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Ron Paul and deconstructing the federal mess

By A.B. Dada

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I was sitting in a church yesterday talking to a friend about Ron Paul. He was reading through some of my Ron Paul Flyers that I started working on, and asking the basic questions that I hope the flyers will answer.

Eventually, he asked me why I want to see a smaller Federal government. I didn’t get into the fact that I want to see a non-existent government at the federal level, in fact I gave him a minarchist response to his question: because the more people a law encompasses, the easier it is to control that law via special interests.

Let’s look at a crazy idea: dismantle the FDA, and get all the U.S. citizens to disallow the individual States from having their own. This is just an example, not necessarily a recommendation; U.S. Constitutionally I believe that each individual State could have their own version of the FDA.

If the Federal State can not have an FDA, and the individual State can not have an FDA, you can bet that many, if not most, counties and/or towns would enact their own drug legislation. Each of these communities, based on the needs and wants of their populace, would decide on what was OK and what wasn’t. My town of Zion, Illinois might say that herbs and supplements must be a stringent testing standard (maybe a private-market competitive testing organization like the Underwriters Laboratories); your community might decide to have a “hands-off” approach and leave it to the doctors working with the populace.

My friend’s immediate answer was expected — “Imagine the mess the drug companies would have to go through to get their drug approved by every tiny village, county and doctor!” My answer was expected, too — “YES!”

As a law covers more people, the people behind the law are more distant from the people they govern. Your U.S. Congressman may have a house in your district, but it is doubtful they spend much time there. Instead, they are in Washington, away from those they govern. Your phone calls and letters are just more “spam” amongst thousands or tens of thousands of other people just like you. The lobbyists are the powerful ones — your letters are worthless except during election time; their money and discussions are constant.

If you restrict the Federal State from a particular market, the individual States would likely decide whether or not to regulate/tax the market. Yet even at the individual State level, your particular representative is still likely going to spend more time at the State’s Capitol than near their home in your area. The lobbyists for that given market would likely move from Washington to the individual State Capitols. But there is a bright response to this thought — instead of 10 lobbyists in Washington for a drug company, that same drug company would need maybe 250 lobbyists nationwide in all the State Capitols. This gives local businesses a lot more power against the large International company — the local business could actually afford to compete for lobbying attention with the Internationals.

What if an individual State decides to not interfere in the same market that the Federal State was Constitutionally limited against? It is likely that each town and county would consider involvement (as shown above). In this wonderful scenario, what the individual citizens of a given town would want would be the consideration for the smaller community. And in order to “woo” the politicians at the local level, the Internationals would need to hire tens of thousands of lobbyists, so the small business can still compete — but so can the individual! A lobbyist here in Zion, Illinois would be weak against the individual citizens of Zion, Illinois. Our representatives at the city level would be close to home, so we could often see them face to face. In my town, I actually know 5 of my “representatives” and they know me by name. One waved to me at Culver’s Butterburgers this weekend. I know I have the chance to explain my views, unlike my Illinois Congressman or my U.S. Congressman, who just send back form letters.

This is why I promote Ron Paul to my Progessive friends — their chance of passing their utopia of restrictive regulations and high taxes is much more likely at the local level, but ONLY if the Federal Government follows the Constitution. This is not just a libertarian dream, it is a dream for anyone who wants the State to provide something, but still be open to hearing why you want (or don’t want) something regulated or taxes.

Ron Paul also wants this deconstruction to happen.