Posted on 10/19/2007 12:23:35 PM PDT by uxbridge
Ron Paul, the feisty physician from Texas who has twice served in Congress and amassed a loyal following in his campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has gained widespread recognition as his party’s only anti Iraq-war candidate.
But Paul’s essential social conservatism may have been overlooked in his Libertarian view of government. Paul wants to abolish the federal income tax – that’s part of his governmental philosophy. But Paul also wants to ban abortion, proposing to overturn the landmark Roe versus Wade court ruling by legally removing jurisdiction over the issue from the federal courts.
“That should be our goal… to repeal Roe versus Wade,’’ Paul told an assembly of religious right voters in Washington today. “There is a couple ways that can be done…
“We can wait until we have our Supreme Court justices appointed... That’s taking a long time,’’ Paul said. “My approach is a little bit more direct… accepting the principle that we can as a legislative body and the president… remove the jurisdiction of this issue from the federal courts.’’
Paul told the Values Voter Summit today that he is “very pleased with the reception we are getting from young people… We have found that a lot of people are coming to join for the message we have been delivering. The message is not complex. It is rather simple… Freedom is much better than bureaucracy and government socialism… Freedom really works.
“I talk a lot about the lesson of life and liberty… It comes from our creator,’’ he said. “The pursuit of happiness means to lead our life as we choose… We should have the incentives to work hard and take care of our family….
(Excerpt) Read more at weblogs.baltimoresun.com ...
Not a Ron Paul supporter but I don't think that's a fair assessment since Paul has filed legislation to define personhood as beginning at conception.
No, your problem is that you made a stupid assertion that is unsupportable.
I feel your pain.
Here’s an example. Conservatives were outraged by racy content on TV. They passed laws stating the federal government can penalize broadcasters who offend “community values” because it’s an attack on our moral fiber. Conservative patted each other on the back for expanding the power of the federal government.
Liberals saw that, took it and are now passing laws adding extra penalties for people who commit crimes that offend “community values” because it’s an attack on our moral fiber, a.k.a. “hate crimes” and “speech codes.” They even copied the phrase “community values.”
Good luck getting people riled up about. You’ve already established that the government has an interest in protecting “community values.” People now look to the government to take action against people who offend them, whether it be a curse word on TV or a swastika on a synagogue.
I’m not saying I agree, I’m just saying 51% of Congress and most judges will. Don’t do it on abortion.
You’re not understanding me. It IS stupid to equate abortion with a gun in the home. But you’re giving power and precedent to stupid people (government.) That’s what they’ll do with it.
Do you HONESTLY think that if we win this issue by declaring it’s the federal government’s job to protect children, people won’t think that also means the federal government should give them health care and keep guns out of their homes?
Abortion is murder. Prosecute it like murder. It’s a state issue.
Good post.
Freegards
I'm not afraid of Hillary or leftists in general. I am afraid that Americans are ignorant of the founding documents of this nation and you are not assuaging that fear.
I don’t know why I’m still amazed by so-called conservatives who think they can expand the power of the federal government and just walk away, thinking that’s all that will be done with it.
Makes me wonder if they just set small fires in their home and head off to bed.
The answer is to take the issue out of the courts and make it a state issue again. Like slavery 150 years ago, public support for abortion is dying. Right now something like 30 states would ban it, and the other 20 won’t be far behind.
Here's a quick story on Paul that you may not have heard of. When he was completing his residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, he saw an abortion up front he actually saw the remains in the trash bin or whatever doctors use and was determined never to proceed with one as a physician, not even in cases of "rape, incest" or to "save" the mother's life.
Not a "priority" for him? The man has been on the front lines against abortion his entire adult life. Like I said, go to the abortion sub-topic of the Ron Paul library and read all his essays opposing abortion and stem-cell research. You can call him a kook on foreign policy, but you can't do the same on abortion.
States had legalized abortion laws in the 1800s.
THAT’S MY POINT!!!! :) :) :) People don’t understand individual rights or the Constitution.
If abortion is banned at the federal level, on the premise that protecting innocent children is now a red-alert federal issue, 51% of Congress and most people are going to also think that means we should next adopt federal health care and ban guns in homes. In fact, liberals are already accusing people opposed to S-CHIP of not being “pro-life.”
At least is it’s taken out of federal jurisdiction, we go back to state bans, and then enacting them in states that didn’t have them.
So what, slavery was also legal in the 1800's. What exactly is your point?
My point is if we expand the federal government’s authority with an active federal ban on abortion, Congress will use that to begin preaching they have a mandate to actively protect children. You know what they’ll do with that.
But if we do it the right way, essentially repealing Roe, it goes back to the states, where it can be argued as murder. An active federal role lays the groundwork for “Well, why aren’t you protecting them by giving them ______?”
Giving it back to the states forces them to argue it as a state issue, where it’s easier to argue it as murder. You’re just re-enacting old state laws framing it as murder, before the advent of the welfare state
Look, as long as you don’t think states can legalize murder or that the federal government doesn’t have the power to step in if they do, I’m a happy guy.
wow, and people say paul is a loon...
ANY actions taken by the feds could be justified by this logic.
Let's say the Feds want to regulate the time and place for your city council meetings. Obviously, this is not something they should be involved with. If they claim that they are simply enacting the will of "the people" who elected them, should they get a pass on this gross abuse of authority?
Respectfully, I believe your reasoning would render the 10th amendment meaningless.
Should the states be required to have a uniform age of consent? After all, if a few states defined the age of consent to be several years below the national average, that could arguably represent a legalization of rape.
What if the state did not prosecute certain murder cases, either de facto or as a matter of policy. If a state included abortion in its murder statutes, but failed to investigate or prosecute abortionists as a matter of policy, do you believe this would represent an unConstitutional violation of the right to life?
I'm going to have to agree with Justice Scalia, Dr. Paul, and the Framers on this issue. Not in the Constitution? Shut up and deal with it at the state level. Of course the social conservatives believe everything under the sun was intended to be legislated or ruled on at the federal level. It was not. The 20th century revisionism of the 14th Amendment has destroyed the Republic. Abortion, murder, death penalty, and people in vegetative states laying around in beds are not issues for the Supreme Court, hacks in Congress, or the President.
Of course now I'll be soundly attacked for supporting abortion (which I do not) and whipping baby seals with baseball bats (or worse being a liberal!!). You want to change the laws. Get to work in your state and quit mucking around with the national government. This is yet one more reason I will cast a vote for Dr. Paul and no one else. The Constitution is clear. This is not an issue for the federal courts
Then the state has failed in it's constitutional obligations and the federal government has the constitutional power and duty to protect the rights of the individuals.
If a state included abortion in its murder statutes, but failed to investigate or prosecute abortionists as a matter of policy, do you believe this would represent an unConstitutional violation of the right to life?
Of course.
Do you think states can simply choose to make murder legal? Where do they get this power from? What the hell is wrong with libertarians who accept the notion that the constitution allows states to legalize murder?
BTW, the constitution is silent on the age of consent which is why it is a state matter, the constitution is not silent on the right to life or the duty of the state to protect individual rights.
That's interesting. I bring up the question of states not prosecuting murders because it's already happening now.
States are often not able to obtain murder convictions either because of procedural or practical obstacles. Sometimes, an investigation does not even lead to an arrest. Or, where an arrest is obtained, the charge is reduced to some lesser offense in an effort to get cooperation or information from the defendant in some other matter. Many states have more generous allowances for raising the defenses of insanity or self-defense.
Do you believe any of these situations raise Constitutional issues?
Do you think states can simply choose to make murder legal? Where do they get this power from? What the hell is wrong with libertarians who accept the notion that the constitution allows states to legalize murder?
I am a libertarian, but I am not really sure where I stand on this issue. One the one hand, I can understand the point of those who support a "state's right" position on the issue. The Constitution is designed to protect our rights from infringement by the government, not necessarily from each other. The state is clearly prohibited from executing me without due process of law. I am no so certain that the state has a positive obligation to prevent me from being killed by someone else. Similarly, the state can not discriminate against me without some rational basis, but that does not imply that the state has a constitutional obligation to prevent me from ever being discriminated against by anyone.
On the other hand, I am not very comfortable with the idea of a state being able to completely withdraw protection of their citizens on a wholesale basis. I think an argument could be advanced that by failing to make any effort to criminalize a broad class of murders or other crimes, they are actually complicit in those crimes. For example, I don't believe that antebellum Southern states could legitimately excuse the existence of slavery by declining to prohibit it by law.
The downside to this reasoning is that no state will ever be able to completely protect their citizens and that each state is going to want to define and punish crimes in different ways...if there is a Constitutional requirement that they protect our life, liberty, and property, it would seem to imply that a uniform Federal standard would have to be imposed on all the states. If not, the minority of states which take a more lenient approach would be found to be failing in their obligation to protect the rights of their citizens.
My sympathies lie with the idea that a state can not permit the violation of rights by simply closing their eyes. But some part of me worries about what the application of this view would mean to federalism.
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