Ron Paul on MLK, Jr.’s Legacy of Freedom

ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul today issued the following statement reflecting on the struggle for civil rights and the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. :

“It is especially fitting that we take the time to reflect on one man’s struggles to defend our Constitutional freedoms during this primary election season. January 15 was the birthday of the great freedom fighter, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and on Monday, we honor him nationwide for his sacrifice and love of liberty for all people.

“To me, the timing is more than a coincidence. The American people, regardless of color or creed, have the opportunity to choose a candidate who will uplift the ideals for which Dr. King fought—and died.

“The fight for freedom—the preservation of our civil rights—is the fight of our lives. Sadly, after Dr. King’s passing we are faced with a violation of our civil rights in the same vein as Jim Crow: The Patriot Act. I have stood against this and all unconstitutional violations of American’s civil rights, and will continue Dr. King’s charge as President.

“Dr. King would be disappointed in our current administration for more than its continued disregard for civil rights, as he stated ‘a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.’ We need to change our interventionist foreign policy, and take care of our brothers and sisters at home. Our nation is in a crisis: we are spending billions on war overseas while those around us are suffering and losing jobs, homes, and hope. It is inexcusable; we must solve the economic crisis at home and bring hope to America.

“Dr. King’s heroic actions should resonate with us today, as we recognize that our votes strengthen the fight for our civil rights. Liberty is the true antidote to racism, and freedom-- limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights—can uplift us all.”

Dr. Ron Paul is a ten-term Texas congressman seeking the Republican nomination for President of the United States.

Puddleglum: In order of importance:

1. Social issue conservatism. Ban abortion and any form of perversion posing as marriage.

2. The Second Amendment individual right to keep and bear arms must be honored strictly, militias or no militias.

3. Military interventionism. We, the USA, intervene where and as we, in our judgment deem necessary or desirable to American interests, pre-emptively or otherwise. We should get out of the UN and abrogate any other treaty that purports to restrict our national sovereignty on this vitally important issue.

4. Abrogate GATT, WTO, and any other international treaty of restraint on our control of our own trade policy as we, in our sole judgment, see fit.

5. Enforcement of the Bill of Rights generally. Whether we like the result in a particular case or not, this is the heart of the genius of the founders and must not be tampered with.

6. As a practical matter, we have a "living constitution" whether we want one or not. Our lineal ancestors in government, the Brits, have long understood this. We like to make believe that we have constitutionally restrained the fedgov in many ways but history proves otherwise. This is not 1789. Letters of Marque and Reprisal as a substitute for the US military, the notion that declarations of war are somehow necessary or efficacious to warfare, isolationism and other paleoPaulie delusions simply mark paleoPaulie and his supporters as the obsolete and irrelevant people that they are. Fortunately, no one takes the paleos seriously and they are not yet the nuisance they aspire to be.

7. Other constitutional matters: The Ninth Amendment is largely misunderstood (see Roe vs. Wade) and misapplied and that should be corrected. The Tenth Amendment seems a lost cause, "Federalist" pretenses notwithstanding. Reviving the Tenth in many ways would be a good idea but NOT to protect the continued availability of abortion or of lavender hoopla posing as "marriage." We need some other constitutional provisions for our age. As an example, we need to control the government's access and use of information violative of actual privacy rights at all levels of government.

8. While miniaturization of government can be a false god of the libertarians, that does not mean that maximization of government or even tolerance of its current size and scope of operations are not also false gods. The size and cost of government are issues at every election, if only by implication and are never truly resolvable. Conservatives should tend toward miniaturization and away from maximization but we ought to have priorities as well. The military is a major and just function of government. It deserves and we deserve a military absolutely second to none, absolutely unchallengeable and absolutely capable of enforcing our national will, equipped with the latest and most intimidating weapons and staffed by well-paid and well-treated professional soldiers, no draft. Minimize political interference with any military task undertaken. OTOH, abolish public schools altogether ASAP to deprive the left of its parochial tax-funded indoctrination centers.

8. Vigorous enforcement of laws against street crime consistent with the Bill of Rights. Clean off the books to the extent possible, laws against what is called malum prohibitum (evil simply because we have decided to prohibit it) so as to concentrate resources on those crimes known as malum in se (evil in and of itself). Restore the notion that felonies (which ought to be always malum in se AND grave acts of evil at that) are essentially the equivalent of mortal sins against the community and that misdemeanors are comparable to venial sins. This was rooted in English Law and ought to be restored here rather than allowing the political enthusiasm of the moment to turn such things as anti-abortion activism in the manner of sit-ins into a crime at all much less into felony offenses.

9. Conservatism is a political philosophy and not truly able to be crammed into a "nutshell" but the foregoing are a good start at definition. The works of the late Frank Meyer are a good continuation. Likewise, The Road to Serfdom by von Hayek, The Suicide of the West by Burnham, On Socialism, On Bureaucracy, and A Theory of History by von Mises, Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII, Pascendi Domenici Gregis and Lamentabile Sane by Pope St. Pius X, Quadragesimo Anno by Pope Pius XI (all of these papal documents being relevant to conservatism generally and not just for Catholics).

10. It is ever more obvious that we are on the verge of an internal civil war among those who like to call themselves conservative. When that war erupts, I shall be firmly on the side of what was called the New Right of the 1960s and 1970s, for the marginalization of libertarian tendencies particularly on social and military issues and in favor of a new focus on recruitment and establishment of intellectual discipline in the ranks of the conservative movement to come. There can be room for differing views but there must always be a general default position of coalescing before battles with the left, no disruption for its own sake, no intellectual intimidation but judgment of individuals by their philosophies and actions and an effective degree of normalization. We need a canon of conservative issues, a canon of conservative books and an indispensible goodwill among ideological kinfolk with a willingness to ostracize when necessary.

11. Finally, access YAF.com or YAF.org, either of which should contain the Sharon Statement of 9/11/60 which was the founding policy statement of Young Americans for Freedom if you would like a "nutshell" statement of conservatism which has stood the test of time.

Thanks for your original question and for your reply to my answer. I toy with the idea of writing a book on the subject because this is a discussion whose time has come. The storm will come right after the 2008 election regardless of outcome.

As you have, no doubt, noticed, I am not a fan of Ron Paul. I am acquainted with a substantial number of young people who are verrrrrry enthusiastic about him. I have urged each one to work as hard as he or she knows how for their candidate. I think that tneir respective involvements will be for each of them what my involvement for Barry Goldwater in 1964 (which I regret) was for me. I do not want them to feel unwelcome in the conservative movement in which I have participated for more than 40 years. I do want them to be able to deal with the disappointment that they are in for.

Like Frank Meyer, I want a movement that can accommodate the traditionalists as well as the libertarians but that means that some degree of realism is called for on all sides. Having practiced law for 25 years or so before retirement, I know better than to imagine the actual enforcement of the constitution as written. Of course, I also once knew better than to imagine the fall of the Iron Curtain. I do think it unfortunate that we could not get the ticket punched cancelling Roe vs. Wade because of the ease with which SCOTUS can ignore the constitutional text coupled with the ridiculously cumbersome amendment procedures. I don't think of the founders as gods but they were wise enough not to have intended such anarchy or, is it SCOTUS tyranny and oligarchy??? I just know that 35 years of 50+million total slaughtered was not what was intended. Prayer in school. Creationism. The ACLU view of banning religion from the public square on the installment plan and bankrupting thse who resist. The ACLU and other leftist lawyering desined to destroy the Second Amendment individual right to keep and bear arms. No one, particularly not the founders, died to leave the SCOTUS to dictate unreformable edicts to the public on these issues and many more.

Call me paranoid but there seems to be a major move for more than a year in which "fiscal conservatives" seek supremacy in the conservative movement with many of them seeking to jettison social issues. When this election is over, that war will be fought.

Personally, I benefit little from "fiscal conservatism." IF and only IF the fiscal conservatives are a willing part of a coalition with pro-gun people, pro-lifers, pro-family folks, pro-military folks, etc., I am willing to promote fiscal conservatism even if it is not in my own interest. The babies are far more important than my personal finances. So are Faith and guns and the military and the family and other "permanent things."

May God bless you and yours.

I really wish you people would just get over your fallacious logic that my casting a vote for whom I choose is supporting someone, somehow that I wouldn't give the time of day. You are pretending to read my mind. None of the contenders, at any stage have been perfect.

However, there are some issues which are very important to me.

I have always voted for a candidate based on their historically verifiable stance on the issues. Eleventh hour converts need not apply.

Those issues are Abortion, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Border (enforcing Federal immigration law and the placement of a menaingful physical barrier to illegal immigration), National Security, Fiscal responsibility, Reducing the scope of the Federal Government to within its Constitutional bounds (which works hand in glove with fiscal responsibility--less government intrusion), maintaining soverignty (no LOST, NO NAU, No Kyoto type accords), reducing taxes, maintaining a strong military, personal (private) property rights, and a Supreme Court which will read and rule on the Constitution in view of the way the Founders intended it.

Obviously, Hillary is not at the top of my dance card. I do not support Obama or Edwards, either.

So what is left? Rudy, who would have taxpayers pick up the tab for abortions... zzzot! who had a sanctuary city in New York for illegals ZZZOT!

Mitt, who has a far less than stellar RKBA....ZZZZOT! who is in favor of 'Gay marriage' ZZZZOT!

McCain who authored a bill to diminish the First amendment right to free speech....ZZZZot!

Huckabee, who spent taxpayer monies on illegals in Arkansas...ZZZZZOT!

None of the 'front runners' (hand-picked by the liberal media a year ago) made it past the seminal issue test.

Then there is Ron Paul...Who is pro-life, pro-RKBA, pro-Constitution, pro-property rights, for reducing the Federal Government,and who would secure the border...

Who would doubtless hold Congress' feet to the fire for a formal declaration of war before prosecuting one--which does not mean he could not respond as needed to an emergency situation like inbound ICBMs which is what that power was given to the President for, anyway, (Come on, Iraq has been going on for SIX YEARS. How long does it take?)

Is Paul perfect?

No. He isn't.

But the "front runners" require me to sacrifice principle on the altar of "electability", and if there is one thing this election has pointed out so far, it is that many Republicans really do not care what their candidate stands for, as long as their team "wins".

More than the Republican Party, I care about America. It makes no sense to sacrifice our nation's founding principles on the altar of political expediency, and that is just what the Republican Party is doing. If the nominee is one of the four 'front runners' I will have an exceptionally difficult time voting for them, on a matter of principle.

I would really like to see a brokered convention, and, ultimtely, a candidate who could credibly take a conservative stance on all the issues.

Failing that, there are rumors of bursting investment bubbles, stock slides, etc. and recession. I could let a Democrat take the blame.

You see, I wasn't asking you to convince me, I was asking you to explain.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.