AmericanPapist Comments
Hardly knew anything about Ron Paul till a few weeks ago. But he has my attention now. Will look forward to your comments.
Who in the heck is Ron Paul?
Ron Paul's biggest problem is that he wants to pull out of Iraq immediately. It seems unreasonable that anyone could support a complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq. It would be suicide for the US and for Iraq.
While I understand there may be no "perfect" candidate, we must discern with our formed conscience, and there are several issues with Mr. Paul that I find disturbing. Most disturbing is the fact that he supports human cloning for reproduction & medical research which is in total opposition to Catholic teaching. He also doesn't appear to have a problem with the interstate transport of minors to get abortions nor does he believe that it should be a federal crime to harm an unborn child while committing other crimes. I may be wrong, but I got this information at http://www.ontheissues.org/TX/Ro...TX/
Ron_Paul.htm
God Bless
This is shocking! Personally I think Alan Keyes is a much better candidate and is 100% Pro-Life/Pro-American. You disappoint me in your choice!
Is Alan Keys running? (Whatever exactly that means?)
shelray, voting NO to a ban does not mean saying YES to a practice. Have you more info, please? i see RO got a 0% from NARAL. Not too bad, eh?
Well, I visited Paul's campaign website, and he appears to be excellent on the issue of abortion. Here's the link:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issue...fe-and-liberty/
Interesting, Tom. I will say that Ron Paul (who had a plane fly over Michigan Stadium Saturday "Ron Paul for President") is the only candidate of either party who is discussing the proper role of government with any view toward some limited government.
Anonymous said: "voting NO to a ban does not mean saying YES to a practice"
I fail to see much of a difference. For a politician who has a means of preventing a gravely immoral act from occuring while freely choosing to allow it to happen, has just committed an immoral act. We are called to protect life and stand up for the most defenseless of God's creatures. God did not create any of us to be used as lab rats or experimental matter. This is abortion.
shelray. gracious, how wrong.
a classic example would be one's voting NO on a bill to treat such and such evil action as a "hate crime".
one might have concluded that so called "hate-crime" legislation implicitly criminalizes thoughts instead of only behavoirs, and vote against such a bill, without in the slighest approving of either hateful thoughts or criminal deeds.
really, how can that be hard to see?
Edward said: shelray. gracious, how wrong.
Edward, there is no doubt that I am no match for your intellectual prowess, as I am somewhat of a simpleton.
All I know is that I would never vote for a "pro-life(?)" politician who voted not to protect the most innocent of lives from being used as a potential lab rat? That's the bottom line. Whether or not he is neutral, for or against it, his vote accomplishes exactly the same thing as the votes of those politicians who support the lab experiementation of human life. This is, in addition to his vote which supports transporting young girls over state lines for abortion.
I probably well could be wrong on a technical/intellectual level on what ever point you are attempting to make, but I know God's grace makes it quite simple to descern that when a man has the capability to someing but does NOTHING to prevent the destruction of a human life, that it is NOT A GOOD THING. That works well enough for me.
God Bless.
Ron Paul is just about on the bottom of my list of GOP candidates (just ahead of Rudy of course), but Ed and Anonymous are right. Paul was acting on the correct principle that it's just as wrong for the federal government to issue an outright ban as it is to promote such practices, because it has no constitutional ability to do either.
I do believe that libertarians such as Paul tend to be too absolutist, and that's why libertarianism has lost its appeal to me over the years. But on this Ron Paul is right. We've already ceded far too much power to the central government, and we can't cheer intrusive efforts when they happen to support our personal preferences, because it just takes a change in party control to have the reverse position win out.
I am not sure where this idea of Dr. Paul as anything but pro-life has crept in but it is simply unfounded if we read Dr. Paul's statments on the issues. Rather than simply looking at a decision as a simple "yes" or "no" vote, remember that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to bills which find themselves on the House floor. If Dr. Paul ever voted against a seemingly "pro-life" legistlation, his vote was probably to protect our rights as citizens - without which we have absolutely NO power in fighting against abortion in this country.
I would encourage those who question Dr. Paul's pro-life stand to read his own statements on the topic, particularly his own "Life-Protecting Judicial Limitation Act of 2003" as well as "Partial-birth Abotion Funding Ban act of 2003." Also, his comments on the House floor on April 3rd and June 4th of 2003 are in direct contradiction to "ontheissues.com" interpretation of his voting record.
hi shelray. mine is not to tell you whom to support, but rather, to say that your REASONS for supporting or opposing so-and-so are insufficient.
EG: If someone says, "I always pick blue for wall paper." I say "fine" (though my favorite color is maroon).
But if someone says "I always pick blue for wall paper because that was the color of Jesus' eyes." I chime in with "It almost certainly was NOT their color." My opposition is not to your picking blue, but to your telling me your choice is based on the assertion that Jesus eye's were blue.
That's my only point on the RP discussion so far. Things as complex as modern legislation offer all sorts of reasons to oppose or support. One usually cannot assume that any one vote is proof of anything either way.
fwiw.
I'm with Paul Zummo on this one, and I say this as one who cast his first vote ever for U.S. Representative for Ron Paul back in 1980. He's an excellent congressman who would make a terrible president. Just about any Republican candidate would be better (save Giuliani) than Paul (of course, the pro-abortion Democrat field is a lost cause).
For starters, while a President has alot of power, if President elect Paul tried to summarily disband the IRS, and various other federal bureaucracies at once, he'd probably get impeached. It would also be a local disaster for Maryland and Virginia real estate as several tens of thousands of highly paid federal employees receive pink slips. There's nothing like losing the gravy train for motivating people to revolution, and he'd get a revolution forcing him out of office. So it's not as simple a solution as he's claiming. Ditto with pulling out of Iraq as though that'd have zero negative consequences for the Iraqis, our interests in the region, the larger geo-political question of power vaccuums (filled by Russia, China, and Iran) and the subsequent overall weakening of our security. There's a little thing called "strategic depth" that forward deployment of our military gives us. Pulling back to the CONUS won't make us safer at all.
What happened to Brownback?
http://www.americanpapist.com/20...n-
senators.html
http://www.americanpapist.com/poll.php
http://www.americanpapist.com/20...st-in-
news.html
etc.
Lots of comments to respond to in this thread. In order:
#1: that's the point. more people need to hear about it.
#2: exactly. stay tuned!
#3: It wouldn't be immediate, he wouldn't even be in office until jan 2009!
#4: I think there are valid arguments for his positions on these issues. they will be treated at CFRP.
#5: I think rp is as well. More american, even. totally pro-life. And his position on the war is more teneable at this point.
#6: yes, AK is in the race.
#7: good point. and one that explains many of RP's votes.
#8: thanks for the link. information is always appreciated.
#9: I doubt RP had the funds to buy the plane - you can probably thank a supporter. :) And yes, agreed.
#10 ill wait to respond to this until I can do so at sufficient length/depth.
#11 ibid
#12 ibid
#13 while libertarians might have this fault, i think ron paul operates within boundaries defined by the constitution and christian principles that save him from that pitfall.
#14 all good points! one of my primary concerns is informing people about RP's adamant support of pro-life issues. He spoke at this summer's Right to Life convention.
#15: ibid
#16: i don't see this at all. statements without supports aren't worth much to me (or anyone else). at least provide one?
#17: operating according to the constitution would be somewhat painful at first. but this is a true "revolution" that is taking us BACK to more prudent and sound principes of government - american principles.
#18: in a phrase: he didn't do anything. and btw, I never claimed to support brownback in any of the posts you reference. I've been looking at all the candidates for some time.
Thanks for the comments all. If any of you would like to follow up personally you're more than welcome to drop me an email!
I have to say, I don't get it. If you're going to support a marginal candidate with no chance of election, then why not Sam Brownback?
Because I think Ron Paul is the better candidate. He's not even the lesser of two evils - I positively think his principled position on issues is correct. I would also argue that he is actually more "electable" than brownback at this stage.
Mr. Paul appears to blame the United States for 9/11. That's lunatic fringe territory as far as I'm concerned.
To be precise, he says that American's interventionalist policies in the Middle East over the past fifty years aided the growth of terrorist cells that took the war back to U.S. shores. You know who else has said this? Bin Laden. Ron Paul has been unfairly baited on this topic many times, his normal response is that "I do not let terrorists dictate US foreign policy, I let the constitution.' He had no problem fighting a legal constitutional war against enemies, he does have a problem with engaging in nation building and occupation.
Your have normally perceptive insights about matters Catholic have abandonded you by supporting Ron Paul, please allow me to explain.
The flaw in your thinking is that both you and Ron Paul take Bin Laden, a mass murderer, at his word for why he attacked on on 9-11. He is a lying chimera who would advance any excuse for rationalizing why he attacked us on 9-11 so long as it makes us feel collective national guilt for our foreign policy, a feeling which weakens our resolve and simultaenously allows him to have a better chance to advance his geopolitical goals.
Osama can possibly offer dozens of different reasons why they attacked on on the 9-11. Our bases in that were in Riyadh. Support of the House of Saud. Support of Israel since its inception. Bases now in Qatar. Our support of the Shah. Billions of dollars in support to Egypt, etc. etc. Osama omits to ever mention the fact that we've sent millions to his brother-in-arms Arafat and the Palestinians, something I reckon he wouldn’t be too opposed to. I think Osama steals bases when he asserts that the mere presence of U.S. troops is tantamount to a “defilement” of Holy Places, another of his rationales for why we were attacked on 9-11. Were U.S. Troops actually defiling Holy Places in the Middle East? Of course not. No more than average foreign tourists were. It would be one thing if U.S. Troops were engaging in actual defilement and repression- what they were actually doing is protecting governments that al-Qaeda doesn’t like, because they’re not repressive enough for their tastes. Yes, these governments are decadent, corrupt, repressive etc. Yes, this ticked off the Wahhabists and ilk. But consider the alternative- Taliban-like states gaining a foothold throughout the Middle East.
All of these types of engagement were there at the behest of the legitimate governments of those countries. Post 9-11, we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan, to confront al-Qaeda and terror-proliferating states. In theory, if we were to remove every last vestige of our presence from the Middle East- military, cultural, and foreign aid- does you seriously think Osama would end his “crusade” against us, and his hatred would be quelled? I think it’s a foregone conclusion that even without any U.S. footprint in the Middle East, his minions continue to plot assymetric attacks in the United States. And to continue that theory, if there were no United States presence in the Middle East, organized Wahhabists and Terrorists would have better chances of overthrowing more benign governments, and Israel’s chances for survival would be far more precarious. Yes, much of what constitutes Middle East politics is irrational and undergirded with hatred for Israel and the West, but it does have clear objectives that are threats to the autonomy of not only Israel, but to non-Wahhabist governments in the region. They may not hate us specifically for our freedoms, but they do hate us because we thwart their facism, which has been th
Part II
They may not hate us specifically for our freedoms, but they do hate us because we thwart their facism, which has been this country’s calling since its inception.
It’s one thing if Osama were a revolutionary in the spirit of Washington. Osama simply wants to impose facism via terrorism. All of his rationales for war against the West made through the media should be treated with a grain of salt, because he is a murderer who will always mask the hatred in his heart with any purported grievance that he finds convienent.
Ron Paul's foreign policy philosophy is grounded in his naivete of realpolitik, and his fondness for an isolationism that would leave the free world in a much more precarious position. He has lost any and all credibility when he opines about foreign policy. FWIW, im a fellow Catholic, faithful to magisterial teachings as you are, and Im supporting Fred Thompson- someone who understands that we are truly in global struggle, whether we want it or not, whether we withdraw within or borders or not. As C.S. Lewis once said, There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan. Paul's foreign policy only gives gives up that ground to evil forces who mean us great harm. Think about it.
"I do not let terrorists dictate US foreign policy" -- so Islamist terrorism is not a problem, and we should just close our eyes and hope it goes away no matter what they do? And in the Cold War, we shouldn't have made any containment plans vis a vis the Communists because we wouldn't want them to "dictate" US foreign policy? And I suppose that we shouldn't have fought WWII either because, of course, we shouldn't have let those Nazis and Japanese fascists to "dictate" US foreign policy. I'm glad Mr. Paul was not a viable candidate back then.
Charles, to respond briefly, when we allow terrorists to dictate our foreign policy instead of our own constitution and principles of government, then we've already let them win. Is that so hard to see?
Vince, again to respond briefly, Ron Paul's position has been mischarecterized by the media - that's one of the problems CFRP is trying to fix.
Have you read what Ron Paul has actually said about terrorism? He is ABSOLUTELY aware of the social, ideological and historical reasons for islamic terrorism, more than any of the other candidates, in fact. He also, however, UNLIKE the other candidates, wants to see America address terrorism without violating the principles of its constitution and government.
Destroying our own government to defeat terrorism loses the battle far more quickly than defeating terrorism and UPHOLDING our constitution.
Look at the success we've had so far using our current methods. Is it so hard to admit there might be a better way? Can't we destinguish between fighting terrorism and national building (a very different and far more problematic goal)? Think about it.
And certainly don't write me off for considering his positions (which involves actually knowing them and judging their value). You and my other readers would do themselves a disservice through such a choice. Thanks for the comments.
AP, you're rationalizing on behalf of your preferred candidate- I can full well understand Dr. Paul's folly from his own words- I don't need to listen to the misinformed media to get the gist of his position.
The Constitution allows us a free hand to defend ourselves against those who wish to destroy our country and kill civilians. There's no need to engage in the hyperbolic rhetoric that says we are "destroying" our government and Constitution because we are targetting our intelligence efforts against SLEEPER CELLS and their communications with others outside this country. It's rhetorical BS to say our institutions of government are being subverted- what we are doing in fact is giving less freedom to operate for the potential terrorists that are operating in this country.
Government needs to be flexible in today's hi-tech age to go after persons who wish to kill innocents- that's the purpose of the Patriot Act. The only people in this country that should find that a "threat" are those who are looking to kill your family members and mine with impunity.
By the way, im not writing you off in terms of reading your blog- it's one of the best Catholic blogs on the Net. What depresses me is that someone as right-thinking as yourself is following a staunch isolationist whose naivete about the real threats we face and global realpolitik would only serve to imperil this country futher.
Vince seems to think that his ability to articulate very clearly one side of this argument is proof of the compelling nature of that side. AP makes,I think, a more restricted, and hence more defensible, assertion.
Do I need to add that I don't which side is ultimately right? Only that, as a matter of exchange, AP's position is more nuanced.
"The Constitution allows us a free hand to defend ourselves against those who wish to destroy our country and kill civilians." Even a free hand has to be guided by the rule of law. The President does not have the authority to declare war without a declaration of Congress.
Saying that our government needs to be "flexible" suggests that we should operate outside the law to address the threat terrorism poses to our citizens - a dangerous tenet indeed! Historically that's *never* a good idea.
"It's rhetorical BS to say our institutions of government are being subverted."
No it's not - it's a fact. Look at what's happening to the federal reserve and its abuse of our currency, look at how the republican party has become a "big government" party - the opposite of conservative principles, look at the abuses of the patriot act (illegal wiretapings, etc.). It's naive to say that everything is rosy except for the iraq war. I think the iraq war is actually blinding us to the growing problems at home. And I think both problems are symptoms of the same cause: an intentional moving away from the constitutional principles upon which American was founded.
I return to my original point that you are drawing a charicature of Ron Paul's position. Neither do you seem to be aware of the serious threats to american government on the homefront. I'd invite you to read CFRP to gain some perspective on both. I think this discussion is moving a bit outside the bounds of a combox. So I probably won't post on this thread again. Thanks!
AP, I would like to continue this discussion on another thread, and Edward, I would be more than happy to futher elaborate on the specifics of what my more generallized argument entails.
Vince, thank you I think we have a good chance for some fruitful discussion in a different medium. Maybe drop me a line sometime? As I've said, I truly am open to learning about Ron Paul's candidacy as well as the other alternatives.
Vince, I would encourage you to read a recent post of mine here. It along with the accompaning articles may give you some very good food for thought. Cheers!
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