Damn fine book. Downloaded the audio last night and have spent most of this morning listening to it (just a few tracks remaining; I love audio books). Just to be clear, I ordered my own physical copy from Amazon on its release day, and eagerly await its arrival on Tuesday.

So far, this book has only improved my view of Dr. Paul. I've always questioned his views on abortion and immigration, but listening to this book has proverbially cleared the air between us on these topics.

Dr. Paul has written against immigration repeatedly during his campaign and this has concerned me. Fortunately, it appears from listening to his book that he is only against immigration in so much as we have a welfare state. In the absence of the welfare state, all of the costs of immigration dissolve and we can "welcome immigrants who want to come here, work hard, and build a better life".

Dr. Paul is also personally very anti-abortion, which I consider to be a morally questionable view at best. In his book, he reveals the emotional origin of his position, but also reiterates his stance that the decision about the _legality_ of abortion should be delegated to the states and to the people (as almost all powers should be). I personally would never encourage the abortion of a fetus to whose conception I had been a party (how's that for a description of sex?), but I cannot justify enjoining others against so doing.

The moral argument goes as such: There are two (or three, if you include the father) moral entities involved in any choice regarding abortion. I think that we can easily conclude that in any case where a choice must be made between the life of the actual moral agent (the mother) and the potential moral agent (the fetus), the actual moral agent's rights absolutely win out. I think that even Dr. Paul would agree with this.

The waters (understandably) get muddy when you look at elective abortions. Dr. Paul would suggest that the right to the potential life of a fetus wins out over what amounts to the property rights of the mother (an actual moral agent). I don't think that this is such a clear cut distinction; we consider ourselves morally righteous when we shoot a dog who bites. We generally consider ourselves morally righteous when we eat the flesh of animals to sustain our own lives. Both of these cases are intuitively comparable to abortion to me. The fetus is an active burden on the nutrition and health of the mother, but is a potential life with some level of moral standing. I think that it is morally wrong to take the decision of abortion lightly, just as I think it is morally wrong to hunt for sport alone (with no intent of making the utmost use of the animal's flesh). In a free society, we must accept that we cannot judge the mental state of someone and can only judge their actions, therefor it can certainly not be said that all abortions are always wrong. If you are a poor woman who has found herself pregnant unintentionally and has great difficulty making ends meet as it is, you are morally justified in having an abortion in order to avoid further hardship for the next 9 months _as well_ as the emotional hardship of having to add another infant to an overburdened foster care and orphan care network.

I fear that Dr. Paul's religious beliefs cloud his judgement on this topic. If you believe that there is some "soul" which is unique to humankind and which is instantiated at the instant of conception, without regard to moral agency, then you will have a very difficult time justifying elective abortion. If, however, you see moral agency and membership in society as what is uniquely human then you can see elective abortion for what it is: A reasonable but difficult moral choice.

After that long diversion, I want to reiterate that _despite_ our differing moral positions on abortion, Dr. Paul and my views on the federal government's role in deciding the legality of abortion differ not a bit. As a difficult moral decision, I cannot imagine that any group of people larger than a small town could possibly agree on a proper rule governing abortion. How then can we imagine that a group of two-hundred sixty-five million people could possibly be governed by one single rule?

This is, I think, the reason that so many diverse people have gotten behind the Ron Paul campaign, and why I am now feeling a bit of a pang for having not backed it earlier. Any person who advocates freedom as strongly as Dr. Paul is unlikely to suggest legislation which will go contrary to anyone else who seeks freedom, regardless of their values or moral system. It is also interesting to note that these exact principals are the same ones which our founding fathers envisioned in creating the government of this nation. They knew that the only thing that the colonists had in common was a shared dislike of oppression, so they avoided wherever possible legislating anything beyond protection from oppressions into the constitution.

I, of course, Dr. Paul fails realize (or at least fails to state) the full implications of his moral principals: If it is wrong to tax, then it is wrong to tax. Any government necessarily requires funding and any funding acquired other than through voluntary donations or contracts is a tax and is wrong. It is possible, perhaps, to have a small body of social experts, maintained by consulting fees; a corresponding small body of adjudicators, maintained by mediation fees; and a small security force, maintained by insurance fees, which might resemble a government, but no constitionally declared government with salaries and taxes can ever be morally justified, given the beliefs that Dr. Paul espouses.