Murray Sabrin – Worthy of support?

Of the numerous individuals running for Congress as “Ron Paul Republicans,” only one has earned the Good Doctor’s official endorsement. Murray Sabrin, who as a Libertarian candidate for New Jersey governor achieved 5% of the vote (and accepted “matching funds”), is that one lucky candidate. And now Trevor Lyman, organizer of the first Ron Paul money bomb; and Larry Lepard, who paid for the full-page USA Today ad; have gotten behind Dr. Sabrin. In fact, there is an effort to have a money bomb for Sabrin‘s senatorial campaign, and with the Paul campaign winding down, those inclined toward “Ron Paul Republicanism” should take a closer look at Sabrin.

A closer look, indeed. I was at first excited to hear about Sabrin running for U.S. Senate, but troubled by his lack of an “on the issues” section to his Web site. Other than being for the gold standard and Ron Paul, it was unclear what Dr. Sabrin stood for. Now the “on the issues” page is up at his site, and there are some troubling anti-libertarian and even anti-Paulian positions Sabrin champions.

First, Sabrin says he supports the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, “rolling back federal government,” and implicitly abolishing the Department of Education. But later, he advocates big-government, unconstitutional programs such as “education savings accounts” and, worse yet, vouchers. Where in the Constitution are these things authorized?

Disregard for the Constitution extends into Sabrin’s anti-abortion stances. Instead of merely stating a personal opposition to abortion and advocating decentralism, Sabrin supports the unconstitutional federal partial-birth abortion ban and chides his opponent for not cheering on this exercise in federal power-mongering. Then he goes further by advocating a federal law to “criminalize” harming an “unborn fetus during the commission of a crime.” Again, where in the Constitution are these powers delegated to Congress?

And of course, Sabrin takes the Know-Nothing approach to immigration, greatly outdoing Ron Paul here. Unlike Paul, he advocates using confiscated tax dollars and eminent domain to build a socialist wall keeping Mexicans out and Americans in. And worse yet, his cultural protectionism extends to a demand for English as a “national language.” Libertarians aren’t, or at least shouldn’t be, for national anything.

In fact, out of thirteen issues Sabrin chooses to focus on, at least nine are anti-libertarian, wishy-washy, or contradicted by his other issue stances. For example, what the heck does “paying down debt by rating programs’ effectiveness mean”? Should we only eliminate socialist schemes that are “ineffective”? And do we really need a Balanced-Budget Amendment to the Constitution? If we were to summon the political will to achieve that, wouldn’t it be better to pass an amendment abolishing the income tax and/or Federal Reserve? A little debt is not the worst thing in the world — the means by which debt is monetized and what the government does with the money it borrows are far bigger concerns.

If he were elected, I’m sure Murray Sabrin would be the most libertarian member of the Senate. But before deciding to support his candidacy, one must take his anti-libertarian positions into account. In contrast to Ron Paul’s presidential bid, the only real good of a Sabrin candidacy would come from actual electoral victory. From a “movement” perspective, nothing is to be gained by a candidate who not only fails the purity test, but seems to be ignorant of the Constitution’s limits on government and hostile to the notions of cultural freedom and free-market pluralism.