This year as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King's 83rd birthday, I'm struck by the vast difference between his beliefs and today's "peace candidate", Representative Ron Paul. In New Hampshire, Paul received 47 percent of the under 30 vote compared to 25 percent for Mitt Romney. It's easy to understand Paul's youth appeal. He would avoid "long and expensive land wars," would immediately withdraw from Afghanistan, has railed against the draft and supports legalizing marijuana.
But let's be clear: Ron Paul is no Martin Luther King. While Dr. King most likely would have supported Paul's call for bringing troops home from Afghanistan, King's understanding of what peace means is almost the opposite of Paul's.
Paul's vision of peace is based on individualism and isolationism. He believes that "the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty." But there is a world of difference between being anti-war and pro-peace.
King believed that, "If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties... must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective."
Representative Paul, year after year, has offered legislation to pull the U.S. out of the United Nations and other international organizations.
Dr. King believed that, "It is not enough to say, 'We must not wage war.' It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but on the positive affirmation of peace."
Paul consistently votes against funding to offer help to the world's needy and poor, and if elected, would do away with all foreign aid. He voted against funding peacekeeping to help end the genocide in Darfur. Paul's philosophy is based on turning our back on the world and just taking care of our own.
Dr. King understood, even back in 1964 when he won the Nobel Peace Prize, how irrevocably interconnect our world is. In his acceptance speech he said, "We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies."
Despite the T-shirts, bumper stickers, psychedelic peace-signs, videos and other campaign swag that Paul's supporters are distributing, he is not a peace candidate. His vision of peace is as clear as an ostrich with it head stuck in the sand. Paul would have us turn our back on violence, conflict and suffering. Doing so might cost us less in the short term, but like that ostrich, it would leave us very vulnerable. Working for peace cooperatively with other nations is the only way to create a just, safe and sustainable world.
Written on the walls of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial are these words: "True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice." Justice takes hard work, common laws, and engagement.
For me, I'll take the vision of peace offered by the only person to be honored with a memorial on the National Mall who was not a president. Happy Birthday Dr. King.
Non-interventionism and isolationism are totally different. I dare say Dr. King would have supported non-interventionism, which is premised on the respect for other nations to exercise self-determination. This column is premised on a fundamentally false dichotomy, and, for that reason, is flawed ab initio
organizer.
I have recently had some great interactions with Indianapolis college
students who support Ron Paul. It was an interesting conversation
because these pro Ron Paul students seemed supportive of the work of
Citizens for Global Solutions.
In light of the devastating wars and deadly mess in Iraq and Afghanistan
I can see the appeal of Ron Paul's strongly stated anti-war
isolationism. It just seems that some, if not many, of Ron Paul's youth
supporters are hungry for a different type of foreign policy--one that
does not lead down the road to what we have experienced in Iraq . It
might even be the same hunger that led Dr. King to militantly oppose the
war in Vietnam.
What Dr. King got right and what Ron Paul gets tragically wrong is that
we DO have to organize and fight for a global policy that can help
create a just and sustainable world. We can't abdicate our global
responsibilities, especially in a world that is in crisis. It is simply
wrong and immoral and even dangerous to our self interest to ignore
Darfur (and other genocides), the responsibility to protect, global
health, the cries of the world's poor, and the looming threat of global
climate change.
It is my hope and thought that much of the initial support and
enthusiasm for Ron Paul's isolationist foreign policy, especially from
young people, will quickly evolve into the global citizenship that Dr.
King envisioned.
Dr. Paul is NON-INTERVENTIONIST (like Switzerland), he is NOT isolationist (like North Korea)!
The US should lead by example and we as individuals can take personal responsibility reach out to help those in need, but it should not come from US Military interventions, but humanitarian efforts (e.g. NGOs and non-profits).
In the 21st century, with a global internet and jet travel, you have to work towards making a just, global society. Ron Paul wants to keep the wealth gained from stealing millions of square miles from Native Americans, enslaving millions of Africans to grow cotton and tobacco, and exploiting millions of Third World inhabitants for their resources, labor and markets for over 100 years - and NOW sit back and take care of ourselves.
What an amateur. Gynecologists, like Ronny, think they know everything...
NO, Mr. Kraus he would be preaching about we protecting our own interest at home and helping poor peoplein the world to rise out of poverty where ever they maybe.
- Ron Paul supporter and former CGS member