Posted on 11/04/2011 7:44:00 PM PDT by mnehring
Congressman Ron Paul’s presidential campaign duties kept him from participating in the House of Representatives vote on Wednesday, but the GOP hopeful says he is opposed to the recent bill to reaffirm “In God We Trust” as America’s motto.
During a House vote on Wednesday, only nine lawmakers voted against reaffirming the slogan to be used in governmental buildings across the United States. Paul was unable to it to Capitol Hill to cast his own voice but says that he would have voted against it.
"I would have voted 'no' not because I don't like the motto and don't think we can use it but 'no' because we were telling the states what to do," Paul tells the news organization The Hill.
President Barack Obama touched on the topic of the House vote during a speaking engagement in Wednesday, saying that he thought Congress had better things to do than to vote on keeping the slogan.
“You had legislation reaffirming that ‘In God We Trust’ is our motto?” asked Obama. “That’s not putting people back to work. I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work. “
This week’s vote marked the third time in under a decade that Congress voted on keeping the slogan.
Commentator Jon Stewart said during a Daily Show broadcast that wasting time to reaffirm the motto was equivalent to “renewing the wedding vows between God and America.” His own proposal for a replacement? “America: you’ve met our drones, now meet our people.”
By reaffirming the motto, the country will continue to inscribe it in public facilities and government institutions from coast-to-coast. It has been apparent on US currency during the late 1800s and is currently on all US coins and dollar bills. Officially it has been the US motto since the 1950s.
Of the nine votes against reaffirming the motto, the only nay from a Republican was cast by Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan. Amash has publically supported Ron Paul’s bid for the GOP nomination for the presidency.
And he would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for those meddling Freepers!
lol - yep, but THIS Ron expects to be in a MUCH nicer place...
Ping for later
“Ron Paul and Jon Stewart. Is this what American has become? My apologies to those who died in the Revolutionary War.”
Post of the year candidate!
Amen!
LOL. God doesn’t need any rights, from you or anyone else.
Ron Paul is crazier than an outhouse rat!
How did he keep getting reelected in the Great State of Texas ? I’ve never figured it out.
Easy. He's run against stinkbugs of all sorts in every race.
If he'd ever faced a solid conservative with a track record of accomplishment, he'd have been gone a long time ago.
Well, Ron Paul only has to win over one congressional district - not the whole state. He's been real good about bringing the bacon home from DC, so it's my guess that the people of his district are happy with that.
The second component of the resolution is "supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions." While doing so certainly isn't a bad thing, state and local governments already do display that motto and other mottos and even things like the Ten Commandments if they can without the federal government suing them.
Is it really the federal government's job to tell local and state governments what they should display on their buildings? Do they even have the right to do so? Put another way, when the Democrats had control of the House and the Senate would it have been OK for them to pass a resolution "encouraging" the display of a picture of President Obama in every public school and government building with the phrase "Yes we Can" under it? I think not.
There really is no principled, constitutional reason for the federal government to be telling state and local governments what to display in or on their buildings. In fact, the federal government should butt out of the issue entirely, since usually they are the ones who are forcing state and local governments to remove material which references God from public buildings.
I don't know about your state, but we don't need the federal government telling us what to display in our government buildings. Nobody, not even Ron Paul, is suggesting that the motto itself is a problem. The problem is a federal government who can't leave the state and local governments and the citizens alone. And a bunch of elected representatives who would rather spend time and money voting on resolutions which don't change anything than tackling real problems - like the federal government's open hostility towards religion in public life.
With the attack on saying the word, God, or Jesus, and removal of crosses and Commandments, it is time we reminded people that the fundamental principle and the most important statement in our Founding Documents is that our rights are from GOD, not man and, therefore, can never be legislated away (although SCOTUS is doing it as I speak).
Our inalienable rights come from God—not government. It is the main principle of our legal system and jurisprudence. Court cases over 200 years have stated repeatedly that we are a “Christian Nation” in legal opinions.
We need to remember our history or be destroyed like European godless countries. It is a fact in our Constitutional philosophy—no God means no inalienable rights. Separation of Church and State was in Stalin’s Constitution—never ours. First Amendment states that there should be no law to impeding the free exercise of religion——the “establishment” never happens by mentioning “words” . That Marxist twisting of the intent of the Founders is obvious by reading court opinions prior to the socialist/marxist interpretation of the 20th century.
Paul thinks our philosophy originates from Darwinism. Natural Law Theory is incompatible with it....and Natural Law Theory is the basis of Natural Rights. Darwinism denies Objective Truth—and God.
Paul seems to think our type of philosophy can exist without a God—or at least SOME states have the right to kick God out of the Constitution.
Natural Law does not condone homosexual marriage either. The concept which goes against Natural Law can never exist in our country if our Constitution means what it says. Paul thinks it doesn’t matter that we replace God’s standards with Barney Frank’s Standards of Right and Wrong.
Nothing can work with different “standards” or “rules”. It would be like playing a basketball game with everyone playing by their own rules. It would end in chaos. Rule of Law is based on God’s standards (Bible) and no other Rule of Law would be Just Law (Cicero/Locke/Blackstone). Paul needs to understand that God’s standards have to be inherent in our laws or they are arbitrary and unequal law (Locke,Cicero, Blackstone). We were founded with principles that do NOT evolve. The Founders knew that the nature of man has always been exactly the same since the beginning of history. Paul seems to think like Wilson—that the Constitution is a living, breathing document, therefore, evolves. Well, he is wrong.
Ron Paul is mentally ill.
God offends his leftist followers. He’s got a cult going. It’s sad to see him fall so low.
Must Read. The most ironclad case against Mitt Romney Its damning.
Who cares what Ron Paul thinks?
He’s just throwing a bone to his libertarian worshipers.
See, he’s right about this bill. Frankly, when it comes to the Constitution, Ron Paul is right about a lot of stuff.
Ever notice how much press any “Kook” who makes a big deal over how far we have strayed from the Constitution and the Rule of Law in this country gets?
Or how little press you see about any serious, non-”Kook” sourced discussion of the same?
It seems this approach is so effective that only the “Kooks” will go there.
In fact, the ONLY current Presidential Candidate who can be recognized as focused on the Constitution and the Rule of Law, is routinely reviled here on FR. In spite of how much most of us would love to see Washington snatched, kicking and screaming, back to some semblance of Constitutionality.
How many of you really think that this situation is an accident?
2012 is looming. How many more chances do you think we’ll get to steer away from the abyss, before the abyss has us?
It's very sad how many otherwise rational individuals will react in knee-jerk fashion when one of their sacred cows is thought to be in danger. It's that old "motherhood and apple pie" stuff.
But think of it this way: if people didn't behave like that, how could we possibly have gotten ourselves into the fiscal mess we're in--the result of decades of expanding welfare/entitlement programs that few in Congress have the guts to say NO to even if they might personally have qualms about their constitutional legitimacy.
These kinds of measures, though largely symbolic, tell us very plainly that Washington politicians are not about to change course and will continue with their excessive spending, regulations and wars until the nation is bankrupt. Then they will likely claim it was the Ron Paul types that caused it.
Total waste of time. Question: Why do they have to reaffirm it? Can’t they just pass it to be valid, until a future Congress decides to remove it?
Or is this just some Congressmen grandstanding to show they love God and country?
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