Ron Paul's voting record doesn't show any indication of support for Rushdooney or North's beliefs. So why they support him is a mystery.

Ron Paul only uses a few rules when determining his vote and they all must answered correctly or the vote is NO: Is the bill constitutional (using a strict reading)? Will it fit in the budget? Will it prevent the growth of government and it's encroachment on our freedoms?

That's about it. He has a stellar voting record. No one else comes close.

Mark,

I suspect that his strict reading of the constitution is the key. Don't know what that means to Ron Paul, but "strict constructionism" often means reading the constitution as the Anti-Federalists THOUGHT IT SHOULD HAVE been written, and the interpretations that the Confederacy went to war over.

If that's the case, then the Federal government would be weak enough for them to have their effective theocracy (dismantle public schools on a state-level, with no federal over-sight, teach creationism, have state supreme courts be the final authority on what the state is allowed to do, with no recourse to the federal courts to over-see the rights of citizens, etc.

If they believe that is what his voting record shows, it would explain their support, even if he himself does not want a theocracy. They probably see his goals as being helpful for their goals.

William Demski (Big dude in the Discovery Institute), over at Uncommon Descent gives an excellent summary of how this works (he supports the idea of "strict constructionism"):

http://www.uncommondescent.com/religion/separation-of-church-and-state/

Though you can find numerous founders insisting that the Federal government has the right to protect the constitutional freedoms of citizens against state and local authorities, and Madison himself asserted that it was essential for the Federal government to be strong enough to resist state efforts to usurp it's authority to protect the constitutional rights of the people, you still find theocrats (and many non-theocratic libertarians) insisting that the protections of the constitution were never intended to extend to the people in general, but that states can actually legally deny the constitutionally protected rights of the people all they want. People are only protected from tyrrany from the Federal Government, and the Federal government cannot prevent the states from victimizing their own people...

So if South Carolina, for instance, were taken over by Christian Exodus (as they are trying to dowithout a lot of success just yet), for instance, and they wanted to start stoning to death homosexuals and children who cursed their parents...the Federal government has no right to stop them stoning American citizens to death for whatever they wish.

Pat Robertson also showed some compliance with this idea when he encouraged his stealth candidates to take over school boards and city councils, etc, and work their way into state government. It doevtails very nicely, don't you think?

Weaken the Federal Government, change the interpretation of the Federal Constitution to not apply to individual citizens, and then take over state and local governements with "real Christians" who believe in Biblical rule. If you can't do that, you've got your "leaderless resistance types" in the Army of God and other groups to do some rough enforcing, and they only get sent to prison if enough judges and prosecuters are on the side of the people.

Like it worked with the abortion doctors, a few high-profile assassinations will get a lot of people out of the business of doing things the theocrats don't like.

I'm not saying it'll work...I'm just saying it's a hell of a plan. It doesn't seem any crazier than Hitler's plan, after all...which was so crazy sounding that most people didn't give it a second thought.

"If that's the case, then the Federal government would be weak enough for them to have their effective theocracy

(dismantle public schools on a state-level, with no federal over-sight,..." -- Education is not mentioned at all in the Constitution, so refer to the 10th amendment. That is not strict constructionism, it's just reading what's there. It's easy to do, just read!

"...teach creationism" -- Teach whatever you want, it's the states responsibility to educate their citizens in a manner they best see fit. If you do not have a good education system, however, your state will suffer the consequences in the form of poverty, low wages, no businesses wanting to come you the state, citizens moving to other states, etc. The whole point being that if you want creationism taught, then you can move to the (a) state that teaches your beliefs. In fact, this was our exact model of teaching until midway through the 20th century. I don't see where we've suffered. I do however, see our education levels falling drastically after the federal government got involved.

"...have state supreme courts be the final authority on what the state is allowed to do, with no recourse to the federal courts to over-see the rights of citizens, etc." -- WRONG! The Supreme Court is - and has forever been - setup to judge the constitutionality of all state and federal laws. But that's all. It only has the power to judge laws against the U.S. Constitution. So if a state makes a law that is not constitutional and the state supreme court upholds that law, the U.S. Supreme Court can still overturn the ruling. It has been that way forever and is clearly setup in the constitution. Again, it isn't hard, just read what's there.

"Though you can find numerous founders insisting that the Federal government has the right to protect the constitutional freedoms of citizens against state and local authorities, and Madison himself asserted that it was essential for the Federal government to be strong enough to resist state efforts to usurp it's authority to protect the constitutional rights of the people..." -- I agree. In fact, so does the Constitution. You don't have to find writings of the founders to verify this. The Constitution itself is very clear:

Article 3, Section 2: "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;-- between a State and Citizens of another State**;--between Citizens of different States**;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States**, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof**, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make."

** That pretty much covers all citizens, don't you think. It's very clear.


"...you still find theocrats (and many non-theocratic libertarians) insisting that the protections of the constitution were never intended to extend to the people in general, but that states can actually legally deny the constitutionally protected rights of the people all they want. People are only protected from tyrrany from the Federal Government, and the Federal government cannot prevent the states from victimizing their own people..." -- You may be able to find these people, but that doesn't make them right. They can say it was never intended all they want, but they are clearly wrong.

"So if South Carolina, for instance, were taken over by Christian Exodus (as they are trying to dowithout a lot of success just yet), for instance, and they wanted to start stoning to death homosexuals and children who cursed their parents...the Federal government has no right to stop them stoning American citizens to death for whatever they wish." -- There's this thing called the Bill of Rights, part of the Constitution, that prevents this. See Amendment 8: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

"Pat Robertson also showed some compliance with this idea when he encouraged his stealth candidates to take over school boards and city councils, etc, and work their way into state government. It doevtails very nicely, don't you think?" -- ahh, Pat Robertson. He lives in my backyard here in Virginia, not but an hours drive from my home. What a jerk he is. However, he has the right to encourage people to get on school boards and city councils. Just like I do. School boards and city councils are elected positions - at least here they are - so the people ulitimately decide these matters.

"Weaken the Federal Government..." -- LOL. Yeah, sure. The Federal Government grows in power every second of every day. The plan you're laying out is a deranged dream of a few wackjobs. The fact that they think what they're attempting is even possible just proves exactly how deranged they have become.

The Federal Government does indeed need to be weakened. It's power so outreaches it's Constitutional bounds it's unbelievable we've let it go this far. They I see it (and many others), Ron Paul is currently our best hope in at least a start of getting the government back under control -- Meaning back to a Republican form of government -- The form of government our founders created and our Constitution demands.

OH MY WORD!!! You did not just bring up Hitler when discussing Ron Paul and a strict reading of the consitution! That's low, Teresa. Very low, indeed.

Mark,

Uh...no, I brought up Hitler when discussing how the theocratic conservatives have stated their goals for taking over the country and how they are attempting to put it into practice in plain sight, and how they hope to use more mainstream positions as incremental wedges to inch along on their agenda.

Seriously, do you listen to ANYTHING I say?

It's not low at all. Hitler (and his co-author, the Rudolph Hess tha the Neo-Nazis like so much) clearly stated his plan for world domination. Many of his plans seemed far out in left field (or "fringe)to people, but his more practical and nationalistice goals of restoring pride and economic prosperity to the German people resonated. He was able to use many of the real issues that people really cared about to gain support and power for himself. The three "N's" were his bread and butter: Nationalism, Nativism, and Nostalgia. Especially Nostalgia, for a history that was invented and sanitized along ideological lines and specifically designed to give a sense of predestination and exceptionalism to the people.

In fact, if you re-read what I wrote, I specifically said that I don't think Ron Paul subscribes to this agenda...but the fact is that many who have this agenda(including Hitler's ideological heirs) BELIEVE HIM TO BE USEFUL.

And that should worry him, and anyone who supports him. Do you think it's an accident that Reason magazine (the publication I referanced) thinks that questions should be raise about how much money and support comes to the Libertarian cause from theocrats? Care should be taken that they don't gain too much influence over the process of his candidacy, and maybe the possible effects of some of his policy positions should be examined.

You dismiss the theocratic arguments out of hand...and that is your perogative...but they are growing in acceptance. You hear people saying them on CNN and FOX News daily. If enough people BELIEVE that the constitution says what the theocrats say it says...then it doesn't matter what the constitution says. Why do you think the theocratic prayer that God "raise up rightous judges (like Roy Moore?) is such a big deal? Why do you think there is so much antipathy against "activist judges" when they interpret legislated laws in light of constitutional limits on government power? "Activist judges! Subverting States rights and the will of the people!"

As for the theocratic element being "fringe" I'd like to point out that the Discover Institute, the Homeschooling Movement as it exsists today, the IRD and many influential Republicans made their nut on these people. They are NOT "fringe". They are crazy, but they are very well-funded, well-connected, and influential.

When John McCain feels he has to go to Bob Jones University, you can no longer dismiss them as "fringe".

As for the Federal Government being pushed beyond it's constitutional boundaries, I agree with you in priciple, but clearly, we disagree on what, specifically those encroachments are. I tend to think in ways of the Government encrouaching on our rights to privacy, security in our persons, right to freedom of speech, and such. You apparently focus on our right to die from the effects of poverty or disaster.

Mark,

I completely ignored the points about education being worse since the federal government got involved (it hasn't. Education has continued to improve drastically. The No Child Left Behind puts many unnecesary and unhelpful burdons on it, but still.)

Look at it this way, compare the illiteracy rate for the US in 1945. All that was required to be considered "literate" was a 4th grade reading level...as that was the level of reading ability the average person needed to conduct the business of daily life. The literacy rate was around 81% (this information was based on tests done on the draft pool by the millitary)

Now days, we have a literacy rate of 99.9% (UN statistics), despite a much higher level of what is considered "basic literacy". I've found several estimates of our current literacy rate, and the lowest does not fall below 99%

This is despite the fact that what constitutes "basic" literacy (the ability to perform mreading tasks necessary to function in daily life)continues to increase. Of the three "illiterate" adult learners I have tutored as a volunteer, for instance, none of them were completely unable to read...and all three of them would have been considered "literate" 50 years ago.

I think our public schools do a damned fine job. Could they do better? sure. The reasons we get our asses handed to us is because we don't fund our schools at the levels that other countries do. We educate EVERYONE, and we educate everyone to the utmost level that they can/will perform...so we "waste" resouorces on underperforming students (if you see it as such.) And we spend resources helping students eliminate barriers to learning rather than simply allowing them to fail due to circumstances beyond their control.

Here's some more information on literacy and schooling over time. It is a long report, but there is a pretty informative table in there.

http://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp#overview

Fine. So "they" find him useful. If it helps him get elected, I'm damned fine with that. I'm telling you right now I trust him, based on his voting record and principles, not to allow compaign contributions from a group of people to persuade him to go against his core beliefs.

Hell, if he does manage to get elected, I would think he should be very fearful of being assassinated for that very reason!

Can you honestly say that there is ANY OTHER candidate, in any party, that has that strong of a conviction in their beliefs to actually stick to them when the going gets tough. Ron Paul has proven himself and his convictions over and over and over.

You want to say these people aren't fringe. I disagree. I will agree though that they do appear to be gaining influence. I attribute this "popularity" to our current (and recent past) crop of complete dolts in Washington. I believe Ron Paul when he says he wants to do something about it. He's shown he has the gumption to at least try, in the face of great opposition, to follow through on his promises.

Who else can you say that about with a straight face?

On your education argrument. Ok, cool! So we have a country full of literate fools. We are purposefully making the slow learners "literate" at the expense of the truly gifted. We are so focused on "leaving no child behind" that we are no longer pushing the truly gifted to the heights they deserve.

BTW, have you seen a 4th grade test from 1945? I'd wager that most eighth graders today couldn't pass it.

Congratulations! Everyone can read, but fewer of us actually understand what we're reading...

Teresa, using the link you provided, I see that the literacy rate in the 1940s was just under 97%, not 81% as you claimed.

I don't see your measurements in the literacy rate as a good marker for our education system. Looks like we solved the literacy problem long long ago.

This is the biggest problem of our time. Please read:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory147.html

Mark,

The reason that we need to educate the average person to the highest point possible is that we, unlike many countries, rely on an educated populace to make our society work. Letting the mainstream of our society moulder in ignorance would be the worst thing we could do. Now, it is not the fault of the educational system that vast portions of our population fall prey to fashionable "new" ideas like the magic market fairies, or fashionable "new" ideas like that God created drug-resistant malaria. Thos ideas are activly marketed by people who are very savvy about the psychology of marketing, after all. If they can make people believe that a $120 pair of jeans made by an underpaid 12-year-old in Indonesia is better than a $70 pair of jeans made by an underpaid 12-year-old in Indonesia, which is better than a $30 pair of jeans made by a 12-year-old in Indonesia, then they can get people to believe anything.

If you want the public school systems to combat that sort of thing, then your going to need to accept that our kids can't get by in a 6-hour school day. They'll have to have 12-hour week days and three-hour weekend school days like the kids who visited us from China last summer.

WRT the literacy rates, there are going to be some discrepancies depending on who is collecting the data, and from what sort of population. My 81% quote was for literacy as determined necessary by the armed services. It was from the draft-pool. The number in the study was likely some sort of aggregation of several different sources. Still, if you compare the numbers you will see the important point is that the literacy rate continues to increase despite the fact that the skills required to be considered literate are increasing. (people have to learn more to be considered literate as time goes on).

I don't know about a test from 1945...but I DO have my mother-in-laws grade school readers from when she was in school, and the current formula for assessing the reading level of material puts those at about 1-2 full grade-levels below the current expectations.

I would be interested to know what you WOULD consider to be a good marker for our educational system...perhaps if we could measure someone's ability to believe that competition is magic? Believe in invisible market fairies? Maybe a test to see how well they think a government from the 1800's can function in 2007?

Interesting that you wuld cite lewrockwell as a source, yet insist that Theocrats (Christian Reconstructionists, Dominionists, and Christian Identity types) are on the "fringe".

Still, about the article, I agree that war is our biggest problem and expense...yet why are we always at war? Except that we find it necessary to enforce our will overseas to shore up our "free market" ability to make huge gobs of profit for our biggest corporations? If we didn't have millitary might to back them up, they would have to do business fairly and equitably, and that just isn't profitable enough.

'course, the last time I said something like what Anthony Gregory said in the article that you cited, you called me an anti-American commie...so color me confused.

Be confused if you must.

See, you *would* place the blame for the war on corporate greed because that's who you are. Anthony Gregory surely didn't say that in his article, yet somehow that's what you got from it. Color me confused, too.

"magic [invisible] market faries" ??? huh?

"...ability to believe that competition is magic" ??? huh?

A government from the 1800's can't function in 2007? First, it's not the government, it's the ideas. I'm surprised you brought it up, honestly. Because actually it would be a government from 510 B.C. and lasted for over 450 years. So yes, it can easily function in 2007.

Mark,

Maybe you didn't link to the article that you thought you did...

Hi, everybody!

"See, you *would* place the blame for the war on corporate greed because that's who you are. Anthony Gregory surely didn't say that in his article, yet somehow that's what you got from it."

And this is one of the reasons I don't view libertarians as any smarter than the average right-wing moron. The thing that you claim Anthony Gregory *didn't* say was in fact the very thesis that he laid out quite explicitly and at great length in the article titled "The Diagnosis Of A Dying Republic", which is what you linked to above. Did you not read the article, or did you mean to link to a different one entirely?

Teresa and Rick

Unless you replace the words "empire" and "imperialism" with "corporate greed," I'm afraid I don't see what you're getting at.

Rick, the "thesis" !?!? Wow! And here I thought the thesis of the article was how "The warfare state has always been the greatest single threat to American constitutional liberty. James Madison understood this when he proclaimed that war “comprises and develops the germ of every other” threat to freedom. Conscription, standing armies, consolidated power in the executive branch, crushing taxes, and mass death and injury accompany an expansive warfare state, and, along with all such germs of tyranny, we could expect a steady decline in the freedom of the individual and a perpetual growth of the central state. Perpetual war, Madison said, would mean the death of American liberty..."

Sorry guys, but there are scant references to corporations and their greed in this article.

Could you please point some of the references out to me in the form of quotes? Because this moron doesn't see it.

“As for economic prosperity, empire is never a good deal for most people. At best, it enriches the few at the expense of the many.”
“As U.S. forces invaded, they were much more concerned with protecting the oil fields than such ancient treasures.”
“Because of the institutional inertia of the military-industrial complex, U.S. plans to weaponize [sic] space continue to cost taxpayers billions. Congress doesn’t seem interested in the impossible logistics of these programs, leading Johnson to wonder whether they are “only interested in plausible public relations cover for using the defense budget to funnel huge amounts of money to the military-industrial aerospace corporations.””
“He sees the irony of the pretended loyalty of the Right to free markets when he critiques the ways U.S. imperialism protects corporate interests: “If Mexican corn farmers are driven out of business by heavily subsidized American growers and then the price of corn makes tortillas unaffordable, that is just the global free market at work,” he quips. “But if poor and unemployed Mexicans then try to enter the United States to support their families, that is to be resisted by armed force.”
Of course, libertarians will sympathize with his frustration with right-wing corporatist hypocrisy here, but how do we explain the following?”
This isn’t even scratching the surface of the implied innuendo that he is referring to ECONOMIC imperialism. The many analogies to the British Empire, for instance, which was also a nation’s military backing up an economic power-elite.
Face it, Mark, as long as we want to pay less for stuff than it is worth, and enforce that trade at the point of a gun, we’ll always be at war. If we fund revolutions against governments that won’t deal with us, if we continue to train and fund and prop-up governments that repress their own people just because they will deal with our companies…if we allow our companies to continue using bribes and coercion to get what they want and avoid responsibility for their actions, we’re going to have to keep going to war.
You can call it “free trade” and defend it until you are blue in the face, and you can call people who don’t like it Commie until the cows come home, but it doesn’t change the reality that trade at the point of a gun isn’t “free”. And Neither is it free trade to pilliage public coffers to fund your "free trade".

[light bulb turns on]

Touche'

I believe, though, that getting someone like Ron Paul elected will go a long way to solving many of these issues. Getting Hillary or Obama in office will only make the problems worse. Honestly, who do you think will be providing all this Universal Health Care and other "government provided" programs? Who will make billions in profits? I'm sure corporations would love thes programs to become a reality.

Mark,

See, this is where I part ways with libertarians, generally. Although I think that government programs always have a TENDANCY to become overbearing if not kept in check by an alert populace...I don't necessarily think that is a reason to not do them. It's a reason to stay alert and active as a citizen.

I think that a society has a right to get together and decide what we, as a society, want to buy. If we want to buy streets not littered by sick, homeless elderly people, we get together and pony up the money and fund a government program to get healthy, housed elderly people.

If we want (actually need) an educated populace, and if living with several states worth of ignorant fools is bad for our country as a whole, we buy an educational system that provides everyone a basic opportunity to become educated.

If we need a millitary to protect us from unprovoked attacks, then we spend our money to get ourselves a millitary.

I can't buy these things myself, but together we can buy them, and together we can all benefit from them. This is what Paine described as what happens when we exceed our area of personal competancy to exercise our individual rights. We use our "corporate" competancy as a society to secure the general welfare.

The fact that we need these things is not a gurantee against them being misused. The only guarantee that we have that they won't be misused is oversight by us. While it is attractive to believe that we can relive ourselves of that responsibility by saying that the market will take care of it if we just let things unfold...it won't necessarily result in us getting what we want. If we want something specific, we have to order it and pay for it. It won't just wander up to us hoping to be purchased.

Now, I'll comment on a government health care program as soon as I see one that I think will justly compensate corporations for the production and research (without just handing them the store, like our current energy policy does), is flexible enough to cover the majority of American's health care problems, and which is not intended to replace private health care...but I havn't seen it yet. As far as I can see, nobody's bothering to try. Why? Because people are not demanding that they come up with something different.

And in fact, the loudest voices I've heard on the subject have been saying that there IS no problem with the health care system, or that somehow we as a society should not want a better one, and even if we do, we don't have a right to get it. So, if it doesn't happen, it is probably because either we as a society don't really want a decent system of health care that badly, or that we just didn't get it together enough to pull it off. As long as enough of the right people benefit fromt he status quo, they will ignore the growing pressure from those most affected. Like most things, the more a problem affects a growing segment of society, the more of a priority it becomes for society to fix the problem together.

Like most things, the problem will eventually become bad enough for enough people that society will decide it is in everyone's best interests to fix it.

Eventually, I believe, we will get to that point. Obviously, we are not there yet.