What concerns me about Ron Paul.
Ron Paul is not the man people pretend he is. I've had it with all the worship of a man who has a long trail of issues people tend to brush off.
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Darren Hutchinson- Dear Washington Post: Ron Paul Is Not a Champion of Civil Liberty
Washington Post “factchecker” Josh Hicks gives Ron Paul high marks for consistency. Hicks claims that Paul’s proposals and voting record are 100 percent consistent with his political rhetoric. This conclusion, however, is woefully incorrect.
Ron Paul (along with his many fans) describes himself as a champion of civil liberties. Paul also embraces an extremely narrow conception of federal power. These two positions, however, do not always co-exist peacefully. Consequently, Paul has sponsored legislation that would imperil the very civil liberties he claims to endorse.
Consider for example Paul’s sponsorship of the We the People Act. This bill, if passed, would have dreadful consequences for the protection of civil liberties. The proposal would prohibit the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from deciding cases challenging state laws that implicate:
1. the free exercise or establishment of religion;
2. the right of privacy, including issues of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction; or
3. the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation where based upon equal protection of the laws.
The proposal would also prohibit the federal courts from issuing rulings that “interfere[] with the legislative functions or administrative discretion of the states.” Also, the bill, if passed, would “negate[] as binding precedent on the state courts any federal court decision that relates to an issue removed from federal jurisdiction by this Act.”
Let’s sort through the legalese. The bill would curtail civil liberties in several ways. First, it would remove all cases involving freedom of religion and the establishment of religion from the federal courts. This could harm liberty in a couple of ways. For example, if a state infringed an individual’s or church’s right to exercise religion, the federal courts could not intervene to redress the wrong. Only state courts could do so. On the other hand, if an individual claimed that the state had unlawfully subjected him or her to religious practice (say, by mandating that a student pray a Christian prayer in school or profess a belief in God), that individual could not pursue redress in the federal courts. Because states still violate these constitutional rights, Paul’s proposal would allow these practices to remain in place, unless state courts sided with plaintiffs.
The bill’s most dangerous provision would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction in right of privacy cases. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution establishes a right of privacy. This is a great example of libertarianism. Unless individual behavior harms another person or the public, then the government needs a pressing reason for regulating it. Although the right of privacy protects individual liberty, Paul would keep the federal courts out of this important constitutional area.
As a consequence, federal courts could not decide the constitutionality of state laws that unlawfully regulate (or even prohibit) the use of contraception, restrict or ban abortion, or that deny marriage to same-sex couples. States could also ban adult consensual oral sex, anal sex, premarital sex and a host of other practices that fall within the right of privacy without any check from the federal courts.
Another interesting aspect of the We the People Act is the selective exclusion of issues from federal court review. Among the many subjects adjudicated in federal courts, Paul isolates the right of privacy and the religion clauses. In so doing, he is selecting constitutional provisions involved in progressive civil liberties cases with which the religious right vehemently disagrees. This is rather convenient, and hardly accidental, for a Republican candidate. Paul’s selective libertarianism would be a boon for social conservatives who deplore the exercise of individual liberty when it conflicts with their religious extremism. Paul has effectively sided with the religious right in a cultural war. This is not a libertarian outcome.
Furthermore, the portion of the bill that would negate the applicability of any precedent prohibited by the statute would mean the immediate demise of Roe v. Wade — a case that Paul the purported libertarian opposes. It would also mean that many other important Supreme Court rulings, such as cases protecting parental rights, family privacy, the right to marry, and the right to refuse medical treatment would suddenly lose all value as precedent in cases challenging state laws.
Moreover, the bill’s vague language that would prohibit federal courts from issuing any ruling that would interfere with the “legislative functions or administrative discretion of the states” could enable dangerous restraints on civil liberty. For example, if a state legislature prohibited women from voting, the bill could prevent a court from enjoining the statute. While the court might find this law unconstitutional, it could not enjoin enforcement of it. Enforcement of rights, however, is essential to liberty itself. Without remedies, rights have no value.
Finally, even though Paul’s opposition to the War on Drugs and various practices involving the U.S. military (like indefinite detention, etc.) is clearly rooted in libertarianism, his preference for state protection of rights would imperil liberty. So, while Paul opposes the federal government’s War on Drugs, Paul is silent with respect to similar wars being waged in the states. This silence is striking in light of the fact that states prosecute most crimes in this nation. As president, however, Paul would not question impediments to civil liberty in the states. This omission, though consistent with his extreme views of federalism, make it impossible for him to wear the libertarian label. Ron Paul is not a champion of liberty. The Washington Post is wrong.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darren-hutchinson/ron-paul-civil-liberty_b_1174422.html
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The dangerous isolationism of Ron Paul
On the one hand, Texas congressman Ron Paul, Republican candidate for the presidency, is a zealous champion of limited government, free markets and low taxes. On the other hand, he reportedly thinks the U.S. should not have gone to war against Nazi Germany. What to make of this heresy? In a word, a great deal – for it may define Mr. Paul’s isolationism.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/neil-reynolds/the-dangerous-isolationism-of-ron-paul/article2302229/
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Huffington Post Points Out What A Hypocrite Ron Paul Is, Once Again!
“Ron Paul Defends First Class Flights”
WASHINGTON — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been spending large amounts on airfare as a congressman, flying first class on dozens of taxpayer-funded flights to his home state. The practice conflicts with the image that Paul portrays as the only presidential candidate serious about cutting federal spending.
Paul flew first class on at least 31 round-trip flights and 12 one-way flights since May 2009 when he was traveling between Washington and his district in Texas, according to a review by The Associated Press of his congressional office expenses. Four other round-trip tickets and two other one-way tickets purchased during the period were eligible for upgrades to first-class after they were bought, but those upgrades would not be documented in the expense records.
Paul, whose distrust of big government is the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, trusts the more expensive government rate for Continental Airlines when buying his tickets. Paul chose not to buy the cheaper economy tickets at a fraction of the price because they aren’t refundable or as flexible for scheduling, his congressional staff said.
“We always get him full refundable tickets since the congressional schedule sometimes changes quickly,” said Jeff Deist, Paul’s chief of staff. Paul might have to pay out of his own pocket for canceled flights in some cases if he didn’t buy refundable tickets, Deist said.
But records show that most of the flights for Paul were purchased well in advance and few schedule changes were necessary. Nearly two-thirds of the 49 tickets were purchased at least two weeks in advance, and 42 percent were bought at least three weeks in advance, the AP’s review found.
Paul charged taxpayers nearly $52,000 on the more expensive tickets, or $27,621 more than the average Continental airfare for the flights between Washington and Houston, according to the AP’s review of his congressional expenses and average airfares compiled by the Department of Transportation.
The more expensive tickets have other benefits as well, including allowing Paul to upgrade to first class when his staff reserves a flight because his frequent government travel gives him membership in an elite class of Continental customers who earn travel perks. Upgrades to first-class with cheaper fares are possible, at times limited to available seats days before the flight. But those upgrades are not guaranteed and some require ticket changes at the airport, according to the airline’s frequent flyer rules.
The AP reviewed congressional travel before the Iowa caucuses for the two members of Congress running at the time – Paul and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Bachmann later ended her presidential campaign.
House records show Bachmann, like most other congressional members, also paid the more expensive government rate for airfare. But her staff would not provide access to more detailed expense records that show when and what type of tickets were purchased.
Paul’s congressional staff provided access to all expense records requested.
Congressional members don’t have to pay the government rate for travel, but most do, including many like Paul and Bachmann who advocate cuts in federal spending.
“You could almost always beat the government rate,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of the Washington-based Taxpayers for Common Sense, a federal budget watchdog group. “They need to be walking the walk, and one of the ways they can do that is to be fiscally responsible for how they spend their member office money.”
Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager, didn’t respond to a written request to explain how Paul’s use of more expensive airfare, which allows him to fly first class, corresponds with his commitment to cut federal spending. Instead, he sent a statement that started, “No one is more committed to cutting spending than Dr. Paul.”
But Paul’s congressional travel conflicts with claims in campaign appearances that he’s the most frugal and serious deficit hawk in the race.
“The talk you hear in Washington is pure talk, because there is nobody suggesting, the other candidates are not talking about real cuts,” Paul said in a speech to supporters last week after his second-place finish in New Hampshire.
He has proposed cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget during his first year as president, and has confronted other candidates in public forums as “big government conservatives.”
“You’re a big spender, that’s all there is to it,” Paul told former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania during a GOP debate in New Hampshire.
Paul boasts on his website about declining other congressional perks, such as a pension and all-expense-paid travel “junkets” that other lawmakers take. And he says he regularly returns money from his congressional account to the treasury.
But when it comes to his congressional travel, Paul has opted not to search for cheaper airfares that could mean returning more of his office account to the treasury, which uses any money returned by House or Senate members to help reduce the federal deficit.
Paul paid $51,972 for his government-rate flights between Washington and Houston between May 2009 and March 2011, or more than twice the $24,351 average airfare on Continental for travel between Washington and Houston. The average airfare figure represents the price for all tickets purchased for Continental flights between Washington and Houston, including economy and first-class travel, according to the Transportation Department’s Domestic Airline Fares Consumer Report, which collects airfare information for the nation’s busiest travel routes.
Paul’s staff regularly booked him in first class on flights when tickets were purchased, according to expense records. His office paid between $1,217 and $1,311 for each round-trip flight, compared to the average airfare for that trip ranging from $528 to $760, according to the airline fares consumer report.
The period reviewed by the AP was the most recent period for which complete congressional expense records were available.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/ron-paul-defends-first-cl_n_1208495.html
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BOSSIP: In Idiot GOP News: Ron “Racist Old Head” Paul Called MLK Day An Outrage…Blames Ronald Reagan For “Hate Whitey Day”
http://bossip.com/523321/in-idiot-gop-news-ron-racist-old-head-paul-called-mlk-day-an-outrage-blames-ronald-reagan-for-hate-whitey-day/
We are all aware that Ron Paul is a certified racist. Here’s an excerpt from one of his shady newsletters regarding MLK Day via The Root:
“Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.”
… Paul’s supporters link to his Yea vote on this 1979 bill as evidence that he supported an MLK Holiday:
“TO AMEND H.R. 5461, MARTIN LUTHER KING HOLIDAY, BY DESIGNATING THE THIRD MONDAY IN JANUARY RATHER THAN JANUARY 15 AS THE LEGAL HOLIDAY.”
But this actually isn’t the bill for the holiday. The text doesn’t even claim that. More importantly, the date is wrong. This vote was taken on December 5, 1979. The vote for the King holiday was actually taken on November 13, 1979:
The bill was called up in the House on Tuesday, November 13, 1979 … When the final vote was taken, 252 Members voted for the bill and 133 against — five votes short of the two-thirds needed for passage.
I’m sorry to report that one of those Nay votes, as you can see here, was cast by one Ronald Paul. I’m sorry to further report that Paul again voted no on the 1983 bill that passed.
SMH.
FURTHERMORE: The website which they site is owned by a Ron Paul supporter who pledged a donation to his campaign. It’s NOT an official government webisite, and he even states on the page that he does it as a hobby. Ron Paul fans will go to extreme lengths to defend Ron Paul and his racism. They even FAKE his support online by doing things like making up quotes, and HACKING celebrity twitter accounts. Ron Paul and his fans are untrustworthy and not to be taken seriously.
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Omaha World-Herrald: Leonard Pitts Jr.: “Ron Paul’s extremism is foolish and scary.” From An African American Male Perspective.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, meet Ronald Ernest Paul. He is the very soul of a foolish consistency. Meaning that he is willing, often to a fault, to follow his ideology to its logical and most extreme conclusions.
But in Paul’s take on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he doubles down on the bad premise instead.
Paul has long argued — and reiterated recently on CNN — that the act, which liberated untold millions of African-Americans from the tyranny of Jim Crow, “destroyed the principle of private property and private choices.” In other words, forcing a restaurant to take down a Whites Only sign infringed the rights of the restaurant’s owner. A similar argument was made by segregationists in 1964 — and by slave owners in the 1850s.
Maybe it’s easy to make freedom an issue of “property rights” when you have never been the property.
That said, it is of little importance to wonder, as some are now doing, whether all of this makes Ron Paul a racist. Yes, we’ve recently learned of a newsletter sent out under his name in the 1990s that included racist language. Yes, Paul has won — and declined to disavow — the support of various white supremacist groups.
But yes, too, Paul has decried the War on Drugs as a war on African-American men— a view shared by many on the right. Then ask yourself what sort of nation this would be if that view ever prevailed.
Can government be overlarge, overbearing, overwhelming, over restrictive, over intru-sive? Of course. And where it is those things, it is the right — and duty — of the electorate to pare it back.
On the other hand, unless you enjoy salmonella in your food and lead in your paint, unless you think it’s OK that your doctor has no medical degree and your lawyer no license, unless you’re fine with breathing sooty air and drinking tainted water and unless you really think a black woman in Mississippi, locked out of public places by threat of violence and force of law, should have been required to wait on market forces to rescue her, you must regard Paul’s moral imbecility with a certain appalled awe.
Heaven help us if the intellectual rigidity he symbolizes is really the only alternative to the intellectual malleability of so many of his colleagues.
At its best, government vindicates and defends a people’s noblest ideals. The Civil Rights Act was government at its best. Paul disputes this and styles himself a defender of freedom for so doing. Too bad he can’t spend a day being black in Mississippi in 1964. He might emerge with a better understanding of that word.
As it is, Paul’s extremism only proves this much: Emerson didn’t know the half of it.
