“I pause when people write, “The purpose of government is to protect life, liberty, and property.” What are those words worth? If we judge by history, it appears that the purpose of government is exploitation of the industrious classes for the benefit of some ruling class. The root of the confusion is that governments traditionally have accorded some measure of protection for life, liberty, and property through police, courts, and defense against invaders. But this is perfectly consistent with the exploitation theory. Why wouldn’t the ruling class want the industrious classes to be dependent on government for protection against criminals and for peaceful resolution of disputes?”
The cool folks at DC Decoder are rounding up short sets of questions/expectations/hopes for the next GOP debate from a handful of political bloggers on tumblr. I’m not totally sure what the end goal is, but it sounds like a sweet idea. They were kind enough to ask me to participate, and these are the questions I submitted:
If you claim to adhere to the Constitution, do you support undeclared by Congress — and therefore unconstitutional — wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and arguably Pakistan and Somalia?
If you claim to adhere to the Bill of Rights — notably the Fourth Amendment — do you support the PATRIOT Act?
If you are a fiscal conservative, name two specific spending cuts you would support immediately as president and estimate the amount each would save per year.
If you affirm the Declaration of Independence, please explain why the freedom to pursue happiness excludes recreational drug use which does not interfere with anyone else’s liberty, person, or property.
If you are pro-life, please explain if your principles extend to unborn Iraqi and Afghan children. If not, explain why not.
If you consider yourself a Christian, please quote any Bible passages you are aware of in which we might find Jesus changing people’s morality through legislation, keeping in mind that Jesus himself states that he supersedes the law of the Old Testament.
Anonymous asked: Serious question: I will be able to vote by the next presidential election and I really have no idea who I'm going to vote for. I'm wondering what exactly Ron Paul believes and what makes you like him so much.
I didn’t respond immediately to this one; I was gathering my thoughts, so I made a list for you.
Economics
Ron Paul favors a free market capitalist society, which the United States was founded upon. He’s the most fiercely fiscally conservative man I’ve ever encountered. He understands Austrian and Swiss economics and knows how to apply them, which is essential. He wants to audit the Federal Reserve and ultimately abolish the Federal Reserve—translated, this means that MY savings are not affected by the government’s stupidity. He wants to close the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the IRS, and the Department of Homeland Security because all four are unconstitutional.
Foreign policy
Dr. Paul seeks a non-interventionist foreign policy for the United States, which would be the first time since the 40s that non-interventionism has been practiced by our country. He wants the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to end immediately with the withdrawal of our troops and a transformation of our understanding of foreign policy. We cannot maintain our tradition of nation-building and policing the world, and Ron Paul is willing to end those archaic traditions.
Personal liberty
This is my personal preference, and it differs from many other Christians and conservatives, but I digress. Ron Paul wishes to end the war on drugs, which would boost national economic revenue and would stop overcrowding our prisons. Additionally, Ron Paul has vaguely—I use vaguely because he’s never expressly supported or opposed it—spoken in favor of gay marriage. He wants the federal government to stay out of marriage by refusing to pass a bill that would define marriage by any means; instead, it should be left to the individual.
He has been a politician longer than any other person running for the GOP nomination. But that’s the thing: while being IN the establishment, he has so far remained OUT of the establishment. He doesn’t have talking points. He doesn’t cater to the audience. During the Tea Party debate, Ron Paul was booed for believing (the truth) that we were attacked on 9/11 because of our prior actions in the Middle East. To think that informed, educated, adult Americans could boo a man for speaking the truth is astonishing.
He just wants the government out of your life, for heaven’s sake.
“I do not pledge myself to a piece of fabric. I will gladly swear allegiance to my daughters, my wife, my family, my God, people truly important to me… but to a government? No. Governments are forever changing and catering to the interests of something or someone else. To pledge myself to a government is to pledge my loyalty to the whims and corruption of others, and to the tyrannical monopolizer of force that continually finds new ways to aggress against me and my loved ones.”
On top of our disastrous modern foreign policy, the United States has never had the backbone to eliminate the income tax and realize its unconstitutionality. We are the champions of liberty, yet nearly a dozen countries always rank higher than us on freedom indexes. Why is this?
“I do not believe in the death penalty. 68% of the time they make mistakes — and it’s so racist too. More than half the people getting the death penalty are poor blacks. This is the one place, this is the one remnant of racism in our country: the court system, enforcing the drug laws, and enforcing the death penalty. I don’t even know, but I wonder how many people have been executed — over 200? — I wonder how many were minorities. If you’re rich, you usually do not get the death penalty. And the DNA evidence now has proven people innocent. I don’t think it’s a very good sign for civilization to still be invoking the death penalty.”
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Ron Paul
Tumblr’s left-wing hacks won’t reblog this because it doesn’t fit the trite narrative of Ron-Paul-is-a-white-supremacist-lol. Also because they seem to not give a shit about anything that actually matters.
