Entroper said:
FreeTalkLive rocks! said:
Entroper said:
Ron Paul is very much to the right on the liberal/conservative scale, and very much to the left on the libertarian/authoritarian scale. The neo-conservatives tend to be to the right on the authoritarian scale. It's as takeru51 said, Paul is a true conservative and not a neocon. |
How can you support the legalization of drugs, abortion, prostitution, and speech and be very much to the right on the political spectrum? Ron Paul is a libertarian which means he is generally for smaller government on econimics issues (like many conservatives) and generally for smaller government on personal/social issues (like many liberals). See this page for more info, http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html |
That's pretty much what I said. The word "conservative" has come to mean "conservative and authoritarian" because of the neocons. That's not how I use it, though. Paul is against abortion, but he feels it should be up to the states to regulate it. Also, as a medical doctor, he believes drug addiction should be treated as a medical problem, not a criminal activity, just like alcoholism. You don't have to be a liberal to realize that the war on drugs is completely retarded. Final Fan, you left out a huge part of that quote regarding separation of Church and State. Here it is: 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 America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before putting their faith in the state. Sounds a little different with that part added doesn't it? Paul believes the government should neither prohibit nor mandate any religious activity. That means you can't outlaw school prayer, but neither can you force the kids to participate or pass a state/local law requiring that public schools have a prayer session. |
I left out the middle part purely for brevity.
--"Separation of church and state" is much more than "no official state religion".
--The Founding Fathers did NOT envision a "robustly Christian" nation, at least from the perspective of the government and probably at all considering how most of them were Deists, atheists, agnostics, and whatnot.
--If a church eclipses the state in importance in worldly affairs, that is what is known in the biz as "theocracy".
--Churches have a pretty damn spotty record of teaching "morality and civility", considering the number and viciousness of religious wars throughout history, some of them instigated by the churches.
--"Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong", but society still must have systems in place to watch out for all the amoral, rapacious rat bastards looking out for Number One.
--"the collectivist Left hates religion" Wow. I guess this is a pretty damning indictment of Soviet-style communism, but it has nothing to do with anything in US politics other than the fact that one side shoves its religion in your face while the other does not.
Public schools are an organ of THE GOVERNMENT and therefore it is inappropriate for them to favor any religion -- ANY RELIGION including a generic "god" or even "god or gods"! If privately funded schools want to pray before and after every class then hooray for them.
[edit: Wow, I can't believe I almost forgot this! "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." No, they fucking would not. I don't remember offhand whether it was Jefferson or someone else, but at least one or two of the Founding Fathers were incredibly suspicious of religion and they ALL took great pains to keep the two very much at arm's length.
[And the sum total of religious references in both the Declaration and the Constitution is the phrase "by their Creator" in the Declaration -- the Constitution is religion-free -- and that is more Deist than Christian. And Jefferson even fought that insertion tooth and nail.]
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