Am I wrong in thinking Club for Growth is a respected conservative source? They basically use a strawman argument to marginalize what Paul is saying.
It seems to me he is not opposed to all except perfect solutions. He's opposed to unconstitutional solutions.
They say he offers no solution to replace federal tort reform, but haven't several states enacted their own? Isn't that the solution?
If conservative groups like Club for Growth basically find the Constitution to be a hassle, and favor imperfect (read unconstitutional) solutions that are "politically tenable", then it occurs to me we are basically screwed.
FWIW, I actually never voted for Ron Paul. I realize ad hominem will probably replace rational discussion where his name is concerned. So be it. Just wanted to demonstrate that a) federal tort reform is unconstitutional, and b) if conservatives can't abide by the constitution---and would prefer to knowingly violate it in pursuit of "politically tenable solutions" and "progress", then conservatism is nothing more than a braking mechanism on liberalism. A slower death. And that is what it is. Thanks for reading.
You make a good point.
Far too many folks have gotten used to and comfortable with the commonplace exercise of centralized Federal power.
Soviet Marshall Zhukov said, “Better is the enemy of good enough”.
That and moving more aggressively to police all of the quacks out there.
I must admit I am one on favor of federal Tort reform, but now I must rethink my position.
Thanks for the insight.
I’ve often imagined what life would be like if all of The Party were replaced overnight with Libertarians.
Then they and the Republicans would agree with one another on the basic premise of freedom (leave people the hell alone), and gridlock on anything wacky from either side.
If the biggest political worry were whether tort reform should be enacted at the state or federal level (rather than what new aspect of our lives the government should seize control of first, and to what degree), what a great “problem” that would be.
First, that government within the United States tends to grow because there are more factors encouraging it than discouraging it. I'll list only a few and I'm sure others can do better: 1. We have 535 employees in Congress whose full-time job is the crafting of legislation. Not one of them is rewarded for cutting, revising, or ending legislation and hence they don't do it. 2. Central government is an easy place to collect money for people whose ideas can't be funded by themselves. 3. Central government is an easy place to leverage decision into action in the widest possible scope.
Against these three broad motivators there stands what? The limitation of government should be dictated by the finite amount of funds available and the resistance of the public to being tapped for more. But it isn't, and the reason that it isn't is that the ones allocating resources are allowed to allocate more than they have - the government is permitted to run a deficit. And one upshot of "progressive" taxation is that the entire public doesn't pay taxes where it's applied - income taxes most visibly. For them government spending is largesse - what possible reason would they have for limiting it?
This does not even address the fact that power is an aphrodisiac to those who have a little and they're far more likely to desire more than less. For the noblest of purposes, of course - as Webster said, "they mean to rule wisely, but they mean to rule."
Against these factors have been posed attempts at remedies - for one, a balanced budget amendment, for another, term limits for legislators. These have been rejected, (not all of the arguments against them being illegitimate, IMHO) and at best they'd be only partial remedies anyway. For example, term limits are useless if the ones allocating the resources are not elected at all - czars, anyone? But those relatively feeble gestures were just about all there has been merely to limit the growth of government, not actually to shrink it.
To shrink it, government employees are going to have to be let go and bureaucratic organizations are going to have to be eliminated. Naturally no one in these wants to lose his job and so resist those efforts with the aid of a labor union protecting their interests.
Short a broad-based political consensus in favor of these fiercely-resisted measures we will have what we have now: a few lone figures shouting what appears to me at least to be an undeniable truth and a vast crowd nodding their heads but unwilling to sacrifice their own bit of the system in order to shrink it. Historically the power of government has tended to shift around but not to decrease unless there is some sort of radical revolution in social construction that forces it. Our own structure of government allows for such a thing (many do not) but only if enough people press for it in terms that force the vested interests to divest. And at the moment there aren't enough people doing that to overcome all the institutional resistance and innate growth tendencies.
That certainly doesn't imply we need to stop calling for government reduction. We push for system reform or we experience system collapse. But it isn't going to be either quick or easy. Just some thoughts.
The answer is in an educated Jury. The Jury has far more power than a Judge, despite what we’re lead to believe. THAT’S where we get Tort Reform, by voting not guilty if we are picked for medical malpractice lawsuit cases and encouraging others to do the same (unless, of course, the doctor truly was careless and at fault). Good topic.
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