Republican Ron Paul and Media Ignorance

[Drolefille]

Our Constitution allows for this though...regarding unincorporated rights.
From Paul's perspective (& mine), if we want to amend it, then we may do so by legally defined procedures.
To give politicians the ability to amend the Constitution by fiat is far greater power than is legally allowed.
A good example is the petty offense doctrine, in which case Clinton & the Supreme Court decided that the
6th Amendment protection of a right to jury trial was partially gutted. The Kelo decision reduced our 5th
Amendment rights to property. I find this scary, & prefer the rule of constitutional law.

When it comes to equality, it should be the default. Same with bodily autonomy.

The fact that the writers of the constitution didn't "get" this, doesn't mean I should have to sit around and wait. I'm not cool with waiting for a majority of people to agree that people deserve rights. Would we have given women and non-white landowning men equal rights in anywhere near the same time frame, or at all without the judicial and legislative process?

I doubt it.

 

[Revoltingest]

When it comes to equality, it should be the default. Same with bodily autonomy.

What should be, & what is constitutional aren't always the same for everyone.
But I'd rather support a less than perfect Constitution, than give politicians the power to ignore it.
Btw, I had issues with "bodily autonomy" back when subject to the military draft.
Government imposed it, but I saw no such power granted them in the Constitution.
Peter Parker should follow up the line about great power requiring great responsibility
with a corollary....."With great power comes great potential for great abuse."

 

[Drolefille]

What should be, & what is constitutional aren't always the same for everyone.
But I'd rather support a less than perfect Constitution, than give politicians the power to ignore it.
Btw, I had issues with "bodily autonomy" back when subject to the military draft.
Government imposed it, but I saw no such power granted them in the Constitution.
Peter Parker should follow up the line about great power requiring great responsibility
with a corollary....."With great power comes great potential for great abuse."

There's a reason there was an article recently about how the US constitution isn't really the supreme model anymore.

Supporting a less perfect constitution means supporting me not being able to vote, work, own property and so on. I'm not cool with that, so I'd rather us press forward towards equality. If that means we could use a rewrite, I'm down with that, but reverting 250 years of work seems a bit excessive.

 

[Revoltingest]

The fact that the writers of the constitution didn't "get" this, doesn't mean I should have to sit around and wait. I'm not cool with waiting for a majority of people to agree that people deserve rights. Would we have given women and non-white landowning men equal rights in anywhere near the same time frame, or at all without the judicial and legislative process?

No one argues whether people should have rights or not.
But there is argument about whether some specific 'right' should be legally a right or not.
And the major issue at hand regarding Paul, is which rights are conferred by the Constitution, to states & to individuals.
Some would give the Fed the ability to take away rights from the states by illegal means.
We prefer legally amending the Constitution when the citizenry sees fit.
This reserves such great power for us, rather than the politicians.
Certainly, you may find that they've done good with extra-legal/illegal methods, but I also see that they've done great harm at times.
Thus, we prefer the rule of law, which provides for greater diversity & experimentation among the states.
The Constitution can be & has been amended.

 

[Drolefille]

No one argues whether people should have rights or not.
But there is argument about whether some specific 'right' should be legally a right or not.
And the major issue at hand regarding Paul, is which rights are conferred by the Constitution, to states & to individuals.
Some would give the Fed the ability to take away rights from the states by illegal means.
We prefer legally amending the Constitution when the citizenry sees fit.
This reserves such great power for us, rather than the politicians.
Certainly, you may find that they've done good with extra-legal/illegal methods, but I also see that they've done great harm at times.
Thus, we prefer the rule of law, which provides for greater diversity & experimentation among the states.
The Constitution can be & has been amended.

And I disagree that the majority should rule on the rights of the minority.

Besides, I find Paul dishonest about what he really thinks are federal vs. states rights as I've mentioned previously. Seems that when it helps him get reelected he'll hold other views.

But I don't think I'll ever support a candidate who disagrees with the Civil Rights Act because it violates a business owner's right to be a racist *******. In a brilliant and perfect world, we'd just see one business get shut down for being an *******, but in the real world, the one he lived in, we had wide spread discrimination.

So, I understand your principle, but I find it one that isn't realistic, and I don't find Paul to be a particularly good standard bearer for it.

 

[Revoltingest]

And I disagree that the majority should rule on the rights of the minority.
Besides, I find Paul dishonest about what he really thinks are federal vs. states rights as I've mentioned previously. Seems that when it helps him get reelected he'll hold other views.
But I don't think I'll ever support a candidate who disagrees with the Civil Rights Act because it violates a business owner's right to be a racist *******. In a brilliant and perfect world, we'd just see one business get shut down for being an *******, but in the real world, the one he lived in, we had wide spread discrimination.
So, I understand your principle, but I find it one that isn't realistic, and I don't find Paul to be a particularly good standard bearer for it.

He's the best I see....except in the area of electability.
The Dems & Pubs are pretty weak relative to Paul regarding many civil liberties, eg, gun rights, property rights, economic liberty, sovereignty over one's own body, free speech.
Ain't nobody perfect, but I find him much less evil than the alternatives, eg, Obama, Gingrich, Santorum.

 

[Drolefille]

He's the best I see....except in the area of electability.
The Dems & Pubs are pretty weak relative to Paul regarding many civil liberties, eg, gun rights, property rights, economic liberty, sovereignty over one's own body, free speech.
Ain't nobody perfect, but I find him much less evil than the alternatives, eg, Obama, Gingrich, Santorum.

I don't find Obama evil at all. And overall he's done a decent job of maintaining and promoting rights, IMO

But you won't find me voting for someone who would allow others to overthrow my rights and liberties in the name of libertarianism. (Paul just sounds like a Confederate (in the most original sense, nothing to do with the south) rather than a federalist, not a true libertarian anyway.)

 

[Revoltingest]

I don't find Obama evil at all. And overall he's done a decent job of maintaining and promoting rights, IMO
But you won't find me voting for someone who would allow others to overthrow my rights and liberties in the name of libertarianism. (Paul just sounds like a Confederate (in the most original sense, nothing to do with the south) rather than a federalist, not a true libertarian anyway.)

I'd describe Paul as more libertarian than his competition.
The notion that libertarianism is about overthrowing your rights really only works
for those who consider entitlements as rights, eg, housing, food, medical care.
(There is a small number of libs who consider a fetus to be a person, but we'll ignore them.)
Clearly, we have different values & different judgement about what Paul is all about.
Guess you won't be voting for him, eh?
I won't support Obama either.

 

[Drolefille]

I'd describe Paul as more libertarian than his competition.
The notion that libertarianism is about overthrowing your rights really only works
for those who consider entitlements as rights, eg, housing, food, medical care.
Clearly, we have different values & different judgement about what Paul is all about.
Guess you won't be voting for him, eh?
I won't support Obama either.

Isn't voting considered a right? Your way would have severely limited that, in favor of waiting for a majority of people to agree to a change. And Paul's idea of libertarianism - which isn't really IMO - is about letting the states limit my rights. True libertarianism - or responsible libertarianism perhaps - wouldn't let them do it either.

 

[Revoltingest]

Isn't voting considered a right? Your way would have severely limited that, in favor of waiting for a majority of people to agree to a change.

Let's presume that your claim is true. This would be an advantage to illegal changes to constitutional law.
But speed & government's slack observance of law also result in things like US internment camps during WW2.
We must evaluate pluses & minuses of alternative approaches. I side with Paul more than the others.

And Paul's idea of libertarianism - which isn't really IMO - is about letting the states limit my rights. True libertarianism - or responsible libertarianism perhaps - wouldn't let them do it either.

Paul is also what we might call a "constitutionalist"...with libertarian leanings.
Not a true libertarian? Possibly. Again, ain't none of us perfect.

 

[T-Dawg]

GOD never changed, it is we (humanity) that have changed. Our circumstances have changed and the point on the timeline of GOD's plan changed too. The entire OT was a way for GOD to introduce Himself to humanity, make Himself known, and to pave the way for Christ to come. Once Christ came, died and rose from the dead, promising to one day come back, everything changed.

Christ was God's half-hearted attempt to "forgive" people for crimes that he made up, at least to a partial extent.

It really says a lot about the Christian system of justice that God seems unable to forgive without something innocent dying to "atone" for the guilty.

There were thousands of years between GOD interacting with man and Christ walking upon the earth - if the amount of change humanity has gone through in the past 500 years is any indicator, we changed a LOT between the Garden of Eden and Christ.

Also, and I think this is crucial, a parent treats their 28-year-old son much differently than they treated the same son when he was 18 and even more so than when he was 8. GOD treated early humanity like the confused, irrational children they were and he gave them boundaries and disciplined them. As humanity grew GOD changed his treatment of humanity and once Christ came, it was like we had 'grown up' and GOD decided to let us do our thing because in His eyes He had provided the ultimate redemption to humanity in the form of Christ. Apart from forcing our hand, violating our free will and living our lives for us, there was nothing more GOD could do.

Not a bad argument, but I don't see Christ's coming as us having "grown up," it's an illustration of how bad God's sense of justice is. Besides, organized genocide is hardly similar to disciplining a child.

That's a very dangerous generality to make - I am a Christ follower and I don't see it that way at all. Same with my parents and most of my friends - we may be the minority in the larger group, but this is the danger of generalities and assumption.

The State should not be the puppet of the Kingdom of GOD - it never has been. You can't force people into the Kingdom, it's a choice. But absolute power corrupts absolutely.

You seem to be different from most Christians, so most of my usual arguments probably won't apply to you. That won't justify the behavior of Christians at large, though.

That's why I only mentioned the ones that apply to freedom - I never meant to say that they were ONLY influence by the 10 commandments, but they were an influence, as was the NT, as was I'm sure a lot of other things.

Actually, our justice system and sense of freedom is more based off of the Romans and the Greeks; while it's true that Christianity had an influence on Rome during it's later years as the Empire was wearing down, the things America draws from come from the old Roman Republic.

Declaration of Independence - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

They believed that those rights and freedoms came from the creator, which most believed to be the GOD of the Bible (not all, but as you said, they were all deists so they believed in some god). Sadly you are correct that people don't care about their freedoms - which is very sad - and since I love my freedoms I support Ron Paul because he seems like the only candidate that won't try to take them away.

I believe this quote was something from one of the Enlightenment philosophers, I think John Locke. The point wasn't that rights came from a creator, it was that men came with rights that other men couldn't take away.

Also, could you please elaborate on the above phrase I bolded? It was this one: "God has no part in it, and in fact God is typically thought of as being opposed to said freedoms." I'm fascinated to hear what you have to say about that.

The general consensus amongst Christians I've met is that "worldly" freedom is no good, but belief in the Bible "is" freedom.
The position of modern Christians seems to be that the law should be based on the Bible - such as outlawing abortion (even though it's nowhere mentioned in the Bible), outlawing homosexuality, teaching creationism in public schools and/or fighting against the teaching of evolution, keeping churches tax exempt, and dismantling environmental regulations (even though pretty much every verse that could possibly be related to the subject, besides the "take dominion of the earth and its creatures" thing, would be decisively in favor of environmentalism, many Christians seem to ignore this.)

Jesus made a reference that he fulfilled the law, meaning it had served its purpose to show that no man was righteous, because he fulfilled that righteousness and became the sacrifice for all. He constantly chastised the religious leaders that adhered to the old law and managed to exempt, exclude and discriminate against others.

Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath, going against what the law said, and the elite questioned him about doing such a thing on the Sabbath - see Luke 6 for the story.

True. Jesus appears to be contradicting himself. Now that I think about it, I wonder if these were both in the same gospel book... it's possible that this is a reflection of the different biases of the authors.

I agree with you 100% except for the whole Reagan being a demon thing - he was just a man from what I've read.

I will never argue that this is a Christian nation - but I will always argue that it was a nation founded upon Christian principles - there's a big difference between the two. Of course the founding fathers escaped from a religious government - it had become a theocracy - and they wanted to worship how they saw fit. Many of the founding fathers were Christians according to what they wrote - not all - but some were.

I agree that it isn't automatically good, but this country prospered more than any other nation and is still around and I'll always argue that PART of the reason is because of the firm and sound foundation upon which it was built - an understanding and love of freedom and liberty derived partially from their Christian beliefs.

There's nothing wrong with being influenced by someone whose believes you don't share - many influences in my life and America were not Christian - so long as it is a positive influence.

Well, Europe was also built around Christianity, and it only recently (as religion has begun to lose influence) has begun to surpass America (which has recently had a surge in fundamentalism).

I wouldn't agree that Christianity could be a positive influence. Its good parts are typically impractical (and usually ignored anyway), and its bad parts are plain evil.

 

[Revoltingest]

If Ron Paul personally launched a campaign entitled "Whites For Paul", we'd hear shrill cries of "Racism!".
But a deafening silence greets Obama's appeal to racial political preferences.....
'African Americans For Obama' Launched By President's Campaign To Rally Black Voters (VIDEO)

I smell a double standard.

 

[T-Dawg]

If Ron Paul personally launched a campaign entitled "Whites For Paul", we'd hear shrill cries of "Racism!".
But a deafening silence greets Obama's appeal to racial political preferences.....
'African Americans For Obama' Launched By President's Campaign To Rally Black Voters (VIDEO)

I smell a double standard.

Yeah, I never understood the tendency for racial minorities to define and organize themselves by race. It's rather counterproductive to engineering an end to racism.

 

[no-body]

Yeah, I never understood the tendency for racial minorities to define and organize themselves by race. It's rather counterproductive to engineering an end to racism.

It makes sense historically as minorities have always been downtrodden and forced to change their culture to fit in to "white" society. It is like gay pride, a reaction to the white male heterosexual view point that permeates the media so totally you barely even notice it because it is "normal"

Not to say it excuses it and I think in a couple of decades it will stop but there are very good reasons for it. I agree people shouldn't get their identity from race but this applies to everything, you shouldn't get your identity from your sexuality, what music you listen to, what your job is or anything else.

The reason white pride is discouraged has to do with neo nazi groups co-opting the phrase.

 

[Revoltingest]

It makes sense historically as minorities have always been downtrodden and forced to change their culture to fit in to "white" society. It is like gay pride, a reaction to the white male heterosexual view point that permeates the media so totally you barely even notice it because it is "normal"

Ahem....."white male"?
I've seen much anti-homo vitriol by black folk & female types too, particularly the former.

 

[no-body]

Ahem....."white male"?
I've seen much anti-homo vitriol by black folk & female types too, particularly the former.

Of course there are many exceptions but a majority of media is geared towards white male heterosexuals.

 

[Revoltingest]

Of course there are many exceptions but a majority of media is geared towards white male heterosexuals.

Even when a majority view is created by a large minority (ie, white males), it seems
inappropriate to single them out when other groups are proportionately culpable.
It smacks too much of demonization & exclulpation. Meta-bigotry?

 

[no-body]

Even when a majority view is created by a large minority (ie, white males), it seems
inappropriate to single them out when other groups are proportionately culpable.
It smacks too much of demonization & exclulpation. Meta-bigotry?

I'm not excusing the reaction to it, only explaining it.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm not excusing the reaction to it, only explaining it.

OK...I'm done digressing.

 

[DandyAndy]

Christ was God's half-hearted attempt to "forgive" people for crimes that he made up, at least to a partial extent.

It was actually a perfect attempt and the only one that would work.

Think in the child/parent realm for a moment, because that's the easiest way to understand our relationship with GOD; if you faced no punishment for doing something wrong you would 1)never learn that it was wrong and 2)would have no reason to NOT do it. Mankind, knowing both good and evil, with no sense or guilt or fear of punishment would kill someone else for a pair of shoes or a bag of Doritos and there would be no reason for them to stop such behavior.

He did not 'make up' the crimes in the sense that I think you mean - I could be wrong though. In a nut shell love necessitates choice - without the ability to leave, my staying is meaningless and void of any love because I simply become a prisoner. GOD, in His love for creation gave free will, or choice. Adam and Eve, faced with the choice AND the knowledge of the outcome/punishment of making the wrong choice, made the wrong choice. Now we all know good and evil, so GOD makes the Law to show how evil we are, and knowing that no man can live up to the perfection required by the Law, GOD sent Christ, GOD as man, and fulfilled the perfection required by the Law so that ONE sacrifice could cover the sins of all that made the CHOICE to be forgiven. The Law was not a way for GOD to show us how evil we were so we would feel like crap, it was to show us how evil we are so that we would turn to the one thing that could save us - the sacrifice of Christ.

It's quite beautiful I think.

It really says a lot about the Christian system of justice that God seems unable to forgive without something innocent dying to "atone" for the guilty.

That's how justice works - you commit the crime and you do the time - mercy comes at a price, it isn't free, it can't be. Never has been, never will be.

What is wrong with that?

Not a bad argument, but I don't see Christ's coming as us having "grown up," it's an illustration of how bad God's sense of justice is. Besides, organized genocide is hardly similar to disciplining a child.

Christ came at the perfect time in history. The timing has made the biggest impact possible. You really think that 2,000 years before Rome humanity was just as 'civilized' or 'advanced' or 'cultured' or 'intelligent?' I think we've grown up a lot as a species - but the same problems still plague us and they always will - those problems can be summed up in 2 words - SIN and EVIL.

I'm sure what the organized genocide remark is referring to - probably some OT stuff, which we could talk about, but I don't think it's appropriate here.

You seem to be different from most Christians...

I guess that's a compliment, unfortunately, because if most 'Christians' read their Bibles and studied and prayed I think they would see that Christ repeatedly spurned the chance to be a king, a warlord and a political organizer. Christ wasn't about temporal/physical authority because if he was he would have accepted Satan's third temptation to rule over all the kingdoms of the Earth. Instead Christ lived the life of a poor man and died a humiliating and painful death.

Christ was only concerned about the SPIRITUAL kingdom because that is eternal. This physical will pass away and today's 'Christians' need to realize that because you can't fight fire (physical corruption of sin and evil) with fire (manmade government, laws and regulations).

I would never try to justify the behavior of people that hold up signs that say 'GOD hates ****' or try their best to limit the freedom of others - I think that type of behavior is abhorrent, no matter what label someone slaps upon themselves. You will know the tree by its fruit.

Actually, our justice system and sense of freedom is....

Again, I'm not claiming that Christianity is the ONLY influence upon America - but it is one of the key, if not THE key influence of many of the men that formed this country and its laws. Simple fact. Doesn't make this a 'Christian' nation and doesn't make everyone 'indebted' to Christianity or anything like that.

I believe this quote was something from one of the Enlightenment philosophers, I think John Locke. The point wasn't that rights came from a creator, it was that men came with rights that other men couldn't take away.

And those rights were given them by their Creator. Whoever the individual believes the Creator to be - again, the founding fathers were 99% deists - they never said from the GOD of Abraham and Jacob of the OT, just a Creator that they also identified in other places as GOD. They understood that not everyone would acknowledge the GOD of the OT and NT, nor should they be forced to.

You are right to say that those rights cannot/should not be taken away by another man - they are transcendent rights that did not spring up from nature, but were granted from a transcendent source outside of mankind.

The general consensus amongst Christians I've met is that "worldly" freedom is no good, but belief in the Bible "is" freedom.
The position of modern Christians seems to be that the law should be based on the Bible - such as outlawing abortion (even though it's nowhere mentioned in the Bible), outlawing homosexuality, teaching creationism in public schools and/or fighting against the teaching of evolution, keeping churches tax exempt, and dismantling environmental regulations (even though pretty much every verse that could possibly be related to the subject, besides the "take dominion of the earth and its creatures" thing, would be decisively in favor of environmentalism, many Christians seem to ignore this.)

There's a lot in there. Again, try not to generalize - if the few atheists I knew thought that all Christians should be robbed, raped and killed would it be fair for me to act as if ALL atheists felt the same way? Of course not - go to the source material before you believe what a few loons may say.

This is my position - if we want the best protection for our freedoms and liberties, we should follow what the Bible says about what is right and wrong to the extent that it protects one individual from another. I believe that abortion is murder because I believe the unborn child to be an individual and that individual has rights. If two or more consenting adults want to have homosexual relations with each other, that's their choice and no other individuals rights are breached - so let them have at it in the privacy of their own homes - if they did so in public, it would be indecent exposure and whatnot, same for any heterosexual group going at it in public. I'm free to believe that homosexual acts are wrong - which is why I don't participate - and I'm free to teach my child that homosexuality is abhorrent and wrong. You can teach your child that homosexuality is fine and dandy.

I think that competing ideas which have not been proven or disproven should be at least mentioned - what's wrong with an abundance of knowledge and opinion? Present the facts and let the children decide. Are we so far gone that we can't even trust our children to think for themselves when we educate them? Instead of teaching them how to think we teach them what to think and THAT is the scary part that should be immediately addressed.

That Genesis verse about dominion and whatnot (if I'm thinking of the same verse) is null and void because that authority was given over to Satan when Adam and Eve became aware of the knowledge of good and evil - that's why Satan was able to offer that authority to Christ as the final temptation.

True. Jesus appears to be contradicting himself. Now that I think about it, I wonder if these were both in the same gospel book... it's possible that this is a reflection of the different biases of the authors.

I don't see a contradiction at all - he was making the point that there was a new law, the old law had served its purpose.

Well, Europe was also built around Christianity, and it only recently (as religion has begun to lose influence) has begun to surpass America (which has recently had a surge in fundamentalism).

You mean in debt, secularism and total dismay? I joke. Kind of.

America has grown from a few thousand people in ships to over 300 million people - we are the richest nation per person and have been for a long time - the low income that live in trailer parks and can't afford to go on vacation have SO MUCH MORE than a majority of others in this world.

I wouldn't agree that Christianity could be a positive influence. Its good parts are typically impractical (and usually ignored anyway), and its bad parts are plain evil.

Don't murder people, don't steal from people, don't lie, don't be selfish, don't be greedy, don't be a jerk, don't judge people, be nice to people, help people in need, be tolerant and listen and respect everyone ISN'T practical? Really? Geez, you sound really hard to please.

There's nothing evil in Christianity - I dare you to point it out. There is plenty evil about the people that claim to be Christians and truly are Christ followers - so you can't point me to the Crusades or that church in Kansas that protests funerals for proof - I want Biblical proof that GOD, Christ or the Christian belief system is, itself, evil.

Twisting and misrepresenting the belief system doesn't make the belief system evil - it makes the twisters and misrepresenters evil.