I finished Ron Paul's Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedoms. I have two items.
1.
His chapter on "Unions" pretty much contained the usual conservative
and libertarian arguments: that unions artificially increase wages and
thus decrease opportunities for employment, since people cannot come
forward to work for lower wages, independently of the unions. But what
would be the good of having more jobs if they don't pay much? Ron Paul
believes that companies in a free market will compete for workers and
offer them good wages that way. Paul also sees a potential
danger in the federal government having authority in labor disputes, for
the federal government can use its authority to set limits on wages (as
occurred under Richard Nixon's wage and price controls) or to benefit
the rich.
I think that Ron Paul is overly optimistic
about the free market setting decent wages. To what would he attribute
the stagnation of wages that has occurred in America over the past
thirty years? At the same time, the opposite extreme (unions making it
expensive to hire a new worker, if that's what happens) looks
problematic, too.
While Paul makes a good point about the problems
of giving the government authority, my question is this: Is there a way
to ensure that the government uses its authority for good and not for
evil? I don't know. I suppose that elections are a way, but special
interests in our republic play a significant role in those, and that has
encouraged the government to do things that are hurtful to a lot of
people.
2. Ron Paul's chapter on Zionism essentially argued that
the U.S. should stay out of the Middle East and let Israel work things
out with her neighbors, and he says that we have hindered through our
involvement such attempts to work things out. Paul also is critical of
how we fund both Israel and also the Arabs, then he throws in the point
that Israel would still be at a military advantage were we to cut off
our aid to both sides. (I'm not sure if Paul considers that a good
thing or a bad thing, or even why he's mentioning it.) At the same time,
Ron Paul is a strong supporter of trade, which he believes is conducive
to peace.
Regarding who has a right to the land, Paul says that
he feels compassion towards Arabs whose homes were taken away by the
Israelis. He's not entirely against Zionism, however, for he hearkens
back to the time when Jews were moving into Palestine peacefully, before
the UN granted them a state. Paul also raises the point that so many
people-groups have been in Palestine, that it's really hard to determine
who has the rights to it, and he does not feel that appealing to
religion helps matters. Essentially, he wants people in the Middle East
to solve their own problems, and he appears to be optimistic that the
younger generation is eager to do so.
I wouldn't be surprised if
things are more complex than Ron Paul presents, but I'm sure that he has
good observations in his analysis.