Freedom brings people together.
—Ron Paul
I don’t hate Bernie or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Who wouldn’t admire Alexandria’s winsome smile and earnestness, however misplaced? And I, for one, am envious, not at all critical, of her spontaneity with dance. That being said, socialism as an economic and political system is an avoidable disaster. It’s likely too late to convince Bernie or Ocasio-Cortez of the miracle of Adam Smith’s invisible hand or the unparalleled prosperity that comes with the division of labor. But it’s never too late to find common ground.
In fact, I’ve worked many times with Bernie Sanders and other members of the progressive left. While I wouldn’t want to characterize my friend Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon as a socialist, I think he would accept the label progressive. He and I have worked together on so many bills protecting privacy and civil liberties that I’m convinced we largely think alike on issues of privacy and the Fourth Amendment. Wyden jokes that he and I make up the Ben Franklin Caucus, the senators who believe that if you trade liberty for security, you may wind up with neither.
I’ve worked with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on achieving justice for members of our military who have been the victim of sexual assault. Likewise, I’ve worked with Senators Booker, Leahy, and Harris on criminal justice reform. The passage of the First Step Act, the first meaningful criminal justice reform law in decades, was a true bipartisan achievement that occurred under President Trump and a Republican-led Congress.
My wife, Kelley, advocated for the First Step Act and was a vocal presence in the media encouraging the majority leader to bring the bill to the Senate floor. Kelley argued for First Step’s passage on national and Kentucky television and radio shows, wrote op-eds, gave speeches, and personally lobbied senators, all on a volunteer basis. She was in the media so often in the months leading up to its passage that the president called me to let me know that she was “the real star in the family.”
Just a few weeks after it was signed into law, the First Step Act was freeing Americans such as Matthew Charles. In 1996, Charles was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison for selling crack cocaine to an informant—under sentencing laws that penalized one gram of crack as if it were equivalent to 100 grams of powder cocaine. Powder cocaine was the form of the drug predominantly abused by whites, while the cheaper crack was the type abused primarily by blacks. The Clinton crime bill codified this sentencing disparity, resulting in the disproportionate and unjust incarceration of tens of thousands of African Americans.
While incarcerated, Matthew Charles helped other inmates earn their GEDs and organized Bible studies. He completed thirty Bible correspondence classes, as well as college courses. He became a law clerk to help other prisoners understand the legal system, helping read legal documents to those who were illiterate to shield them from humiliation. After serving twenty-one years, he was released in 2016 under the 2010 changes to the sentencing guidelines that reduced the disparity in crack versus powder cocaine.
Upon reentering society, Charles held a steady job, renewed his relationship with his children and grandkids, leased an apartment, and filled it with photos of loved ones. He volunteered every week at a Nashville food pantry called “the Little Pantry That Could,” long after his parole required it. He mentored young men who were on probation or parole.
Nevertheless, prosecutors appealed his release on the grounds that the 2010 retroactivity in sentencing guidelines did not apply to him, and he was sent back to prison in 2018—after nearly two years as a productive and contributing member of society. The Sixth Circuit judge even stated that Charles had a record “not only of rehabilitation but of good works” but “her hands were tied.” In a profile on Nashville Public Radio, Charles was quoted expressing his disappointment outside the courtroom—disappointment, but not resignation. “I’m just disappointed again,” he said. “But I believe that God is still in charge of the situation. He hasn’t revealed to me what He’s doing yet, but my faith remains the same.”
On December 27, 2018, six days after President Trump signed the First Step Act into law, public defenders petitioned for his release. And on January 3, Matthew Charles walked out of prison, once again a free man. Shortly afterward, my political chief of staff, Doug Stafford, sent this note to me and Kelley: “If you ever think this work isn’t worth the attacks, if you ever think the results take too long or sometimes are only measured in what doesn’t happen, remember there are people getting out of jail and reclaiming their lives because of work we have all done. Not many people get to say that.”
The First Step Act is an example of legislation that brought together the left and right. Doug Collins, a conservative Republican from Georgia, and Hakeem Jeffries, a progressive Democrat from New York, introduced it in the House. Both Van Jones and Jared Kushner advocated tirelessly for its passage. Evangelical Christian conservatives supported it out of their belief in the power of redemption and second chances. Small government advocates and libertarians recognized mass incarceration as more unsustainable government spending, waste, and overreach. Progressives supported the First Step Act out of desire for social justice and an end to the devastating effects of over-incarceration on low-income and minority communities. We all recognized that laws must be applied equally and fairly. We all saw the humanity in each other. We all worked together to make America better.1
I suppose the media perpetuates the lie that Democrats and Republicans in Congress hate each other for ratings. After all, conflict, drama, and scandal get more clicks on the Internet. Yet every time the media promotes this falsehood they also inadvertently promote the hate that fills the Internet. Commenters on Twitter are stoked by anonymity and also by the media’s misreporting that there is no common ground among the left and the right. Hillary Clinton’s attack on Trump voters as “deplorables” has only been amplified by a media and celebrity culture that demonizes Trump and his supporters.
The MAGA hat has become the symbol of intolerance on the left. In my hometown of Bowling Green, a crazy leftist pulled a gun on Terry and Cherrie Pierce for wearing MAGA hats. The gunman flipped them off, then pulled a loaded .40-caliber pistol on them at our local Sam’s Club. The gunman stuck the gun in Terry Pierce’s face and said, “It is a good day for you to die.” Pierce responded: “I told him to pull the trigger or put the gun down and fight me like a man.” Fortunately, the police intervened before blood was shed—but how polarized is our country when people are threatened with murder for wearing a MAGA hat?2
Consider that actor and activist Alyssa Milano called the MAGA hat “the new white hood.”
She and her ilk are so triggered by the election of Donald Trump that they claim the wearing of a hat is a threatening act. Is it any wonder that in the two years since his election we have seen multiple high-profile hoax crimes falsely blamed on Trump supporters? The left wants to be victimized so badly that they are resorting to creating false crimes against themselves.3
Not a day goes by that the new media doesn’t perpetuate and foment the divide between left and right. While they continually complain about lack of civility they perpetuate incivility by ignoring the bipartisanship that goes on every day in Congress.
The media’s obsession with the “Russian collusion” story offers a prime example of how the desire to center every Russia story on Trump distracts us from intelligent debate about real issues. Formerly sane voices on engagement have been silenced to the point that Congress nearly unanimously voted for complete embargoes of Russia and the sanctioning of its legislators; thus diplomacy between our countries is severely weakened.
I’ll give you a worrisome example of the media’s stoking the flames. I traveled to Russia in 2018 with the Cato Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank that promotes free market solutions. I and other members of our group met with former president Gorbachev and members of the Russian legislature to discuss engagement on nuclear arms control. I also met with Mikhail Svetov, a young Russian YouTube star and libertarian who is an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and his government. A CNN reporter tweeted out a picture of me talking to the former Russian ambassador and current member of the Russian upper house, Sergey Kislyak, which was taken during our nuclear arms control meeting with members of the Russian legislature. The reporter captioned his photo, “Rand Paul meets with Russian spy.” The falsehood that I was in Russia meeting with a spy was not only nonsensical and insulting, but it encouraged the Internet haters to pile on.
I’ve got thick skin. I can take media bias, but the fake news seriously damages our nation’s ability to develop a bipartisan coalition to negotiate new and continue old arms treaties, at great cost to all of our futures.
Meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev and hearing him tell of the friendship he developed with President Reagan, in the midst of the Cold War, was a profound experience for me. We all need to remember how close we came to nuclear holocaust due to fear, distrust, and hatred. Statesmanship and communication saved us, not blind refusal to come to the table of diplomacy. We all need to remember that ultimately it is our ability to acknowledge the humanity of our adversaries that is the key to our mutual survival. In the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, “My humanity is bound up in yours. For we can only be human together.”
Since Trump’s election, I have seen an increase in media bias in the reporting of foreign policy, and not only related to Russia. After seventeen years in Afghanistan, spending over trillions of dollars, losing over 2,000 soldiers, and over 20,000 more with lifelong injuries and amputations, President Trump stated his objective to end the war. Suddenly even the progressive media outlets, who supported President Obama’s stated objective of ending this never-ending war, went ballistic. Because of their overt hatred of our president, they have a reflexive opposition to anything he proposes, even the ending of a grisly war whose stated objective was accomplished years ago. No discussion of the pros and cons—if Trump is for it, they are against it. This reflexive opposition, based on personal animus, is extremely dangerous for our country.
Despite the real debate between foreign policy interventionists like Lindsey Graham and noninterventionists like myself, there is an underreported right-left coalition on foreign policy.
For example, conservative senator Mike Lee and I have worked with Bernie Sanders and Senator Chris Murphy on trying to end our support for the Saudi war on Yemen. Currently, I’m part of a coalition to end the Afghan War that includes Representatives Ted Lieu and Ro Khanna, both leaders of the progressive caucus.
There is a false narrative that compromise always means splitting the difference and giving up on half of what you believe. Another way of looking at compromise is to discount party labels to try to find common ground, which is what happened with criminal justice reform.
But on socialism, or its fellow traveler, welfarism, it is unlikely that we will find common ground. In fact, I’m not inclined to split the difference between socialism and capitalism. I will continue to fight for a free market economy because it is the only system consistent with liberty and the only system that provides greater prosperity and opportunity for all. If your goal is to help the poor become better off, there is no more humanitarian economic system than capitalism.
I continue to find common ground by seeking out, regardless of party label, people on the left who share my steadfast belief that the Constitution demands that Congress authorize war before military action ensues and that the Fourth Amendment does protect not only the papers and effects in your house but also the papers and effects kept by third parties such as the phone company or Internet providers.
I am an equal opportunity critic of unconstitutional government. While I have defended President Trump consistently from attacks that I believe are purely partisan in nature, I have opposed more of his policies and appointments than any other Republican.
While I was a critic of President Obama’s economic policy, I was a consistent and loud supporter of his commutation of excessive prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.
But I’m not a splitter. I’m not one who wishes America to be half socialist and half capitalist. Any shift in the direction of socialism not only damages economic prosperity but also threatens liberty. Capitalism is synonymous with voluntarism and individual freedom. As long as you refrain from violence and fraud, as long as you honor your contract, government should leave us free to voluntarily interact in the marketplace.
Capitalism, the freedom of voluntary exchange, is what made America great. The pursuit of freedom is a noble quest and one not to be compromised. My hope is that the next generation of American youth will study and reflect on socialism’s long history of violence and famine. My hope is that the next generation will understand that free markets and free people have produced better health, longer life expectancy, and reduced poverty and suffering around the world. My hope is that they will choose liberty.