Originally Posted by Xei
Can't say I'm totally behind him though. All I've done is skimmed the Wiki article about his policies, but he seems to adhere unthinkingly to the US constitution which is a vague and somewhat archaic document, and seems to use this to defer stating an opinion. For example, with respects to his religiosity, it's worrying;
"The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life. The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant [lolwat, contradiction amirite?] America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance."
He introduced the We The People act, which would allow individual states to ban atheists from public office. This is one example of quite a few places where he says 'the states can decide that', based on the technicalities of the constitution. Not good.
Whenever someone is in a position to shake up the powers that be, you have to be a little more careful about what you hear and read about them. Hopefully, your post was just a lapse of judgment.
I read your follow up comments and appreciate your ability to modify your thoughts, but the above post is at best passing on lies that you yourself haven't expended the effort to verify. When you repeat things that are not only wrong but slanderous, you are going to get called on it because this sort of info needs to get ridiculed hard. So if you can't handle criticism, don't read any further.
First, while the constitution is vague, it contains provisions for its own modification and interpretation. There is nothing in the constitution which is so rigid that it cannot be changed and updated by a transparent, honest government. People who complain that the constitution is archaic do so because they want to change it without the consent of the governed. Those people are 100% to blame for the blatant transgressions of administrations such as G.W. Bush. Ron Paul has distinguished himself as a scholar of the constitution far above his peers in congress. He has admitted it has some flaws that needed amending. There is no intelligent reason to call his insistence that the constitution is still relevant to the rule of law "unthinking." If the constitution were as archaic as you claim it is, an honest government could easily bring any part of it up to date. The amendment process is part of the constitution. It is a living document, and unless someone wanted to kill all of the amendments that have modified the constitution since its inception, they would not be advocating anything 'archaic.'
But the logic just goes bad in the next section where you cite a simple factual statement as 'worrying' and mistakenly accuse him of conflating ideas. The US has evolved into the notion of separation of church and state (and I view this as positive). But still, Ron Paul is right; for better or worse, the founders of the US had no desire to make the state free from religious influence, but rather to make religion free from the state. His statement is not only accurate, but appropriate as well. There are a number of individuals and lobbyists in America that insist Religious motifs, icons, etc should not appear anywhere in the public arena. This becomes a call for government to not just avoid passing religious laws but to avoid passing any law that is even influenced by religious opinion. This is not a slippery slope, it has actually happened. There have also been calls for laws outlawing religious paraphernalia in public places based on this same misunderstanding of the first amendment. The first amendment does not in any way, shape, or form guarantee that if I am a Baptist living in an all Mormon town, that I will never see or hear Mormon images and greetings from my local government. Ron Paul is precisely correct to say that since the first amendment does not forbid the influence of religion upon the state, it cannot be cited by those who wish to drive religion out of public life. Perhaps religion should be driven out of public life; if anyone wants to advocate that, fine - but no one should be using the constitution to justify that. Ron Paul is spot on. He is responding to actual events which have unfolded in the US. In other words he is not conflating ideas as you accuse him of doing, he is responding to others who have.
Also the term "Christian" during the enlightenment era often referred to the idea or philosophy of the universal brotherhood of man. Even people who did not go to church often called themselves christian. Tolstoy used the term this way as did TS Eliot later. Many of the founding fathers of the US used the word in this sense. So laughing at the idea of a Christian yet tolerant society just shows you don't understand the culture that produced the US's founding documents.
Then you just sink into (I hope) repeating lies. Please do a little research on the 'we the people act' - again if you want to critique it fine, but it would not allow any governments to ban atheists from public office. It was a law designed to prevent the judiciary from making laws.
Sorry if this comes across as harsh - but from what I've seen in the US every criticism of RP revolves around ignorance and outright lies. Every detail of his career is put under a microscope and other candidates records are ignored. I hope that most of what you've written was just repeated without fact checking. Once you check the facts, I hope you'll agree I'm doing you a favor.
Simply put, I disagree with Ron Paul on a number of issues. I would rather see someone like Ellen Brown, or Dennis Kucinich who are in favor of state banking get into office. But Ron Paul would end the wars and audit the fed, giving us real justice against those who maim, torture and engineer financial crimes. If people don't like the fact that he's religious, than find me a non-religious candidate who is as consistently opposed to theft and empire as Ron Paul or admit that you are just using pedantic means to tear down someone because deep down, Imperial oppression doesn't really bother you that much. It is clear all other major candidates are working for the same people Bush (and Blair incidentally) took orders from. As far as I'm concerned anyone who criticizes Bush and then is too good to vote for Paul is confused (or lying about their dislike of Bush.)
Yes, you got me on my soapbox issue. Sorry I will be out of town this week. Look forward to seeing any responses next week.
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