Ron Paul is a constitutionalist.

Ron has never voted to raise taxes.
Ron has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
Ron has never voted for the Iraq War.
Ron has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
Ron has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
Ron has never voted to raise congressional pay.
Ron has never taken a government-paid junket.

Ron voted against the Patriot Act.
Ron votes against regulating the Internet.
Ron voted against NAFTA and CAFTA.
Ron votes against the United Nations.
Ron votes against the welfare state.
Ron votes against reinstating a military draft.

Ron votes to preserve the constitution.
Ron votes to cut government spending.
Ron votes to lower healthcare costs.
Ron votes to end the war on drugs.
Ron votes to protect civil liberties.
Ron votes to secure our borders with real immigration reform

He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
Congressman Paul introduces numerous pieces of substantive legislation each year, probably more than any single member of Congress.


How can you not love this guy listen to him he is truly a man who
tells the truth "We The People" are taking our country back and
restoring the original Constitutional Republic and returning Amerika
back to America not the "United States of Surveillance"


"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot
survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable,
for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor
moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling
through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself.
For the traitor appears not a traitor---he speaks in the accents
familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and
he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He
rots the soul of a nation---he works secretly and unknown in the night
to undermine the pillars of a city---he infects the body politic so
that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.

--- Cicero: orator, statesman, political theorist, lawyer and
philosopher of Ancient Rome.

"In the time of universal deceit, telling the truth
is a revolutionary act" GEORGE ORWELL

"None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
-- Goethe

Chris,

Thank you for your incredibly wordy word-salad Ron Paul spam. If you answer this with real dialogue I might not delete your spam.

My answer is: Ron Paul does not need my love. He gets enough love from White Supremicists, Neo-nazis, and theocrats.

Chris

Total spammage! You obviously think Teresa can be swayed with one liners and sound bites. I would suggest forming an actual opinion before posting here again. Don't get me wrong. I'm definitely a Ron Paul supporter, but you're not helping your cause by spamming in this manner. It's like getting an email from some one you don't know - nobody pays attention.


Teresa

Let me start by saying Thanks for taking the time on my behalf, though. Few people would have done that.

However...

Your link to "politicians should do what the Pope says" doesn't say that at all! Ron Paul explains why Washington politicians didn't like the Pope. He explains that religion, like politics, has rules and that those rules clash with each other. He finishes by explaining why religion in the U.S. rarely criticizes Washington any more. He in no way suggests that we should do what he says.

And your link to "how the church should rule America" is nothing more than a complaint that Christmas is loosing its meaning. He does not, NOT, suggest that the church should rule America. What colored lens are you reading through?

Your link to "rectifying specific injustices against particular groups" is nothing more than a diatribe against the quota requirements and the "power grab" of the Civil Rights Act. He believes the act was unconstitutional, nothing more. And then for you to somehow link his Civil Rights Act speech to say he thinks it's "a states issue if they want to guarantee human rights to their citizens or not" is laughable.

That link (human rights/states issue) is totally about the Presidents' attempt to create a marriage amendment to the constitution. He ONLY talks to the marriage issue. How you linked to the Civil Rights Act is an amazing leap of... well - I don't want to say stupidity because you surely are not stupid.

About amending "the Constitution to deny historic conditions of citizenship as a matter of convenience,” he explains his case very well.

"The real problem is not immigration, but rather the welfare state magnet.

Hospitals bear the costs when illegal immigrants enter the country for the express purpose of giving birth. But illegal immigrants also use emergency rooms, public roads, and public schools. In many cases they are able to obtain Medicaid, food stamps, public housing, and even unemployment benefits. Some have fraudulently collected Social Security benefits.

Of course many American citizens also use or abuse the welfare system. But we cannot afford to open our pocketbooks to the rest of the world. We must end the perverse incentives that encourage immigrants to come here illegally, including the anchor baby incentive."

He goes on to explain that 70-80% of babies born in Houston hospitals have parents who are here illegally. He also explains the USA has always, and will continue, "to welcome immigrants who follow our immigration laws and seek a better life here."

His take is that "citizenship involves more than the physical location of one’s birth; it also involves some measure of cultural connection and allegiance. In most cases this means the parents must be citizens of a nation in order for their newborn children to receive automatic citizenship." It's difficult to argue with that logic. Ok, well, it is for me anyway. I suggest you read this again - with an open mind this time.

On your link to "...investment of interpretation of the constitution..." - I would think that you completely agree with this statement, taken from the linked article: "The practice of judicial activism – legislating from the bench – is now standard procedure for many federal judges. They dismiss the doctrine of strict construction as outdated, instead treating the Constitution as fluid and malleable to create a desired outcome in any given case. For judges who see themselves as social activists, their vision of justice is more important than the letter of the law they are sworn to interpret and uphold. With the federal judiciary focused more on promoting a social agenda than on upholding the rule of law, Americans find themselves increasingly governed by judges they did not elect and cannot remove from office.
...
Allowing federal judges unfettered discretion to strike down state laws, or force a state to conform to the laws of another state, leads to centralization and loss of liberty.
...
Many people associate their wedding day with completing the rituals and other requirements of their faith, thus being joined in the eyes of their church – not the day they received their marriage license from the state. Having federal officials, whether judges, bureaucrats, or congressmen, impose a new definition of marriage on the people is an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty."

Are you saying he is wrong on these statements?

Apparently, you began your readings of Ron Paul with an already slanted opinion because of a minority of his supporters and who they are and what they represent. You didn't make even the smallest attempt at cleaning your judgmental slate before you started.

Teresa - did you notice Chris' slip? He gives himself away... I'll let you look before showing it to you.

Mark,

Regarding Chris' "slip"...

Hmmm...I don't know, Mark, there's so many...

Quoting anti-totolitarian socialist George Orwell in support of an anti-socialist candidate?

Chooseing as his alias the name of a well-known movie effects artist and also a respected astronomer?

Posting prolifically on a wide range of diverse websites that he could not possibly be a regular participant of and only on one single topic?

Spelling America with a "K"?

Forgetting to mention Ron Paul's tactic of winning pork for his constituancy by slipping riders into bills that are likely to pass and then voting against them?

I could go on, but I have a feeling that whatever you saw is probably much much jucier!

Do tell...

Oh darn. I feel so lame, now. I noticed the Orwell thing, but I was noticing the "K" and calling the USA the United States of Surveillance.

Mark,

Not lame at all. Just you probably don't get as much political spam at your blog, so you have less exposure to the wonderous variety. I imagine that technical blogs get a much more straightforward variety of spam.

I'll leave Chris' comment up, as it's not offensive. OH! The other thing that indicates it's political spam is the fact that it was up so soon after my post, and he's not a regular reader. It smacks of someone hitting "refresh" on a Google search several times an hour.

But about whether my reading of Ron Paul was "fair". I suspect that we verey much read things differently (in fact, I KNOW we do). When I read Ron Paul say that Texas has a right to legislate private sexual behavior, I read that he supports states rights over the rights of the individual. When he says that, I also notice that he is Memeing the arguments of Christian Nationalists, Christian Reconstructionists, Dominionists, and White Supremicists (who are also anti-gay generally). Some may say it's paranoid to assume that he is pandering to them, but when I see the support they give him, and how they themselves point to the same rhetoric and say "See? He's on our side, this is code for supporting our real agenda" I tend to think they have a reason to believe that.

When i'm told that he can accept their support and promotion and use their memes and rhetoric and money and whatnot and not be beholden to them, I think of my reaction to Hillary's claim that she can take special interest money and not be beholden. ("Yeah right").

David Duke is practically falling all over himself for this guy. Why? Because he reads the same things into Paul's rhetoric that I do, except he's for it and I'm not.

When you read Ron Paul's writings, you read a different agenda into it. One that is much more acceptable to this country. I hope you're right, I really do. But be that as it may, some really repugnant people are whole-heartedly embracing him and stating that his actions further their agenda...and I totally understand why they say that...because it does.

I understand Ron Paul's wide-spread appeal. His stance on the war will bring in people for whom the war is the only issue. I agree with his conclusions on more than one thing...but the places where I differ from him are deal-breakers.

Thank you for challenging me to look closer at the issues and at Ron Paul's candidacy.

Theocracy Watch is doing a good job shedding light on what Ron Paul really is -

http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/965747.html

Teresa

You said "When I read Ron Paul say that Texas has a right to legislate private sexual behavior, I read that he supports states rights over the rights of the individual."

Ok, I can understand why you would think that. However, states have had laws like this on the books forever. So when I see something like this I see a man trying to prevent a more powerful entity trying to take over the rights of the individual. I truly think that the "individual rights" is topmost on Ron Pauls agenda.

Good topic - I love a good debate. And you're very good at it. You make me try to sharpen my points. Of course, some people just won't listen at at all (I think Chris would fall into this category). You do, and it's appreciated. heh - but I'll still call you a socialist from time to time...

Rick

I don't know who the poster of that article supports. However, I've looked at his profile and quite a few of his other posts. If he can't find hope in Ron Paul, then he'll never be happy with anyone - period.

This guys sees a conspiracy around every corner, even with people he would normally like. He's paranoid and delusional. Not worth a second look - at least on politics. Some of his other stuff is actually quite funny.

Mark,

Who the author of the post supports is irrelevant to the points raised about Ron Paul. If you follow the discussion in the comments below, he is taken to task for not making his points well, acknowledges that and restates his case better, and provides some more material. As always with such things, the damning evidence comes not so much from his arguments from what Ron Paul and his supporters say all by themselves. Teresa is much more articulate, but the fact that he is less so does not by itself invalidate the data or the conclusions drawn from them. Also, his point about much of the apparently supportable things like Ron Paul say they stand for being "code words" for Dominionism policies is well taken, and hardly news. The fact that he is a bit of a clumsy writer and may be wrong about some things is insufficient to earn him a dismissal as "paranoid and delusional"; I confess that I haven't read much of his other stuff and so can't judge him yet... but then, I wasn't looking for an excuse to write him off.

Getting back to the subject of Ron Paul and his own words, here's a bright shiny gem -

"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 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 their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war." -- Ron Paul, December 2003.

Yikes! Speaking of paranoid and delusional...

Rick

The only part of that quote that even remotely bothers me is "...with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance." The rest so oh so true.

"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." -- True

"...our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs" -- True

"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" -- True

"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." -- True

"The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance." -- umm.. don't know what they envisioned, but doubtful they'd have gone that far.

"Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility." -- True

"Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government." -- True. BIG TIME

"Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state." -- True. However, unfortunate.

You should know, Rick, that I'm not religious at all. I do not think highly of organized religion. Organized religion acts very much like an overbearing government. That doesn't change the fact that nearly all of these statements are very true.

Mark,

--"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." -- True --

The Founding Fathers quite pointedly say otherwise.

--"...our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs" -- True --

False. The very secular-minded Founding Fathers were mostly Deists and Unitarians, and those who were nominally Christian by the standards of their day would be ripped apart by the talking heads on Fox Noise today.

-- "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" -- True --

False. The words "by their Creator" were inserted into the Declaration of Independence over Thomas Jefferson's objections, and even so referred to the Deist concept of a Creator who got the ball rolling and then got the hell out of the way. That covers the Declaration; the word God does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. At all. It is a carefully and deliberately secular document.

--"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." -- True --

Misrepresentation. The Establishment Clause was intended to prevent both the co-opting of religion by government and the co-opting of government by religion. Freedom from religion is part and parcel of freedom of religion.

--"The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance." -- umm.. don't know what they envisioned, but doubtful they'd have gone that far. --

Doubtful, indeed. The Founding Fathers recognized that Christianity was a part of whom a great many people are and others are not, and envisioned a robustly secular nation where citizens could be free to be who they were to the extent that they could not force others to be like them.

--"Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility." -- True --

False. Throughout out nation's history churches have taught obedience, ignorance, and servility; only a transparent and accountable government of, by, and for the people can effectively hold such amoral powermongering in check.

--"Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government." -- True. BIG TIME --

Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong. They therefore quite naturally come into conflict with those who lack morality and civility and who therefore have no natural constraints upon how they acquire and wield the wealth and power which they then wield like clubs against those who are weaker than they or who oppose their avarice and cruelty. Since a transparent and accountable government of, by, and for the people can provide for laws and enforcement that would thwart their aims, they are naturally driven to co-opt it if they must, and to tear it down if they possibly can.

--"Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state." -- True. However, unfortunate. --

D'accord.

If the founding fathers had truly intended a Christian America, there wouldn't be Soooooo many quotes saying that they didn't, and David Barton wouldn't have had to falsify so darned many for the Theocrats to use to push the comepletely invented idea that our nation was intended to be a Christian one.

The premis you often hear, that State governments are meant to be religious, while the Federal government is meant to be secular is rediculous. If they recognized the danger of religion in a federal government, they would have recognized it in a state government...especially given how Madison explicitly states that the federal government must be strong enough to counter the avariciousness of state governements in usurping the rights of the people, and infringing upon one another as well as on the national government. Why would they want the state governments to be religious?

The meme that morality can only come from religion is so fundimental (forgive the pun) to their agenda, and here's Ron Paul spouting it so casually. Morality is a human trait. What morality there is in religion (and I have found little evidence of it) was put there by humans when they invented it in the first place. Therefore, morality is as likely to be found in government as in any human endeavor, and can be made dominant in any human exercise through the application of human virtues such as thoughtfulness, self-discipline, and accountability, to name a few.

And the meme that religion has been run out of the public sphere is just bunk, but another favorite code of the theocrats. My kids say the pledge of allegiance, complete with "under God", when my youngest was in second grade, his teacher read a Christmas story woth a Christian theme. Religious music with Christian and Jewish themes are ubiquitous at school concerts and the like. The last school concert had at least half a dozen religious-themed songs out of about fourteen total...and one spoken part about how important religious faith has been to America. Our High School has a school-sponsored Christian Club, the boy scouts meet in the schools despite barring atheists...

WTH? banned from the public sphere? like hell. I have no problem with any of the above, BTW. They aren't trying to convert my kids in the school, so what do I care? It makes them happy...or it SHOULD...but it doesn't. They just lie and lie some more.

Oh sure, you've got the occasional kids walking out of a classroom to protest having to say "under God" in the pledge. That hardly constitutes a "ban".

I have no respect for anyone who parrots that little bit of baseless twaddle.

Founding Father Quotes:

These, I was able to cut and past from this site: http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/profile



Though I have most of these in various books around the house, it saved me from having to look them up and type them in.



"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion..." -- Treaty with Tripoli, passed unanimously by the senate,
signed by President John Adams on June 10, 1797

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever..." Thomas Jefferson, in the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom, 1786

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law." -- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separated." -- President Ulysses S. Grant

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson

"The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant, of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the law-giver, if such a word could not be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed! They pant to reestablish by law that holy inquisition which they can now only infuse into public opinion." --Thomas Jefferson

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." --James Madison

"The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S." --James Madison

"The priesthood have, in all nations, monopolized learning, and ever since the Reformation where or when has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry or free thought. The most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahoooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find that you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hands, and fly into your face and eyes." --John Adams

"When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and, when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support [it], so that its Professors are oblig'd to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
--Benjamin Franklin, letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780



These, I had to find myself:



My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolt those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, August 6, 1816



“In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. It is easier to acquire wealth and power by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer for their purposes.”

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio Spofford, 1814



Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.

--Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography



"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if

there be one, he must approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded

fear" --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr



"And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing, that as men and christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of AMERICA."

--Thomas Paine, "Common Sense" (italics and emphasis in the original)

Most damning of all is this -

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

( Thomas Jefferson, letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, January 1, 1802

In this Jefferson bluntly and explicity states that the purpose of the Establishment Clause is to establish the separation of church and State. No room whatsoever for questions or interpretations; you can't possibly get more clear than this. Even if the rest of the many writings of the Founding Fathers were vague on the topic, this one statement gives unequivocal lie to the assertions by so many Christofascists that the Founding Fathers intended either theocracy or conditions favorable to theocracy. They most emphatically did not. And no honest man can claim otherwise.

Just to be clear and fair, let's let Ron Paul have his say once more -

"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."

Ahem. President Jefferson?

"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

Thank you, Mr. President; and you, Mr. Paul. No further questions.

This little bit of the Ron Paul piece really irks me.

“…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….” Ron Paul, December 2003.

People who need to derive their sense of right and wrong from religion are no more governed by internal morality than the atheist who knows better than to murder, cheat, lie, etc. Suggesting that only religious people, and specifically only Christians can be moral beings is ridiculous. If anything, these are people who choose not to "sin" because they are afraid of punishment (which really is the same, whether divine or secular), rather than because they are moral individuals, with a strong internal sense of right and wrong. I refer you back to a quote from Jefferson already posted by Teresa:

"My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolt those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there."
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, August 6, 1816

Ok, OK! I get it. LOL

Look, being an athiest myself, I find if very easy to agree with you guys. I could nit-pik on some of your statements I but I won't. Because, on the whole, you are absolutely right. It's funny having the Tripoli quote put back in my face! LOL. I've used it against you, Teresa. I only wish I could find what you had to say about it - because you did have a comeback.

Look, if you guys can find a better candidate for me to back other than Ron Paul, I'm in! But I can't help but see, based on his record and what he says, a man who is totally committed to the consitution when I look at him.

I know this relpy is weak on content but that's all I have time for today.

Mark,

In 1988, I was given a choice between George H. W. Bush and Mike Dukakis for President. I wrote my choices for better candidates for President and Vice-President - Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. And I was serious. Sometimes "None Of The Above" really is the best and most honest choice.

As far as Ron Paul being "totally committed to the Constitution", when I catch anyone flat-out lying about what the Founding Fathers wrote, they can feel free to frak off. The Constitution matters to me.

Rick

I haven't voted for a major party candidate since 1984. I know exactly how you feel. Now, thanks to Teresa for pointing the insurance piece to me (I'm surprised I haven't seen it earlier), I may not again next year.

I feel so betrayed...

I should be used to that feeling by now, I guess.

Mark...

hmmm...treaty of Tripoli. The last time I recall having the treaty of Tripoli used against me was in an argument with someone (I think it might have been icanplainlysee) when he insisted that Thomas Jefferson only had a copy of the Koran (used by Congressman Ellison for his swearing-in ceremony) so that he could argue effectivly in negotiations with the Barbary States.

I argued back that this was not true, as he had the Koran from the time he was a young man reading for the law. Also, that he had aquired an Arabic grammar and lerned to read arabic so that he could understand the Koran better in the original language.

His study of world religious caused him to caragorize them in relation to how serious he felt their flaws were. He gave many indications that he thought that Christianity was the least flawed, and the most likely to be beneficial, but still clearly indicated that reason applied to Natural Philosophy was far superior a way to discover morality.

That doesn't sound like any discussions we've had. But maybe you were in on that one as a lurker. I don't remember if it happened at icanplainlysee, frecklescassie, or 4Simpsons.

No, I know it was me... hmmm. Must have been with another worthy opponent! Probably a religious web site. Sometimes sparking a debate on them can be fun to watch. Sometimes I get in moods where I enjoy watching far-right-wing-nut-jobs implode when their best arguments are used against them. It's a great confidence booster. Heaven knows I can't get that satisfaction here!

Mark,

Thanks, but every suit of armor has a weak spot. :-)

You will find them eventually, I've no doubt.

Looking forward to it.

Teresa

Teresa just because neo-nazis support Ron Paul doesnt make him one of them. Blacks are supporting Mr. Paul but his not black right. This is what you can do go vote for Queen Hilary of England so we can all have MANDATORY(forced) healthcare.

This is for the people who think he is gonna run a Theocracy , breaking news the Envangelical christians are not supporting him. Mr. Paul said he is appaulded how they(envangelicals) are supporting the war in Iraq etc. He said it goes agianst everything he was taught as a Christian.

Steve,

Are you high? The Chalcedon website is practically the "All Ron Paul show".

Plus, as I have repeatedly stated here...Ron Paul does not have to be a Nazi to further their agenda. He doesn't have to agree with them 100%. Promoting the first 75% of their agenda is enough for them.

This isn't inference. They come right out and say it. I'm just saying, maybe people should think about that a little bit.

Finally, my thoughts on Hillary Clinton are on the record here, and you are WAY off base. Obviously, you havn't bothered to read anything else on this site, which makes you a troll.

Therefore, I suggest that you read up on your hero and think about what you are doing, rather than trolling on his behalf...because that doesn't help people become favorable to your position, and you don't learn anything either.

Have a nice day.