I have heard from people, who are otherwise sensible and rational, that Paul is the only sane choice for Republicans and unhappy Democrats to make in the upcoming Iowa caucases and, ultimately, for America to make for the presidency.
Do people really listen to what Paul's actual words are? Or do they willfully ignore his extremism, unable to face the fact that he is out of the mainstream and dwelling in Crazy Town?
Here's an example of Paul's extremism:
Ron Paul: Civil Rights Act of 1964 'Destroyed' Privacy
Huffington Post - "Despite recent accusations of racism and homophobia, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) stuck to his libertarian principles on Sunday, criticizing the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it 'undermined the concept of liberty' and 'destroyed the principle of private property and private choices.' "
I've heard many people say they admire Paul for his consistency in his libertarian principles. But where are these people's heads? Do they actually believe this country would have been better served had the individual states allowed businesses to continue to discriminate against people with different skin color, religious preferences, or sexual orientation? Do these libertarians truly believe that racial descrimination, or any descrimination, would have ended voluntarily? That people would willingly give up their anti-American biases given enough time? And how long would this country have been willing to endure the shame of illegal racial descrimination that was practiced in many regions of this country? Should American citizens have looked to "the free market" to deliver justice and equality under the law that is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution?
Do libertarians really believe that the free market place should be the ultimate arbitrator of all illegal actions that are contra the Constitution? Ron Paul's belief that ending illegal racial descrimination intruded on people's privacy and concept of liberty is outrageous and worthy of ridicule.
Rep. Ron Paul is fiercely against anything that intrudes on a citizen's privacy, but he is against a woman's right to an abortion--one of the most private decisions a woman makes. He's inconsistent here, IMO, and an extremist in his position, since he stated that abortion is "the most important issue of our age."
Rep. Ron Paul is fiercely against anything that intrudes on a citizen's privacy, but he is against a woman's right to an abortion--one of the most private decisions a woman makes. He's inconsistent here, IMO, and an extremist in his position, since he stated that abortion is "the most important issue of our age."
His anti-science view on Evolution gives us a great insight into Paul's intellect. He values a religious belief, based on no evidence, over a scientific fact, based on mountains of evidence. This is something people should think about when chosing a president. Will a person who choses dogma over facts make rational decisions in other areas that affect citizens' lives? My opinion is that he or she should not be trusted to see issues clearly when a dogmatic religion informs his or her thinking. A president's decisions must be based on facts, not faith.
More on Rep. Ron Paul's extremism here.
From Politicususa:
"I have praised Ron Paul in the Republican debates for his consistency, but we should not mistake consistency for a rigid ideological inflexibility that promotes a decision making process where details and circumstances don’t matter. In the mind of Ron Paul, the ideology must be adhered to at all times."
To the winner of the Iowa caucases:
24 comments:
Shaw - I share your concern with Raul's position on abortion and intelligent design -vs- Darwin's theory of evolution, which as you say is supported by mountains of evidence.
I have read Paul's book and over time grown to understand while he has flaws they are fewer than many in the media, politics, and in general might think.
For those who view statism for what it really is, irrespective of the mascots color, either blue or red, the only choice is Ron Paul in the big "R" statist republican party, or Johnson, if he becomes the Libertarian candidate.
What the nation really needs is a strong third party beginning at the grassroots and building local, state, and national candidates that can effectively articulate a vision that is consistent with and non contradictory to classical literalism, constitutional government, and true individual liberty.
Perhaps too much to expect.
It is too much to expect under our current political system and level of political interest of the general population.
I am beginning to hate this smart phone. I t should have been liberalism, not literalism. So much for spell check. Really though, my bad.
I think you just might be right Jerry.
It's always easy to stick to principles and be a purist when you're not governing and dealing with real life problems that affect real people. In Congress, Paul is just one among 435.
Paul is an absolutist. No one can govern as an absolutist, unless you're Kim Jong Il.
And no one in this country will get a man or woman to be the perfect president. It will never happen.
Mr. Obama is the best match for what my political views are. He's not perfect and has disappointed me on some issues. But there is no one in the current crop of GOPers, save Mitt Romney [on some issues], who, BTW, governed in Massachusetts as a progressive, who represents my liberal/progressive values.
RN, I knew you meant liberalism.
As best I can tell, those leftists who support Paul are mostly extremely naïve people for whom the get-out-of-Iraq-and-Afghanistan issue trumps everything else. They don't know or care about Paul's terrible positions on other matters.
On the right, he's the object of what can only be called a cult of libertarians, and libertarians, even more than most ideologists, fixate on abstract principles to the disregard of real-world consequences. The ideology must be consistently followed to its logical conclusions no matter how insane the practical results.
Frankly I judge him more harshly for his rejection of evolution than I do people like Perry or Bachmann. They're ignoramuses and it's no surprise that they know nothing about the evidence which proves evolution. Paul went through medical school. Anyone who can learn that much biology and still reject evolution has a serious screw loose.
Shaw - Finally, someone who states accurately what Romney actually is. A progressive statist.
Of course the statist was my additive. It is nonetheless an accurate use of the word statist.
Infidel said... "Paul went through medical school. Anyone who can learn that much biology and still reject evolution has a serious screw loose."
Has Paul actually rejected (is he on record as saying so)the theory of evolution out of hand? Or is he more along the lines of "intelligent design" theory?
Intelligent design allows for acceptance of evolution on some level does it not?
No. Intelligent design is not a separate concept in its own right -- it's a scam devised by creationists to try to disguise creationism as a scientific theory instead of a religious fantasy, in hopes of circumventing the First Amendment. All this was thoroughly exposed during the Dover trial.
Paul rejects evolution -- no ifs, ands, or buts. He's a libertarian. He admitted years ago that he wrote the racist newsletters he now disowns. If you view him as something other than a crackpot, you're not dealing with reality.
RN: Here's an unedited video where you can hear Paul say that he doesn't accept Evolution as a theory.
That's no different from hearing someone say he doesn't accept gravity as a theory.
It's embarrassingly dumb, and as Infidel stated, it is astounding to hear this nonsense from someone who had to have taken many courses in biology to receive his MD.
Paul also states in the video that he thinks the question of whether he accepts Evolution as a fact or not is inappropriate for a presidential candidate.
I disagree.
His answer gives us all a serious insight into his thinking processes and his willingness to reject settled science in favor of a dogma [that a creator made the universe and humans] that has absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back it up.
I would not trust a man to be president who would reject facts in favor of myths.
Shaw,
Both Ron Paul and his son Rand are deluded misfits who wander in and out of rationality. Neither one belongs on the public payroll because they both hate government so much.
Anyone who loves government belongs not on the payroll as well.
During the debates, Ron Paul caught me off guard when he said things that made sense. For example, being the only GOP candidate with the guts to call out Ronald Reagan for negotiating with terrorists. However, any positives he may have are trumped by the mountain of negatives. Along with the ones you mentioned, the vile newsletters published under his name are also disqualifiers in my book.
RN, no one I know loves government. But we could not have a country of 300+ million citizens without government.
We dislike bloated, inefficient government, government that favors lobbyists and writes laws for them and ignores the people.
Government is not the problem, the people who vote in ideologues and idiots are.
Shaw - While I take no issue with your general statement with respect to what you and I dislike about government I must reiterate there are those who in fact love everything the government gives them and are only more than happy to accept (demand) more.
My life in the working world over 40 years has exposed me to a very wide range of individuals of many cultures and backgrounds is responsible for my arrival at these conclusions.
Shaw, thank goodness for the truth of the title of your post.
May 2012 be much better than 2011 for you and your family.
Having fought republicans since I was thirteen I feel no sadness that Many of them feel they have to support Ron Paul as the rest of the field is worse.
"Do they (libertarians) actually believe this country would have been better served had the individual states allowed businesses to continue to discriminate . . ."
Yes, obviously. This is something Rand Paul's questionable notions that smack of racism came out over, too.
I don't know that all libertarians are racists, although I suspect there's a correlation that well exceeds what you'd find in a random group of citizens. But whether one supports the outcomes racists prefer because one is a racist or because one is a doctrinaire libertarian matters little to those who feel the sting and suffer the injustice of racism.
Rational Nation, you say you share Shaw's "concern with Raul's position on abortion and intelligent design -vs- Darwin's theory of evolution."
OK, what about blatant racism?
I find it curious that someone concerned about statism would support a politician who, rather than launch a crusade based on moral suasion, would use the power of the state to deny women the right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, even if the pregnancy was the result of rape or could cost the woman her life.
What you deem statism is really representative democracy. Health care reform didn't come about (to the limited extent it came about) because some tyrant woke up one morning and decided it must be forced on an unwilling and unaware public. It was decades in the making. It developed through gueling legislative process, with input from all stakeholders. It utlimately passed by a vote of the people's representatives and was signed into law by a president elected by a healthy margin. That's our system, messy though it sometimes is.
But never mind; it's so easy to write all that off as "statism," which sounds, oh, you know, like one of those ugly "isms" from Europe — socialism, Nazism communism. Ominous and alien. That sort of thing. It's a way of demonizing something necessary and remarkably functional for making a nation of more than 300 million livable, workable and reasonably fair.
(continues)
I also find it curious that when arguably the most powerful, most removed from the people and least democratic civilian component of the federal government, the Supreme Court, decided to play politics and choose our 42nd president, there was no outcry from those concerned about statism. If Ron Paul had a problem with it, I never heard about it. Same goes for movement conservatives.
Curious, indeed.
Let me explain something about "true individual liberty."
When a person lives out on a Western prairie, miles removed from the nearest neighbor, he's got tremendous personal liberty. Chances are good, if he's a farmer or rancher, he could tend his fields or herd buck naked, if he wanted to. He can play his 500-watt stereo as loud as he wants, any time of the day or night, no problem. And, he can get drunk and speed up and down the dirt road to his spread with little chance of harming anyone but himself. If the law were to witness his antics, he'd probably just be escorted home with a scolding. He can also sit on his front porch taking potshots at critters any time he wants to.
But, let this person move to a city and it's a different ball game. He'd better remain clothed when out and about, and keep the volume down, especially at night. As for driving drunk, he'd be lucky to make it a few blocks before running into big trouble of one kind or another. As for shooting a gun off a front porch, not more than once.
None of the restrictions on this guy's behavior are the result of evil government types seeking to regiment his life in every detail. Other people had laws passed because they don't want to confront some naked stranger on the street, don't want to be kept awake by someone else's stereo and sure as hell don't want to get horribly injured, killed or pay even higher car insurance because guys like him get blitzed and speed up and down the city's crowded streets until they're arrested or cause a wreck. Nor do they want their children injured or killed when out playing because some guy with a gun mistook them for critters.
So, people had laws passed. I could take you through years of reading federal laws and policies based on the same logic, the same imperatives and the same process.
The bottom line is, when you choose to live in a populous, complex modern society, you reap some benefits and conveniences, but can expect to give up some freedoms. That's the inevitable deal. Those who can't hack it would do well to relocate to someplace beyond civilization's laws and customs. They don't need an ominous term with which to demonize civilization and democracy, nor a political cause based on faux victimization. They need to accept the deal and work with it or move on.
Correction: In my previous comment I wrote 42nd president when referring to the 43rd.
For the record, while I'm correcting things, Paul needn't have taken any post-high school course in biology to become a physician. Anatomy and physiology, chemistry, maybe physics, you bet, but not necessarily biology. That said, as an educated person, it's reasonable to expect he would at least hold out the possibility that so many other educated people, including ones far better informed than he is specifically about evolution, know what they're talking about. That he does not says disturbing things about Paul's intellect and judgment.
SW - Thanks for the lesson. Suffice to say I' ve used your arguments when appropriate. Beyond that I have little to add. I have no further need to explain. Either one gets it or not.
S.W., great comments. Thank you for explaining so clearly what so many anti-government types seem not to understand.
SW said: "I also find it curious ... the Supreme Court, decided to play politics and choose our 42nd president, there was no outcry from those concerned about statism."
Because what you claim simply did not happen. Not any more than Obama was born in Indonesia or Kenya.
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