By Lingfeng Li

As we look forward to the 2010 elections, The Gothic Guardian sat down with BJ Lawson, a Republican candidate for the United States Congress representing North Carolina, for an interview.Our interview with Frank Roche, Lawson’s opponent in the Republican primary, can be found here.

“I’m not trying to fit into anyone’s box, in terms of labels,” William “BJ” Lawson says.

At age 36, Lawson, a Republican Congressional candidate for North Carolina’s fourth district, has already fit and outgrown many labels. He has been an engineer, a doctor, an entrepreneur, and now again a potential congressman (he ran in 2008 as well). His political leanings are similarly difficult to pin down – having been deemed progressive, Republican, libertarian, Lawson prefers to simply cite the United States Constitution as his platform.

Accurate, concise labels, appear difficult to find for this particular political candidate.

This is not to say that Lawson is arbitrarily running for the GOP nomination. He has considered himself a Republican his entire life – reading the National Review at a young age, listening to Rush Limbaugh, and even supporting the George H.W. Bush campaign. Many of his political beliefs align safely within Republican party lines: for example Lawson, like most of his conservative peers, is pro-life and against gun control. He supports a smaller government and reduced bureaucracy.

But for each stance that colors within the lines, there is also a thoughtfully articulated idea that challenges standard-issue Republican beliefs. These are not the outlandish suggestions of a radical, but the product of a thoughtful political evolution that took place over the last 10 years.

For example, Lawson is vehemently against the existence of the Federal Reserve, a major point of contention between him and his opponent in the Republican primary, Frank Roche. While his stance deviates significantly from that of his party, Lawson defends his belief with plenty of factual evidence and intelligent rhetoric.

Lawson claims that the Federal Reserve fits the mold of a Marxist organization and has helped provoke inflation since its inception in 1913. “Plank number five [of the Marxist “ten commandments”] is centralization of the control of money and credit in the hands of the state,” Lawson says. “That’s it. That’s the federal reserve.”

Using a simple example of purchasing milk, Lawson described the lack of flexibility and free market in the Federal Reserve “monopoly” system. He says that, under a commodity purchasing system analogous to that of the Federal Reserve, all Americans would be forced to buy their milk from the Federal Reserve at a price solely determined by the Federal Reserve itself. If you want chocolate milk and the Fed only sells vanilla, Lawson says, then you just cannot have chocolate milk.

Instead, Lawson advocates for a system that promotes free market currency options. “There’s nothing wrong with the Federal Reserve note as a currency … but it shouldn’t have a monopoly. Just like the post office still exists, even in the age of Federal Express and UPS,” he says.

It is because of his belief in a less monopolistic currency system that Lawson supported the Plenty, a community currency coupon intended to encourage Pittsboro, NC consumers to purchase local goods. Roche, Lawson’s Republican rival, was critical of Lawson’s belief in competing currencies. Lawson counters that the plenty is really a means of promoting grassroots prosperity and local self-sustainability. “The idea behind the plenty was simply to recognize that at a very basic level we need to have communities who are able to sustain themselves in certain areas,” he says.

Even Lawson’s more conventional political positions seem to be a product of research and careful consideration. He is against affirmative action because he believes that Americans should be protected by government policy as individuals, not groups. By following “systems of counting noses and doling out special favors based on things like affirmative action,” Lawson believes that the U.S. is taking “a step towards collectivism.”

Lawson’s own history with gun control policy best illustrates his commitment to adapting his views to a consistent, logical framework. As a child, Lawson says that he was not raised around guns, and as a medical resident, grew increasingly wary of guns as he personally watched gunshot victims brought into the emergency room. “You’d just see bullets in places where they’re not supposed to be,” Lawson says.

But after the Virginia Tech shooting, Lawson says his perspective changed. He argues that had a campus bystander been able to successfully shoot down the gunman, the end results would have been less catastrophic. A means for self-defense, Lawson believes, is critical to the preservation of individual freedom and protection against tyranny.

“If you do not honor an individual’s right to self defense, with firearms being … the fundamental equalizer between people of different physical strength, you’ve paved yourself a nice downhill path to tyranny pretty quickly,” Lawson says.

Lawson’s open mindedness has allowed him to form opinions that go beyond cookie-cutter arguments, especially on controversial issues such as gay marriage. Lawson believes that marriage should be outside of government jurisdiction altogether and, consequently, that gay marriage is permissible because it is not the government’s place to dictate a social principle like marriage.

But Lawson goes further. He recognizes the necessity of government involvement in a domain like marriage for practical reasons (taxes must take family structure into account, etc.) and argues that the government should simply create a more accommodating legal framework for families and partnership. He says the necessity for such a legal framework extends beyond gay marriage and would also affect partnerships such as those between unmarried, elderly siblings caring for one another.

“We need bigger churches, we need better, stronger families, we need more individual liberties and the way you do that isn’t by growing government to make it define more things,” Lawson says. “It’s by saying you know what, you’re right, this isn’t a government issue.”

Lawson’s willingness to make innovative, controversial proposals separates him from many other Republican politicians, including Roche. Roche previously said in an interview with The Gothic Guardian that he did not consider Lawson to be a Republican and believed that Lawson should be running on a more progressive party’s ticket.

Lawson, too, cites a number of crucial differences between Roche and himself. On a basic level, Lawson believes that he has more experience in working with people and observing economics through an individual, personal lens as an entrepreneur and doctor.

He also rejects Roche’s criticism about his place in the Republican Party and any claims that his progressive social views will hurt his ability to win the Republican base. In Lawson’s view, these are merely arguments that inhibit actual discourse about important issues. “As soon as someone starts to label me a Republican, conservative, progressive, libertarian, whatever … as soon as we rely on labels, instead of actually talking about the issues … it really shortcuts the dialogue,” he says.

He believes that he has the grassroots support and media presence to challenge and beat David Price. Lawson initially dropped out of the 2010 race because he questioned his ability to win against Price, but has since reevaluated his position. After seeing Price vote in favor of the health care bill last December, Lawson decided that it was time to reenter the race.

He is hoping to build on the relationships first formed in his 2008 run, when he received 36 percent of the vote. Lawson reasons that, without the wave of Obama-support Price had in 2008, his campaign will have a much higher likelihood of success. With the roughly 150,000 votes he received, Lawson believes that he would have earned 45 to 47 percent of the vote had it not been for the Obama factor. “We have a chance, and we can do that because the dynamics for voter turnout are gonna be lot different in 2010 than they were in 2008,” he says.

Unlike many other Republican candidates in traditionally Democrat districts (Price has been in office for two decades now), Lawson may also have the financial backing needed to pose a serious challenge. While the fourth district Republican candidate raised only $50,000 in 2006, Lawson was able to raise $600,000 in 2008. Aided by endorsements from traditional conservatives like Ron Paul, in poured the donations in small increments, each one averaging around $100. This year, Lawson hopes to raise over a million.

Should he win, Lawson seems determined to restore constitutional order to Congress. He routinely carries pocket-sized copies of the Constitution to hand to potential voters (he gave each of us interviewers a copy) and gave out 50,000 of these copies the last time he ran for office.

He says that if Americans want real change, even the ones “who are progressive and who [were] just weeping on election night in tears of joy,” they should simply return to the Constitution. That kind of change will not include auto-industry or big bank bailouts, or the continued military presence in countries like Afghanistan. It will also not include approving votes for initiatives like the Patriot Act, for which Price voted in favor.

“Let’s get beyond the fact that the constitution was written and put into place by imperfect human beings in a social environment that left a lot to be desired in terms of equal rights for every American individual. And let’s look back to the philosophy upon which our nation was founded and that is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for every human being,” he says.