, though chiding Bush for Desert Storm. went on:
Despite tremendous pressure by New World Orderites...Bush has kept his cool, and has not gotten American troops on the or even airmen involved in a shooting war (read "quagmire") in ex-Yugoslavia....the real sensible foreign policy is to do nothing. 
And finally Murray was happy to see:
[The president] reconciled with Pat Buchanan. At last Bush has shown some smarts. and perhaps some sense of justice.  After a vicious and despicapble smear campaign by Bond, Bennett, Quayle et al., the Bush people--while of course not apologizing--are at least implicitly repudiating their own smears by rolling out the welcome mat for the "Nazi," "fascist," etc. Pat Buchanan...

And so how does Rand match up against these Rothbard touchstones?

Here's Rand on Israel:

 Rand Paul has introduced the Stand with Israel Act of 2014.

Then we had this from Rand just last month: "I will continue to stand with Zach and Israel."

How about Rand on foreign wars and airmen?
 I favor striking ISIS...America should only go to war to win...ISIS is now a threat.  Let's get on with destroying them.
Maybe Rand is good about backing up those who have been smeared by MSM. Whoops.

Here is how Rand treated Jack Hunter: BREAKING: Jack Hunter Leaves Rand Paul Staff

And then there is his treatment of the great libertarian scholar Walter Block and the smearing of Block by NYT. SEE:Rand Paul Sucker Punches Walter Block.

So lets go over this. Rand has spent more time supporting Israel then in support of Walter Block. And he is in favor of  the US destroying a rag tag bunch of Islamists over what is mostly a civil war, the result of earlier US intervention in the area. Did anyone seriously think a civil war wouldn't start in Iraq following the power vacuum left by the US and two religious factions that hate each other that are in that region? And now Rand wants to side with one group of these religious factions over another?

What exactly would Murray see to support Rand? I think not much. He is worse than Bush on the three points Murray singled out. Plus, as a bonus, we would see Rand throwing mud at Walter Block and muddying what libertarianism is.

It is sad when a supposed libertarian like Rand Paul can't match up against the current head of the Bush family crime syndicate on the key points outlined by Mr. Libertarian, Murray Rothbard.

Murray would never be a supporter of Rand.

Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.com and author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics





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