Rand’s Libertarian Lecture in New Hampshire

Civil libertarianism is a big part of Paul’s pitch, and he’s taking on not just theoretical threats from the federal government but arguments from hawkish members of his own party. On the issue of detention without trial for those Americans suspected of conspiring to commit acts of terror with foreign groups, Paul has laid down a marker on the side of a strict interpretation of the Fifth Amendment. “I think we need to be the party that defends the entire Bill of Rights,” he said in Nashua.

Without mentioning his name, Paul took on fellow Republican senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who may be running for president and who spoke to the conference just a few minutes after Paul. Paul and Graham were on opposing sides during a 2011 Senate debate on indefinite detention of American citizens accused of terrorism. Graham’s argument was that these Americans ought to be classified as unlawful enemy combatants, and that the rules of war apply so long as Congress has authorized military action. Enemy combatants can be detained for as long as hostilities continue or when Congress otherwise says so, goes the thinking. “And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them ‘Shut up. You don’t get a lawyer. You’re an enemy combatant,'” Graham had said during the floor debate.

But Paul didn’t see it that way.

“One of them said, ‘When they ask for a lawyer, you just tell them to shut up.’ Really? That’s the kind of discourse we’re going to have in our country? Tell them to shut up?” Paul said. “You would send an American citizen to Guantanamo Bay without a lawyer, without a trial? He said, ‘Yeah, if they’re dangerous.’”

Paul cracked a smile as he launched into full libertarian lecture mode. 

“It sort of begs the question, doesn’t it? Who gets to decide who’s dangerous and who’s not dangerous?” he said, pacing back and forth across the stage in blue jeans and without a jacket. “Has there been a time in our history when we decided who was dangerous based on the color of your skin? Has there been a time in our history when we decided someone was dangerous because of different beliefs, didn’t look like us, or had a different religion? Are we going to give up on our right to trial so easily?”

There were nods of approval and a few applause breaks during Paul’s appeal for a more robust defense of the Bill of Rights in the GOP—though more often than not, members of Paul’s campaign team could be seen in the back or side of the ballroom initiating the clapping.

Earlier in the speech, Paul spoke extensively about the plague of civil asset forfeiture abuse, wherein law enforcement seizes private property suspected of being connected with criminal wrongdoing even if the owners themselves are not accused of an crimes. “Government can’t take your stuff, your property, your things, without just compensation,” said Paul. 

The original idea of civil asset forfeiture was to target organized crime, but there’s been an increased interest in reforming civil forfeiture procedures as stories of abuse have piled up. New Mexico recently passed a law, signed by Republican governor Susana Martinez, reforming the practice. Congress is also considering a similar bill. Paul explained how a grandmother had her house taken from her by the police because her grandson, who had been arrested, was suspected of selling marijuana out of the home where they both lived. 

“It is insane,” Paul said. “It ought to stop.” The audience listened politely, but it wasn’t until the senator mentioned support for unbridled asset forfeiture by Obama’s attorney general nominee that the crowd got interested.

“You know who the biggest hero of civil forfeiture, who defended it recently in committee hearings?” Paul said. A voice in the back of the room shouted out the answer as Paul continued. “Loretta Lynch. This is the main reason I oppose her. Loretta Lynch as U.S. attorney in Manhattan confiscated over $100 million worth of people’s stuff with no convictions. She went one step further. We passed a reform about 10 years ago letting prosecutors know that they had to file paperwork so the person whose stuff had been taken could get a lawyer and get a time certain for a date of trial. Loretta Lynch never filed the paperwork on purpose so the clock would never start.”

The more secular and libertarian population in New Hampshire might be more receptive to the libertarian message than in other early primary states, which gives Paul a good foothold here. The talk about speedy trials for terrorists and civil asset forfeiture may not get the crowd as excited as his go-to lines on Hillary Clinton. (“I think that her dereliction of duty, her not doing her job, her not providing security for our forces, for our diplomatic missions, should forever preclude her from holding higher office.”) But it’s not inconceivable the younger and more likable Paul could improve on his father Ron Paul’s mediocre second-place showing in the New Hampshire primary last time around. And the stuff Paul says about broadening the party appeals to Republicans here and elsewhere who want to win.

But is the Pauline view on civil issues a good way of doing that? Can the Republican party—the party for lower taxes and less government spending, and against affirmative action and Obamacare—make inroads with black voters by taking a stand on criminal justice reform? In New Hampshire, as at historically black colleges in the past, Paul suggested it can.

“You know what? If we were all the sudden the party that cared about the entire Bill of Rights, nobody on the Democrat side has been doing a damn thing about this, all of the sudden if we were the party of the entire Bill of Rights, the party that was once the party of emancipation became the party of the entire Bill of Rights again, I think you would see a sea change,” said Paul.