Nickwanz
08-11-2011, 05:44 AM
"It not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it
also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see
if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by
racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or
advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife."
Here we have Ron Paul once again, in effect stating, the right to
discriminate based on hate, as 'liberty' which simply must be tolerated in a free society, which I would agree with IF it was a case of just some
restaurant owners saying 'hey I don't want to serve blacks.' It would be overreaching to create national law to stop a few knuckleheads if I can just walk next door and be welcomed. BUT what the CRA was about was about confronting a legal apparatus of discrimination which enforced a way of life
on blacks and whites without their consent or consideration. The
governments of the southern states(which at the time had scant participation from blacks or poor whites-ie the majority of the south)undemocratically
imposed a peasant culture based on peonage(share cropping) and racial
division, and then attempted to maintain it with violent force. What would
Ron Paul say to the lynched, the veterans who fought wars and then could not access lodging and housing? he would say 'I feel your pain, but the constitution may not?'
When you put paper before people, you have a problem.
His opposition to the tools of modern finance also scare me, as being
luddite and reactionary, and my only response comes from my favorite current British comedy, Peepshow, as the main protagonists confronts a bunch of
hippies after a night of pretending to take drugs with them:
"Mark: While we’re at it, there are systems for a reason in this world. Economic stability, interest rates, growth. It’s not all a conspiracy to
keep you in little boxes, alright? It’s only the miracle of consumer capitalism that means you’re not lying in your own shit, dying at 43 with rotten teeth. And a little pill with a chicken on it is not going to change that. Now come on... fuck off."
A little more strident than I would say myself, as I don't consider consumer capitalism a miracle, but I believe we have to fight the growing notion that society itself is a conspiracy of repression.
So while I personally think Ron Paul is nice fellow, who believes what he believes and is who he is, and in fact does share more than a few points of agreement with me, in the end, what tells me he would be a bad president is
his rigid ideology, which often produces, agreeable conclusions with very impractical solutions, which can summarized as, 'i feel your pain but the constitution prevents me from helping.' We had a president in 1860 who
believed in this philosophy and it took 4 years and a president who
understood when to see the constitution as a piece of parchment and 600000
dead americans to put the country back together. Those who would be held inactive by a piece of parchment in the face of crisis are not the men of
the material to the president of these united states.
For me, and I will preface this by saying, first, being on a college campus during 2008 election, I saw a lot of fellow students support Ron Paul, and I
can say his support does cross the entire specturm, which is also his
problem. I will also say that I do admire his principle, but I also see
them as his problem.
Many young people are attracted to Ron Paul, aspects of his message are very appealing, his principles of libertarianism do seem to support social
societal aspects that the youth of the nation do support, such as reform of
the nation's drug policy, and end to a foreign policy that could only be described as imperialism if any other nation undertook it, etc. Yes, even I
can listen to a few minutes of a Ron Paul speech and well up feelings of
'right on man!'
But what stopped me dead in my tracks from becoming a Ron Pauler is not the policies he supports but the philosophical reasons he supports and the ramifcations of that. All in all, I can say there are about a few things I agree whole heartedly with Ron Paul: military inteventionist policy of the united states, support of free trade, rejection of 9/11 conspiracy theories,
and juror nullification.
But, as I found out, and many people who joined Ron Paul at first found out,
is that the reason the man appeals and seems to advocate things which we support, is because he espouses an antiquated, discredited philosophy of government, which would end most of the other things in society which I like
and leave the United States with idelogoicallly please, practically
infeasible policies(not to say we don't have those already, but merely to
say Ron Paul offers no relief from that, which is the root cause, in my
opinion, of the problem). So in the end, though Ron Paul's philosophy draws agreement on some issues, his same philosophy means he opposes fundamentally such things most Americans simply don't want to entertain. I don't believe progress is a conspiracy, I don't believe modern society can work without
social safety nets, if it could, social safety nets would not exist, but
they do because in a modern industrial society in which access to land is
not as easy as finding some and sleeping on it, creates a need for it. You
don't have to be a Marxist but you cannot deny the issues Marx raises from industrialization of society.
Let's take a look at his stance on 'dont ask, don't tell:'
"I think the current policy is a decent policy. And the problem that we
have with dealing with this subject is we see people as groups, as they
belong to certain groups and that they derive their rights as belonging to groups. We don't get our rights because we're gays or women or minorities.
We get our rights from our Creator as individuals. So every individual
should be treated the same way. So if there is homosexual behavior in the military that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. But if there's heterosexual behavior that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. So it
isn't the issue of homosexuality. It's the concept and the understanding of individual rights. If we understood that, we would not be dealing with this
very important problem."
Sounds great, even I can say, 'right on!' BUT, it only sounds great.
Because in reality, people do judge people and deny people their rights
based on belonging to groups. This is the reason why we started protecting rights of people by groups. Blacks, women, hispanics, jews, muslims, poor whites are all discriminated against as groups, and as such we need a
society that protects the rights of groups, otherwise, as we know from the history of our own country, it makes it impossible to fight group
discrimination when it has to be proved at the individual level.
"Consider the Lawrence case decided by the Supreme Court in June. The Court determined that Texas had no right to establish its own standards for
private sexual conduct, because gay sodomy is somehow protected under the
14th amendment "right to privacy." Ridiculous as sodomy laws may be, there clearly is no right to privacy nor sodomy found anywhere in the
Constitution. There are, however, states’ rights – rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of
Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards."
The age old argument of states' rights, which I thought we settled over four years of bloodshed and domestic warfare. Here Ron Paul says, 'look I would never personally discriminate and I think it's stupid to discriminate, but
the States have a right to discriminate.' Not only that but he throws in a
sly 'no right to privacy in the constitution' which is considered a settled matter of constitutional law, and the butress upon which reproductive rights
for women rests. So once again, the dangers of an antiquated philosophy
show through.
..........if Ron Paul was president, a lot of things which people like,
require, and consider fundamental parts of society would be erased. Well
more than likely it would just result in four years of Ron Paul calling everything unconstitutional and Congress overriding his vetos."
Sorry its so much, I figured it better to post everything, so nothing is out of context. This is a friend of mines reasons for not being able to get behind Ron Paul.
Mainly, I just want to know if Ron is really that hardline on the constitution to the word to the point he would put "paper before people"?
also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see
if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by
racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or
advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife."
Here we have Ron Paul once again, in effect stating, the right to
discriminate based on hate, as 'liberty' which simply must be tolerated in a free society, which I would agree with IF it was a case of just some
restaurant owners saying 'hey I don't want to serve blacks.' It would be overreaching to create national law to stop a few knuckleheads if I can just walk next door and be welcomed. BUT what the CRA was about was about confronting a legal apparatus of discrimination which enforced a way of life
on blacks and whites without their consent or consideration. The
governments of the southern states(which at the time had scant participation from blacks or poor whites-ie the majority of the south)undemocratically
imposed a peasant culture based on peonage(share cropping) and racial
division, and then attempted to maintain it with violent force. What would
Ron Paul say to the lynched, the veterans who fought wars and then could not access lodging and housing? he would say 'I feel your pain, but the constitution may not?'
When you put paper before people, you have a problem.
His opposition to the tools of modern finance also scare me, as being
luddite and reactionary, and my only response comes from my favorite current British comedy, Peepshow, as the main protagonists confronts a bunch of
hippies after a night of pretending to take drugs with them:
"Mark: While we’re at it, there are systems for a reason in this world. Economic stability, interest rates, growth. It’s not all a conspiracy to
keep you in little boxes, alright? It’s only the miracle of consumer capitalism that means you’re not lying in your own shit, dying at 43 with rotten teeth. And a little pill with a chicken on it is not going to change that. Now come on... fuck off."
A little more strident than I would say myself, as I don't consider consumer capitalism a miracle, but I believe we have to fight the growing notion that society itself is a conspiracy of repression.
So while I personally think Ron Paul is nice fellow, who believes what he believes and is who he is, and in fact does share more than a few points of agreement with me, in the end, what tells me he would be a bad president is
his rigid ideology, which often produces, agreeable conclusions with very impractical solutions, which can summarized as, 'i feel your pain but the constitution prevents me from helping.' We had a president in 1860 who
believed in this philosophy and it took 4 years and a president who
understood when to see the constitution as a piece of parchment and 600000
dead americans to put the country back together. Those who would be held inactive by a piece of parchment in the face of crisis are not the men of
the material to the president of these united states.
For me, and I will preface this by saying, first, being on a college campus during 2008 election, I saw a lot of fellow students support Ron Paul, and I
can say his support does cross the entire specturm, which is also his
problem. I will also say that I do admire his principle, but I also see
them as his problem.
Many young people are attracted to Ron Paul, aspects of his message are very appealing, his principles of libertarianism do seem to support social
societal aspects that the youth of the nation do support, such as reform of
the nation's drug policy, and end to a foreign policy that could only be described as imperialism if any other nation undertook it, etc. Yes, even I
can listen to a few minutes of a Ron Paul speech and well up feelings of
'right on man!'
But what stopped me dead in my tracks from becoming a Ron Pauler is not the policies he supports but the philosophical reasons he supports and the ramifcations of that. All in all, I can say there are about a few things I agree whole heartedly with Ron Paul: military inteventionist policy of the united states, support of free trade, rejection of 9/11 conspiracy theories,
and juror nullification.
But, as I found out, and many people who joined Ron Paul at first found out,
is that the reason the man appeals and seems to advocate things which we support, is because he espouses an antiquated, discredited philosophy of government, which would end most of the other things in society which I like
and leave the United States with idelogoicallly please, practically
infeasible policies(not to say we don't have those already, but merely to
say Ron Paul offers no relief from that, which is the root cause, in my
opinion, of the problem). So in the end, though Ron Paul's philosophy draws agreement on some issues, his same philosophy means he opposes fundamentally such things most Americans simply don't want to entertain. I don't believe progress is a conspiracy, I don't believe modern society can work without
social safety nets, if it could, social safety nets would not exist, but
they do because in a modern industrial society in which access to land is
not as easy as finding some and sleeping on it, creates a need for it. You
don't have to be a Marxist but you cannot deny the issues Marx raises from industrialization of society.
Let's take a look at his stance on 'dont ask, don't tell:'
"I think the current policy is a decent policy. And the problem that we
have with dealing with this subject is we see people as groups, as they
belong to certain groups and that they derive their rights as belonging to groups. We don't get our rights because we're gays or women or minorities.
We get our rights from our Creator as individuals. So every individual
should be treated the same way. So if there is homosexual behavior in the military that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. But if there's heterosexual behavior that is disruptive, it should be dealt with. So it
isn't the issue of homosexuality. It's the concept and the understanding of individual rights. If we understood that, we would not be dealing with this
very important problem."
Sounds great, even I can say, 'right on!' BUT, it only sounds great.
Because in reality, people do judge people and deny people their rights
based on belonging to groups. This is the reason why we started protecting rights of people by groups. Blacks, women, hispanics, jews, muslims, poor whites are all discriminated against as groups, and as such we need a
society that protects the rights of groups, otherwise, as we know from the history of our own country, it makes it impossible to fight group
discrimination when it has to be proved at the individual level.
"Consider the Lawrence case decided by the Supreme Court in June. The Court determined that Texas had no right to establish its own standards for
private sexual conduct, because gay sodomy is somehow protected under the
14th amendment "right to privacy." Ridiculous as sodomy laws may be, there clearly is no right to privacy nor sodomy found anywhere in the
Constitution. There are, however, states’ rights – rights plainly affirmed in the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Under those amendments, the State of
Texas has the right to decide for itself how to regulate social matters like sex, using its own local standards."
The age old argument of states' rights, which I thought we settled over four years of bloodshed and domestic warfare. Here Ron Paul says, 'look I would never personally discriminate and I think it's stupid to discriminate, but
the States have a right to discriminate.' Not only that but he throws in a
sly 'no right to privacy in the constitution' which is considered a settled matter of constitutional law, and the butress upon which reproductive rights
for women rests. So once again, the dangers of an antiquated philosophy
show through.
..........if Ron Paul was president, a lot of things which people like,
require, and consider fundamental parts of society would be erased. Well
more than likely it would just result in four years of Ron Paul calling everything unconstitutional and Congress overriding his vetos."
Sorry its so much, I figured it better to post everything, so nothing is out of context. This is a friend of mines reasons for not being able to get behind Ron Paul.
Mainly, I just want to know if Ron is really that hardline on the constitution to the word to the point he would put "paper before people"?