Parts of the Problem

[solarbird]

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leadership backs retroactive immunity for blatant lawbreaking, shutting off the only functional avenue for investigation.

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leaders help you appoint judges who rule that your many of your constituents are unfit to have children.

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leaders cooperation moves the pro-torture party's leadership to tears of joy.

It's part of the problem when "opposition" leaders provide the key support to getting pro-torture appointees through the Senate they control. But I suppose they do get Beltway press support for it, and that's all that matters within the New Court at Versailles.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I think you've got a pretty fair shot with this dude; he's very strictly constitutional. Read here (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/06/paul/index.html).

(Exec. summary: This ain't your average Republican.)

[solarbird]

You can rest assured that I know who Mr. Paul is already.

[wrog]

This ain't your average Republican.

True. In some ways, he's even more crazy. Less so in others, perhaps, but I'm not sure the balance is all that positive.

he's very strictly constitutional.

On what planet?

I suppose if your copy of the US Constitution happens to be missing the 1st, 9th, 14th and 16th amendments, then you might have a leg to stand on.

In short, his constitution evidently doesn't have an Establishment Clause (i.e., no church/state separation). Also his take on free speech is decidedly unorthodox; flag-burning should be banned, but cross-burning is a.o.k! He is virulently anti-abortion, anti-contraception, basically anti-family planning in any way shape or form. And just forget about any kind of gay rights.

So this whole idea that he's a libertarian (at least in the sense that "libertarian" means anything at all) is just a complete lie. It's true that he is about destroying the power of the federal government, but that includes destroying the power of the federal government to protect rights, too (cf. the various "We the People" bills he's sponsored to remove the jurisdiction of the federal courts in equal-protection cases involving religion or sexual orientation).

About the only amendment he seems to really really care about is the 2nd and there it's complete absolutism, having sponsored legislation to remove a whole raft of restrictions on gun ownership (convicted murderers owning guns? No problem!)

Anyway, Paul is a nasty piece of work. Read here or here or maybe here, which also cover why, if elected, he would not only not halt the slide toward authoritarianism but would most likely accelerate it.

Admittedly, that last part is more about his militia-nutcase followers and the ways in which he legitimizes them, than about the carefully sanitized views he directly spouts himself. Main point is his playing of the Fear Card is every bit as bad if not worse than what GWB has done and what a President Giuliani would do -- just because it's NWO/Black-Helicopter Fear rather than Islamofascism Fear does not decrease the danger -- and unlike with Giuliani, there's a whole bunch of brownshirts out there ready to back him up.

[solarbird]

Rep. Paul routinely introduces bills to amend the Constitution in protest of legislation which has the same effect. The flag-burning amendment, for example, was such a case. He asserts that any such law is plainly unconsitutional; therefore, if you're going to throw a law at it, that's bullshit on its face and you should introduce an amendment instead, which he has a habit of doing and then voting against, as well as voting against the law in question. That's rather the opposite of stating that the first amendment doesn't exist; it's stating that it certainly does exist and if you want to do this you have to amend it.

You'll note he introduces a lot of Federal amendments.

He is definitively anti-abortion, stating that he wants control over reproductive rights at the state level, not the Federal. I, obviously, disagree with this. He and I have similar disagreements on many other issues, where I think it should not be controlled by government at all. However, this is also consistent, for better or for worse, with Federalist Libertarianism. It is not my preferred libertarianism (big- or small-L) wherein one of the legitimate powers - one of the shortlist of legitimate internal powers - of a central government should be to protect rights of citizens not only from outside, and not only from itself, but from abuse by local governments.

[wrog]

"Federalist Libertarianism" in the sense that the Bill of Rights only applies to the federal government and that state and local governments should be able to abuse people however they want, is a disingenuous abuse of language.

It may be a self-consistent position, but the people who hold it, to the extent they care about individual liberty at all, are the ones who are somehow worried about the federal government but simultaneously confident that the states&locals will never infringe on the liberties they care about. It's rather difficult to have this kind of confidence unless one has (or thinks one has) local majorities to enforce one's views. And really, the only reason to be opposed to having Federal-level protections is if it turns out the Feds are trying to protect stuff that you don't want protected.

... and gosh-whattaya-know 99.5% of the time it turns out to be people who are pissed off by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the school-prayer rulings, Brown v. Board of Education, Lawrence v. Texas, you name it. I'm sure this is a huge coincidence. And it's sure nice to be able to call oneself "libertarian" because for some reason that sounds nicer than "bigotted, racist pricks who miss the days when they had the niggers and queers well in hand".

With respect to Ron Paul's flag-burning amendments, I would be very interested to know if

1. he's stated any kind of opposition to such legislation coming from state & local governments, or if
2. there've been any instances of his rushing to the defense of DFH anti-war protestors burning flags (hm, how often does this happen really?) similar to his defense of white supremacists burning crosses.

[wrog]

Hm. looks like Dave Niewert has done the followup on flag-burning that I was too lazy to do and answered the question for me.

Apparently, Ron Paul indeed has no problem whatsoever with prohibiting flagburning at the state/local level.