Brilliant post, Fred. This basically sums up, alongside many other posts doing the same, why even though Ron Paul is superior to every other Republican cobbled together, I could still never in good conscience support him.

The Professional Left proposed putting him in charge of auditing things like Defense and the Fed, however. As long as we kept an eye on him and made sure he didn’t destroy anything critical, that could be both a fun and productive use of the psycho.

I’ve taken to referring to Paul as a Dixiecrat. I think it’s a much more accurate description of his political views than Libertarian.

I always think of the individual vs. civil rights as aristocratic freedom vs. democratic freedom. Libertarians in general and Paul in particular are wannabe aristocrats, maybe benign or benevolent, but above all in charge of their little kingdoms (homes, businesses, states, whatever) and the nasty mob/federal government is threatening them. The latter sees freedom as belonging to everyone, therefore the aristocrats are rarely in danger of repression, but the poor do.

Libertarians like Paul believe in the rights of the individual – and they’re the individual.

Scott Lemieux over at Lawyers, Guns & Money sums up my view of Paul pretty well by saying, “Its incidental arrival at a few good positions notwithstanding, Ron Paul’s worldview is exceptionally dangerous and reactionary.” 
 

I think the comparison between Paul and Kucinich has one important difference not listed, namely that Paul has an order of magnitude more exposure than Kucinich. Paul is routinely showing up second in Republican primaries and is Kucinich even running? Nobody knows.

The left really doesn’t have a counterpoint to Paul that’s equal in scale. And that’s the fault of progressives who are afraid to step out of line and support their ideals over “pragmatic” concerns. Which I think stems from so many decades of Democrats losing elections, Republicans are less afraid of losing because they’ve been winning so long, so they don’t mind “throwing their vote away” so to speak. Democrats think anything that sacrifices even one extra vote will lose the election, especially given recent history (i.e. Nader).

Except voting for Paul doesn’t seem to be throwing any votes away, as he’s actually having an impact in changing people’s minds. Whereas progressives are struggling to get their narrative out there. Maybe “throwing your vote away” on an idealogically driven candidate is how you get your narrative out there?

 
Except voting for Paul doesn’t seem to be throwing any votes away, as he’s actually having an impact in changing people’s minds.  

I don’t think Paul is changing all that many minds in a substantive way. The fact that his base of support is on the internet is simply causing his impact to be overstated/ overblown. Much of the impact he is actually having is on stupid shit. Sometime last week I saw Paul proudly pointing to the fact that one of the big polls had included one of his issues. The issue that was polled? The gold standard. Paul was thrilled, but no one with any sense is. 

Paul is not moving the GOP position on foreign policy at all and the effect he’s having on Progressives isn’t actually positive. (Being anti-war is all well and good. Being isolationist, including things like wanting to end foreign aid of all types and have the US quit the UN, is not.) Given all that, being on the Paul bandwagon seems to actually be worse than simply throwing one’s vote away. 

I have a quibble with your terminology in this post: “gives free rein to the powerful to exercise their rights enforce their privileges against the powerless.”

Regarding the first comment, it occurred to me some time ago that a progressive administration might make use of Ron Paul in the office of Inspector General of the Department of Defense; nice to see I’m not the only one who had that idea.

I agree.

 Hmm. As a Brit, I suppose I shall simply continue with what is fast becoming a national tradition in my country – namely, peering across the Atlantic at your country and scratch my head in an expression of vague puzzlement.

 Seriously, there are whole crowds of us down at the beach some days. Guy called John brings the snacks.

Well, as long as you don’t say that you can see Russia America from your house. Because that would be silly. And apocryphal.

In late capitalist America, you don’t have civil rights, you have the right to be civil. You don’t have individual rights, but monied individuals are always right.

I like to think of him as an old-school federalist, often mistaken for a libertarian by those who believe that state and local authorities are incapable of tyranny.

And if you don’t think that matters, bear in mind that Ron Paul has gone on record as opposing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which (among other things) gifts us with the Incorporation Doctrine — a rule that I consider one of the biggest protections of both civil rights and individual rights in the entire Constitution.

I won’t bore anyone here with the judicial cases involved but what the Incorporation Doctrine does in a nutshell is that it requires the states to follow the Bill of Rights. Without incorporation, state governments would be free to ignore freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms; they would not be required to grant criminal defendants access to counsel or a speedy, public trial. In the plain text of the Constitution, these protections originally only applied against the federal government only. While most states did adopt them on their own, they didn’t have to, and if they didn’t citizens had no recourse. Rejecting incorporation lays the groundwork for a systematic dismantlement of fundamental rights at least as dramatic and insidious as anything found in USAPATRIOT or the NDAA.

Of course, federalists don’t have to care about that, but libertarians should be terrified.

I think part of the reason Democrats are so afraid of losing elections is not just because they’ve lost so often, but because when they lose, Bad Things happen.  Exhibit A: The entire presidency of George W. Bush.  Exhibit B: repeated near-shutdowns of the Federal Government since the Republican victors of 2010 took office.  Exhibit C: Sudden leap in Union-Busting and Anti-Woman legislation since the Republican victories of 2010.

I could go on.

Quite simply, we don’t dare take the chance of letting these psychopaths have any more power than they already have. 

“What does Ron Paul really believe about gays?“

Confusing and contorted extra element:
http://rightwingnews.com/election-2012/statement-from-fmr-ron-paul-staffer-on-newsletters-anti-semitism/

Former staffer *defends him as not-homophobic and not-racist* despite the fact that he would not shake a homosexual’s hand or use a homosexual’s bathroom (where DID he get his medical degree again?!). He does at least point out the disastrous nature of his approach to foreign policy, and says he should be rightfully slammed for that. Which I guess is something.

But I’m pretty sure “I won’t shake your hands or use your bathrooms” is about as textbook “homophobic” as it gets. That’s actually fear, even. Not just hatred.

Unfortunately this often translates into a rationale for adopting Republican-light (or not so light) policies.

Man there have been SO many articles like this lately. Yeah we get it progressives don’t like Ron Paul. Enough already.

” we don’t really have a vigorous national spokesperson for the issues of war and peace, an end to empire, a challenge to Israel, and so forth, that Paul has in fact been articulating”

it’s funny I was looking at a huffpo column the other day. The author was a DNC Pro Israel guy.  like 99 percent of the reponses were like “we’re tired of fighting israels wars ” and “we shouldn’t favor either side” and “we’re tired of this bullshit.”

I thought wow what a disconnect.

“Unfortunately this often translates into a rationale for adopting Republican-light (or not so light) policies.”

So what’s the cure then?  The cure is simple: oust as many Republicans as possible.

Even a Blue Dog Democrat is better than any Republican, just by virtue of not being beholden to Grover Norquist.  Besides, most Blue Dogs come from districts so conservative, the Blue Dog is the most liberal guy who can currently be elected there.  We saw this in the 2010 election, where Progressives were cheering the ouster of most of the Blue Dogs, until they realized what sorts of Lovecraftian horrors were taking their places.  Turns out a lukewarm supporter of Nancy Pelosi is a hundred times better than a crank who thinks Boehner isn’t going far enough; who knew?

When Medicare passed, there were 70 Democrats in the Senate; Republicans couldn’t have filibustered and they didn’t even try.  What has Obama been working with?  A Senate that never had the power to block filibusters except for a seven-month window when there were exactly 60 non-Republicans in the Senate.  And one of them was Joe Lieberman, who campaigned AGAINST Obama.

Think of those “Republican-light” policies this way.  Because a lot of people vote Republican, Republicans have EVERY LEGAL RIGHT to block legislation they disapprove of.  Yes, they’re being total tools about it and they’re putting party above country.  But nonetheless they have every legal right to do exactly that, so legally speaking, legislation has to be altered to meet with GOP approval if it is to go anywhere.  Who has the power to take that legal right away from the Republicans?  Well, that’s up to the voters.

 
I thought wow what a disconnect.  

A disconnect between what and what? Pro Israel and anti-Israel people? That’s not exactly news. Posts at HuffPo don’t tend to tell us anything profound about, well, much of anything. They’re not a representative sample. I think that overall support for Israel on the Left is getting thin, but HuffPo comments neither confirm or contradict that. 

Happy birthday, Lori!!!

I thought wow what a disconnect.

Now I’m curious.  How are you planning on turning “Different people on the left believe different things about Israel” into “…therefore everyone, regardless of whether you disagree with ninety-five percent of his views or not, should vote for Ron Paul for President!”?

lori- I think huffpo is kind of a representitive sample of democrats. I’ve noticed it in other places too (and I completley agree btw). Why didn’t they let Jimmy Carter speak at the 2008 convention? pretty obvious.

unfortunately the OP ed is doing more of this silly parcing of words like the one about how to be liberal and anti war without being an “isolationist” and so forth.

and then theres just a collection of articles bashing ron Paul.

ako- I’m not saying that. I just wonder why more of the democrats that are elected don’t sound like the democrats you see in threads at huffpo and elsewhere. You don’t here Hillary Clinton or Harry Reid talking like that. or even rachael Maddow. Why not?

Thank you. 

ako- I’m not saying that. I just wonder why more of the democrats that
are elected don’t sound like the democrats you see in threads at huffpo
and elsewhere. You don’t here Hillary Clinton or Harry Reid talking like
that. or even rachael Maddow. Why not?

Because they’re trying to appeal to “moderates”, or so I’m told.  I’m not sure what the REAL Liberals have to do to get pandered to the way the teabaggers did, but I’d like to know.

It’s difficult to get anywhere in terms of national office without catering to the Israel lobby. 

You want me to say the Democratic party is flawed?  Fine, the Democratic party is flawed.  All parties and all candidates are flawed, and I, like most voters, pick among the available candidates to the one that seems best (or at least, the least bad alternative).  If the only choices were Ron Paul or Michelle Bachman, I’d even give Ron Paul serious thought.    Fortunately, there are candidates who are at least somewhat tolerant of women and gay people, and moderately concerned with the well-being of people who aren’t super-rich, so I can vote for them instead of the Libertarians. 

Come up with a single all-encompassing policy position aka soundbyte modeled on “Taxed Enough Already”?

 
I think huffpo is kind of a representitive sample of democrats.  

It’s really not. Taken as a whole it’s probably fairly representative of the middle to upper middle class, center to center-Right wing of the Democratic party. No individual article achieves even that much. 

Like I said, my impression from a lot of different sources is that support for Israel is wearing thin among a lot of Dems. The Israeli government has been tilted horribly to the Right for years and years. I think a lot of people are starting to give up hope that it’ll tilt back at the same time the human rights issues are becoming impossible to ignore. However, there is nothing like an overwhelming anti-Israel consensus among Dems. (If for no other reason than that the wars that the US is currently involved in are our own, not Israel’s.)

The DNC does tend to be more pro-Israel than the Democratic voter pool as a whole because Jews make up an important part of the Dems traditional Big Tent. Just like the RNC is more virulently anti-gay than the overall GOP voter pool because the whackado Religious Right folks are important to Republicans. 

one of the links begins “ron pauls problems and ours”. I’d like to hear more about the “ours” and less about ron paul’s, about which we all know a great deal by now.

Speaking of Ron Paul and civil libertiers, lack of committment thereto, this flyer is apparently being handed out by Paul supporters in New Hampshire. 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kKUunfXSrd8/TwssylbEmpI/AAAAAAAAJt4/xxhqqytIUcA/s1600/026.JPG

Of the 6 points, only the last one is actually something that I agree with and even that’s only because it’s not giving the full picture of Paul’s foreign policy views. I have no issue with his personal faith but the fact that it’s the first thing on the list points at something that’s terribly wrong with US politics. The other 4 are just plain appalling. Note especially point 5, we should stop fighting wars abroad so that we can more effectively fight the Brown Horde at home. 

Anyone wondering why Progressives shouldn’t be supporting Paul just has to look at this list and note that ~1/4 out of 6 is not a good score. 

What would you like to discuss about our problems? I ask because I made several attempts on the other thread to engage you about our problems and you blew it off. Are you feeling more inclined to discuss racial justice, women’s bodily integrity and QUILTBAG folks being given full citizenship today than you were yesterday? 

“leftist doctrines of nation-building and pre-emptive war”
…What? WHAT? WHAT?

nevermind the absurdity of the whole “oh, yes, parents and local communities should design education.”
I almost went into education. My sister did. My parents were in it. My father is only now retiring from it.

That entire idea of “local communities” and “parents” deciding on education makes my blood boil. Fuck you, Paul. Fuck you.

What problems do you want to hear about?  And more importantly, why should we trust you to engage in the conversation in good faith rather than use cheap gotcha tactics to go “The left is imperfect, therefore you should all be Libertarians!”?  Your conduct thus far has not let me to expect this.

Lori/ ako- I’m interested in this

 ”In other words, we need to listen to Paul, not because he’s worthy of our support, and certainly not because the reasons that underlie his positions on foreign policy are ours, but because he reveals what’s not being said, or not being said enough, on our side.”

The left has lost it’s edge. i realize you are loathe to watch Fox and i am more of a CNBC guy myself but Judge Napolitano’s show on Foxbusiness has some fairly radical stuff on a nightly basis. Anti war, anti wall street, pro civil liberties etc. 

there is a gap on the left side for anything with that sort of energy. it’s all just guys with horn rimmed glasses covering campaigns.

I would be very interested in seeing Congress’s Constitutional grant of authority to regulate either marriage or abortion. I keep looking at the list of enumerated powers and I… just… don’t… see… it.

Any Ron Paul fans out there who can shed some light on that? It seems like he’s kind of stepping away from his strict constructionist mantle here, which is exactly what he bashes both the left and the right for doing.

How did I miss the meeting where pre-emptive war became a leftist, utopian doctrine?

I would be very interested in seeing Congress’s Constitutional grant of authority to regulate either marriage or abortion. I keep looking at the list of enumerated powers and I… just… don’t… see… it.

Or what a candidate’s thoughts on Jesus are doing on a campaign flyer

You must not be an American.

I always forget how bizarre that must look to someone who didn’t grow up with this kind of nonsense!

Basically, ever since… I really want to say “Jimmy Carter”, every candidate for President has essentially been required to loudly and ostentatiously profess their Christian faith. While it’s legally prohibited to impose a religious test for office, Catholics like John Kennedy and Mormons like Mitt Romney have been treated with open suspicion by political opponents and the press, and — especially if you’re a Republican — the tendency for the press and voters to view religious affiliation as a requirement for leadership position.

I think that in Canada, western Europe, Australia (and probably some others that I’m forgetting) politicians are vastly less likely to do this and that putting someone to the question over their religious beliefs (as was done to both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney during their campaigns) is not common.

(It’s important to note though that in the US, while the idea of a Christian evangelical voting bloc evaluating candidates based on faith started with President Carter, a Democrat, Republicans tend to be the ones who do this nowadays.)

Y’all might not have the religious nuts we do, but your government is falling into the austerity trap as well.  No one in power seems to have any sense these days (or, if they do, they’re paralyzed by systemic factors).

I would be very interested in seeing Congress’s Constitutional grant of
authority to regulate either marriage or abortion. I keep looking at the
list of enumerated powers and I… just… don’t… see… it.

Any
Ron Paul fans out there who can shed some light on that? It seems like
he’s kind of stepping away from his strict constructionist mantle here,
which is exactly what he bashes both the left and the right for doing.

He’s actually in favour of enacting law to PREVENT Congress from regulating marriage or abortion. To make sure that all the states get to do it instead. So he actually doesn’t violate that ideological claim.

A friend recently posted a picture of him that looked like a campaign poster, which said:

“The federal government has no right to fuck you over.

That privilege belongs to the states.”

(I was going to say something witty to his picture, but after research, it turned out that really is his actual stance. He votes/d for things that remove federal jurisdiction over abortion, religion, gay marriage, etc. Not to forbid recognizing or legalizing any of these things, but to prevent the federal government from having any part in it. Which isn’t any good from my POV, but it actually is consistent for his “no Federal power” thing)

I know that he’s said that, but that isn’t actually borne out by his votes. Not only did he claim to support the passage of DOMA — a law that makes hay out of the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution and which has been ruled unconstitutional by three courts and Barack Obama and his Department of Justice (all of whom are actually lawyers) — he voted for federal abortion bans in 2000 and 2003, as well as the Sanctity of Life Act that you mentioned (although that bill also would define legal personhood as beginning at the point of conception, an anti-abortion measure that was rejected in Missisippi for being too strict). 

Don’t get me wrong, Ron Paul is generally very consistent in his positions, but these social issues are where he fumbles severely.

 
How did I miss the meeting where pre-emptive war became a leftist, utopian doctrine?  

Shrub forgot to invite you? 

 
He’s actually in favour of enacting law to PREVENT Congress from regulating marriage or abortion. To make sure that all the states get to do it instead. So he actually doesn’t violate that ideological claim.  

No, he’s not, and he’s very clear about that. Paul says that he would have voted for DOMA if he had been in Congress at the time. What he wants to prevent is federal jurisdiction over legal challenges to DOMA. I have no idea how he justifies that since it’s a federal law, but the object is to prevent DOMA from being overturned by the courts.  He also favors a federal abortion ban that would criminalize both preforming and obtaining an abortion at any time, for any reason. 

He mostly wants to leave it to the states to totally screw you over, but when it comes to teh ghays and the baybees he’s all for federal power. 

 
“In other words, we need to listen to Paul, not because he’s worthy of our support, and certainly not because the reasons that underlie his positions on foreign policy are ours, but because he reveals what’s not being said, or not being said enough, on our side.”  

I can think of at least one thing that the Democrats struggle with. As a whole we still haven’t quite figured out a proper, balanced way to view the military. During the last 5 decades America has become militarized in a really unhealthy way and for a lot of complex reasons the Dems haven’t been able to push back on that they way they should. Until we find a way to get that sorted it’s going to be very difficult for the country to pull back from the kind of military over-reach that we have now. 

(If anyone is interested in a more detailed look at this I highly recommend Andrew Bacevich’s books The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War and Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.)

No one, including Ron Paul, can simply wave away the systemic and cultural factors that have gotten us to this point. It’s a thorny problem, but IMO one thing we need to do is push a lot harder on the distinctions between supporting soldiers and supporting The Troops and supporting the Pentagon. And of course campaign finance reform. 

 The left has lost it’s edge. i realize you are loathe to watch Fox and i am more of a CNBC guy myself but Judge Napolitano’s show on Foxbusiness has some fairly radical stuff on a nightly basis. Anti war, anti wall street, pro civil liberties etc.  

It’s not really that the Left has lost it’s edge. The edgy part of the Left has simply been drowned out by the Right wing noise machine, of which Fox is the chief culprit. The fact that they allow the odd useful idiot on their airwaves doesn’t change that. 

I’m going to be very interested in what happens with OWS over the next few months.

as well as the Sanctity of Life Act that you mentioned (although that
bill also would define legal personhood as beginning at the point of
conception, an anti-abortion measure that was rejected in Missisippi for being too strict).

I did miss the ’00 and ’03 votes, so you’ve got me on that one.
But as I understand it at least, SoLA contained this essence (via Wiki):
“The Sanctity of Life Act further would have recognized that each state
has authority to protect the lives of unborn children residing in the
jurisdiction of that state.”
and
“The Act would have amended the federal judicial code to remove Supreme
Court and district court jurisdiction to review cases arising out of any
statute, ordinance, rule, regulation, or practice, or any act
interpreting such a measure, on the grounds that such measure: (1)
protects the rights of human persons between conception and birth; or
(2) prohibits, limits, or regulates the performance of abortions or the
provision of public funds, facilities, personnel, or other assistance
for abortions.”

It leans toward anti-abortion protection, but technically (am I wrong here?) allows for a state to say, “No, abortion’s legally okay,” and run with that. But if they ban it, the federal government can’t stop them.

So, yes, it basically says the federal government can’t stop states from banning it and says nothing about stopping them from allowing it, but does it actually work toward a complete federal control over it?

I have no idea how he justifies that since it’s a federal law, but the
object is to prevent DOMA from being overturned by the courts.

Legal language doesn’t often tie me up, but the weasel-wording and bizarre assumed phrasings in things relating to things I find sociomorally repugnant often confuses me (I had to stare at that second chunk of SoLA I quoted above REALLY hard to make sense of it. Still not entirely sure I get it.), and so I often read enough to get the gist of it–and DOMA relates to preventing same-sex marriage, which is enough for me to say “Screw you and your supporters, DOMA people,” and leave it at that, nuances aside.

that said: Doesn’t it function sort of like above? Okay, the federal government never recognizes same sex marriages. But a state still can, and the federal government can’t stop them, even though they won’t recognize it.
So…leaning again, giving the federal government a prejudicial view toward his side, but not actually preventing it.

Maybe I’m over (or under) thinking this though. Obviously I don’t agree with the federal government refusing to recognize same-sex marriages, but ostensibly his end goal would make that a moot point–they wouldn’t be involved in benefits and stuff anyway. Though, yes, I suppose it would be more logically consistent to push forth, “The federal government has NO opinion at all.”

I dunno. I guess I just see that it might be more stacking the deck than actually holding all the cards? IOW, not actual “power” over anything. Just stopping them specifically from having the powers he doesn’t agree with, without giving them the powers he DOES agree with. Does that make sense? I realize it might be pointlessly nuanced, but I have a habit of trying to frame other people’s worldviews for myself to try to get the internal integrity of them. And that makes a kind of sense to me–uh, in the sense that I could see that as being “no power to the federal government” without footnotes.

Regardless of what other language is in the bill, a federal fetal personhood law would effectively criminalize virtually all abortions*.
Removing DOMA challenges from federal jurisdiction is designed to keep DOMA from being over-turned by the courts because DOMA it’s one of the major obstacles to invoking the full faith & credit clause to force states to recognize same sex marriages preformed where they are legal. At heart it’s using federal power to prevent expanding the definition of marriage, even in states that wish to do so. The state can say that you’re married but the federal government doesn’t recognize it and that has very real legal implications. That’s using federal power to limit states’ rights, no matter what Paul calls it.  

*There might be a way to preserve abortion in the cases of health of the mother based on self-defense, but other than that they’d be illegal. 

Seymour Melman is also a good person to look up in the library. His books on the permanent war economy are an illuminating look at how successive US governments have effectively created risk-free pools of capital for companies to basically build whatever stupid shit they think will fulfill a defence contract, as long as the CEOs can make off with the money and the money tap stays open, the cycle continues.

I was going to ask about the “personhood” part of it, as I suspected that might be the criminalizing aspect, but wasn’t sure–I mean, what would be the point of the rest of it, if you have already declared “person from conception”? That would legally render it murder, regardless of what state laws are, wouldn’t it?

And I think I follow you on DOMA now. I think I was expecting it to be more active and less nuanced. It gives me a headache trying to make sense of the absurd approaches. Bad habit of taking people at their word that I try to correct as much as possible by allowing for how people can use their word and such. I can grasp a lot of things, but the ideology behind “I’m going to support a law to prevent my island of ‘morality’ from recognizing your ‘immoral’ marriage even though it was legal in another part of the same country” makes my head hurt. I don’t get it because it doesn’t really achieve the goal of preventing same sex marriage. It just gives it a nebulous legal status. And doesn’t seem to work at all toward guaranteeing it as a country-wide stance over time, even. Just “Ha HA! I have achieved my goal of making this really confusing!”

Yeah, great, man. What the hell was the point of that? You’re not even any good at oppressing :

Because the Democrats that get elected aren’t the people who post at HuffPo. From what I’ve seen of it in the last couple of years, it’s like an online tabloid: lots of fluff and opinion pieces, not much that’s actually worth reading.

 You could sneak it in via the 9th and 10th amendments, but that doesn’t change the fact that so far marriage and abortion have been left entirely to the states. (So much for Ron Paul and his stated intention of leaving all that to the states. Apparently that only applies to stuff he approves of. Like racism.)

 
I was going to ask about the “personhood” part of it, as I suspected that might be the criminalizing aspect, but wasn’t sure–I mean, what would be the point of the rest of it, if you have already declared “person from conception”? That would legally render it murder, regardless of what state laws are, wouldn’t it?  

It does have a sort of “belt and suspenders” quality to it that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe one of the lawyers can shed some light on it. 

Regardless of what other language is in the bill, a federal fetal
personhood law would effectively criminalize virtually all abortions*.
(SNIP)
*There might
be a way to preserve abortion in the cases of health of the mother based
on self-defense, but other than that they’d be illegal.

Under Libertarian Rule, it’s be EASY:  Charge the fetus rent.  If it can’t pay, it gets evicted, possibly with lethal force.  The fact that it can’t survive without being a MOOCHER is _its_ problem, not ours!

As a friend of mine said:  “I need to make my uterus a corporation so I can do what I want with it.” 

Charging the fetus rent sounds like one of those weird corporate shell games conglomerates play where it basically amounts to moving money from one pocket to another and calling that an arms-length transaction.

“Now, honey, I will charge you 1 cent a month, so I will move 9 cents from my left pocket to my right pocket and advance you the money for it. Just buy me a twizzler licorice when you get older.”

*baby wiggles in uterus*

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

FangsFirst’s interpretation is right. The part that says “findings” is where Congress (or some other legislature) lists its ‘findings of facts’ — things that it is declaring to be true, generally as a result of some kind of investigation or hearing; these are used to justify the law. My original reading of it was wrong — the Sanctity of Life Act is actually kind of like DOMA in that it doesn’t actually prohibit abortion but instead makes it possible for states to ban it.

I don’t get it because it doesn’t really achieve the goal of preventing
same sex marriage. It just gives it a nebulous legal status. And doesn’t
seem to work at all toward guaranteeing it as a country-wide stance
over time, even. Just “Ha HA! I have achieved my goal of making this
really confusing!”

The purpose of DOMA wasn’t really to prohibit same-sex marriage — it was written and designed (like the Sanctity of Marriage Act, as you noted) to prevent states from having to recognize states. Of course, there are other problems with DOMA — it also invalidates federal employee benefits and joint tax filings by same-sex couples.

At the time that it was passed, there were several states that were about to legalize same-sex marriage — as a result of court order. Historically, states have actually been able to ‘opt out’ of recognizing out of state marriages by virtue of the public policy exception. (This was actually a big deal in the fight over interracial marriage, and it was never actually resolved since the Supreme Court decided to use the 14th Amendment in Loving rather than the full faith and credit clause).

You could sneak it in via the 9th and 10th amendments, but that doesn’t
change the fact that so far marriage and abortion have been left
entirely to the states.

Maybe, but I don’t know if I’m just so tired but I honestly can’t see how you could use the 9th and 10th amendments to take any action on marriage or abortion. I can see how 10 might let a state do whatever it wanted, but not Congress. As FangsFirst pointed out, the Sanctity of Marriage Act (and DOMA, for the same reason, as long as you don’t care about the 14th Amendment or the full faith and credit clause) would get a pass here but not the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.

The purpose of DOMA wasn’t really to prohibit same-sex marriage — it was written and designed (like the Sanctity of [Life] Act, as you noted) to prevent states from having to recognize states. Of course,
there are other problems with DOMA — it also invalidates federal employee benefits and joint tax filings by same-sex couples.

Oh, my bad:
I meant the end goal of those who would create something like DOMA, not the end goal of DOMA itself. They want to prevent same sex marriage…so they create something that…doesn’t?
Joint tax filings and employee benefits were the one thing I realized could be affected, but that’s why I’d note that I rather think that in Ron Paul’s dream world, such things would never be federally related anyway, and would render all of this purely up to states.

So if we think of the federal government as influencing state decisions, DOMA and SoLA would basically assure that state decisions never had a federal contradiction for Ron Paul’s views, though they could have one for not-Ron-Paul’s views–but in neither case actually affecting the final rights of the citizens involved one way or the other within that state. Barring, again, federally recognized tax filings, benefits and other *federal* elements of a marriage.

Basically, I think he does hold true on the states rights crap–because he thinks in the end everyone will just go his way anyway, so long as he removes this amorphous centralized Fedgovbeast, which doesn’t represent the desires/will of the people. So it’s no danger to just remove and restrict the Fedgovbeast’s impulse to go against his wishes, without supplanting that with an impulse to follow them.

The purpose of DOMA wasn’t really to prohibit same-sex marriage

Bullshit it wasn’t.

The only reason the Republicans discovered the sanctity of marriage was when it looked like they were going to lose the cudgel they could use to bash QUILTBAG people over the heads, because the full faith and credit clause applied once one state decided to allow same-sex marriage, immediately granting QUILTBAG people all the marriage benefits only previously open to straight people.

So, rush through the DOMA, crow to the base about how they smacked teh gays back into the mud and rubbed their faces in it for extra glee, and grab more votes in the elections.

And Clinton was craven enough to sign it, too. (>_<)

neutrino- the Fed plays a role in the military industrial complex too.

Why that son-of-a-b____. **Where did he go on record as wanting to remove or somehow reject the 14th Amendment?** And he claims to champion the Constitution… as amended.

Yeah. When you start in Republicantown and board the Crazy Train, you’re sure to see some sensible sights along the way. But they don’t speak highly as to your departure, journey, or destination.

Sgt Pepper: “How did I miss the meeting where pre-emptive war became a leftist, utopian doctrine?”It never was ‘leftist’.  It was, once upon a time, a *liberal* or *progressive* doctrine, back in the 1890′s, where it showed a very “White Man’s Burden” sort of thing.  But it was pretty much abandoned even by the Liberals in the 1960′s over the failure of Vietnam.  Ron Paul reveals his John Birch Society roots with that statement: The Birchers hated the idea of invading a country to impose democracy, they much prefered to invade a country to kill the commies and put in a right wing dictatorship.

PJ: “(So much for Ron Paul and his stated intention of leaving all that to the states. Apparently that only applies to stuff he approves of. Like racism.)”

Which is pretty typical of every ‘State’s Rights’ person I’ve met, or read about.

Here, he says:

The First amendment acts as a simple check on federal power, ensuring
that the federal government has no jurisdiction or authority whatsoever
over religious issues. The phony “incorporation” doctrine, dreamed up by
activist judges to pervert the plain meaning of the Constitution, was
used once again by a federal court to assume jurisdiction over a case
that constitutionally was none of its business.

and;

I previously introduced legislation entitled “The First Amendment
Restoration Act” to address this kind of judicial overreach and reassert
true First amendment religious freedoms. The bill becomes especially
timely now, as it clarifies that federal courts have no jurisdiction
whatsoever over matters of religious freedom.

Shrub forgot to invite you?

Oh, my country joined in alright. But when those of us on the left marched in protest against the upcoming invasion, in our tens of thousands, our then PM* called us Saddam sympathisers.

*Who was proud to be called George Bush’s deputy sheriff in Asia. Good grief.

Lori, Chris is right.  The left used to be anti-war and anti-wall street, then something happened.  I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, there isn’t anyone on the left with Ron Paul’s exposure and consistency on these two issues, there just isn’t.  All the high-profile dems voted for the Iraq invasion, the Patriot Act, the Afghanistan invasion, and they’ll vote to invade Iran too if it came down to it because they are a bunch of pussies for the most part.  There I said it.  They were too scared to stand up to GWB, as dumb as everyone knew he was.  Ironically, in order not to be characterized as weak on defense they showed how chickenshit they really are when it comes to this issue.  Obama just signed a bill permitting indefinite detention of American citizens!  he won the Nobel Peace Price for God’s sakes!

Sorry, but I just watched this PBS special called Bush’s War, I highly recommend it.  It shows how far our country has descended into this quagmire, and I’m not talking about just the foreign wars themselves, I’m talking about this culture of seeking military world dominance at any cost.  If you have watched any of the GOP debates you would know what I’m talking about.  Rick Perry actually said he wanted to send troops BACK to Iraq.  As far as I’m concerned, the Democrats have forfeited any claim to being an “opposition party” by falling flat on their face on these two issues. 

Lots of you here care about marriage equality and abortion rights and the like, and I respect that, but those aren’t my issues.   Foreign interventionism and crony capitalism are my two hot button issues because I happen to think they have the potential to destroy this country.  I want Ron Paul to stay in the race so he can keep talking about it and calling people out on it and asking them embarrassing questions.  The political discourse matters, the American people need to be confronted with these arguments because the parties are complicit on this, they really really want Ron Paul to just shut up about it already so they can keep taking money from their defense contractor and wall street buddies. 

A stopped clock may be right twice a day but that doesn’t mean it’s useful for telling time under normal circumstances.

ugh the stopped clock analogy for the billionth time

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

…the analogy I mean, not the clock. The clock is obviously broken.

On the most recent episode of The Simpsons, Homer became a TV pundit in a not especially timely spoof of Glenn Beck.  His extreme popularity caught the attention of the GOP, who tasked him with selecting their next Presidential candidate.
After reviewing the options, Homer says something like, “Hmm, maybe I’ll go Democrat.  After all, they act like Republicans as soon as they get into office.”

 I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, there isn’t anyone on the left with Ron Paul’s exposure and consistency on these two issues, there just isn’t. 

And I’ve said before and said again that you are being willfully blind to the full picture of Paul’s foreign policy beliefs. (For example the fact that one of his major motivations for bringing troops home is to facilitate a racist immigration policy.)

 
Lots of you here care about marriage equality and abortion rights and the like, and I respect that, but those aren’t my issues.  

Well how nice for you that you don’t have to worry about those things. Just don’t act like the fact that you’re straight, male and apparently financially secure makes you somehow better than the people who do care about those things in addition to foreign policy. You’re perfectly entitled to be a one issue voter, but don’t act like it makes you better than other people. Especially not when your interpretation of that one issue leads you to support someone as loathsome as Ron Paul. 

 Sorry, but I just watched this PBS special called Bush’s War, I highly recommend it. 

Thanks for the recommendation, but it’s not necessary. I watched Bush’s War 2+ years ago, when it first came out. 

   Foreign interventionism and crony capitalism are my two hot button issues because I happen to think they have the potential to destroy this country. 

They do have that potential. However, they are not the only things that have that potential. Even if they were, that wouldn’t justify supporting Ron Paul, since his proposed policieswon’t actually solve those problems.   

  I want Ron Paul to stay in the race so he can keep talking about it and calling people out on it and asking them embarrassing questions.  The political discourse matters, the American people need to be confronted with these arguments because the parties are complicit on this, they really really want Ron Paul to just shut up about it already so they can keep taking money from their defense contractor and wall street buddies.  

I’dd repeat myself again, he is having basically zero positive effect on the discourse. The Republicans don’t give a shit and all Paul and the Paul-bots are doing to the Dems is stirring shit. If the simple generation of embarrassment pleases you that much well, we all have to have a hobby. However, don’t confuse the joy that embarrassment brings you with substantive progress on important issues. 

European governments actually seem to be *deeper* in the austerity trap than the US is.  The US looked like it was going that way at the height of the debt limit nonsense, but the administration at least seems to have recovered some sense, if not Congress.

I think it’s also because Bernanke would be pilloried (metaphorically) by the Wall Street crowd if he dried up the money they need to invest gamble on the stock and derivatives markets. Easy money can benefit the real economy or it can benefit the paper economy; it just depends who gets the $$ first.

“There I said it. They were too scared to stand up to GWB, as dumb as everyone knew he was.”

Really?  I could have sworn that huge majorities of the country were behind Bush.  Even if they had some doubts about his attention to detail, they felt he was more or less on the right path.

Remember Max Cleland?  He lost his seat to Saxby Chambliss in 2002, after Chambliss accused him of being in league with terrorists.  Cleland was a Vietnam vet who lost both legs and an arm in service to our country.  And still people were willing to vote him out of office because someone accused him of being un-American.  That is how batshit crazy the country was in 2002.

So, do you think we’d be in a better place if Democrats had all gone the route of Max Cleland, and handed over their seats to the Republicans?

You have to give it to Ron Paul—dude can really talk. His “victory” speech is going on & on & on & on. 

Thanks for the recommendation, but it’s not necessary. I watched Bush’s War 2+ years ago, when it first came out.

Yeah, and a lot of us lived it when it actually happened (some of us a lot closer to the action than others…)

I have have to admit, of all the people that Mitt Romney has defeated so far in the primaries, Paul is in the top 1.

Lori, Chris is right.  The left used to be anti-war and anti-wall
street, then something happened.

“The Left” STILL IS.  The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been relentlessly ratchetting ‘right’wards for a generation or two.

That “something” would be called “corporate financing” and “media consolidation”.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it
again, there isn’t anyone on the left with Ron Paul’s exposure and
consistency on these two issues, there just isn’t.

“Exposure”?  No.  Se “media consolidation”, above.  Cross-reference with the different treatment the Tea Party got (a dozen showed up?  MAJOR MEDIA FRENZY!!!) vs. the way Occupy had to struggle to get acknowledged.

Really?  I could have sworn that huge majorities of the country were
behind Bush.  Even if they had some doubts about his attention to
detail, they felt he was more or less on the right path.

IIRC, the anti-Iraq War protests were the biggest anti-war protests in history. 

Just throwing that out there.

Yeah, and a lot of us lived it when it actually happened (some of us a lot closer to the action than others…) 

Yes. Depending on what you mean by “the action” those people included me (protesting) and some people who I love very dearly (who have the combat ribbons and scars to show for it). I don’t actually know anyone who was working in the Bush White House at the time.

 A stopped clock – using military time.

First, a sincere thanks for taking the time and trouble to respond with true research. 

My comment/question was in response to “…Ron Paul has gone on record as opposing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which (among other things) gifts us with the Incorporation Doctrine — a rule that I consider one of the biggest protections of both civil rights and individual rights in the entire Constitution.”

1) **There is no mention of the 14th Amendment** in the document you quoted. It does talk about “incorporation” but we would have to see the judges ruling against the Pledge of Allegiance that Dr. Paul was objecting to, in order to find out what he was referring to by “incorporation.” 

2) The full text of the 14th Amendment can be found here: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Additional_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Amendment_XIV  
It does not mention “incorporation.” Instead it defines citizenship, contains the Privileges or Immunities Clause, the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and deals with post-Civil War issues.

So we have two disconnects here; the 14th Amendment itself and the lack of Dr. Paul’s objecting to it.

So I would ask again, when or where did Dr. Paul go on record objecting to the 14th amendment AS WRITTEN. Or are you saying that the 14th amendment eliminates the first, as the judges ruling seems to have done?

Would someone please explain to me how the first Amendment doesn’t protect my right to say the Pledge of 
Allegiance, or my right as a teacher to encourage the entire class to say it? I can see how it should not be required, but to not allow it is what Ron Paul objected to.

Would someone please explain to me how the first Amendment doesn’t protect my right to say the Pledge of Allegiance, or my right as a teacher to encourage the entire class to say it? I can see how it should not be required, but to not allow it is what Ron Paul objected to.

Your right to say the Pledge of Allegiance is protected—when you’re on your own time. There are any number of things that you are perfectly free to do on your own time that you are not allowed to do in your classroom. Rules about saying the pledge are not some special outrage. Because when a person with power “encourages” people in his/her control to do something it effectively becomes a requirement. A teacher should understand that.

“IIRC, the anti-Iraq War protests were the biggest anti-war protests in history.

Just throwing that out there.”

Doesn’t change the fact that huge majorities of the country were behind Bush.

”
 when a person with power “encourages” people in his/her control to do something it effectively becomes a requirement.” 
I concede that. 

Now, what if the teacher states clearly and the school states in writing that any references to God are strictly optional, and they publish a grading policy, similar to we privacy policies, etc., then are you okay with the Pledge of Allegiance being stated with “under God” being optional? 

It seems to me that what we are talking about is “state forced belief” versus “rights of religious expression.” Doesn’t the Constitution specifically say that that states should not force or coerce belief or prevent the free exercise of religion? Wouldn’t that mean that 1) teachers should not lead prayer in a classroom, but 2) if the majority of the students request it they should be allowed to pray aloud at times?

”
They do have that potential. However, they are not the only things that have that potential. Even if they were, that wouldn’t justify supporting Ron Paul, since his proposed policies won’t actually solve those problems. ”
This sounds almost like you might be willing to speak about specifics. Which policies does Ron Paul support that would not solve problems?

How about balancing the budget in three years?
Maybe getting rid if the IRS?
Not to mention honest money?
Oh yes, and then there is tort law as it affects health care.
And then there is medical marijuana.
But we should of course leave out that he stands alone against The Patriot Act.

Which of the above won’t solve problems?

 
Now, what if the teacher states clearly and the school states in writing that any references to God are strictly optional, and they publish a grading policy, similar to web privacy policies, etc., then are you okay with the Pledge of Allegiance being stated with “under God” being optional?   

  
No, of course not. The written policy is not running the classroom or giving out the grades, teachers are. And teachers, being human, are going to notice who does and does not participate in the “voluntary” reciting of the pledge and who does and does not leave out “under God”. 

 It seems to me that what we are talking about is “state forced belief” versus “rights of religious expression.” Doesn’t the Constitution specifically say that that states should not force or coerce belief or prevent the free exercise of religion? Wouldn’t that mean that 1) teachers should not lead prayer in a classroom, but 2) if the majority of the students request it they should be allowed to pray aloud at times?  

Part of me truly wants to believe that this is a Poe, but I fear it is not. The request of the majority has to be balanced  by protection of the rights of the minority. Why do so few Paul supporters seem to be able to really understand how the works? Bad Libertarian, no biscuit.  

Why is the “freedom” of the teacher or the kid(s) who can get a majority of a class to say they want to pray pit loud, during class so much more important than the freedom of the nonreligious or members of minority religions not to be harassed or bullied or risk having their education success harmed by prejudice?  

Okay. I found out how the 14th amendment applies to the term “incorporation.” It is described here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
So I concede that the article in which Dr. Paul rants against the Court ruling is wrong in its complaint about incorporation. 

I agree however with the thrust of the article which essentially states that the first amendment was given to protect freedom OF religious expression, and not freedom FROM it.

I don’t question that the equal protection clause should limit states rights. 

As Dr. Paul has stated a number of times, he has his shortcomings, but the message he is has been delivering for 30 years is gaining in popularity as communication evolves and the government gets itself into more and more trouble. 

Wouldn’t that mean that 1) teachers should not lead prayer in a
classroom, but 2) if the majority of the students request it they should
be allowed to pray aloud at times?

TWEET!!!  PENALTY ON THE PLAY!

Where in the USA do you live that students (majority, minority, or single student) are NOT “allowed to pray aloud” any time they want? (So long as they are not distrupting instruction, of course.) 

Have you ever BEEN in a classroom during the Algebra II Final?

What is not allowed is school-sponsored prayer sessions.  Also known as “state establishment of religion.”

Honestly, this is not rocket science.

Which of the above won’t solve problems?

#1, 2, and 4. 

#3 has no semantic content that I can detect.  (However, if it is a dogwhistle for “return to the gold standard”, you can add it to the list.)

Unless, of course, the “problem” you are attempting to solve is that the USA economy is still (somewhat) functional.

This has been another edition of “Short answers to stupid questions.”

”
The request of the majority has to be balanced  by protection of the rights of the minority.”
“… the freedom of the nonreligious or members of minority religions not to be harassed or bullied or risk having their education success harmed by prejudice?”

There is a big difference between people expressing their religious belief and harassment or bullying.  We are all aware that many religious people can’t tell the difference, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be addressed at that level. 

Oh well. I guess this just underscores the desirably of individuality of schools. Failure to address this issue more intelligently than the courts did is what is driving the privatization of schools. 

 
Oh well. I guess this just underscores the desirably of individuality of schools.  

Wow, can you work that martyr complex any harder? You haven’t been talking about “individuality in schools”. You’ve been talking about power–the teacher and the majority of students. 

You’re clearing not working forward from any principle. You have a desired outcome and you’re back-filling to make it seem like a principled stance. Justice Scalia would be proud, but the rest of us are less than impressed. 

  
Failure to address this issue more intelligently than the courts did is what is driving the privatization of schools.  

Not to put too fine a point on it, bullshit. 

I agree however with the thrust of the article which essentially
states that the first amendment was given to protect freedom OF
religious expression, and not freedom FROM it.

Horseshit. Freedom of religion is meaningless without freedom from  other people’s religion. Pressuring someone to pray to or acknowledge a god he or she does not believe in is just as much a violation of it as banning a sect the majority happens to disagree with.

”
You’ve been talking about power–the teacher and the majority of students. ”
The teacher no. The students yes. And I’m saying that the majority of people should not be limited in their verbal expression of their beliefs because someone may be offended by it. Of course there is a line where expression becomes harassment. I’ll call it the red line. That line should be defined in a manner that permits religious freedom. 

Why are people offended if I want to go off and home school, or to include religious instruction in a private school classroom? My point about the privatization of schools was not to draw sympathy (martyrdom as you said), but to point out that this business of drawing the red line such that any verbal expression of beliefs that offend anyone should not be allowed, is so extreme that it is driving people to withdraw and find other solutions. 

You can exclaim and characterize these comments all you want. But it does nothing to refute them unless you deal in specifics. 

As far as “What is not allowed is school-sponsored prayer sessions.  Also known as “state establishment of religion.” is concerned, how about allowing a student to pray over the loud speaker before a sporting event, or students professing their religious beliefs during school speeches?

“how about allowing a student to pray over the loud speaker before a sporting event, or students professing their religious beliefs during school speeches?”

Because you’re still giving preference to one over the other. Because of the way society is, the student of majority religion Z will feel no hesitation at taking up the mic and praying in front of everyone. Meanwhile, student of minority religion Y is being told “you are invisible” and reminded once more that they don’t count on the grand scale. Even if the Zists aren’t actively crossing the “red line”, as you call it, Yists **exist** but the (here I go with the “P” word) privilege of the Zists can still weigh down on Yists. Telling a Yist to open themselves up to criticism and othering for the sake of reminding Zists they’re around too (by praying or whatever) is…not helpful. And really, you know people would cry to the heavens about the evils of “political correctness” if a Yist AND a Zist prayer were said over the mic before a sporting event.

And may the Force be with the Yists if their religion is currently being malaigned and railed against in just about every public sphere, but they want to pray over the mic too.

 
Why are people offended if I want to go off and home school, or to include religious instruction in a private school classroom? 

Who are these imaginary people who are offended if you home school or run a religious private school? 

  My point about the privatization of schools was not to draw sympathy (martyrdom as you said), but to point out that this business of drawing the red line such that any verbal expression of beliefs that offend anyone should not be allowed, is so extreme that it is driving people to withdraw and find other solutions. 

Are you familiar with the term straw man, because you’re building a dude out of a whole field worth of hay. 

My comment about you working the martyrdom was specifically addressed to your lament about how no one values individualism in schools. We haven’t been talking about individualism at all, so that was pretty clearly an attempt on your part to cast yourself as the put-upon defender of something you haven’t actually been defending. You’ve been doing quite the opposite actually.

There is no line preventing any expression of beliefs that offend anyone. If you believe that there is, you are badly (and I suspect willfully) ill-informed. You have not been talking about “any expression of belief”. You’ve been talking about two situations. First, a teacher expressing belief in the classroom. That’s coercive on its face. Second, a majority of students using their majority status to force a particular form of expression during class time. And don’t bother to say that students would be free not to participate in the majority mandated prayer without negative repercussions. No one who has ever gone to school believes that.

There is quite a gap between disallowing those two things and forbidding any expression of individual belief. There is also a huge gap between forbidding bullying and forbidding students to say that their religious beliefs forbid homosexuality or whatever else. The fact that some Christianists haven’t taught their children the difference (or more precisely, have taught their children to bully) doesn’t make anti-bullying rules a limit on the free expression of belief. 

 
As far as “What is not allowed is school-sponsored prayer sessions.  Also known as “state establishment of religion.” is concerned, how about allowing a student to pray over the loud speaker before a sporting event, or students professing their religious beliefs during school speeches?  

This comes back to what I said earlier about the fact that you have an outcome that you want, and you’re trying to backfill a supposedly principled line of reasoning to get you there. 

Everything about this screams “I am a member of the dominant group and I wish to have no restrictions placed on displays of that dominance”. This is clearly a violation of Constitutional protections for minorities. The thing is, it’s also not smart for members of the majority. This is exactly the kind of thing that opens the door to in-fighting about who is and is not a “real true” member of group X and the proper way for members of group X to express beliefs.  

Just thought of something else. Suppose the majority religion suddenly became Islam, or Wicca or something else. Now your child in public school, under the ‘majority rules’ thinking has to sit twiddling their thumbs nervously while the rest of their classmates face Mecca and pray, or offer thanks to the Lady. Sure, they can say a prayer if they want to before graduation, after the Imam gives his. But is anybody really going to be giving your child’s prayer the respect you’d want? They’ll throw you a bone at the end of the Samhain celebrations by singing a watered-down vaguely Christian hymn (I’d say something like “Bringing in the Sheaves”. If you’re Catholic, your child will be looked at in askance because they’re wearing a crucifix and that’s depicting a human form. Our Pledge of Allegiance, said every morning before class, now is “One Nation; Under Shiva, Brahma, and Krishna; with liberty and justice for all”.

Essentially, is that something you’d want your child to have to put up with? Or would you rather just say “hey let’s keep public school stuff (which has mandatory compulsion laws) secular and avoid all that”?

 
Just thought of something else. Suppose the majority religion suddenly became Islam, or Wicca or something else.  

That’s different, hence the bans on “sharia law”. 

Speaking of which, even in very conservative Oklahoma the courts no those sharia bans don’t pass the smell test. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/in-oklahoma-case-another-legal-blow-to-sharia-law-bans/251190/?&utm_content=Google+Reader

You’ve been talking about power–the teacher and the majority of students. ”
The teacher no. The students yes. And I’m saying that the majority of people should not be limited in their verbal expression of their beliefs because someone may be offended by it.

And as people have said, over and over again, no one is being limited in their verbal expression of their beliefs. Ever. What they are not allowed to do is take up class time away from other students (the “not disrupting instruction” part), it can’t be suggested or led by a teacher or administrator (as this would be undue influence and the sanctioning of a religion), and one religion cannot be given preference over any other religion or no religion.

So because of #1, a teacher cannot lead a prayer at the beginning of class, nor can student cannot lead a prayer at the beginning of class. Because of #2, a teacher cannot lead a before or after school prayer group. Because of #1 and #3, a prayer over a loud speaker during class time would be inappropriate (would also run afoul of #2 if not done by a student or an outsider). Before a sporting event, I would say that goes against #3, why is one religion allowed to use the loudspeaker, and not any other? But I could see how this might be open to some debate.

Students can and do get together for organized prayer before or after school, led by either students or an outside adult (usually a minister). If you are talking about the group that prayed around the flag every morning, they only got into trouble when it became obvious that members of the group were harassing other students into attending. Students can and do pray on their own, either aloud or to themselves, between classes, during lunch, during class (as long as they aren’t disruptive).

As for mentioning religious beliefs during a student speech, again open to debate, but my personal thoughts is that schools should discourage it for lack of being inclusive, but probably shouldn’t outright ban it on religious grounds alone. Again, I remember a specific case a lot of Christianists like to bring up about a girl who got suspended for a speech that included religion, but it was more for content that came closer to harassment than for religion. (She pretty much stated outright that people who didn’t believe in Jesus would not be successful and burn in hell, which I wouldn’t think is appropriate in a school setting. There were numerous complaints about the speech, several from other Christians.)

Why are people offended if I want to go off and home school, or to include religious instruction in a private school classroom?

Umm. Where was anyone offended by this? Homeschooling and private schools haven’t been part of this discussion at all. All of these things apply only to public schools. If you want your children to have more religious instruction than what you get a church, responsible homeschooling or private school are legitimate options. But saying that public schools aren’t allowing people to practice their religion or pray within their religious beliefs is false. So if you want to pull your kids out of public schools for a straw man, you go ahead. More power to you. But don’t blame the courts or the schools for that, blame your own sense of privilege.

Agreed generally. But curious about a tangential point. You say:

> As for mentioning religious beliefs during a student speech, again open to debate, but my personal thoughts is that schools should discourage it for lack of being inclusive,

Does the same reasoning apply to mentioning other forms of exclusive group membership? E.g., mentioning ethnicity, mentioning sexual orientation, mentioning political affiliation, etc.?

Oh yes, and then there is tort law as it affects health care.
(SNIP)
Which of the above won’t solve problems?

Tort Deform.  Let me get this straight.  Libertarians think once they deregulate health-care, it’ll be OK because people can still sue the doctor for amputating the wrong leg, and they’ll control health costs by…making it harder to sue?

These things do not go together.

“Getting rid of the IRS” won’t solve the problem of our massive debt.  What problem is it supposed to solve, beyond the Libertarians’ loathing of all taxes?

What problem is “honest money” supposed to solve?

Balancing the budget by eliminating every government agency might solve ONE problem, at the cost of creating several hundred more.

So yeah, your proposed cure is looking worst in the disease.

 
So if you want to pull your kids out of public schools for a straw man, you go ahead. More power to you. But don’t blame the courts or the schools for that, blame your own sense of privilege  

Yes, this. 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-P_JlFog4mUI/Tw3SD4Rf6WI/AAAAAAABOwc/peY-qrSfNP0/s1600/Oppression.jpg

you guys are off in the weeds here. do you have any idea how much trouble our country is in right now? you’re fiddling while rome is burning.

Does the same reasoning apply to mentioning other forms of exclusive
group membership? E.g., mentioning ethnicity, mentioning sexual
orientation, mentioning political affiliation, etc.?

Hmmm. This is a fair point, and I didn’t really think this out. And I suppose this is very much an “it’s more complicated than that” situation. (This isn’t a knock to you, I was the one who oversimplified it.)

I have a lot of different thoughts on the matter, and none of them totally cohesive. Let me think on this and get back to you. (part of it starts that religion is a bit different than some of these other things for various reasons, but it’s not gelling, and rather than putting out stuff that doesn’t make any sense, I’d rather tell you I don’t have a great answer right now.)

  
Can’t help but think you guys are kinda off in the weeds here a bit. these hypotheticals can be fun to debate but our country is in a crisis and democrats don’t seem to be able to provide anything other than platitudes abuot diversity. It’s nice but it has nothing to do with foreign policy or monetary policy or any other current policy.  

We are not “off in the weeds”. This is a conversation, it moved on. 

   
“is that we don’t really have a vigorous national spokesperson for the issues of war and peace, an end to empire, a challenge to Israel, and so forth, that Paul has in fact been articulating”and people are hungry for that.   

The fact that people are hungry for discussion about those issues doesn’t make Paul any less of a crank with mostly terrible ideas. Grasping at straws and supporting anyone who comes along and talks about one’s pet issue(s) without regard for the totality of that person’s policy ideas, is a good way to end up supporting something pretty terrible. 

 
Does the same reasoning apply to mentioning other forms of exclusive group membership? E.g., mentioning ethnicity, mentioning sexual orientation, mentioning political affiliation, etc.?  

I think the answer to this has a lot to do with context. If a class is talking about culture or history then discussion of ethnicity and religion may be appropriate and helpful. If kids are writing personal essays any or all of those issues may come up. I think, as long as the discussion isn’t used as a means of being abusive that’s fine. 

In other contexts I think it makes no sense. I would find it as inappropriate for a kid to run for class office on a platform of “vote for me because I’m gay” or “vote for me because I’m white” as I do to implicitly or explicitly run on “vote for me because Jesus loves me best”. 

Now, what if the teacher states clearly and the school states in writing that any references to God are strictly optional, and they publish a
grading policy, similar to web privacy policies, etc., then are you okay with the Pledge of Allegiance being stated with “under God” being optional? 

It seems to me that what we are talking about is “state forced belief” versus “rights of religious expression.” Doesn’t the Constitution specifically say that that states should not force or coerce belief or prevent the free exercise of religion? Wouldn’t that mean that 1) teachers should not lead prayer in a classroom, but 2) if the majority of the students request it they should be allowed to pray aloud at times?

Most everyone else was kindly giving you benefit of the doubt, but, in case you do respond, here’s how we leap from what you say to bullying and harassment:

Your first paragraph is a problematic with regard to harassment and bullying not because “under God” IS harassment and bullying, but because having it in place can lead to it. How? Well, if you do any research on *why* prayer in school is a problem in many forms, you’ll find that abuse has a habit of following open religious declarations–even minor ones–in an otherwise mixed environement, as it very clearly identifies those who are not of the majority faith being professed. I’m not assuming this, either–I’ve actually done research on it myself.

You have Jewish people getting swastikas drawn on their locks, Lutherans being beaten up by Baptists, name-calling, physical violence–you name it. Why? Because the schools insisted on “optional” (in some instances, actually not even nominally optional, it was just required and no one with power could say a damn thing about it) inclusion of religious beliefs.

As soon as Billy or Susie doesn’t say, “under God,” someone notices–not necessarily even the teacher as Lori mentioned, but maybe the other students. You’ve just opened them up–needlessly, I might add–to harassment over a decision they made personally, by forcing it to be a visible decision. Alternatively, they are forced to sublimate their own beliefs in order to avoid that kind of treatment.

What value does this bring? Someone gets to freely exercise their right to ask other people to say “under God” at the cost of someone else’s possible safety? What the hell is the point? It’s not necessary from an educational standpoint (as exemplified by the fact that it’s “optional”!) and thus has no place being there. It doesn’t actually work toward education or even the religious belief it espouses! It does nothing for those in power and puts those outside that power at risk.

And why is “2)” invalid? Because, well, first, it’s not true–as long as it isn’t disruptive (and, uh, please tell me you aren’t arguing that they should be allowed disruptive prayer?), students CAN be allowed to pray aloud at non-disruptive points. Of course, this is usually argued from the point of view of Christianity which teaches you to perform your righteousness in private and not to be seen by others, so that just makes it extra stupid. But, of course, some other religions have more ritualized forms of prayer and such, so it can be relevant there.

Then again, I was once going into education, and some of my fellow then-future teachers heard all of this and still advocated a move toward increased laxness with regard to school prayer. I hope to all there is in this world that they take up your idea for privatized schools, because people who value forcing prayer on others over the safety of the children with which they are entrusted for the day should NEVER be allowed near children.

(Of course, once my presentation was given, they made cowardly attacks on the class messageboard and said my group–and it was mine, considering I had to argue the entire issue to my two group members first–had failed to show both sides. Of course I pointed out that there is no research for the other side, especially accounting for the laws as they are, and the assignment was to take a side. So, hilariously, they’d actually all been doing theirs wrong by not following directions, in addition to being awful human beings. Gosh, that class still makes me very angry…)

Lori- I didn’t say you should follow Ron Paul. The columnist is saying that the democrats need someone who is willing to put themselves out there over really really controversial issues.

do you feel foreign policy and the economy are “pet issues”?

My point is the Constitution states OF, not FROM.

What does “the free expression thereof,” mean to you?

Okay. Then what if before the prayer, the offer is made for anyone of any other faith to pray first? 

do you feel foreign policy and the economy are “pet issues”?

Do you think that only Republicans are talking about them? Then you aren’t bothering to listen much. I mean, right now, we are hearing a lot of the Republicans talking, including Paul, because they are in a primary. The Democrats aren’t, because there is an incumbent. So the spotlight is on the Republicans. That doesn’t mean Democrats, including Obama, aren’t talking about these things. They aren’t, however, discussing ridiculous ideas, like going back on the gold standard, getting rid of all corporate taxes, ending the Federal Reserve without any ideas to replace it, pulling out all troops willy-nilly from all areas of the globe (which would cause more harm then good, overall), and most of the other positions Ron Paul espouses.

What happens if you are a member of a religious, such as Christianity, whose Scriptures disavow ostentatious public displays of faith? Would it be fair to ask a Christian who interprets Matthew 6.5-8:

”And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.
I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But
when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your
Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in
secret, will reward you.

I would find it offensive to have to ignore one of the tenets of my religion just to appease someone else who thinks that faith isn’t real unless it’s done in view of as many people as possible.

emcee “They aren’t, however, discussing ridiculous ideas, like going back on the gold standard,”

we were on it from 1789 to 1971. were we being ridiculous that whole time?

“, ending the Federal Reserve without any ideas to replace it,”

lots of liberals want to end the Fed and have congress control monetary issues.

 ”pulling out all troops willy-nilly from all areas of the globe (which would cause more harm then good, overall), ”

Yeah that would cause alot of harm to all the soldiers who would live instead of die and their families.

foreign policy and the economy are “pet issues”?

“Pet issue” refers to the issues which you personally ‘attend to’ in discussions of any issues. The ones you personally use as your primary grading mark for candidates, discussions and so on.

Those two are pretty clearly your pet issues.
Note that it does, indeed, require the possessive adjective. Because they are *your* pet issues, which helps to explain why your suggestion that the phrase questions their legitimacy is unnecessary. It simply notes that they are the ones that you bring up in all conversations about issues, those which you will jump on and bring up.

What happens if you are a member of a religious, such as Christianity,
whose Scriptures disavow ostentatious public displays of faith?

Pfft, like it would be people calling themselves Christians who would bring this up! Ha! That would be like–I’m sorry, hold on–*touches earpiece*–Oh, apparently that’s exactly who brings it up…

My point is the Constitution states OF, not FROM.

“Of” and “from” are not mutually exclusive. Courts have consistently held that freedom of speech includes the right not to speak. The freedom of assembly includes the right not to assemble. And freedom of religion means you are free not to have a religion.

No freedom is absolute. Freedom of speech does not allowed you unlimited speech (the shouting “fire” in a crowded theater cliche). And freedom of religion does not allow you to force other people to participate in your religion. Again, as you keep ignoring, no one has ever said children cannot pray in school. There are just certain limitations as to when and where, and who leads it. This in no way infringes on people practicing their religion. I know of nothing in any Christian doctrine that requires organized led prayer to happen during class time.

Then what if before the prayer, the offer is made for anyone of any other faith to pray first?

If every single person of every single faith was allowed to use the loud speaker to do that? It might take a couple of hours, depending on the religious diversity of the school. And, of course, wouldn’t include atheists or any religion that doesn’t believe in public prayer. So, yes, it still favor several religions above others. Not acceptable.

 
foreign policy and the economy are “pet issues”?  

As Fangs First ably noted, yes they are your pet issues. They’re the issues that you prioritize above all others, and apparently to the exclusion of all others. 

Thats what poeple are voting on. it’s what’s going on. It’s not a pet issue.

Well great. so apparently the democrats have no probelms. The reason they are losing people to ron paul is…a strong gust of wind or something.

lots of liberals want to end the Fed and have congress control monetary issues.

Okay, let’s take something I mentioned it before and extrapolate it for you:
STOP WITH THESE COMPARISONS.

This is like name-dropping only WORSE.

First: How do you know that everyone you speak to 1) is a “liberal” or 2) would describe themselves that way?

Second: Your own phrasing carries the implication that some “liberals” do not feel this way.

Third: There is no guarantee that your definitions of “liberal” and someone else’s match.

Fourth: It’s one issue amongst many. Even assuming all of the first three are carried properly and you have a self-described liberal who agrees with the majority of liberals and even agrees with your definition: this says nothing, repeat NOTHING, about their views on this specific issue.

This isn’t a good argument, or even a bad argument. It’s not even an argument. It’s a sentence that carries no weight and has no value and makes you look either like you’re a condescending jackass who thinks everyone you speak to just follows the “herd” you identify them as belonging to on every single issue, or like a moron who actually lives that way yourself.

I’m terribly sorry if you think “Lots of libertarians want to do that” is a legitimate argument and makes you change your mind about things. Your life must be very difficult, as I imagine you bounce back and forth on specific issues every single day. That would be pretty rough.

Seriously though. Stop with the “But liberals like it” or “but Democrats think it’s a good idea.”

NO ONE CARES.

It’s not a pet issue.

“Pet issue” is not a declaration of insignificance. The implication is it is the only issue (or set of issues) you find important.

I personally would like to see the bullying laws enforced with video cameras. I think pre-adult culture can be terrifying and extremely unfair and immature. So I’m with you on bullying. 

And I mentioned earlier that many religious people don’t know the difference between expressing their faith and harassing. I’m not suggesting letting them get away with harassment. 

But the issue that I’m sticking with is this notion that the majority (or anyone) should not be allowed to celebrate their religious beliefs in a public building, including as a group. And I don’t think anyone should be prevented from doing so just because their beliefs are different. Kind of like the Archie Bunker method of preventing airline hi-jacking. Give everyone a handgun as they enter the plane.

Three examples that come to mind are 1) images of the cross being taken down, 2) plaques of the Ten Commandments being taken down, 3) prayer before sporting events being suppressed. These are big deals to Christians, and they all violate the first Amendment. 

It seems to me the real issue here is how far we are going to take this “might offend” thing. If you take anything too far, it becomes onerous. You can tell by the emotional reactions here that people are easily offended. This can get pretty childish. We’re probably not going to agree on the free speech thing, let alone religious expression. But both relate to offending people. 

I do think that people of all faiths, and no faith should be free to state their beliefs and post their opinions. And people being offended by such activity need to learn how to disregard it. 

these hypotheticals can be fun to debate but our country is in a crisis
and democrats don’t seem to be able to provide anything other than
platitudes abuot diversity. It’s nice but it has nothing to do with
foreign policy or monetary policy or any other current policy.

I believe Democrats have themselves a healthcare policy but you don’t seem to be into that, despite more people dying from lack of affordable healthcare than all your wars combined.

A fair question. 

People in all religions display varying degrees of spiritual maturity. I think Jesus led by example, and we should do the same. I don’t think people should be confrontational about it. If my child were in a highly minority position, I would teach him that it is an opportunity to lead by example, and he will accomplish a lot more my holding to that than by preaching or other types of witnessing. 

As for the Pledge, I think what goes in the “under God” slot should be optional for each individual. 

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My point is the Constitution states OF, not FROM.

What does “the free expression thereof,” mean to you?

Your “point” is not a point, it is a juvenile attempt to avoid thinking about the nature of religious liberty in a pluralistic society.

 To me, “the free expression thereof” means that Americans are free to worship whatever gods they please, whenever they please, however they please, wherever they please, free from government interference or coercion (and non-government coercion, too, but we are discussing the Constitution here). Excepting of course practices that harm others, like human sacrifice, harassment in the name of proselytizing, or disrupting others at work.

An essential part of this freedom is the right to not participate in any prayers, rites, etc. that they do not wish to. All liberties have boundaries, often the liberties and persons of other citizens. Liberty of conscience (I like this phrase better than “freedom of religion,” but I can’t quite say why) is only a hollow phrase if anyone can force you to take part in a religious act that you do not approve of.

As it happens, I am an atheist, so my free expression of religious belief is, well, choosing none at all. I won’t stop anyone else’s, but I refuse to have them thrust on me. That “OF” damn well is a “FROM” for me and anyone else who happens not to be a member of the dominant religion.

There is a big difference between any religion that teaches it is a form of government, and those that do not. I say if a religion teaches that it is a form of government, then it should be regarded as such, and not have First Amendment protections. 

There are many religions that do not embody that teaching. 

fangs- how is this “ it is not an uncommon position among liberals to prefer the monetary duties be handled by congress rather than a shadowy bunch of unelected unaccountable bankers.”

and here is an example of such ideas being supported by said group of people

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114×91579

I agree with you. This is referring to the motivation of people who flaunt their religious beliefs. That can be done in any setting, individual or as a group. And it can be subtle. That principle, however, shouldn’t prevent people for praying in unison through group prayer. 

I like your post. It is freedom oriented.
And it defines the natural conflict.

“but I refuse to have them thrust on me” is the crux of the issue.
The issue, and everyone can breathe a sigh of relief because this will be my last post on the topic, is what constitutes free speech versus what constitutes harassment. 

Three examples that come to mind are 1) images of the cross being taken down, 2) plaques of the Ten Commandments being taken down, 3) prayer before sporting events being suppressed. These are big deals to Christians, and they all violate the first Amendment

a) I am a Christian
b)  It is a BIG DEAL to me that I support those actions, because I do not wish the schools to indoctrinate my children with the state-approved version of Christianity instead of our family’s religious values (which consider ostentatious displays of piety and the invocation of Divine over trivial competetions to be borderline heretical
c) 1 -3 are state establishments of religion (unless the sporting event is not school sponsored, in which case it’s just tacky, see b above)

It isn’t a matter of being “offended”.  I am OFFENDED by Tim Tebow.  I don’t think his behavior is unconstitutional.

The behaviors you mention are unconstitutional because they are destructive to a civil society, oppressive of members of minority religions and no religious faith, and unhealthy for the adherents of the majority faith. 

For heaven’s sake, for all your bleating about the importance of the Constitution, have you actually READ anything by the people who wrote the darn thing?

And it doesn’t. What I don’t understand is why it has to be done in a government building on public time. If your faith is so weak that it can only be sustained by nourishing public prayers done to open legislative sessions or by taking time out of a public school day, you have little business calling it ‘faith’.

There are a lot of reasons why people might want to pray in public. I’m not convinced that all of them are ways that self-absorbed, shallow people try to reinforce their in-group dominance. However, when someone tries to blend the government with their religion, that’s when I get nervous. The government should never be in a position to suppress or endorse a religion. Public schools deciding to have mandatory prayer sessions every week during classtime is a clear violation of that principle to me. Even if they allow some kids to opt out, you essentially create a situation where some kids either have to leave the room or just sit quietly and do nothing while the rest of the class practice a religious ritual. Why is that something that has to be done in a public school, and not in Church or at a community center or in your house or in your yard? I can see no benefits and a bunch of drawbacks to that idea.

1) monument crosses put up by the state are the state sanctioning a very specific religion. Unless you want to argue that the cross has, like the Christmas tree, become too secular. Which, no. It also, in many cases, denigrates those it is supposed to commemorate. For instance, not all WW2 vets were Christians, so putting up a cross to commemorate them is insulting.

2) when I enter a government court room, I have the expectation that I will be treated fairly based on the merits of my case. Having the 10 commandments, which are specific to Abrahamic religions, refutes that expectation. If I am if a non-AbrahamIc religion , I have to wonder if I would be treated fairly there. (interesting that you don’t mention that the 10 commandments ate allowed in a courthouse when part of a display of numerous symbols of law and justice. It is only on its own, with implications of religious law that it is barred.)

3) we’ve discussed this, and you have yet to answer any of it. Why are Christians allowed to use the loud speaker to pray over everyone else? If the sporting event is school sponsored, this is very much a state endorsement of a specific religion.

I also find it interesting that everyone should cater to offended Christians, but members of minority religions who are offended should suck it up. That’s some mighty big privilege there.

Three examples that come to mind are 1) images of the cross being taken
down, 2) plaques of the Ten Commandments being taken down, 3) prayer
before sporting events being suppressed. These are big deals to
Christians, and they all violate the first Amendment.

Whoa, man, speak for yourself.  I’m a Christian, and I’m glad that those three things are becoming a thing of the past.  Jesus was no fan of loud, public displays of faith, for starters, so it’s not like it’s a requirement to follow him.  He did, however, command us to treat others as we would want to be treated. 

Now, I have non-Christian friends, and I’ve had to consider how much I would be willing to participate in a pagan ceremony.  I gave it serious thought, and I was grateful that my wishes were respected.  This has happened exactly once, because I live in a majority-Christian area, but imagine if they had said, “Sorry, get over it.  Grow a thicker skin.”

Since it is important to me that I am able to worship in the way I choose, it is my responsibility as a member of the majority religion to lead by example , and look out for my Muslim friends, my pagan (Pagan?) friends, and my atheist friends by ensuring that they don’t have to violate their conscience in order to participate in public life. 

 
Thats what poeple are voting on. it’s what’s going on. It’s not a pet issue.  

It’s what you and some other people like you are voting on. In fact, you’ve made it clear that it’s the only thing you’re voting on. That’s what makes it your pet issue. The reality is that it is not the only issue. It is not the only core Liberal value currently being contested. That fact that you have no interest in any other issues doesn’t change that. I’ll just mention (again) a few of the things that you’re ignoring. 

The Republican war on women, of which Ron Paul is enthusiastically a part. Full personhood for women (aka choice) is a core Liberal value. 

The fact that QUILTBAG folks still don’t have full citizenship. Keeping them from ever having full citizenship is one of Ron Paul’s top campaign promises. In fact, on the list his supporters passed out in New Hampshire, it was higher on the list than isolationism. Not denying people their civil rights based on bigotry is a core Liberal value. 

Workers’ rights are under attack. Ron Paul is right there with that too. You apparently think that the Magic of the Marketplace will make such concerns unnecessary, but knowing better than that is also a core Liberal value. 

You may also have noticed that the environment is in a spot of trouble. See above re: Ron Paul being part of the problem, the Magic of the Marketplace and knowing better. 

I could go on, but I don’t think it’s necessary so I’ll stop there. 

But the issue that I’m sticking with is this notion that the majority (or anyone) should not be allowed to celebrate their religious beliefs in a public building, including as a group. And I don’t think anyone should be prevented from doing so just because their beliefs are different. 

A classroom in a public school during class hours is not an appropriate time for anyone to be celebrating their religious beliefs. You are free to do that on your own time. The fact that you want to do it on other people’s time does not entitle you to do so. Why is this so terribly difficult for you to understand?

 Kind of like the Archie Bunker method of preventing airline hi-jacking. Give everyone a handgun as they enter the plane.  

 
I have no idea what in the world this has to do with organized prayer in public schools during class hours. 

 
Three examples that come to mind are 1) images of the cross being taken down, 2) plaques of the Ten Commandments being taken down, 3) prayer before sporting events being suppressed.  

 All of these things are clear violations of the establishment clause. I know Chirstianists like to pretend that the establishment clause doesn’t exist, but it does. Public property is not a church. Sports competitions between public schools are not religious observances. 

  These are big deals to Christians, and they all violate the first Amendment.  

  This sentence is a perfect example of one of the problems with religion in the public sphere. The correct sentence is, “These are big deals to some Christians”. As someone mentioned to you earlier, these things are a violation of the beliefs of some other Christians. You don’t get to decide that the people who value ostentatious public displays are real Christians and those who believe such displays are inappropriate are not real Christians. The secular government is not in the business of adjudicating those kinds of disputes either. If government favors the ostentatious folks that’s exactly what it’s doing. 

   It seems to me the real issue here is how far we are going to take this “might offend” thing. 

Seriously, can you stop harping on people supposedly being offended? The issue is not people being or not being offended. The issue is that dominance displays (and yes, that’s what they are) you cherish are unconstitutional. They are unconstitutional whether anyone is offended or not. 

Christianists have gotten away with unconstitutional behavior for a long time. I  understand that you took that for granted and assumed it would never change. The thing is, non-Christians are as much citizens of the United States as you are and so things do have to change. You are free to exercise your religion, but you simply can’t force other people to participate. 

fangs- how is this “ it is not an uncommon position among liberals to
prefer the monetary duties be handled by congress rather than a shadowy
bunch of unelected unaccountable bankers.”

and here is an example of such ideas being supported by said group of people

Congratulations! You found a group of people identifying with liberal and/or Democrat positions! They endorse your claim!

Now…how does it matter? At all?

You’re seriously missing the point. The point is “there are some people who feel this way” is IRRELEVANT. It doesn’t matter if you tell me, “Some members of your nuclear family” or “the woman you love more than life itself” feel that way. My stance on any issue, whether I agree with you or disagree with you, or these groups or the other people whose opinions I do listen to and respect, DOES NOT DEPEND ON THOSE THINGS.  This is true for most people.

The point isn’t your linguistic approach to it, the point is that it doesn’t matter. It’s an utterly meaningless point. I can direct you to people all day who hold some of your views and not others. Hopefully, the mere fact of that will not change your opinion on anything.

I’m not debating the truth or falsity of your claim. And of course the way you phrase that: yeah, I even agree (congress vs. unelected bankers). But it has nothing to do with who else thinks it. The things you and I disagree on also don’t relate to that. So stop bringing up examples of people who do. It doesn’t prove anything or sway anyone. It’s a waste of your time to type it and a waste of everyone else’s to read it.

Are you getting this yet? I know I can phrase things in overcomplicated and convoluted ways, so hopefully that’s the only reason I haven’t gotten this to click for you three times so far.

lori-

“It’s what you and some other people like you are voting on”

so you don’t think the economy is a big issue this election ? It’s just me and a few other people?

let me put it this way:

DO you think more people will be voting based on the economy or QUILTBAG related issues this fall? I would guess probably 75% economy 2% QUILTBAG? somewhere around there.

“The Republican war on women, of which Ron Paul is enthusiastically a part. Full personhood for women (aka choice) is a core Liberal value. ”

well besides the fact that preisdent Jimmy Carter, Harry Reid and other famous liberals are pro life, I would agree that liberals are generally pro choice.

for people whose main concerns are being liberal on social issues the democrats are fine.  For people who are worried abuot the survival of the nation, literally, the dems don’t have much to offer.  gays aren’t going to feel much like getting married if they are broke and starving. workers aren’t going to have many rights when they have no work because employment is at 15 percent or more.   

gays lesbians immigrants and other groups have other concerns besides civil rights. you can’t eat civil rights.

fangs- because he said “we don’t believe in crazy ideas like ending the Fed. ” now HE may feel that way but it was wrong for him to say liberals felt that way because there is clearly a liberal viewpoint which favors monetary policy in a diffderent manner.

and in YOU state that you do not agree with him so when he was speaking for WE he was clearly speaking for HE.

Yeah, but you can eat some of what you can buy with the money your household saves by being a married-couple household instead of a two-people-living-together-because-your-state-bans-same-sex-marriage household. And you can eat some of what you can buy with the money you make because you, a Mexican national, are getting the same money and worker protections a US national would refuse to work without. Civil rights matter.

If y’all want an idea of how sea the change has been about the treatment of same-sex couples –

1. In the 1990s the provincial government here had to resort to the legal subterfuge of changing adoption laws to allow single adults to adopt. This meant introducing “gay adoption” through the back door, because in those days same sex couples were legally unrecognized even as common-law in Canada. It’s now about a decade, decade and a half later and I doubt this silly pissing about with intending laws to have legal effect by means of indirect wordings would be needed.

2. It was only in 2001 that Revenue Canada started accepting common-law same-sex couples as being equivalent to opposite-sex couples for the purposes of taxation. This was important, because some tax deductions can only be transferred between family members and/or spouses.

The biggest leg up couples have is that they can get one-bedroom apartments and pay for it on two incomes. Furthering that leg up through the tax system, some people seem determined to avoid – Ron Paul apparently being one of them for the USA.

so you don’t think the economy is a big issue this election ? It’s just me and a few other people?

Are you being willfully dense? The economy is a huge issue in the election. It is not the only issue. Even if is was, Ron Paul is not remotely the answer to our economic problems.

Also, Ron Paul is hardly the only candidate talking about the economy, so WTH? If one’s main issue is promoting an isolationist foreign policy then yes, Paul is the guy. He isn’t the one and only on the economy though. You’ve been talking about what makes Paul unique and how he’s the only one talking about blah, blah, blah and now you’ve moved on to the topic that literally everyone is talking about. You need to plant your goalposts and then stop moving them.

On the issue of Paul and the economy, he isn’t the guy to fix it. Cutting Pentagon spending is necessary, but not even close to sufficient for that task and the rest of his economic ideas are crap.

Other people have already dealt with with most of this, but I want to focus on one point:

3) prayer before sporting events being suppressed.

You’re seriously bringing contention over Tebow’s religious showboating?  There was someone important who once said that such people have already received their reward, but I forget who it was.

I think he’s talking about prayer over the PA system before sporting events, not about Tebowing.

What’s going to be fun is that the “super committee” can’t decide what to do for a deficit cutting plan and a debt control plan, so I hear some huge automatic cuts in military spending are due to hit in 2012 for FY 2013.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pentagon-to-unveil-military-spending-cuts-thursday-2012-01-04

Part of me enjoys the Schadenfreude-y feeling, particularly as this method of deficit reduction ahs been staring Republicans in the fucking face for the last decade and they’ve all been too busy waving the USA’s metaphorical dick around to countenance deciding they don’t really need to do that.

http://keeptonyblairforpm.wordpress.com/blair-speech-transcripts-from-1997-2007/#chicago

That is when pre-emptive or liberal interventionist wars became left wing policy.

Three examples that come to mind are 1) images of the cross being taken
down, 2) plaques of the Ten Commandments being taken down, 3) prayer
before sporting events being suppressed. These are big deals to
Christians, and they all violate the first Amendment. 

Jesus fucking Christ, you motherfucking shit for brains moronic piece of crap. No. Those examples do not violate the first amendment. They would violate the first amendment if the government was removing crosses from people’s homes, or form churches, or from private businesses. But that is not what is happening, and you fucking know it. You are just too much of  a dishonest piece of crap to admit it.

There is a big difference between any religion that teaches it is a form
of government, and those that do not. I say if a religion teaches that
it is a form of government, then it should be regarded as such, and not
have First Amendment protections. 

Why am I not surprised to see the Islamaphobic dogwhistle from a piece of shit like you?

lori- well sorry if I distracted from the discussion. The column itself had multiple possible directions.

I think he’s talking about prayer over the PA system before sporting events, not about Tebowing.

I think both are an inappropriate invocation of prayer in a public space, and the reason why is that Tebow has made a much of a muchness about his kneeling like the Thinking Man do do his praying.

And for what?

So God can intervene for a football game?

At least the German soldiers in WW1 who had “Gott Mit Uns” on their belt buckles had the excuse that they were fighting a war.

What’s Tebow got?

 
lori- well sorry if I distracted from the discussion. The column itself had multiple possible directions.  

Oh please. The issue is not that you distracted from the discussion or about the column. It’s about the fact that you’re hopping between topics without being clear that you’ve switched. 

Be more clear about what you’re talking about and why and it’s fine. Jumping from “Ron Paul is the only one talking about the important issues” to the issue that everyone is talking about is not clear. 

I think both are an inappropriate invocation of prayer in a public space,  

 
So do I. (I have several layers of problems with Tebow.) My only point was that I think Gordon_Dye was only talking about the PA prayer and we don’t know what he thinks about Tebow’s behavior. 

I think the issue is the meaning and implication of the word, “inappropriate”. Tebow is inappropriate for making a show of his religion before men, annoying people who are there to watch football, not a church service, and many other reasons. But it isn’t unconstitutional, since the games aren’t government-sponsored, which is why no one has stopped him from doing it.

With the case of PA prayer during a public school-sponsored game (public schools being part of the government), it is inappropriate because it would be the state showing preference to a certain religion over others, and therefore unconstitutional and not allowed.

Exactly. 

What’s Tebow got?

More money than most of us will see in our entire lifetimes?

Indeed. (>_<) and little excuse to invoke God on his side, considering he could probably retire on the $$ right now if he wanted to.

> I would find it as inappropriate for a kid to run for class office on a
platform of “vote for me because I’m gay” or “vote for me because I’m
white” as I do to implicitly or explicitly run on “vote for me because
Jesus loves me best”.

So Sheila gets up and says “My name is Sheila and I’m running for Student Council President. I have lots of experience working with people and getting things done. For example, I’ve been a lay minister for the Youth Group at Our Lady of Hypothetical Worship for the last three years. Let me tell you about some of those experiences and how they relate to being your Student Council President…”

If I assert that Sheila’s speech is an example of implicitly running on “vote for me because Jesus loves me best,” ought that be sufficient grounds to declare Sheila’s speech inappropriate? Ought it be sufficient grounds to invalidate her campaign? 

So Franklin gets up and says “My name is Franklin and I’m running for Student Council President. I have lots of experience
working with people and getting things done. For example, I was one of the founders of North Hypothetical’s Gay-Straight Alliance…”

Same questions.

I realize that it’s  more comfortable to make the in-principle judgments vague enough to support whatever case-by-case decisions seem to make sense once we have enough details about the specific case to judge. But if as a consequence of that we end up in a situation where Franklin keeps his mouth shut because he has no way of knowing whether his speech (or even his candidacy) is “appropriate” or “helpful,” it seems like we are not in an ideal situation.

The same is true if Sheila keeps her mouth shut for the same reasons.

A related problem is that regulatory capture becomes that much easier when the regulation is vague. If everybody on the school board agrees that Sheila’s speech is OK and Franklin’s speech isn’t (or vice-versa), having some clear guidelines by which we can determine whether their agreement complied with the school’s policy (or the state law) or it didn’t makes managing the inevitable appeals process much more straightforward.

You know what would be awesome?

If we saw someone like Tebow, after throwing a touchdown-scoring pass, hold up a sign saying “THANK YOU JESUS!  I NOW WILL DONATE MY ENTIRE YEAR’S SALARY TO UNICEF IN GRATITUDE FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE WITH THIS GAME!”

I mean, it would still be wildly *inappropriate*.  But at least it wouldn’t make anyone like me who claims to share a faith with Tebow look like a douchehat by association.

 
A related problem is that regulatory capture becomes that much easier when the regulation is vague.  

Who has been talking about regulations in this context? Neither Sheila’s speech or Franklin’s speech is unconstitutional so they don’t fit the discussion we’ve been having about the law. Saying that something is inappropriate is, as has been pointed out, not at all the same thing as saying that it is or should be illegal. The school rules should be framed so that they’re clear, apply equally to all students and don’t infringe on students actual (as opposed to imaginary) rights.   

Personally, I think that highlighting relevant experience is fine. What isn’t fine is something like the speech mentioned earlier where a Christian student said that no one who doesn’t believe in Jesus could really be successful. If I took the time I’m sure I could figure out some similarly inappropriate way for Franklin to campaign on gayness. Maybe something about how the school needs some jazzing up and everyone knows straight people have no artist talent? 

> The school rules should be framed so that they’re clear, apply equally
to all students and don’t infringe on students actual (as opposed to
imaginary) rights.

Yup.

The point I’m emphasizing is “clear.” Specifically, I’d prefer such rules (at whatever level they are enforced) to be clear enough that it’s possible for me to figure out ahead of time whether what I want to do will violate those rules. And I’d prefer to apply that principle equally to school policy and state law, though I admittedly care more about state law.

If that’s consistent with what you mean by “clear,” then it seems we agree with each other.

Just a quick comment on Tebow…
God cannot help the child praying for a miracle to cure his cancer, he’s too busy making sure the Broncos beat the Steelers.

I talked to an old friend this evening. We talked a bit about Tebow and that lead to a discussion of ostentatious displays of piety which lead to this conversation about school prayer. 

I mentioned the idea of kids taking a vote about “voluntary” group prayer in class and said that if Christianists want kids to pray out loud in class someone should tell them that’s fine if at least part of the time the prayer is the Shahada* or the rosary, maybe say Kaddish when the class hamster dies. After all, those are all prayers to the same God. My friend literally LOLed. Him: You would totally have gotten our class to vote for that. Me: What? What makes you think I could have made that happen? You were there so you know it’s not like I was Little Miss Popularity. Him: Maybe not, but you have the gift of Bad Influence. It’s like your super power. Me: Huh. You may be right. 

The thing is, it’s not like I was that unusual. Every school has a kid like me, with a low tolerance for bullshit, a subversive mind and the ability to make the popular kids see the humor in rebellion. Either that or they have a Ferris Bueller—a kid with a subversive mind and the ability to get other kids to follow him directly. IOW, folks need to be careful what they wish for, because we all know the only reason that Christianists think majority rule on this issue is a good idea is that they rest secure in the belief that the majority will always vote for something they’re comfortable with. Think again people, think again. 

*As an adult I wouldn’t make this suggestion seriously because I think it’s disrespectful and dangerous to use Muslims’ observance of their faith like the boogeyman to scare idiots. As I kid I would not have thought it through that far. I would just have known that the Shahada would cause stupid adults to freak the hell out and I would very likely have gone for it. 

Not sure where to insert this. But on a completely separate but entirely relevant subtopic- some have expressed the opinion that Ron Paul would favor States rights over individual civil liberties. 

Are you not aware that Ron Paul argued, in front of a conservative national audience, that the alleged terrorists being held in Guantanamo should receive the same protections we have under our Constitution and Bill of Rights? That includes habeas corpus and a speedy trial. And he did so at the ridicule of Ladyhawk and inSane-torum. For all he knew he would be booed off the stage, but he stood strong for the rights of these people. 

Do you think he did so because it was politically expedient?

We all have blind spots, but this is blindness.  

Not sure where to insert this. But on a completely separate but entirely
relevant subtopic- some have expressed the opinion that Ron Paul would
favor States rights over individual civil liberties.

Um, which he has proven in his own words:

Under those amendments, the State of Texas has the right to decide for
itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local
standards.

Paul said he personally thinks marriage is between a man and a woman,
but regulations involving marriage should be up to the states.

and abortion, etc.

So, sure. He’ll argue for rights he personally is in favour of. But if he isn’t in favour of them? Like same-sex marriages? You are SOL.

This isn’t an “opinion” or some imagined thing. He’s said it himself. He’s proud of it and happy with it. If you like him, you have to accept it. Because he does. If you are okay with it–so be it. But if you aren’t, pretending it isn’t true doesn’t make it go away. I really do not understand the denialism about the really explicit components of his ideology. This is very clear-cut and not wishy-washy or “subjective” at all. He has said it. Repeatedly. And it isn’t like racist comments where he sort of backs away later or anything and you can go on about how he changed his mind or did this or that or whatever: he absolutely, totally and completely thinks issues like abortion, gay marriage and sodomy laws should be left up to the states over individuals. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Who’s blind again?

 
Not sure where to insert this. But on a completely separate but entirely relevant subtopic- some have expressed the opinion that Ron Paul would favor States rights over individual civil liberties.  

Probably in the place where we already talked about the fact that Paul is in favor of state’s rights, except in cases where he’s perfectly happen to use federal power to limit those rights because the states don’t all do things the way he wants them done. . 

 
Are you not aware that Ron Paul argued, in front of a conservative national audience, that the alleged terrorists being held in Guantanamo should receive the same protections we have under our Constitution and Bill of Rights? That includes habeas corpus and a speedy trial. 

Do you think he did so because it was politically expedient?  

Possibly. (He’s doing far better in this election than he’s done however many other times he’s run for president, so if he’s just playing to the crowd it’s apparently working for him.) 

It’s also possible that this commitment to civil protections for Gitmo detainees is as shallow as his commitment to states’ rights (see above) and that it would disappear in a vapor the minute it conflicted with something else that he wanted. Sadly, he wouldn’t be the first to behave that way. 

It’s also possible that, in so much as it would ever be within his power, Paul would be totally committed on this issue. We’ll never know because even if he became president, it would never be fully within his power. 

Since we can’t know for sure we have to make a judgement about this based on everything we know about Paul. My judgement is that I’m not going to bet the farm on him being trustworthy on this. (Again, see the first point, above.)

I’ve noticed that people who argue for less regulation, libertarians in particular but those of other stripes as well, spend a lot of effort coming up with ways that the people who would be hurt by deregulation _deserve_ to be hurt.  People who are “reckless enough not to wear seatbelts”, or “foolish enough to spend money on an untested medicine”, all the while asserting that *they personally* would “choose” to do the SAME THINGS THE REGULATIONS ENFORCE.

So… these regulations they want to get rid of would serve to do what? TO allow dishonest businesses to make a profit and to harm people who the libertarians have declared “deserving” of harm. 

That’s the ONLY thing that this kind of deregulation would achieve: help cheats and hucksters make money, hurt people deemed unworthy. 

Why do we let these people rule us?

“he absolutely, totally and completely thinks issues like abortion, gay marriage and sodomy laws should be left up to the states over individuals.”
First, thanks for providing an objective response.

The operative term in the above quote is “up to the states over individuals.” 
Some people like the idea of controlling our lives as close to home as possible. In other words, States generally have elected representatives, and if I want a law passed or rejected, I have a lot more opportunity to influence it at a State level than at a Federal level, for obvious reasons. 

Dr. Paul isn’t for State regulation of marriage. He’s just against Federal regulation of it.

When he says something should be handled at the State level he is basically saying, “I don’t want to argue about that. We have no business doing that. If YOU want to legislate something like that, do it at the State level.” He recognizes that he is not going to resolve some issues. It may take decades to sort out some of these issues to the point where we have a national consensus. So his approach is to be a strict Constitutionalist and to by example get people thinking critically before they turn their freedoms over to a centralized government. 

That doesn’t give States the authority to violate the Bill of Rights, though – at the individual level. And my point is his record, while some would question his almost myoptic adherence to the Constitution, has always favored individual liberty.

There are MANY regulations that people greatly object to. In particular regulations that control the availability of natural supplements. Any regulation that protects me from myself is particularly abhorrent. Just stay the f____ out of my life! That type of regulation almost triggers me to violence. 

I’ll give you a simple example of government regulation versus letting market economics handle it. A couple of decades ago, some brilliant politician decided he was going to conserve water for the American people by regulating the amount of water that gets flushed by toilets. So they, by law, had to make water closets smaller than they had previously made them. The problem is that for many people the flush was insufficient so they simply flushed twice. And they had to plunge a lot more often. I remember radio home building shows bemoaning, “Get the politicians out of the toilet!” As a result of that we likely use more water because of the extra flushes. I doubt that we will ever know. 

Now to handle that problem with the market, the government should have perhaps come up with a measuring device that would go on toilets that would tell people how much they pay for their toilet water as opposed to their other water usage. Then people who don’t need the larger water closet would opt for the smaller size the next time they replaced their toilet and manufacturers would have a “savings” competitive incentive to make toilets optimize water consumption. 

Politicians are constantly dreaming up such necessary and unproductive regulations. 

Now regulations that prevent corporations from harming people, such as removing lead from paint, or having to safety test toys, are all good in my opinion. And I don’t know of anyone who feels differently about that. 

Another form of “good” regulation is anything that prevents market abuse, including any type of ganging up on market participants, or dishonesty, etc. So regulation is not essentially good or bad. Each regulation has to be judged on its own merits. 

Where there seems to be an obvious divergence of opinion is the usefulness of nationalizing something versus privatizing it. How would you feel about having the government handle all auto repair? Don’t you think we would soon have abuses and inefficiencies in the system? Yes.There are abuses now in the free market. But they are minuscule to the abuse and inefficiency in government run programs. 

 
Dr. Paul isn’t for State regulation of marriage. He’s just against Federal regulation of it.   

Yelling doesn’t make it true. He has said very clearly that he would have voted for DOMA. That’s federal regulation of marriage. 

When he says that something should be handled at the state level he’s basically saying that he feels confident that the states won’t do anything that he really objects to. When it comes to issues about which he does not have that confidence, like choice and marriage equality, he’s all in favor of federal regulation. I guess we’re supposed to assume that he thought critically about those issues and therefore federal regulation in those cases is OK? 

  And my point is his record, while some would question his almost myoptic adherence to the Constitution, has always favored individual liberty.  

No, your point is that he has a record of favoring individual liberties that you approve of. He has voted against women’s right to control their own bodies, which is about the most important individual liberty one can have. 

Re: toilet flush issues.

While I agree that the initial law was rather heavy-handed, the free market responded, ultimately, to that regulation by creating dual-flush toilets where you press a 1 to flush a #1 and a 2 to flush a #2 – it did take a while for someone to make it workable but in the last 10 years it has been possible to such toilets.

And honestly, if you need two flushes to flush a #1, you really ought to get the damn toilet’s metal chain thingy looked at.

Oh yeah. Are we going to go a couple of rounds about incandescent light bulbs next?

I think the best application of regulation is one laid out by Richard A. Clarke in his Cyber War book. He says it is probably most effective for regulation to set basic ground rules or objectives the government would like to enforce, and then create a mechanism to verify compliance.

In that light (pardon the pun) the light bulb law is actually rather sensible. It indicates that a certain basic standard of efficiency of light bulbs shall be achieved, and any light bulbs over it will just cost more, I assume through some kind of tax on the incandescents.

Yelling doesn’t make it true. He has said very clearly that he would have voted for DOMA. That’s federal regulation of marriage.

Paul voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004.

DOMA is a bit more complicated. What Paul is for is handling this matter outside of the purview of the Federal government. In this regard DOMA is a mixed bag. One key provision of DOMA is that it allows states to be completely independent of one another on this issue. 

Paul has said that recognizing same-sex marriage at the federal level would be “an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty”. Paul stated, “Americans understandably fear that if gay marriage is legalized in one state, all other states will be forced to accept such marriages.” He says that in a best case scenario, governments would enforce contracts and grant divorces but otherwise have no say in marriage. Paul has also stated he doesn’t want to interfere in the free association of two individuals in a social, sexual, and religious sense. Additionally, when asked if he was supportive of gay marriage Paul responded “I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want.”

I won’t comment on the rights of the unborn.

Under those amendments, the State of Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local
standards.

How the flaming crap does this–related to ACTUAL LAWS, ON THE BOOKS, IN HIS HOME STATE–not say, “I approve of State laws superseding individual rights”?

That is exactly what happens there. I guess, since, “Homosexuality is okay” is not in the Constitution explicitly, his myopic following of the Constitution makes this “regrettable” but acceptable?

Maybe he wouldn’t have ACTUALLY voted for DOMA, but he did say he WOULD HAVE. That seems like a violation of the full faith and credit clause of the CONSTITUTION. Not even an Amendment!

Now, we have two options then:
1) He really doesn’t value the rights of individuals over states, and would even like the idea that one state can legalize a same sex marriage and another state can say, “Screw you! They’re not married!” (yeah, that’s really keeping the government out of people’s lives?). And is willing to ignore the Constitution to do it.

2) He just made that up and wouldn’t REALLY have voted for DOMA, which puts anything he says into doubt.

Which one do you want?

“an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty”

What liberty is it hostile to?

“Americans understandably fear that if gay marriage is legalized in one
state, all other states will be forced to accept such marriages.”

Some Americans. And so what? All states are “forced” to accept heterosexual marriages. Is he going to propose a law to prevent that, so that you have to get married in any state you’re in, even if you’re heterosexual?

Paul has also stated he doesn’t want to interfere in the free
association of two individuals in a social, sexual, and religious sense.

Okay. Fine.
But then he’s okay with state law interfering. He has said that explicitly. See above Re: Lawrence v. Texas.

I know we’re not going to agree here. But here is his position as I understand it.

When I said, “Paul voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004,” I was not referring to DOMA. That was concerning a proposed Constitutional amendment. 

I did not intend to imply that he would not have voted for DOMA. He has argued in favor of DOMA. 

He does not believe the Constitution was designed to force religious or moral belief on people in general. He does believe it was designed to protect people’s rights to believe as they wish and to define their own morality, so long as they don’t step on the rights of others. I have the impression, his voting and oratory is consistent with those values, especially on this issue. 

The concept of marriage is really a commitment between two people. If the rest of society does or does not want to recognize a relationship between the two people (that is, provide other associated privileges), that is up to them. Society is in disarray on this issue, meaning many people disagree. Dr. Paul’s position is that recognition of marriage is not an inalienable right, unlike marriage itself (the right of two people to commit to one another), and should not be enforced across the board. This position should be obvious, once stated. The rights of people to contract with one another is not the same as “a contract between two people must be honored by the rest of society.” 

He is against forcing either recognition or non-recognition of marriage as one universal solution. There is a big difference between this type of recognition, and protection of rights. When I protect your rights, I agree to not interfere. When society recognizes marriage in the way gay rights activists are concerned about, it concerns many benefits that extend beyond the two or more people involved. 

Your positions are ridiculous. And I believe we went off the gold standard for all practical purposes when the price of gold was fixed by the government and all the gold certificates were recalled, back in the 1930s.

As for the rest of your points: Provide evidence to back your assertions. All you’re giving us now is opinions.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I have the impression that the majority of American’s, if they were forced to decide on defining marriage, would do so as a heterosexual relationship. If that is the case, then strictly as a practical matter irrespective of motivations, you are better off not having a universal solution that goes against your beliefs. 

That means that, practically speaking, Dr. Paul’s position, which allows States to decide, is the most favorable one for gay rights. I’m not saying you should be happy about it. I’m only pointing to practical realities.

What part of the First Amendment do you not understand?

It’s intended to do TWO things with respect to religion: to keep government from specially privileging one or more religious groups, and to keep religious groups from claiming privilege over other groups. (Both of those are being eroded by the same people who are trying to put prayer into public schools, while simultaneously claiming that it’s voluntary prayer and that they’re being discriminated against because they can’t pray in school.)

There were millions of signatures on at least one petition against invading Iraq, and there were large demonstrations that were never reported by the major media outlets (and still aren’t). Any letters that were sent to Congress or the White House were probably not read, or just glanced at, tallied, and tossed.
As for election results – when all your choices are supporting the war, you don’t have a choice.

Economics is way too broad and complicated to justify honest money in a blog. But a couple of resources that cast light on the situation are, Dr. Paul’s book End The Fed and the on-line video, Money As Debt. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3sKwwAaCU 

In short, our monetary system has weaknesses that are exploited by the high level banking community. The Fed is a PRIVATE institution that reports to no one, not even the President, at a detailed level. 

you can’t eat civil rights.

But civil rights keep other people from not allowing you to work or buy food or get shelter or transportation.
The guy you’re so pleased with is part of the group that already has all of those rights and is obviously NOT interested in helping people who aren’t.

What’s Tebow got?

A good PR guy? (As a quarterback, he has luck, not skill.)

He’s running for office, and that gives ‘political expedience’ a head start.

Because he knows that no one from his own party (which is the Republicans, officially) is going to back that, and neither will half the Democrats in Congress, so it’s safe for him to say since he’ll never have to come through on it.
The GOP has managed to convince a lot of people who should know better that terrorists have magical powers to escape and to get other people to join their causes just by talking. And they also don’t want fair hearings and trials because it will become obvious that (a) most of the prisoners are not and never have been terrorists and (b) a lot of them were tortured into ‘confessing’ in order to stop the torture, and some of them have been permanently damaged mentally.

 But states can, and have, passed laws that RESTRICT individual liberty, even in areas where that liberty is completely personal. Like sexual activity between consenting adults. That’s still going on.
What the heck do you think all the fuss about same-sex marriage is about?

You know, those are some of the worst possible examples you could come up with for ‘bad government regulation’.
If you lived in an area where water use gets restricted during severe droughts, you’d know that the ones on water use aren’t silly, they’re NECESSARY. (Also, it was only the first generation of low-water-use that had problems. Since then, they’ve improved the designs and they’re quite reliable.)

 Probably. Because I bet he doesn’t like halogens and CFLs either.

I have the impression that the majority of American’s, if they were
forced to decide on defining marriage, would do so as
a heterosexual relationship

Assumes facts not in evidence.
Consider the states that have already legalized it without the conservatives’ predicted dire consequences occurring.
Consider the repeated public polls which show increasing support for it.
Consider that the people most opposed are older, and those most in favor are younger.

The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907. Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded and its structure has evolved. Events such as the Great Depression were major factors leading to changes in the system.

The Federal Reserve System’s structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve Board), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, numerous privately owned U.S. member banks and various advisory councils.

Lose. (Anyone who’s been paying attention to politics in the last ten or fifteen years knows that the Fed chairman is confirmed by Congress)

The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, largely in response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907. Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded and its structure has evolved. Events such as the Great Depression were major factors leading to changes in the system.

The Federal Reserve System’s structure is composed of the presidentially appointed Board of Governors (or Federal Reserve Board), the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation, numerous privately owned U.S. member banks and various advisory councils.

Lose. (Anyone who’s been paying attention to politics in the last ten or fifteen years knows that the Fed chairman is confirmed by Congress)

Disqus fail. Apologies.

 
Paul has said that recognizing same-sex marriage at the federal level would be “an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty”. Paul stated, “Americans understandably fear that if gay marriage is legalized in one state, all other states will be forced to accept such marriages.” He says that in a best case scenario, governments would enforce contracts and grant divorces but otherwise have no say in marriage. Paul has also stated he doesn’t want to interfere in the free association of two individuals in a social, sexual, and religious sense. Additionally, when asked if he was supportive of gay marriage Paul responded “I am supportive of all voluntary associations and people can call it whatever they want.”  

Paul’s positions contradict themselves. There is no way to make the first thing you quoted line up with the last thing you quoted in a way that makes sense.  The fact that Paul’s rhetoric is contradictory is unsurprising, given that he is a politician and not the Second Coming as so many of his supporters seem to want him to be. 

The mere fact that he considers recognizing the full citizenship of gay & lesbian Americans to be “social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty” is an indication that he is untrustworthy on the issue of individual liberty. 

The fact that he’s supporting homophobes by falsely calling their bigotry understandable concerns means that he is untrustworthy on the issue of individual liberty. 

He does believe it was designed to protect people’s rights to believe as
they wish and to define their own morality, so long as they don’t step
on the rights of others. I have the impression, his voting and oratory
is consistent with those values, especially on this issue.

What about my right not to be pregnant tomorrow, regardless of whether I’m pregnant today? He’s quite happy to stomp on that. Maybe do an Irish jig.

practically speaking, Dr. Paul’s position, which allows States to
decide, is the most favorable one for gay rights. I’m not saying you
should be happy about it. I’m only pointing to practical realities.

The practical reality, Gordon_Dye, is that some QUILTBAG people live in ALA-FUCKING-BAMA. Ala-fucking-bama is going to be one of the last states to adopt marriage equality, if the feds don’t force it upon them. The most favorable position for QUILTBAG rights is, we get sympathetic people in the federal government and we have them enact legislation protecting QUILTBAG rights nationwide, or overturn existing legislation on the grounds that said does not protect QUILTBAG rights.

He does believe it was designed to protect people’s rights to believe as
they wish and to define their own morality, so long as they don’t step
on the rights of others. I have the impression, his voting and oratory
is consistent with those values, especially on this issue.

What about my right not to be pregnant tomorrow, regardless of whether I’m pregnant today? He’s quite happy to stomp on that. Maybe do an Irish jig.

practically speaking, Dr. Paul’s position, which allows States to
decide, is the most favorable one for gay rights. I’m not saying you
should be happy about it. I’m only pointing to practical realities.

The practical reality, Gordon_Dye, is that some QUILTBAG people live in ALA-FUCKING-BAMA. Ala-fucking-bama is going to be one of the last states to adopt marriage equality, if the feds don’t force it upon them. The most favorable position for QUILTBAG rights is, we get sympathetic people in the federal government and we have them enact legislation protecting QUILTBAG rights nationwide, or overturn existing legislation on the grounds that said does not protect QUILTBAG rights.

He does believe it was designed to protect people’s rights to believe as
they wish and to define their own morality, so long as they don’t step
on the rights of others. I have the impression, his voting and oratory
is consistent with those values, especially on this issue.

What about my right not to be pregnant tomorrow, regardless of whether I’m pregnant today? He’s quite happy to stomp on that. Maybe do an Irish jig.

practically speaking, Dr. Paul’s position, which allows States to
decide, is the most favorable one for gay rights. I’m not saying you
should be happy about it. I’m only pointing to practical realities.

The practical reality, Gordon_Dye, is that some QUILTBAG people live in ALA-FUCKING-BAMA. Ala-fucking-bama is going to be one of the last states to adopt marriage equality, if the feds don’t force it upon them. The most favorable position for QUILTBAG rights is, we get sympathetic people in the federal government and we have them enact legislation protecting QUILTBAG rights nationwide, or overturn existing legislation on the grounds that said does not protect QUILTBAG rights.

 
He is against forcing either recognition or non-recognition of marriage as one universal solution. There is a big difference between this type of recognition, and protection of rights. When I protect your rights, I agree to not interfere. When society recognizes marriage in the way gay rights activists are concerned about, it concerns many benefits that extend beyond the two or more people involved.  

This argument makes no actual sense. If you were arguing that the state should have nothing whatsoever to do with any marriages then your argument would at least be consistent. Impractical for any number of reasons, but consistent. Instead you are trying to make the case for states being allowed to recognize some marriages and not others, while saying that this is somehow striking a blow for freedom and individual liberty. This is the classic argument of a bigot.

I can’t tell if you realize that you’re simply being a bigot or not. Maybe this is like the school prayer thing and you believe the majority should rule because you’re just so comfortable in the belief that the majority will run things the way you want them run. That is not a stand on principle. It’s a stand on personal preferences and that’s not OK. Because here’s the thing, in America there’s a term for “forcing one universal solution” on certain issues—civil rights. The fact that Paul is hostile to civil rights hardly makes him the candidate of individual liberty. He’s just a racist, misogynist, homophobic religious bigot cloaking his personal preferences and beliefs in the Libertarian language of Freedom!

 
He is against forcing either recognition or non-recognition of marriage as one universal solution. There is a big difference between this type of recognition, and protection of rights. When I protect your rights, I agree to not interfere. When society recognizes marriage in the way gay rights activists are concerned about, it concerns many benefits that extend beyond the two or more people involved.  

This argument makes no actual sense. If you were arguing that the state should have nothing whatsoever to do with any marriages then your argument would at least be consistent. Impractical for any number of reasons, but consistent. Instead you are trying to make the case for states being allowed to recognize some marriages and not others, while saying that this is somehow striking a blow for freedom and individual liberty. This is the classic argument of a bigot.

I can’t tell if you realize that you’re simply being a bigot or not. Maybe this is like the school prayer thing and you believe the majority should rule because you’re just so comfortable in the belief that the majority will run things the way you want them run. That is not a stand on principle. It’s a stand on personal preferences and that’s not OK. Because here’s the thing, in America there’s a term for “forcing one universal solution” on certain issues—civil rights. The fact that Paul is hostile to civil rights hardly makes him the candidate of individual liberty. He’s just a racist, misogynist, homophobic religious bigot cloaking his personal preferences and beliefs in the Libertarian language of Freedom!

 
He is against forcing either recognition or non-recognition of marriage as one universal solution. There is a big difference between this type of recognition, and protection of rights. When I protect your rights, I agree to not interfere. When society recognizes marriage in the way gay rights activists are concerned about, it concerns many benefits that extend beyond the two or more people involved.  

This argument makes no actual sense. If you were arguing that the state should have nothing whatsoever to do with any marriages then your argument would at least be consistent. Impractical for any number of reasons, but consistent. Instead you are trying to make the case for states being allowed to recognize some marriages and not others, while saying that this is somehow striking a blow for freedom and individual liberty. This is the classic argument of a bigot.

I can’t tell if you realize that you’re simply being a bigot or not. Maybe this is like the school prayer thing and you believe the majority should rule because you’re just so comfortable in the belief that the majority will run things the way you want them run. That is not a stand on principle. It’s a stand on personal preferences and that’s not OK. Because here’s the thing, in America there’s a term for “forcing one universal solution” on certain issues—civil rights. The fact that Paul is hostile to civil rights hardly makes him the candidate of individual liberty. He’s just a racist, misogynist, homophobic religious bigot cloaking his personal preferences and beliefs in the Libertarian language of Freedom!

  He is against forcing either recognition or non-recognition of marriage as one universal solution. There is a big difference between this type of recognition, and protection of rights. When I protect your rights, I agree to not interfere. When society recognizes marriage in the way gay rights activists are concerned about, it concerns many benefits that extend beyond the two or more people involved.   

 
This argument makes no actual sense. If you were arguing that the state should have nothing whatsoever to do with any marriages then your argument would at least be consistent. Impractical for any number of reasons, but consistent. Instead you are trying to make the case for states being allowed to recognize some marriages and not others, while saying that this is somehow striking a blow for freedom and individual liberty. This is the classic argument of a bigot.

I can’t tell if you realize that you’re simply being a bigot or not. Maybe this is like the school prayer thing and you believe the majority should rule because you’re just so comfortable in the belief that the majority will run things the way you want them run. That is not a stand on principle. It’s a stand on personal preferences and that’s not OK. Because here’s the thing, in America there’s a term for “forcing one universal solution” on certain issues—civil rights. The fact that Paul is hostile to civil rights hardly makes him the candidate of individual liberty. He’s just a racist, misogynist, homophobic religious bigot cloaking his personal preferences and beliefs in the Libertarian language of Freedom!

  He is against forcing either recognition or non-recognition of marriage as one universal solution. There is a big difference between this type of recognition, and protection of rights. When I protect your rights, I agree to not interfere. When society recognizes marriage in the way gay rights activists are concerned about, it concerns many benefits that extend beyond the two or more people involved.   

 
This argument makes no actual sense. If you were arguing that the state should have nothing whatsoever to do with any marriages then your argument would at least be consistent. Impractical for any number of reasons, but consistent. Instead you are trying to make the case for states being allowed to recognize some marriages and not others, while saying that this is somehow striking a blow for freedom and individual liberty. This is the classic argument of a bigot.

I can’t tell if you realize that you’re simply being a bigot or not. Maybe this is like the school prayer thing and you believe the majority should rule because you’re just so comfortable in the belief that the majority will run things the way you want them run. That is not a stand on principle. It’s a stand on personal preferences and that’s not OK. Because here’s the thing, in America there’s a term for “forcing one universal solution” on certain issues—civil rights. The fact that Paul is hostile to civil rights hardly makes him the candidate of individual liberty. He’s just a racist, misogynist, homophobic religious bigot cloaking his personal preferences and beliefs in the Libertarian language of Freedom!

The concept of marriage is really a commitment between two people. If the rest of society does or does not want to recognize a
relationship between the two people (that is, provide other
associated privileges), that is up to them. Society is in disarray on
this issue, meaning many people disagree. Dr. Paul’s position is that recognition
of marriage is not an inalienable right, unlike marriage itself (the
right of two people to commit to one another), and should not be
enforced across the board. This position should be obvious, once stated.
The rights of people to contract with one another is not the same as “a
contract between two people must be honored by the rest of society.”

So let me clarify this.  Dr. Paul would be in favor of allowing states to outlaw (excuse me, preferentially “refusing to recognize”) interracial / interfaith / infertile / second / cousin / etc. marriages — most of which in fact were disapproved of by “the majority” of society at large at the time they were legalized — and also allowing states to legalize ( preferentially “agree to honor”) forced / underage / plural / etc. marriages?

I mean, I suppose this is a *consistent* position, but hardly one that would increase individual liberty.  At least, not if you are a woman, a child, older, divorced, or otherwise a member of a non-dominant ethnic / religion / gender/ or cultural group.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I have the impression that the majority of American’s, if they were forced to decide on defining marriage, would do so as a heterosexual relationship. If that is the case, then strictly as a practical matter irrespective of motivations, you are better off not having a universal solution that goes against your beliefs.

Depends on what you mean. If you asked all Americans what marriage was, I don’t doubt that a majority of them would say “It’s when a man and a woman…”

But if you said to them, “But what if it were two men, but they loved each other?” I firmly believe that a majority of Americans would indeed say “I guess that’s okay.”  A lot of them, probably not a majority, might clench their jaw and grimace a bit first. 

If the rest of society does or does not want to recognize a relationship between the two people (that is, provide other associated privileges), that is up to them.

Aha! It’s up to them. Not the states.

But this doesn’t even address the fact that, regardless of pipe-dream worlds, marriages have real, financial and other impacts. Visiting rights in hospitals. Benefits at jobs. Now, a married same sex couple moves to a state that doesn’t recognize their marriage–or even just VISITS. Congratulations! You’ve lost visitation rights to your husband or wife! In the name of the “individual liberty” of an entire state forcing your relationship to go legally unacknowledged. What the hell is wrong with you?

Dr. Paul’s position is that recognition of marriage is not an
inalienable right, unlike marriage itself (the right of two people to
commit to one another), and should not be enforced across the board.
This position should be obvious, once stated.

But the right to NOT recognize IS an inalienable right? So we can have that enforced by law?

I’m sure Dr. Paul would vote for freedom for the individual at the State level as he does the Federal level were he presented with that option. This is clearly a matter of how to settle disagreements. Should all disagreements be resolved at the Federal level? 

Arguing that gay couples should have certain rights is avoiding the key issue. Irrespective of whether you and I agree on any issue, the important thing is how should disagreements be resolved, and more specifically, can we avoid a good deal of conflict if we employ local pre-eminence in politics?

Even if I were to agree with you on every point, that would not resolve anything material because we are only two people. If you think you are going to simply educate the majority of people on the issues and then we will all come together with one perspective, good luck. Meanwhile take a look at the possibility of favoring more local solutions to political issue disagreements. 

Here is a video that explains what is really going on today in politics. It’s a shell game. The real issues are being hidden in plain sight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAdu0N1-tvU&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PLB0AB2AAB16C1200D 

This gentleman has been a political historian for about 50 years. Don’t worry, the video is very current an little is said about history. He doesn’t favor the right or the left. He criticizes both,  and talks about collectivist reaction to the original Tea Party movement, how it is being attacked by both political parties.  I would expect the same principles to be applied to the OWS movement, only in mirror image. 

It talks about the left and right being very similar in some respects, and what we should really be focusing on. It identifies the power brokers and how they implement absolute control, and what their decoys are. If you don’t have time to watch it all, skip out the 1hr:7 minute section for some significant inside information. 

I’m sure Dr. Paul would vote for freedom for the individual at the State
level as he does the Federal level were he presented with that option.

Why on earth are you “sure” of that, since Paul has already said that he believes that Texas (his home state) should legislate restrictions on individual freedoms?

Arguing that gay couples should have certain rights is avoiding the key
issue.

No.  Arguing that all citizens of the country should have equal rights is the ONLY issue, when you are talking about civil liberties.

Irrespective of whether you and I agree on any issue, the
important thing is how should disagreements be resolved

Ah, I get it.  Ron Paul (and his supporters) don’t actually care about “liberty”.  For them, the “important thing” is elevating and institutionalizing the tone argument as national policy.

more specifically, can we avoid a good deal of conflict if we employ local pre-eminence in politics?

/quick scan of approximately six thousand years of recorded human history/

No.

(This has been another episode of Short Answers to Incredibly Stupid Questions)

I’m sure Dr. Paul would vote for freedom for the individual at
the State level as he does the Federal level were he presented with that
option. This is clearly a matter of how to settle disagreements. Should
all disagreements be resolved at the Federal level?

Why do you think that? Has he said that he would? What exactly has he done to fight for the rights of gay people in Texas, or anywhere else? No, talking doesn’t count. Obama can already talk, and Paul is supposed to be better, right?

I don’t think that anyone is saying that all disagreements should be resolved at the federal level. I think some disagreements are national in scope, while some should be handled by the states, and some should be handled locally, and some should even be handled neighborhood to neighborhood while still others should be handled from person to person. I think that same-sex marriage is one of the latter. Why should someone be free in Virginia but lose a bunch of individual freedoms and protections just because they drive a couple of hours into North Carolina?

Why should someone be free in Virginia but lose a bunch of individual
freedoms and protections just because they drive a couple of hours into
North Carolina?

Why, because it protects the individual freedom of North Carolinians to be bigots! Which is the more important freedom, of course.

–Typed from North Carolina, actually.

Sorry, I didn’t mean that as a swipe at North Carolinans! I just chose those two states off the top of my head because I go between them a lot, and I think it would be silly if someone suddenly became a second class citizen just because they took a thirty minute drive and crossed some imaginary line in their own country.

Hahah! You misunderstand: I’m not taking offense. I live in this state, and I’ve seen those areas for sure. I was noting where I was typing from to emphasize my belief that that was an entirely possible end result, even from within the state you suggested it happening in. So it’s not just a pure hypothetical.

Then again, I’m not a native, so that may be cheating…

But the right to NOT recognize IS an inalienable right? So we can have that enforced by law?

Now you’re getting it. We don’t have the right to direct each other’s lives. Your rights end with you, and my rights end with me. I would say “So we can have that protected by law.”

This whole argument has been based on the presumption that rights extend beyond the individual, which doesn’t compute. Any benefits beyond the individual are privileges not rights. 

He does believe it was designed to protect people’s rights to believe as
they wish and to define their own morality, so long as they don’t step
on the rights of others. I have the impression, his voting and oratory
is consistent with those values, especially on this issue.

What about my right not to be pregnant tomorrow, regardless of whether I’m pregnant today? He’s quite happy to stomp on that. Maybe do an Irish jig.

practically speaking, Dr. Paul’s position, which allows States to
decide, is the most favorable one for gay rights. I’m not saying you
should be happy about it. I’m only pointing to practical realities.

The practical reality, Gordon_Dye, is that some QUILTBAG people live in ALA-FUCKING-BAMA. Ala-fucking-bama is going to be one of the last states to adopt marriage equality, if the feds don’t force it upon them. The most favorable position for QUILTBAG rights is, we get sympathetic people in the federal government and we have them enact legislation protecting QUILTBAG rights nationwide, or overturn existing legislation on the grounds that said does not protect QUILTBAG rights.

This whole argument has been based on the presumption that rights extend
beyond the individual, which doesn’t compute. Any benefits beyond the
individual are privileges not rights.

So marriage, contrary to the position of a great many US courts, is a privilege?

Arguing that all citizens of the country should have equal rights is the ONLY issue, when you are talking about civil liberties.

Yes. The question is whether the legal benefits of marriage are civil liberties. 

So…. the law shouldn’t be able to force me to recognize your claim to things which are themselves your rights. You have the right to marry, but the law can’t force *me* to recognize your marriage. Okay.
I guess we can also conclude that you have the right to life, but the law can’t force *me* to recognize it, so murder is okay.

And there’s no way the law could possible force me to recognize your ownership of some piece of property. So I’ll just seize it.

So marriage, contrary to the position of a great many US courts, is a privilege?

Once again, we are not talking about marriage, which is a right, or at least should be per Dr. Paul. We are talking about the benefits society affords married couples. Yes, those benefits are privileges. 

Weird, I’d given up on that post ever going through. Damn you Disqus.

So…I, Elizabeth, should be permitted to marry my girlfriend Sarah, because that’s a right, but Sarah and I should not be permitted to visit each other in the hospital or be on each other’s health insurance or get the elective share of the other’s property should the other die, unless the state we happen to be in at the time deigns to grant us those privileges? What is the point of marriage if it doesn’t make two people legally each other’s primary family?

The question is whether the legal benefits of marriage are civil liberties.

No.  The question is whether the legal benefits of marriage can be provided by the state to some people and not to others on the basis of nothing but the color of their skin, or the god(s) they do or do not worship, or whether what they do with their genitals squicks you out. 

You know that Constitution-thingy that you and Ron Paul profess to be so fond of?  Remember this bit?

“no state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

[Hint:  It's from the Fourteenth Amendment.  You know, the one that your liberty-lovin' pal wants to repeal.]

Tell me *how* this is consistent with individual liberty again?  Unless you’re talking about the “liberty” of the powerful to prey upon the weak?

I guess we can also conclude that you have the right to life, but the law can’t force *me* to recognize it, so murder is okay.

I agree that all people should be required to recognize and allow any two people to relate sexually or emotionally in any way they mutually prefer. To imply somehow that would give me a right to interfere in their lives is the opposite of what I said. 
I’ve already stated that Dr. Paul feels that marriage should be a mutual contract between two people of any sex and the government should stay out of it. 

As for property rights, these are not inalienable or natural. They are government authorized. However, personal property rights are paramount in Dr. Paul’s value system. 

I’ve already stated that Dr. Paul feels that marriage should be a mutual
contract between two people of any sex and the government should stay
out of it.

Okay, but what is he going to do to make sure that happens? So far, it sounds like all he does is talk. Remember, he’s supposed to be better than the rest of the politicians. He’s supposed to have a concrete plan to protect our civil / individual freedoms. What is he going to do to make sure that “[Elizabeth and Sarah] are permitted to visit each other in the hospital or be on
each other’s health insurance or get the elective share of the other’s
property should the other die”?

If his solution is something along the lines of, “If you don’t like it, then move to another state/another country”, then he’s not better than Rick Santorum or Rick Perry and that isn’t a reason for liberals to support him over any of them.

As for property rights, these are not inalienable or natural. They are government authorized. However, personal property rights are paramount in Dr. Paul’s value system.

What happens if a state wants to take away those rights for some of its citizens, based on something like race or sexual orientation? What will President Paul do to stop them? He’s on the record as not only opposing federal laws to protect certain freedoms but also to stop people from seeking recourse on their own through federal courts. If his solution is to do nothing, then it doesn’t matter what he values because values without actions are meaningless.

I’ve already stated that Dr. Paul feels that marriage should be a mutual
contract between two people of any sex and the government should stay
out of it.

But you’re not (or you shouldn’t be) asking us to vote for Paul or anybody else on the basis of what they feel.

We should be voting for (or against) candidates on the basis of the policies they advocate putting into place.

Nowhere has Paul campaigned on the basis of removing the power of the government to regulate “marriage.”

He has campaigned on the basis of allowing only state governments to regulate “marriage.”

And upon denying those persons who are discriminated against by state governments redress under the Equal Protection clause.

I am sure that people denied visitation, Social Security benefits, or inheritance rights from the spouses are comforted by knowing that Paul “feels their pain.”

Okay, but what is he going to do to make sure that happens? So far, it sounds like all he does is talk. Remember, he’s supposed to be better than the rest of the politicians. He’s supposed to have a concrete plan to protect our civil / individual freedoms. What is he going to do to make sure that “[Elizabeth and Sarah] are permitted to visit each other in the hospital or be on 

each other’s health insurance or get the elective share of the other’s 
property should the other die”?

Well now, remember, in Dr. Paul’s magical libertarian wonderland, even straight-married couples wouldn’t have any protection for this., but would have to instead negotiate a private contrct with their insurer to get their spouses included, allowing insurers to make a packet by charging a captive audience usurous prices during a time of need consumers to make a free choice as to what services they really wanted instead of being force FORCED to take luxuries like visitation rights when they might prefer to trade them away.

I don’t know what you are referring to to think that Ron Paul ( or I ) want to repeal the 14th Amendment. The 17th maybe, but certainly not the 14th. (I don’t know where he stands on the 17th either.)

You are underscoring my point. The privileges you have referred to are not Constitutional rights or you would be legally granted them. 

The privileges you have referred to are not Constitutional rights or you would be legally granted them.

Is the ability to marry someone of a differing skin tone a right? Was the answer the same before Loving v Virginia?

What happens if a state wants to take away those rights for some of its citizens, based on something like race or sexual orientation? What will President Paul do to stop them?

The onion has to be pealed one layer at a time. He isn’t a dictator and doesn’t plan to be. There will be many things that he has written about that will not get passed in his first term. All I’m hoping for is that the press has to cover the dialogs once he gets into office. 
And he can force Congress to get real about a lot of these issues that they prefer to gloss over. 

You will be hard pressed to find someone more consistent over time with their professional and personal life in or out of office than Ron Paul. 

His fans aren’t over the top just because of his charisma. It’s because they know they have finally found someone who can and will take on the establishment over many fundamental liberty oriented issues, like the right of a patient to contract with a doctor, like the right to sell raw milk, like the right to use any natural supplement without FDA meddling. 

These rights are not the only reason. He will be balancing the budget and bringing the troops home ( not just moving them to Kuwait – waiting to make war with Iran ) and using the money to strengthen our economy… and the list goes on. 

Another little known “issue” that the establishment is scared of.. he will eliminate the stranglehold on the number of medical universities that the AMA has. That will make more doctors available and reduce the cost of medical care across the board. 

Actually the establishment is scared shitless over this man. And for good reason, because he will really upset their apple cart and they know it. That is why Fox News (owned by Rupert Murdock) has been trying so hard to take him down. 

But for the most part he will NOT be accomplishing these things with Executive Order except to terminate previously issued Executive Orders. 

Now for your question about what if a State steps all over people’s rights, let’s say Muslim, or something racial, or sexual? I believe he will actively seek to stop it. But he will not do it by edict. He has been in Washington long enough and on enough committees to know how to apply pressure at the right points. 

And realistically, States will be doing what the population of the state wants to do on issues where there is great disagreement. I think there may be things done at the State level that are wrong and bad for the country at first. Congress will have to learn how and where to intervene on behalf of individuals. But I can assure you I would rather have someone of Dr. Paul’s character at the top governing and leading that process than anyone else I know or have heard of. 

When he left office for about ten years he didn’t do “consulting” in Washington. That alone distinguishes him from the rest of the candidates. 

So the answer to your question is he will not be intervening in States like gangbusters. But he will continue to champion individual liberties like private property rights and anything Constitutional.

He wrote a book called Liberty Defined. It is all about how liberty begins with the individual and works outward. And about how government can be it’s greatest enemy. It covers 50 issues. 

Nowhere has Paul campaigned on the basis of removing the power of the government to regulate “marriage.”

He has campaigned on the basis of allowing only state governments to regulate “marriage.”

From Liberty Defined – the leading paragraph on Marriage:

“Most Americans do not question the requirement to obtain a license to get married. As in just about everything else, this requirement generates unnecessary problems and heated disagreements. If the government was not involved there would be no discussion or controversy over the definition of marriage. Why should the government give permission to two individuals for them to call themselves married? In a free society, something that we do not truly enjoy, all voluntary and consensual agreements would be recognized. If disputes arose, the courts could be involved as in any other civil dispute.”

I don’t know what you are referring to to think that Ron Paul ( or I ) want to repeal the 14th Amendment.

Paul does not say (as far as I know) the magic words “I want to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment”, but the legal interpretations he offers, and the laws that he introduces, would be impossible without severely amending or repealing that part of the Constitution:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul120.html
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HJ00046:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.539:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9064707.htm  

(these took approximately three minutes of web searching;  I’m sure that there are more)

The privileges you have referred to are not Constitutional rights or you would be legally granted them.

Oh, of course.  Because states have NEVER been known to pass unConstitutional laws or deny Constitutional rights.  Silly me! [/sarcasm]

That’s right up there with “Well, you MUST be guilty, or the police wouldn’t have arrested you!” as a logical argument.

The onion has to be pealed one layer at a time. He isn’t a dictator and doesn’t plan to be. There will be many things that he has written about that will not get passed in his first term. All I’m hoping for is that the press has to cover the dialogs once he gets into office.
And he can force Congress to get real about a lot of these issues that they prefer to gloss over.

How? My question is how?

I have no doubt that Ron Paul is serious about shrinking the size and power of the federal government, pulling the troops back home, and balancing the budget. But I think we all know that it takes more than willpower, charisma, consistency to effect real change on Washington. You keep saying that he’s going to shake up the establishment — you do realize that he’s going to need the support or at least the acquiescence of the ‘establishment’ (ie the vast majority of Congresspersons, who Paul would probably characterize as not respecting the Constitution) to get things done, especially since he’s not going to use executive orders? What’s his workaround for that?

Now for your question about what if a State steps all over people’s rights, let’s say Muslim, or something racial, or sexual? I believe he will actively seek to stop it. But he will not do it by edict. He has been in Washington long enough and on enough committees to know how to apply pressure at the right points.

How? What specifically do you think he will do? If he won’t use executive orders, he won’t use federal legislation, or permit individuals to seek redress from the federal courts, I don’t see what he can do except by speaking from the bully pulpit, which is only effective if Paul has a lot of personal influence over other politicians. ‘Apply pressure at the right points’ doesn’t mean anything unless you have a specific request.

So the answer to your question is he will not be intervening in States like gangbusters. But he will continue to champion individual liberties like private property rights and anything Constitutional.

Again, what does that mean? What does ‘champion’ mean in this context? Is he going to give a pretty speech?

(I’m not trying to be glib here but I think you’re misunderstanding my question. I am trying to find out what — as President — would Ron Paul do to protect LGBT people from discrimination, in marriage, in employment, in hospital visitation and inheritance rights? What specific actions will he take?  Saying that he will champion property rights doesn’t really answer that question. Saying that he will deregulate milk and herbal supplements doesn’t answer that question. President Paul seems intent on asking Congress to strip away fundamental legal protections from people — he wants to limit their ability to seek redress in the federal government and the federal courts. Maybe that is a good idea — maybe the feds are overreaching. But what is he going to put in their place? Is he going to return to the old system, where if you’re a minority you just better hope that your town and state will protect your rights, because if they don’t there’s nothing you can do about it except move?)

Is the ability to marry someone of a differing skin tone a right? Was the answer the same before Loving v Virginia?

Exactly my point. I no longer have the respect for the Supreme Court I once had. But Loving vs Virginia is one case where the Constitution protected individual rights from States by virtue of the Courts. 
I know that Ron Paul has had his run ins with the Federal Court system because he feels they have taken license or extended the laws in areas that were not intended by Congress. In other words the Courts have become the most powerful branch of government and they have extended laws through interpretation. 

The only thing I would remind you of, is that Ron Paul works through the system and he operates within the law of the land. In fact his biggest complaint about Congress is that they too have extended what the Constitution called them to do. He will not do anything unconstitutional to weaken the Courts even where he disagrees with them. 

Meanwhile, we have the protection that you have highlighted with this case.

Now for your question about what if a State steps all over people’s
rights, let’s say Muslim, or something racial, or sexual? I believe he
will actively seek to stop it

Why do you believe this?

Paul is has a decades-long record of positions and statements that deny the full personhood of persons based on ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and gender.  He has failed to repudiate those statements, he has lied about those statements, he continued to make those statements.  (You’re right about his consistency, at least)

And I’m supposed to consider those rights somehow less “fundamental” than the soi-disant rights to buy raw milk and dose myself with poisonous roots marketed as “ginseng”?

In other words the Courts have become the most powerful branch of
government and they have extended laws through interpretation.

Do you (or Ron Paul) seriously believe that the writers of the Constitution INTENDED the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to inter-racial marriage?

If yes, where did you learn history?  (That’s a serious question.)

If no, why is Loving v Virginia NOT an inappropriate “extension” of rights through “interpretation” of the Constitution, according to you and/or Ron Paul?

Now for your question about what if a State steps all over people’s
rights, let’s say Muslim, or something racial, or sexual? I believe he
will actively seek to stop it. But he will not do it by edict. He
has been in Washington long enough and on enough committees to know how
to apply pressure at the right points.

What, like in Texas over the anti-sodomy laws that I have quoted to you three plus times where he said THEY HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DO THAT?

I think there may be things done at the State level that are wrong and bad for the country at first. Congress will have to learn how and where to intervene on behalf of individuals.

Like banning same-sex marriage? Under “Dr. Paul” who has said the state should decide that, so he wouldn’t WANT Congress to intervene?
Seriously, you are incomprehensible.

We are talking about different people. Unfortunately the one you are talking about doesn’t exist.

Now you’re getting it. We don’t have the right to direct each other’s lives. Your rights end with you, and my rights end with me. I would say “So we can have that protected by law.”

This whole argument has been based on the presumption that rights extend beyond the individual, which doesn’t compute. Any benefits beyond the individual are privileges not rights. 

When I say beyond the individual, I mean directing or imposing upon other people.

Holy crap. You are either the nastiest poster we’ve had here in quite a while or the most clueless. How in the hell do you figure that someone else’s marriage “directly imposes” on your bigoted self, but refusal to allow two people access to the civil benefits of marriage does not directly impose on them?

However, personal property rights are paramount in Dr. Paul’s value system.

I think this is the closest thing to a true statement you’ve made since this conversation began. Property is indeed at the top of the list of things Paul cares about. And you Paulbots wonder why more Progressives don’t support him.

The privileges you have referred to are not Constitutional rights or you would be legally granted them.

And we’re back to the ridiculous again. This is an entirely untrue statement. I have no idea how to respond to the fact that you don’t know that.

How? My question is how?

It will be necessary to check Charity’s post to see what I am responding to. 

I should also point out that I am not acting in any official capacity. I am a politically disenchanted independent who has stayed out of the voting booth for twenty years because I didn’t see anyone running for office who wasn’t a pawn of the Good Old Boys. 

Now for the quoted question. From what I have seen of Dr. Paul’s record, he views most participants in Congress, and for that matter all three branches of Federal government, as somewhat corrupt. What would he do to change that? 

First he would lead by example. He has already said he would reduce his salary to $39,00 per year which is the average median income. He has said he would not be running the show by edict ( as you indicated ). 

Second he would fully utilize his veto power to shape Congressional bills. This alone would give him considerable attention in Congress, no longer dismissing him as a radical. They, like the American people would have to “look beneath the hood” of his suggestions instead of unwisely rejecting them out of hand. He has thought things through much more than people once gave him credit for. They are now beginning to recognize what a visionary he is, and that he has been vindicated on many issues. 

Third he would utilize the full complement of US diplomats to pursue relationships with other countries regarding them as sovereign nations and demanding that they do the same for us. He has pointed out in the debates that we now have 12000 diplomats, and maybe we should use a few of them. 

He would take command of the military (as he made clear in one of the debates). In other words, he would not let the advice of the Pentagon be the determining factor as to whether we preemptively bomb someone or go in to remake a country’s political system. 

But most of all, he would teach the American people what he has already written about. This in turn will get their focus off of left/right issues and on to the real power games that have been played. Things like what I mentioned about the medical schools. THEN COMES THE NEXT ROUND OF ELECTIONS. And the American people will put into office the people who will accomplish real change. 

It won’t happen over night. But his message is already gaining very serious momentum on college campuses and in the independent community. His real battle is with the entrenched Republican establishment who controls much of the mainstream media. He never could have done this without the Internet, and they are trying their best to restrict it because everything they have planed and worked for so hard, in the way of control of the masses, is about to come tumbling down around them. They are about to be exposed as they have never been. 

If you are looking for someone to force Congress to straighten up without involving the American people in the process, I think you will be disappointed. So it will take time, but Ron Paul minces no words. 

what — as President — would Ron Paul do to protect LGBT people from discrimination, in marriage, in employment, in hospital visitation and inheritance rights?

Very honestly, I don’t think he would do much to directly actively improve LGBT rights. But he would teach us all what a free society could be. Read my quote from Liberty Defined below in response to Hapax concerning Marriage. He would start us as a society down the road to freedom and mutual respect.

Another little known “issue” that the establishment is scared of.. he
will eliminate the stranglehold on the number of medical universities
that the AMA has. That will make more doctors available and reduce the
cost of medical care across the board.

This is valid to the extent that the AMA and the medical schools do artificially restrict entry in order to drive up wages for doctors. However the answer is not to simply abolish everything to do with medicine. What does he actually envision as a long-term strategy here? Sure, doctor salaries might push the cost of medicine down through competition, but then they would be forced to advertise even more than they do now, which means the much-vaunted benefits sound more like they’d just be a wash*.

—

* in economics, usually used to mean costs and benefits cancel out, leaving things largely unchanged in terms of overall monetary gains/losses.

The question is whether the legal benefits of marriage are civil liberties.

HELL YES.
If you don’t understand that, you have no place arguing about it. Because that’s the heart of the whole matter: that it’s a fundamental right that’s being limited to a particular group, and expanding it to all consenting adults, as it should be, offends conservative religious figures, for reasons that have everything to do with their religious vies and NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with any kind of freedom or civil rights. Their arguments against same-sex marriage are the exact same ones they used against rights for women and against rights for blacks, and amount to ‘we’ll lose [some of] our white male privilege’.

 In other words, Ron Paul thinks that property rights are inalienable and natural, but personal civil rights are not. He just can’t come out and say so, because it would shoot down his entire campaign.

 He probably thinks that if something isn’t specifically named as a right in the Constitution, it doesn’t exist. He needs to read it again:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

That means that there are rights beyond those explicitly mentioned elsewhere in the Constitution.

He would take command of the military (as he made clear in one of
the debates). In other words, he would not let the advice of the
Pentagon be the determining factor as to whether we preemptively bomb
someone or go in to remake a country’s political system.

Has it ever been that way? I was always under the impression that “I listen to my generals!” is something that certain Presidents say to defuse criticism of their policy. I never really thought that we went into Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya or anywhere else recently because the Pentagon ordered the President to, but if that’s really not the case then good for him for standing up to them.

Third he would utilize the full complement of US diplomats to pursue
relationships with other countries regarding them as sovereign nations
and demanding that they do the same for us. He has pointed out in the debates that we now have 12000 diplomats, and maybe we should use a few of them.

Isn’t that something we already do? I mean, we already have a Department of State. We already work with other countries directly as well as through organizations such as the UN and NATO.  Recently Hillary Clinton (the US Secretary of State) held talks with the leader of Burma (Myanmar) as well as with the released opposition lead Aung San Suu Kyi, and it was just a few days ago that they released hundreds of political prisoners held by the previous ruling junta.

Are there a lot of problems with US foreign policy? Sure. Is it fair to imply that the US doesn’t “pursue relationships with other countries” or doesn’t use its thousands of diplomats? Not really. Again, I think Ron Paul could do a lot of good here if he can repair the ‘bad’ parts of our foreign policy but he’s going to have to acknowledge what’s already happened.

I should also point out that I am not acting in any official capacity. I
am a politically disenchanted independent who has stayed out of the
voting booth for twenty years because I didn’t see anyone running for
office who wasn’t a pawn of the Good Old Boys.

Sorry if I’m kind of putting you on the spot like that. I don’t really expect you to know in every detail what Ron Paul would theoretically do in the future — I was just trying to gain some specifics as to how Paul might get his agenda through a system that he and his followers seem to regard with naked contempt. It’s going to take a lot of political capital on the part of Congress to get a lot of these things done; we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in right now (politically, economically, socially) if a majority of American voters didn’t want it that way, so I get the feeling that it’s not just going to be Ron Paul vs. The Establishment but Ron Paul and his Allies vs. Lots of Other People.

First he would lead by example. He has already said he
would reduce his salary to $39,00 per year which is the average median
income. He has said he would not be running the show by edict ( as you
indicated ).

That doesn’t matter to me. 40K or 400K – that’s less than a fraction of a percentage of the federal budget and doesn’t mean anything unless he’s going to do something about the fact that the average median income is so low or the unemployment rate is so high or that income inequality in the United States is so ridiculous.

Second he would fully utilize his veto power to shape Congressional bills. This alone would give him considerable attention in Congress, no longer dismissing him as a radical. They, like the American people would have to “look beneath the hood” of his suggestions
instead of unwisely rejecting them out of hand. He has thought things
through much more than people once gave him credit for. They are now
beginning to recognize what a visionary he is, and that he has been
vindicated on many issues.

That’s good. I’m not sure I’m fond of any plan that predicates on “the American people” all having the same revelation about how super-wonderful a politician is, but I see what you’re saying about drawing attention to issues and forcing Congress to negotiate with him.

But most of all, he would teach the American people what he has already written about.
This in turn will get their focus off of left/right issues and on to
the real power games that have been played. Things like what I mentioned
about the medical schools. THEN COMES THE NEXT ROUND OF ELECTIONS. And
the American people will put into office the people who will accomplish
real change.

What if they don’t? What if he pulls out all that stuff about “END THE FED” and “baskets of competing currencies” and turns a lot of people off?

Very
honestly, I don’t think he would do much to directly actively improve
LGBT rights. But he would teach us all what a free society could be.
Read my quote from Liberty Defined below in response to Hapax concerning
Marriage. He would start us as a society down the road to freedom and
mutual respect.

Can you see how that might bother liberals? It sounds like an interesting book, but I think most of us have at least a vague concept of what freedom means. We don’t need someone to ‘describe’ it to us — every politician can describe things. We need someone who can turn that vision into reality.

But most of all, he would teach the American people what he has already written about.

Oh! Goodie! Do we all get to learn that AIDS is your own damn fault for being a drug user or gay?

Or maybe that if you’re sexually harassed, find another job, because who cares about someone’s right to a decent workplace, it’s more important that people have the right to be assholes?

Wait, let me clarify: harassment is bad. Except sexual harassment. We already had harassment laws. So, somehow, the fact that those could not be applied to sexual harassment meant we were fine as we were.

It’s so out of touch with reality–the idea that people can or will vote for businesses as employers or manufacturers/producers/distributors/service providers that are allowed to discriminate and harass. Yeah, because you can just…find another job! Or pay an extra $100 a week or month to shop somewhere else!

Oh, right. We only care about the people with pre-existing safety nets, don’t we? The ones who CAN afford to do things like that.

Or we live in our magical wonderland where that somehow describes everyone.

His fans aren’t over the top just because of his charisma. It’s because they know they have finally found someone who can and will take on the establishment over many fundamental liberty oriented issues, like the right of a patient to contract with a doctor, like the right to sell raw milk, like the right to use any natural supplement without FDA meddling. to smoke pot and not pay taxes

Fixed that for you.

Seriously, I’ve known a lot of Ron Paul supporters, and they all fell into one of a very small number of groups:

1. Rich douchebags who wanted more freedom to profit by screwing over the less fortunate while not paying taxes
2. Young douchebags who want to smoke pot and think that four years at a private college on mom and dad’s dime means that they “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps”
3. Misanthropic douchebags who want the right to shoot those god damned kids if they cut through his yard one more time.

Douchebags: demonstrably harmful despite pervasive marketing trying to persuade us they are essential.

I don’t mean that anything unconstitutional automatically won’t get done. Or that they will automatically be enforced. I’m just saying that if these privileges were constitutional rights you would have legal standing to sue for implementation of those rights. And the fact that you don’t have such legal standing, is evidence that those privileges are not fundamental, or at least constitutionally fundamental, rights.

 They, like the American people would have to “look beneath the hood” of his suggestions instead of unwisely rejecting them out of hand.

I think you’re confused here. Because it’s *when you “look beneath the hood”* of Ron Paul’s ideas that you see what a racist, sexist, homophobic, privilege-protecting, poor-crushing pile of drek his ENTIRE PHILOSOPHY is. 

Ron Paul doesn’t *want* people looking “under the hood” — he wants them to go “Freedom!”, “Liberty!”, “Low Taxes!” and stop before they get to the real horrorshow bits. When people “look beneath the hood”, they start asking uncomfortable questions like “Should we let sick poor people die?” or “So we should have just let Hitler take over as much of the world as he wanted as long as he stayed outside *our* borders?” or “So it’s okay with you if the bus company wants to force blacks to sit at the back of the bus?” or “Wait, did you really just say that sexual harassment should be legal?” — and those are the questions that he CAN NOT answer honestly if he actually wants to get elected.

His ideas are cheap parlor tricks, using high-minded ideas about “Liberty!” and “Property rights!” to make shallow-minded or unempathetic people latch on to his ideas and get invested before they realize that none of his ideas amount to anything more than “Protect those who already have wealth and power, and help them accumulate more by ending any sort of restriction on how they grind it out of those who do not.”

That argument doesn’t make any sense as written. If you admit that sometimes things that are unconstitutional still happen, then don’t you have to admit that it’s possible that some people have certain constitutional rights that haven’t been implemented yet? The fact that someone’s rights are being violated isn’t proof that they don’t really have them.

(Besides, it’s not like there aren’t any lawsuits over this issue, so even if your argument that ‘lacking the legal standing to sue is proof that you don’t have rights’ were true, it wouldn’t make any difference because as far as I know, Perry v. Schwarzenegger hasn’t been overturned yet.

In his book he doesn’t say what to do about the problem. He describes the problem in detail ascribing it to the Flexner Report of 1910. He follows up the discussion of freeing the production of doctors with:

“The point is not to endorse one or another theory of medicine. The point is that we need consumer choice and the process of market-based improvements to take over. To this end, we need to remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care. We must further remove the threat of regulations pushed by the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives. True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not more government meddling.”

He goes on to say that Obama has been unfairly characterized with his medical care plan as his reforms have been very similar to reforms pushed by Republicans over decades. 

Has it ever been that way? I was always under the impression that “I listen to my generals!” is something that certain Presidents say to defuse criticism of their policy. I never really thought that we went into Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya or anywhere else recently because the Pentagon ordered the President to, but if that’s really not the case then good for him for standing up to them.

I’m not suggesting that the Pentagon ordered the President to do anything. But there is a strong tendency to advise military campaigns that can get us into trouble. I’m also not suggesting that Ron Paul would not hear out whatever his generals would have to tell him. I’m basing my comments on a round of questions in one of the debates where several of the other candidates said they would take the advice of the generals and Dr. Paul said he would pull out the troops aggressively irrespective of the advice of his generals. 

Isn’t that something we already do? (referring to use of diplomacy)

Yes. But this is a key issue. Picture the world ten years from now as a community of sovereign nations that respect each other’s right to govern even though their form of government is unlike ours. Now picture it as it would be if we are all subject to the United Nations and the World Health Organization where their edicts are enforced on our soil. Both scenarios are possible. We have the opportunity to stop bullying other countries and set the example of dealing with countries more diplomatically, or to occupy them and in some cases reconstruct them. Today Presidents, both Democratic and Republican deal with foreign countries very heavy handedly, and our military is in 135 countries. Joe Biden was right when he said the Taliban is not our enemy. But the right sees red when they hear talk like that. 

… we wouldn’t be in the situation we are in right now (politically, economically, socially) if a majority of American voters didn’t want it that way, so I get the feeling that it’s not just going to be Ron Paul vs. The Establishment but Ron Paul and his Allies vs. Lots of Other People.

Yes. It will be as you describe. The status-quo isn’t going to pack up and leave town the day he gets elected. We’ll still have to put up with a centrally controlled media who will try to shoot him down at every turn, just like they have Obama. But his message is clearly different from Obama’s actions. 

That doesn’t matter to me. 40K or 400K

Of course. I just meant he would set a tone. As far as the economy is concerned he has published a detailed five year budget. That would, of course, have to be implemented by Congress, and we know that won’t happen until there is a changing of the guard as I described earlier. But part of it is based on restructuring that will take place directly under his command. 

What if they don’t? What if he pulls out all that stuff about “END THE FED” and “baskets of competing currencies” and turns a lot of people off?

To quote form his book, End The Fed:”And today, even though many liberal and conservative politicians join the Populists’ push for easy money and low interest rates, we all can join together in demanding that the secrecy of the Fed be ended.  Reforms will follow, and then we will make the case for constitutional, sound money.” So you can see even he is not expecting things to change overnight. There will have to be an investigative and educational process. 

Can you see how that might bother liberals? It sounds like an interesting book, but I think most of us have at least a vague concept of what freedom means. We don’t need someone to ‘describe’ it to us — every politician can describe things. We need someone who can turn that vision into reality.

Yes. But he can’t do it by himself. And I wouldn’t want to elect someone who aspired to. But right now at least, his ideas are catching fire. People are as excited over his concepts as they are his record of consistency (his trustworthiness). And its not just one. Its a whole series.

Oh! Goodie! Do we all get to learn that AIDS is your own damn fault for being a drug user or gay?

Not really. When the topic of the OWS protesters was discussed in the Republican debates, Ron Paul stood up for the protesters. He openly criticized his peers for blaming the victims of the mismanagement of Wall Street, and more so the failures of government and of the monetary system that allowed such abuse. 

This is at the time when the popular thing to do (within the right) was to condemn the protesters, as his peers were doing. You can see why he is having such a hard time being accepted by these people. 

This will be my last post for a couple of days. It’s been nice.

So, you just deflect something he has published in a book with his name on it by bringing up something totally irrelevant to the fact that he actually said that?

Awesome.

Of course, part of the reason why you had the ‘must flush twice’ toilets after the initial regulations was because of the way the free market responded.

There are essentially two ways to make a low-flush toilet.  The simple and cheap way was to take a normal toilet and reduce the size of the tank.  The problem with that, of course, is that the weight of the water in the tank also produces the pressure of the flush, so reducing the amount of water reduced the weight, and thus the pressure.  Hence, the simple approach produces toilets that don’t work as well.

There are numerous better approaches that increase the effective pressure while keeping the smaller tank.  All of these took more design effort and less off-the-shelf parts than just reducing the tank size, and thus all of them were more expensive to start with, though the prices have long since become comparable again.

Now, think about contractors installing hundreds of toilets in a new apartment building.  Regulations require that they install low-flush toilets.  They can either install the cheap toilets, or the ones that actually work the way they’re supposed to.  They also know that by the time anybody discovers the toilets don’t work well, they will be off at the next building at the people getting heat will be the superintendent, not them.  Which do you think the contractors will choose?

And, as a result of contractors choosing cheap over working, a good chunk of a generation ‘knew’ that low-flush toilets must be lousy, because they had only ever been exposed to the cheap ones.

And, indeed, when I got over myself and actually tried a modern low-flush toilet, I found that, in fact, they flush just fine and have for years. It was just my disasterous first encounter with one of the early low-flush models that had left me spending years railing against them.

I’m told that automakers go out of their way to make mandated safety features obtrusive and unpleasant in order to undermine public support for future safety mandates. (The seatbelts in my wife’s car have this feature where if you extend them all the way, as you might just to *put them on* if you’re a larger person, they lock, and will not unlock unless retracted all the way,, forcing you to either take off the seatbelt while driving, or slowly asphyxiate as the belt ratchets in every time you inhale, like a boa constrictor)

“The point is not to endorse one or another theory of medicine. The
point is that we need consumer choice and the process of market-based
improvements to take over. To this end, we need to remove any obstacles
for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current
medical care. We must further remove the threat of regulations pushed by
the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives.
True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not
more government meddling.”

And I can practically hear Orac and some of the other Science-Based Medicine people screaming from here.

I agree that more doctors need to be made available.  Opening the field up to the quacks is not the answer.  There’s more than enough of that going on already.

You know what they call ‘alternative medicine’ that actually works?  Medicine.  If any of this stuff actually passed tests that showed it worked better than giving people a sugar pill and lying about it, it would be used.  As it is, the best of the ‘holistic alternatives’ are mostly just giving people a sugar pill and lying about it (see homeopathy, which basically boils down to claiming that water keeps a memory via sympathetic magic to cure things); some of the techniques of things like colloidal silver can be actively harmful.

the right of a patient to contract with a doctor, like the right to sell
raw milk, like the right to use any natural supplement without FDA
meddling.

But I don’t want doctors to have the right to say “Well, how much is your life and health worth to you?” And I don’t want people to have the right to sell milk that might be infected with fuck knows what. And I don’t want ‘natural supplements’ to be sold without the “warning, not rigorously tested” or “warning, tested and not found effective” label. These are all places where allowing the right you speak of requires trampling on my rights.

Exactly my point. I no longer have the respect for the Supreme Court I once had. But Loving vs Virginia is one case where the Constitution protected individual rights from States by virtue of the Courts.

How can you say I’m making your point when you’re missing mine? Is the ability to marry someone of the same sex a right? Will the answer be the same when Perry et al win Perry v Brown in the Supreme Court?

I’m just saying that if these privileges were constitutional rights you
would have legal standing to sue for implementation of those rights. And
the fact that you don’t have such legal standing, is evidence that
those privileges are not fundamental, or at least constitutionally
fundamental, rights.

Read up on Perry v Brown, formerly known as Perry v Schwarzenegger.

He would take command of the military (as he made clear in one of the debates). In other words, he would not let the advice of the Pentagon be the determining factor as to whether we preemptively bomb someone or go in to remake a country’s political system.  

 
This statement displays a serious lack of understand of how the Pentagon interacts with the White House, boarding on naivete. At the same time it’s incredibly arrogant. That is not a combination that is going to benefit the country and no one with any real understanding of the history of American foreign policy would think that it will. 

 But most of all, he would teach the American people what he has already written about. This in turn will get their focus off of left/right issues and on to the real power games that have been played.  

Well, that’s not patronizing at all. 

ISTR that the US military advised Dubya Bush against his adventurism. Contrary to popular opinion, although the military tends to inculcate He-Man machoness among its members and this leaks out into the civilian population, the Joint Chiefs of Staff don’t like quagmires any more than you or I would, and anyone could easily figure out that Iraq adventurism would be exactly that.

Yes, Saddam was a bad bad man*, but that also meant that if the USA were to be serious about removing him, then Dubya Bush should have thought further ahead than just “wave the US military around like his personal billy club”.

—

* Has anyone noticed the child-like way such conflicts tend to get simplified down to these days? The only mistake Dubya did was get so cringeworthily personal about it that it was immediately obvious how fake the rationalization was.

Misanthropic douchebags who want the right to shoot those god damned kids if they cut through his yard one more time.

Hey! Be fair.  I never said I wanted to *shoot* them.

I just said that I didn’t see why I shouldn’t lay out caltrops.

Picture the world ten years from now as a community of sovereign nations
that respect each other’s right to govern even though their form of
government is unlike ours. Now picture it as it would be if we are all
subject to the United Nations and the World Health Organization where
their edicts are enforced on our soil.

“You may say that I’m a dreamer,
But I’m not the only one.
I hope some day you’ll join us,
And the world will be as one…”

Opening the field up to the quacks is not the answer.

The suggestion I ran into, years ago, was to license the quacks as quacks and make them keep accurate, complete records of what they do and how they do it and which patients with what conditions responded how. In other words, turn their work into useful research, which, if they actually have something, might become accepted practice.

Picture the world ten years from now as a community of sovereign nations that respect each other’s right to govern even though their form of government is unlike ours. Now picture it as it would be if we are all subject to the United Nations and the World Health Organization where their edicts are enforced on our soil.

First of all, that isn’t going to happen any time soon.
Second, we’re not so special that we shouldn’t be treated like we treat other countries.
Third, WHO is (AFAIK) competent and good at their work: they were the ones running the program that killed smallpox as a disease.

So Ron Paul is out of touch with reality and shouldn’t be president.

“Subject to the United Nations edicts”? Ah, now we’re in Nicolae Carpathia territory.

The suggestion I ran into, years ago, was to license the quacks as quacks
and make them keep accurate, complete records of what they do and how
they do it and which patients with what conditions responded how. In
other words, turn their work into useful research, which, if they
actually have something, might become accepted practice.

The phrase “license the quacks as quacks” conjures up the image of an office like a doctor’s office, but somewhere, posted in prominent view as required by law, is a paper with a lot of fine print and a large picture of a duck in the upper lefthand corner.

 
I don’t mean that anything unconstitutional automatically won’t get done. Or that they will automatically be enforced. I’m just saying that if these privileges were constitutional rights you would have legal standing to sue for implementation of those rights. And the fact that you don’t have such legal standing, is evidence that those privileges are not fundamental, or at least constitutionally fundamental, rights.  

You apparently have some very large gaps in your knowledge of the history of Constitutional law and your understanding of the Civil Rights movement. Either that or you’re perfectly fine with legal rights applying to a very narrow group of people, mostly white male property owners. We’ve already established that you aren’t particularly good at seeing things from the point of view of people who, unlike you, are not members of the dominant group, so I’m guessing that the second thing is playing a significant role. 

 
“The point is not to endorse one or another theory of medicine. The point is that we need consumer choice and the process of market-based improvements to take over. To this end, we need to remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care. We must further remove the threat of regulations pushed by the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives. True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not more government meddling.”  

So, you feel that you have all the knowledge and time you need to exercise “free choice” in medical care, even in the face of fraudulent advertising? I assume that you have a job and other responsibilities and interests and therefore do not plan to devote yourself to the issue full time. That means that you’ll need to expend effort wisely by focusing on the conditions for which you will require treatment and ignoring those that will not effect you. How confident are you that you know exactly which illnesses and diseases will effect you? What do you plan to do if you’re wrong and find yourself faced with an emergency situation about which you do not have the knowledge required to make an informed choice?

Dr Paul’s plan is an open invitation to every quack, fraud and charlatan in the world to set up shop in the US and kill desperate people. 

 
I’m not suggesting that the Pentagon ordered the President to do anything. But there is a strong tendency to advise military campaigns that can get us into trouble  

Again, this statement displays your ignorance of how the Pentagon and the White House interact on issues of use of force. To the extent that you got your ideas on this issue from Ron Paul, Ron Paul is clearly ill-informed about the issue. 

To be clear, the military is often much less inclined to use military force than the civilian leadership. Something to do with the fact that they’re the ones actually getting shot at. That was certainly true in the case of the Iraq war. The decisions that screwed things up in Afghanistan were the work of the Bush administration as well. 

It is true that the Air Force has sometimes been a bit free with the idea of solving problems with bombers (the Cuban Missile Crisis is a notable example) and the Army has been known to escalate conflicts beyond all reason (good morning Viet Nam), but the idea that the Pentagon always seeks a military solution in order to justify its existence or increase its budget or whatever is an idea held pretty much exclusively by people who have never actually looked at the issue. 

Ultimately it doesn’t matter all that much if you don’t understand any of this. No voter, most definitely including me, knows about every issue. It does matter if a person running for president doesn’t understand it. Especially since it’s part of one of his key bits of campaign rhetoric.  

TL; DR: The idea that foreign policy and military issues are among Ron Paul’s strong suits is painfully false. 

 
I’m not suggesting that the Pentagon ordered the President to do anything. But there is a strong tendency to advise military campaigns that can get us into trouble  

Again, this statement displays your ignorance of how the Pentagon and the White House interact on issues of use of force. To the extent that you got your ideas on this issue from Ron Paul, Ron Paul is clearly ill-informed about the issue. 

To be clear, the military is often much less inclined to use military force than the civilian leadership. Something to do with the fact that they’re the ones actually getting shot at. That was certainly true in the case of the Iraq war. The decisions that screwed things up in Afghanistan were the work of the Bush administration as well. 

It is true that the Air Force has sometimes been a bit free with the idea of solving problems with bombers (the Cuban Missile Crisis is a notable example) and the Army has been known to escalate conflicts beyond all reason (good morning Viet Nam), but the idea that the Pentagon always seeks a military solution in order to justify its existence or increase its budget or whatever is an idea held pretty much exclusively by people who have never actually looked at the issue. 

Ultimately it doesn’t matter all that much if you don’t understand any of this. No voter, most definitely including me, knows about every issue. It does matter if a person running for president doesn’t understand it. Especially since it’s part of one of his key bits of campaign rhetoric.  

TL; DR: The idea that foreign policy and military issues are among Ron Paul’s strong suits is painfully false. 

the Army has been known to escalate conflicts beyond all reason (good morning Viet Nam)

I think they had a lot of help from civilians on that one, too. (Domino theory and Macnamara and Henry K come to mind.)

the Army has been known to escalate conflicts beyond all reason (good morning Viet Nam)

I think they had a lot of help from civilians on that one, too. (Domino theory and Macnamara and Henry K come to mind.)

The only mistake Dubya did was get so cringeworthily personal about it
that it was immediately obvious how fake the rationalization was.

it was hardly the ONLY mistake, but it was definitely one of the biggest ones.

The only mistake Dubya did was get so cringeworthily personal about it
that it was immediately obvious how fake the rationalization was.

it was hardly the ONLY mistake, but it was definitely one of the biggest ones.

Third, WHO is (AFAIK) competent and good at their work: they were the ones running the program that killed smallpox as a disease.

But in this country, we care about *LIBERTY*.  Who the fuck are the WHO to tell pme I can’t have smallpox if I want it?

And think of the economic opportunities they RUINED in the reconstructive pox-mark surgery industry.

Third, WHO is (AFAIK) competent and good at their work: they were the ones running the program that killed smallpox as a disease.

But in this country, we care about *LIBERTY*.  Who the fuck are the WHO to tell pme I can’t have smallpox if I want it?

And think of the economic opportunities they RUINED in the reconstructive pox-mark surgery industry.

I can’t imagine that quacks would go for a system that requires them to keep written evidence of how everything they do is ineffective

 
I think they had a lot of help from civilians on that one, too. (Domino theory and Macnamara and Henry K come to mind.)  

This is definitely true. In US history it’s difficult to find cases of militarism run amok without at minimum a strong civilian component. The Pentagon just isn’t as anxious to go to war as many people seem to think it is. 

The reasons for that are both good and bad, so no one should think I’m being all “Hooyah Pentagon” or anything, but when we’re looking for the roots of military engagements we should not have been in we’re mostly going to find them somewhere other than The Building. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrAXfIdRqmU

ACLU Report Card Puts Ron Paul Above President Obama

Yup, with basically nothing to lose and no ability to effect the outcome of much of anything Paul had a better voting record than the person who actually has to fight the GOP to get things done. 

Obama is a huge disappointment in many areas, but that doesn’t make Ron Paul some sort of savior. 

It’s also worth noting that the one thing for which Obama got a perfect score is gay rights and Ron Paul is and would be a total disaster in that area. 

Ron Paul: Bad for QUITBAG folks. Bad for women. Bad for racial minorities. Staggeringly bad on immigration. Clueless about the Pentagon. Delusional about the gold standard. But terrific in theory on Gitmo. Go Paul!

It’s not exactly as if beating Obama on civil rights when you’re an ineffectual congressperson is some kind of achievement. I mean, most of us probably have a better record than him anyway, solely by virtue of never being in a position where we could do anything bad even if we wanted to.

Incidentally, Gary Johnson beats Ron Paul in nearly every single category, from gay rights (he opposes DOMA, supports same-sex marriage (not just civil unions, and supported the repeal of DADT) to racial profiling (he opposes the SB 1070 law in Texas).

It’s also important to point out that while Ron Paul takes a strong principled stand against torture, secret prisons, and other such crimes, Barack Obama actually did something about those things.

(That’s been my problem with Paul in general — he has the right idea on a lot of issues, but he doesn’t seem interested in actually putting them into effect. Obama closed the CIA secret prisons and forced the CIA and the military to restrict interrogation methods to the legal methods outlined in the Army Field Manual using executive orders. If Paul refuses to use executive orders, he will essentially be forced to ask Congress to do it for him, and one would think that the passage of such things as USAPATRIOT and the NDAA would make that an unpalatable solution to human rights violations.)

Obama closed the CIA secret prisons and forced the CIA and the military
to restrict interrogation methods to the legal methods outlined in the
Army Field Manual using executive orders.

Maybe. There were so many weaseling statements there that I can’t say that any of that is true. And they revised the Field Manual so as to allow some stuff that they shouldn’t allow.

spin spin spin

fanboy fanboy fanboy

If you’ve lost interest in even attempting to argue, and can’t muster up more than a vaguely contemptuous sneer at other people’s points, that’s generally a sign you should leave the discussion. 

fanboy fanboy fanboy

If you’ve lost interest in even attempting to argue, and can’t
muster up more than a vaguely contemptuous sneer at other people’s
points, that’s generally a sign you should leave the discussion.

Hold on, now.

Maybe that wasn’t a snarky reference to the points of others.

Maybe he just got tired of typing whole messages and figured “spin spin spin” would cover his usual approach in a more economic way, without having to think through all the minutiae of envisioning magical worlds. So, you know, a very succinct version of his own response with no window dressing.

I respect that. The free market is driven by a pursuit of efficiency. If we can boil down complicated policy disputes into snarky, contentless catchphrases that can fit neatly on a sign (“9-9-9″!), it would definitely make having a discussion much easier.

Maybe.
There were so many weaseling statements there that I can’t say that any
of that is true. And they revised the Field Manual so as to allow some
stuff that they shouldn’t allow.

Well, damn. I was just going by the ACLU website on that one. Probably should have done more research, huh?

I think we can continue many of the conversations on Ron Paul with:
“Valid point of information”
“spin spin spin”
“Acceptance of very small true portion of spun response, with further confirmation of prior information”
“Spin spin spin”

Which, you’re right–way easier! (plus, if he just continues to admit straight up that his posts consist of spinning, the need to respond dissipates!)

I thought it was a clever response and I thought it was clear that I was saying YOU were spinning, sorry if that wasn’t clear

Ron Paul got a higher grade than Obama. He didn’t not get a higher grade than him and yet, you tried to make it look that way which is called spinning.

The best defense I guess was that Gary Johnsons score was higher though Johnson is also a republican/ libertarian.

anyone else want to try to spin the fact that Paul got a higher score than Obama some more? Come on,  show everyone had totally disingenous you can really be.

ako-  I’m not making an argument. My point is that ron Paul scored higher than Obama. there is no argument about that from anyone as far as I can tell.

Is someone going to attack the ACLU now?

Ron Paul got a higher grade than Obama. He didn’t not get a higher grade
than him and yet, you tried to make it look that way which is called
spinning.

No.  People didn’t deny the grade.  We discussed the relevance of the grade.  We tried to put it into context.

Y’know, all that hard “thinking”-type stuff that the Ron Paul campaign wishes to free us from.

After all, I took the SATs the same year that Michael Jordan and got a MUCH higher grade.  Does that mean that UNC should have offered me a full basketball scholarship?

hapax- that was decent spin but I think you can do better.

I thought you were serious about wanting to discuss this issue, but apparently you’re just trying to rile people up now. That’s really disappointing. Ron Paul seems like a thoughtful, intelligent person but he probably has the most irritating cyber fanclub of any candidate. I don’t agree with him on much of anything but I have a hell of a lot more respect for him than I do for his lazy, glib Internet fanboys.

It’s hard to follow the many different conversations here, but I must say that some of you attacking Ron Paul are the ones that sound like you’re just trying to rile people up.  Especially Lori.  I don’t typically read all the comments, but her posts in this thread are so snarky and over the top I can see how it’s really hard to engage in a real discussion.  I actually thought that the “fanboys” were relatively respectful in their responses.  I’m not sure why everyone is getting so apoplectic about Ron Paul especially when he’s not likely to win the nomination.  I think the things he speaks out against, whether you agree with his position or underlying reasoning or not, are important and need more national attention, things like: (1) Patriot Act and NDAA, (2) the failed war on drugs, (3) crony capitalism and regulatory capture, (4) debasement of the dollar, (5) unending foreign wars, (6) the deficit and the debt, (7) gitmo, just to name a few.  It’s true, he is not a big supporter of marriage equality and abortion rights in the progressive vein, issues that many of you care about, but that doesn’t mean you can discredit him on all these other matters.  If I were to characterize those issues as “pet” issues everyone here would freak out.  Sounds like a double standard to me.  There are a lot of candidates on the left and right that I think are terrible, but I wouldn’t vilify them they way many of you are vilifying Ron Paul, it’s really not helpful.

If you think the ACLU score is really important and people are underestimating the significance of it, then say something, don’t just throw out “spin spin spin” and expect us to interpret it as part of a discussion.  (Similarly, if you think “Some liberals support position X” means anything, say so and don’t just assume that we all know why you think it’s significant and find that information somehow persuasive.)

And could you please stop strawmanning people?  If you’re seriously trying to anticipate people’s arguments, you are really bad at it, and need to stop doing it.  If you’re deliberately setting up easy-to-knock-down strawmen rather than reply to people’s actual points, you’re trying to create the illusion of winning the argument without making an honest effort to participate in one, which is cheap and low.

Either way, cut it out.

ako- all i did was point out the ACLU’s findings.

And your reason for that was?  Did you mean for us to draw some sort of conclusion from that, or were you merely mentioning any interesting bit of trivia you stumbled across? 

Because if it’s the latter, the largest documented manta ray was more than twenty-five feet across and weighed nearly three thousand pounds. 

Because if
it’s the latter, the largest documented manta ray was more than
twenty-five feet across and weighed nearly three thousand pounds.

Bullshit. That’s just what the big pro-manta corporate lobbies want you to think.

I’m terribly sorry that I don’t meet your standards for discussion Dean. It’s difficult not to snark in the face of things like this: 

 It’s true, he is not a big supporter of marriage equality and abortion rights in the progressive vein, 

which is an early contender for understatement of the year. 

 but that doesn’t mean you can discredit him on all these other matters.  

This is true. Paul’s racism, homophobia and misogyny do not automatically discredit him on all other matters. However, they do quite effectively discredit him on the issues that the fanboys repeatedly inform us are Paul’s strengths. I would not under any circumstances trust a man with Paul’s clearly stated and oft-demonstrated views on women, racial minorities and people who are not heterosexual on any issue of civil rights, the Constitution or individual liberty. 

http://www.aclulibertywatch.org/ALWCandidateReportCard.pdf

^full ACLU report. I wonder if Glenn Greenwald or someone like that will lead some kind of left libertarian movement.

So you decide to spam everyone with the same point over and over again while not actually admitting to having any kind of point?  That’s both obnoxious and pathetic.

Because if it’s the latter, the largest documented manta ray was more
than twenty-five feet across and weighed nearly three thousand pounds.

Rays are one of the groups of animals (I almost said “families” but I’m aware of my extreme shortcomings at taxonomy, especially with a mother who has a doctorate in reproductive physiology and her BS from Cornell, which she *worked* through–yes, she has THAT doctorate and later became a Methodist minister) that I have always just loved.

Would you be my new best friend for choosing *that* fact to share? that is AWESOME.

I’m always happy to bond over the awesomeness of rays!