Liberty Maven

I must confess. This Ron Paul supporter suffered from a temporary bout of neo-conservatism after viewing that completely horrifying video of the young woman lying in the street bleeding to death in Iran over the weekend. I will not link to it because I don’t want to infect anyone else. My long lost compassionate conservatism gene made a return as I was filled with hatred and sadness. I thought, “Something must be done!. America needs to intervene!” A few hours and a reality check later I found myself back on firm Founding Father-style non-interventionist footing once again.

Some claim taking a non-interventionist approach on the Iran election aftermath is the height of hypocrisy from someone who claims to believe in liberty. Ron Paul is being criticized for his lone “Nay”  vote on condemning the Iranian government’s heinous actions on it’s own people. On the surface it appears Obama is taking a similar non-interventionist approach for now, although there are some arguing the opposite may be true. Hopefully, Obama stands his ground (this time) against the interventionist opposition.

Those clamoring for intervention need to answer a few questions, but there is one question that trumps them all.

What is the endgame of intervening in Iran?

Is it the preposterous idea to enforce a fair election in another country and install Mousavi as President so the Iranian reformers can be “free”? Where in the U.S. Constitution that we claim is the supreme law of the land permits the U.S. government to intervene in another country’s election process (no matter how flawed it may be)? Of course that pesky Constitution didn’t stop us from doing something similar in Iran in 1953 and many other places over the years. In fact a good argument could be made that the reason Iranians are so “unfree” today was because of our own interventions in Iran beginning in 1953.

Furthermore, If we somehow magically install a new Iranian President but do nothing about the theocratic dictatorship with all the real power in Iran, the Iranian reformists would be no more free than they are right now.

Is the goal then to use force to remove the theocratic dictatorship and transform Iran into a… well… another version of Iraq? Yeah, that worked so well. It was done with minimal bloodshed, it only lasted a year, and it was cheap for the U.S. taxpayers. Oh never mind, that was the promise, not the reality. Doing this would mark the fourth simultaneous nation-building effort if you count Afghanistan in the mix. And I say fourth because we are most certainly doing our own version of nation-building right here in the U.S. with Obama’s “stimulus” plan in effect.

There’s nothing quite like some more nation-building to bring America back to economic prominence in the world by spending more money we don’t have!

Being a lover of liberty I can’t help but cheer for Iranian freedom with a full-throat, but that freedom can only be achieved by the Iranian people organizing and demanding it through whatever means they deem necessary. If the U.S. determines the means then the Iranians will be trading one dictator for another.

We need to focus on leading by example and diplomacy. This is yet another case where America can be that proverbial “shining city on a hill”, but only if we don’t send our military down that hill and around the world “in search of monsters to destroy“.

If you are for U.S. intervention in Iran yet getting yourself all in a lather over attending one of the Tea Parties which are dedicated to restoring our Constitution as the rule of law, may I suggest being cautious about whom you call hypocrites? As hard as it may be to believe, it is possible to support freedom around the world without intervention.

H.L. Mencken wrote:

“I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.”

Couple that thought with Thomas Jefferson’s…

“…peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

and we have the best answer to the Iranian situation. To do otherwise, we may find that when all is said and done, the only tyrant remaining in the world lives and works in the White House. That is of course, if our economy can hold up that long.

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And about that lone Ron Paul vote, here is another quote from John Quincy Adams:

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

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UPDATE: Paul Kroenke, who wrote the article I was critical of above, has posted a clarification/follow-up that readers of this article should also read. Also note my own clarification in the comments section of that piece. In short, I apologize to Paul for misconstruing his article and offer up that I do agree with condemning the Iranian regime’s actions, but I disagree about doing so as an official act of Congress. Furthermore, my largest worry is that such condemnations will lead to eventual intervention.