Give me 10 Minutes of Your Time

Sorry for the long post. Although my previous posts have not received much acknowledgement here, I’m willing to give it another try.

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1. How many of your Constitutional liberties are you willing to give up before you put a stop to it?

I honestly don’t know. The question is very rhetorical.

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2. How many conservative principles are you willing to compromise in the name of “electability”?

Many. I am moderate-to-liberal :-)

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3. How many elections will you allow yourself to be fooled with promises of “tax cuts” instead of “tax elimination”?

I do not want tax elimination. The government needs a constant revenue stream, because it has an important role in maintaining a responsible, peaceful, and productive society.

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4. Are you so dedicated to the war in Iraq that you’re willing to elect a President that will take away your Constitutional liberties?

There is legitimate disagreement as to whether any of the current candidates would “take away your Constitutional liberties” in any meaningful sense, aside from Patriot-Act-type legislation. Don’t get me wrong—the Patriot Act is unacceptable, period. But so is hardcore Libertarian policies. This is not a battle between good and evil, as some seem to think. The Libertarian crusade isn’t the answer to all the problems. It’s just another flawed ideology among many. There are some good ideas and principles that come out of Libertarianism, but there are also some that are ill-conceived. Ron Paul isn’t going to save this country. This notion that his plans could or would be implemented is nonsense. People are afflicted with a severe flag-waving Ron-Paul-loving savior-of-the-world complex, and I find it a bit disconcerting. Realistically, it’s just never going to happen. His views have flaws, just like everyone else’s.

If you strip away all services funded by taxes, you will find yourself with anything but peace within your own borders. Pure economic freedom and Libertarianism is great for those with money and power and influence, but it really, really sucks for those without. Ignoring those people and pretending that their problems will either a) go away on their own or b) not have a negative effect on society is pure fantasy. It is not a sustainable position. Public services and safeguards would be slowly reintroduced into the system, until we are right back to where we are. We need government.

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5. Does it seem a little odd to you that the current administration and the majority of the Republican candidates desire to use force to promote democracy? Are the two principles (force and choice) not diametrically opposed?

I agree with you. I hate war. I don’t intend to support another war as long as I live. In fairness to the issue, however, I would like to point out that there is more depth to it than what you have stated. There are variables such of regimes, oppression, and citizens who yearn for freedom and democracy. I am not saying these justify war, but they help to render irrelevant the simple observation that “force and choice are diametrically opposed”. You can compare dictionary-definitions of words, but the real world is much more abstract and uncertain.

I want to reiterate that I don’t like the use of force to promote anything.

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6. Who do you support for President? Now, ask yourself, does this person have a track record of honesty? Do you believe them when they promise things? Did you believe George W. Bush? Didn’t he promise a humble foreign policy and fiscal conservatism?

I want Michael Bloomberg to run as an independent. He is not perfect. He seems fairly honest, but there are probably problems with him that have not yet been brought into the open by media exposure. Time will tell. My opinions may change. I don’t pick a candidate an hail them as the answer to all our problems. Other contenders for my vote include Clinton and McCain.

Once upon a time, I did believe George W. Bush, but now I don’t. That has nothing to do with any of the other candidates, including Ron Paul. I am too cynical to believe any of them anymore.

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7. Has your candidate ever raised taxes, or stood by and said nothing as taxes were raised? (Huckabee)

Yes, Michael Bloomberg has raised taxes.

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8. Has your candidate ever expressed a desire to restrict the ownership of a firearm, thus violating the second amendment? (Romney, Guiliani)

Michael Bloomberg has taken measures to reduce illegal guns as NYC mayor. In the Libertarian worldview, that may be equal to a violation of the second amendment; I am not really certain. What do you say?

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9. Has your candidate ever voted to restrict the rights guaranteed in the first amendment by supporting Campaign Finance Reform? (Thompson, McCain)

No, I don’t believe so. But in all fairness, he probably would if put in a position to.

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10. Finally, is there a single issue that you disagree with Ron Paul on? If so, can you defend your position using the Constitution, rather than an appeal to fear?

Ah, the Constitution. A document written by men who possessed intellect and knowledge that transcended even their own time to encompass all that is humanity, able to confront all society developments with a pure and simple message: do not change anything, because we knew precisely what a government needs.

Seriously, why do people worship this document as a sacred text of universal, timeless wisdom? I recognize it as a very important document, laying the foundation for an incredible model of government, but abstracting upon it and building loosely upon it is acceptable in order to keep up with changes.
There is a lot that can be done before there is any concern about violating the Constitution. Well, unless you deliberately interpret it narrowly and literally, presuming to know the intentions of the “founding fathers”, idealizing and worshipping them as gods. There are some arguments that just need to be retired, once and for all. This whole argument about the “way the founding fathers intended” is a good one to start with. They are dead. Many of their ideas are dead, or irrelevant. Yet many of their ideas endure. That is how progress operates.

If our governmental model remained unchanged from those of the earliest Presidencies, do you honestly think our country would still be prosperous or relevant? I don’t.

Don’t be sad. Be happy! I don’t accept pity.

I did not say we should ignore the Constitution as irrelevant. Never once. Not even implied. Please don’t attribute things to me which I did not say.

What I did say was that we should move away from the idea that the Constitution is perfect and timeless and cannot be built upon or interpreted with a fair amount of freedom.

My intended meaning with my comments about “literal” interpretation has nothing to do with the rights explicitly given, and I find it hard to believe you would not understand that from the context I provided. What I was referring to is the notion that the federal government is powerless, and that the Constitution demands no taxes and no social programs. I have never questioned the basic rights granted by the Constitution.

You don’t seem mean. You seem passionate and emotional. Those are good attributes to have, which are shared by most of humanity. But you also seem fiercly ideological and fully devoted to this platform.

With that said, I probably won’t post more on this topic. You gave me plenty in your reply, except a basic acknowledgement of any of my main points. For that reason, I don’t see this conversation proceeding productively for either one of us. :)

Hey Nate, my comment didn’t get posted, I assumed it didn’t go through for some reason and tried re-submitting it but Wordpress gave the ‘duplicate comment’ error and I then assumed it was just taking a while to show up. Did it get marked as spam or something?

I re-typed the gist of the post, and it didn’t go through again (this time I saved it to a text file in case). It’s like it’s not letting long comments from me through. But when I try submitting it again, I get the duplicate comment error.

Here’s a couple of the major issues I had with Paul (not his libertarianism, of course I have issues with that but it’s 1. obvious and 2. far better than what most anybody from either party is offering).

Separation of church and state-
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html

First, the Constitution isn’t “replete with references to God”. There aren’t any, in fact. And the Declaration is pretty obviously using Jefferson’s Deist God- the term ‘Nature’s God’ should be a clue there.

It’s not about anyone being offended. You have the right to offend me with your religious displays all you want- if you’re a private property, individual, church, business, etc. It isn’t about whether I’m offended. It’s about whether my money is going to support that which I not only do not support or believe in, but think is wholly absurd:

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves
and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.
-Thomas Jefferson

Then this:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul207.html

Ok. I get that Dr. Paul believes marriage is best left up to the states, individuals, and their churches. Of course, this (at least so I understand it, and so does my state’s- Massachussetts’- Supreme Court) is a 14th amendment issue. Does Paul believe that equal protection under the law for different races is a matter the Federal Government should enforce, but not equal protection for different sexual orientations? Or does he believe that states should be allowed to decide how to treat different races as well?

Nate, you stated that you thought Paul wanted the government out of marriage altogether, not just at the federal level, but at the state level. That way marriage would be the sole province of individuals and their churches; as many churches are perfectly willing to marry gays, it wouldn’t be a problem. However, this idea has some problems.

Who is to arbitrate legal matters relating to marriage? Who decides child custody in the case of divorce? Who ensures that spouses have the power to make legal and medical decisions for each other? What about inheritance? You might reply that couples could join in contracts to sort all these issues out, but guess what: that’s exactly what civil marriage is. That’s all gays are asking for, a legal document. You don’t have to call it marriage, so long as you don’t call the heterosexual version marriage either.

Then this:
http://www.americablog.com/2007/08/ron-paul-on-homosexuality-sin-and-dont.html

I think Paul is actually purposely ignoring what Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell means. It doesn’t ban gay servicemembers from sexual relations. That’s already taken care of by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which applies equally to heterosexuals without the double standard. DADT means a servicemember can be discharged simply for mentioning a significant other of the same sex back home. But either Paul doesn’t know this, or he’s being purposely obtuse.

But oh yeah, I re-registered as a Republican anyway (never expected to do that) and I’m voting for Paul in my state’s primary. Civil rights issues like these have seen slow but steady progress since the founding of this country. These will be resolved with or without Paul. But the corruption rampant in our government, and our disastrous foreign policy? Those got bad a few decades after the founding, and it hasn’t gotten better since.

Paul’s the only one with a chance to fix it.

I think that’s exactly what Dr. Paul is saying. Government has the right to be the arbiter of the things you mentioned, but nothing more. There’s no need to call it marriage, because it has nothing to do with vows or ceremony. It’s a legal contract between two adult individuals. I believe he made this clear in the interview with John Stossel.

So basically all he would change is the name?

I’ve heard him say recently that he wants to look at DADT as a behavioral issue, not a sexual orientation issue. So the same behavioral punishments would be consistent across sexual orientation lines.

Huh. It cut off the second half of my comment. Wordpress doesn’t like me, it seems :[

I’ve heard him say recently that he wants to look at DADT as a behavioral issue, not a sexual orientation issue. So the same behavioral punishments would be consistent across sexual orientation lines.

But military law existing long before DADT takes care of all that, as I said, without the double standard. Or did you mean that heterosexual soldiers shouldn’t be allowed to discuss their relationships either?