Santorum channels Ron Paul: The essential issue in this race is freedom

[Harald]

Santorum is trying to be Ron Paul

http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/04/rick-santorum-is-for-freedom-except-when

"The essential issue in this race is freedom -- whether we will be a country that believes that government can do things for us better than we can do for ourselves, or whether we believe, as our founders did, that rights come to us from God, and when he gave us those rights he gave us the freedom to go out and live those rights out, to build a great and just society, not from the top down, but from the bottom up."

[AngryCanadian]

He Will Fail His Pro Nanny State and a Pro War Monger and he said that Obama Should Oppose Abortion Because He Is Black yes thats what he said.

[LibertyEagle]

Santorum is trying to be Ron Paul

http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/04/rick-santorum-is-for-freedom-except-when

"The essential issue in this race is freedom -- whether we will be a country that believes that government can do things for us better than we can do for ourselves, or whether we believe, as our founders did, that rights come to us from God, and when he gave us those rights he gave us the freedom to go out and live those rights out, to build a great and just society, not from the top down, but from the bottom up."

Yeah, he believes that unless the people decide something different than what he wants and then he's perfectly willing to use big government's force to cram it down our throats.

What a poser.

[braane]

Why is this just now an issue for him? I know why, it's because the next state up is all about freedom. Just another politician pandering to the next voter in line.

[VictorB]

He's trying to reach out to NH. I'm sure plenty of people have watched the debates, and know exactly wher this guy stands. He's got two debates coming up where he can show the "live free or die" state how free he wants us all to be...locked up for sporting a killer beard.

[CaptainAmerica]

its the obvious move since hes trying to steal rons voters

[Havax]

Santorum is trying to be Ron Paul

http://reason.com/blog/2012/01/04/rick-santorum-is-for-freedom-except-when

"The essential issue in this race is freedom -- whether we will be a country that believes that government can do things for us better than we can do for ourselves, or whether we believe, as our founders did, that rights come to us from God, and when he gave us those rights he gave us the freedom to go out and live those rights out, to build a great and just society, not from the top down, but from the bottom up."

He stands for the exact opposite of that whole statement. He's a creepy freak.

[itsnobody]

Freedom, liberty, small government, and individual rights use to be what Republicans use to always talk about.

[MMXII]

can't these people invent their own talking points. he knows Ron's message is powerful, he knows it is resonating so he basically rips ron off.

"imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"

[BigByrd47119]

CNN's Blitzer is about to do a story on "The side of Santorums family controversy"

MWHAHAHAH

[jmdrake]

He Will Fail His Pro Nanny State and a Pro War Monger and he said that Obama Should Oppose Abortion Because He Is Black yes thats what he said.

Ummmm....I'm not offended by the idea that blacks should oppose abortion. If most knew the eugenics history behind the abortion movement and the current stats of how many black mothers kill their unborn versus white mothers many would oppose it. Lot's of blacks are in denial about that last fact.

I wish every black person in America would watch this video:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u46OGQi-eJU

That said, Santorum saying that he didn't want to expand medicare because he didn't want to "make black people's lives better" is both racist and statistically dishonest. There are more whites on medicare than blacks. That's largely due to white longevity, but it doesn't change the cold hard facts. And this should be slammed home for another reason. Cuts in medicare would hurt elderly white people more than any other group...the very demographic that voted for frothy.

[braane]

CNN's Blitzer is about to do a story on "The side of Santorums family controversy"

MWHAHAHAH

And down goes Santorum!!!

[1stAmendguy]

"I don't want to trade with China; I want to go to war with China." - Direct quote from Frothy

[BigByrd47119]

And down goes Santorum!!!

This is what happens when you sell your soul for your 15 minutes of fame...

[Jingles]

I can't wait to watch Santorum go down in flames. Since I'm from PA, I have a much more personal dislike for this man than most. Watching some of the other candidates get destroyed wasn't as satisfying (other than Newt) and in some cases a little painful to watch. I will enjoy every moment of Rick Santorum's destruction. Oh, sweet revenge.

That being said Santorum might as well be an open fascist running in this race. At least Newt Gingrich tries to hide his fascist/socialism slightly.

[PastaRocket848]

yes freedom is essential... unless you're idea of freedom includes anything he disagrees with.

[blabam]

"I don't want to trade with China; I want to go to war with China." - Direct quote from Frothy

Got video link? This would destroy him!

[Liberty74]

This is where Paul and his campaign needs to start putting out press releases to counter this BS.

Say something to the effect that "Santorum is a theocrat and does not believe in real freedom for people of all ages, all colors or all sexes. Santorum is a fake conservative when it comes to smaller government that means freedom."

Seriously, do we want to win or not?

[CJLauderdale4]

And with that racist statement, Ron Paul is unelectable against Obama??? I'd like to see that Obama commercial...racist Rick...lol

[kill the banks]

serial hypocrisy RINO

[Shane Harris]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/09/america-apos-s-anti-reagan-isn-apos-t-hillary-clinton-it-apos-s-rick-santorum/4285/

"In 1960, a Republican senator named Barry Goldwater published a little book called The Conscience of a Conservative. The first printing of 10,000 copies led to a second of the same size, then a third of 50,000, until ultimately it sold more than 3 million copies. Goldwater's presidential candidacy crashed in 1964, but his ideas did not: For decades, Goldwater's hostility to Big Government ruled the American Right. Until, approximately, now.

Rick Santorum, a second-term Republican senator from Pennsylvania, has written a new book called It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good. The book is worth taking seriously for several reasons, not least of which is that it is a serious book. The writing and thinking are consistently competent, often better than that. The lapses into right-wing talk-radioese ("liberals practically despise the common man") are rare. Santorum wrestles intelligently, often impressively, with the biggest of big ideas: freedom, virtue, civil society, the Founders' intentions. Although he is a Catholic who is often characterized as a religious conservative, he has written a book whose ambitions are secular. As its subtitle promises, it is about conservatism, not Christianity.

Above all, it is worth noticing because, like Goldwater's Conscience, it lays down a marker. As Goldwater repudiated Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, so Santorum repudiates Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. It's now official: Philosophically, the conservative movement has split. Post-Santorum, tax-cutting and court-bashing can hold the Republican coalition together for only so much longer.

As a policy book, It Takes a Family is temperate. It serves up a healthy reminder that society needs not just good government but strong civil and social institutions, and that the traditional family serves all kinds of essential social functions. Government policies, therefore, should respect and support family and civil society instead of undermining or supplanting them. Parents should make quality time at home a high priority. Popular culture should comport itself with some sense of responsibility and taste.

Few outside the hard cultural Left—certainly not Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who makes several cameos as Santorum's bete noir—would disagree with much of that. Not in 2005, anyway. Moreover, Santorum's policy proposals sit comfortably within the conservative mainstream. But It Takes a Family is more than a policy book. Its theory of "conservatism and the common good" seeks to rechannel the mainstream.

In Santorum's view, freedom is not the same as liberty. Or, to put it differently, there are two kinds of freedom. One is "no-fault freedom," individual autonomy uncoupled from any larger purpose: "freedom to choose, irrespective of the choice." This, he says, is "the liberal definition of freedom," and it is the one that has taken over in the culture and been imposed on the country by the courts.

Quite different is "the conservative view of freedom," "the liberty our Founders understood." This is "freedom coupled with the responsibility to something bigger or higher than the self." True liberty is freedom in the service of virtue—not "the freedom to be as selfish as I want to be," or "the freedom to be left alone," but "the freedom to attend to one's duties—duties to God, to family, and to neighbors."

This kind of freedom depends upon and serves virtue, and virtue's indispensable incubator and transmitter is the family. Thus "selflessness in the family is the basis for the political liberty we cherish as Americans." If government is to defend liberty and promote the common welfare, then it must promote and defend the integrity of the traditional family. In doing so, it will foster virtue and rebuild the country's declining social and moral capital, thus fostering liberty and strengthening family. The liberal cycle of decline—families weaken, disorder spreads, government steps in, families weaken still further—will be reversed.

"Freedom is not self-sufficient," writes Santorum. He claims the Founders' support, and quotes John Adams ("Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people") and George Washington to that effect. But, notes William A. Galston, a University of Maryland political scientist, Washington and (especially) Adams stood at one end of a spectrum of debate, and it was a debate that they ultimately lost.

Other Founders—notably James Madison, the father of the Constitution—were more concerned with power than with virtue. They certainly distinguished between liberty and license, and they agreed that republican government requires republican virtues. But they believed that government's foremost calling was not to inculcate virtue but to prevent tyranny. Madison thus argued for a checked, limited government that would lack the power to impose any one faction's view of virtue on all others.

Freedom, for Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and others, was an end, not just a means. A government that allows individuals to pursue happiness in their own fashions, they believed, is most likely to produce a strong society and a virtuous citizenry; but the greatest benefit of freedom is freedom itself. Civic virtue ultimately serves individual freedom, rather than the other way around.

It was in this tradition that Goldwater wrote, "Every man, for his individual good and for the good of his society, is responsible for his own development." Note that first "and": Individual and social welfare go together—they're not in conflict. All the government needs to do, Goldwater said, is get out of the way. "The conservative's first concern will always be: Are we maximizing freedom?" Reagan spoke in the same tradition when he declared that government was the problem, not the solution to our problems.

Goldwater and Reagan, and Madison and Jefferson, were saying that if you restrain government, you will strengthen society and foster virtue. Santorum is saying something more like the reverse: If you shore up the family, you will strengthen the social fabric and ultimately reduce dependence on government.

Where Goldwater denounced collectivism as the enemy of the individual, Santorum denounces individualism as the enemy of family. On page 426, Santorum says this: "In the conservative vision, people are first connected to and part of families: The family, not the individual, is the fundamental unit of society." Those words are not merely uncomfortable with the individual-rights tradition of modern conservatism. They are incompatible with it.

Santorum seems to sense as much. In an interview with National Public Radio last month, he acknowledged his quarrel with "what I refer to as more of a libertarianish Right" and "this whole idea of personal autonomy." In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, "Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of 'Big Government' conservatism."

They sure will. A list of the government interventions that Santorum endorses includes national service, promotion of prison ministries, "individual development accounts," publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, economic literacy programs in "every school in America" (his italics), and more. Lots more.

Though he is a populist critic of Big Government, Santorum shows no interest in defining principled limits on political power. His first priority is to make government pro-family, not to make it small. He has no use for a constitutional (or, as far as one can tell, moral) right to privacy, which he regards as a "constitutional wrecking ball" that has become inimical to the very principle of the common good. Ditto for the notions of government neutrality and free expression. He does not support a ban on contraception, but he thinks the government has every right to impose one.

The quarrel between virtue and freedom is an ancient and profound one. Santorum's suspicion of liberal individualism has a long pedigree and is not without support in American history. Adams, after all, favored sumptuary laws that would restrict conspicuous consumption in order to promote a virtuous frugality. And Santorum is right to observe that no healthy society is made up of people who view themselves as detached and unencumbered individuals.

"But to move from that sociological truism to the proposition that the family is the fundamental unit of political liberty," says Galston, "goes against the grain of two centuries of American political thought, as first articulated in the Declaration of Independence." With It Takes a Family, Rick Santorum has served notice. The bold new challenge to the Goldwater-Reagan tradition in American politics comes not from the Left, but from the Right."

[Cowlesy]

We can bitch about it on here, or we can prove he's full of it by looking at his actions (voting record). Where and how do we start?

[unknown]

Of-course he is. He got some traction so now he has to start reading from the Ron Paul script like everyone else.

[HOLLYWOOD]

CNN's Blitzer is about to do a story on "The side of Santorums family controversy"

MWHAHAHAHWhat bullshit... that was a $2 Million Pro Santorum Infomercial :rolleyes:

AT the end they mention a tiny bit of the Santorum Kids being "Home school" but never went into how Rick Santorum Swindled the PA state laws and school district while renting his home and they were living in Leesburg, Virginia. AFTER Santorum got caught, he pushed for legislation, the state of PA to pass a law to allow politicians that have their families residing elsewhere to receive state funding of homeschooling/charter schools funds for Politicians oh, he add military too. Then he got earnmarks to Pennsylvainia in education funds, and the state reimbursed the $55,000.00 owed to the school district.


CNN knows this and intentionally did not broadcast the Santorum Swindles. Scumbags @ CNN

[Romulus]

Liberal!

[pauliticalfan]

He's trying to pander to New Hampshire. VERY transparent.

[TulsaRevolution]

Freedom to bomb whom we please
Freedom to spend as much as we feel
Freedom to create money out of thin air
Freedom to oppress gays, Muslims, and whomever we feel uncomfortable around
Freedom to detain anyone for any reason indefinitely
Freedom to rule over the will of the States
Freedom to make the choices you are simply too stupid to make

Rick Santorum stands for freedom!

[smtwngrl]

We can bitch about it on here, or we can prove he's full of it by looking at his actions (voting record). Where and how do we start?

I started out to look for his voting record, and haven't made it there yet. But in the process, I found these things on a Wikipedia entry, in addition to some things that have already been mentioned.


Privacy

Santorum has frequently stated that he does not believe a "right to privacy" exists under the Constitution, even within marriage; he has been especially critical of the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which held that the Constitution guaranteed the aforementioned right, and on that basis, overturned a law prohibiting the sale and use of contraceptives.[79] He has described contraception as "a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be."[80]



ACLU suit

In 2005, four young women were ejected from a bookstore in Wilmington, Delaware, where Santorum was scheduled for a book signing, after they were overheard expressing opinions critical of the senator. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit, which was settled in 2007. As a result of the settlement, the Delaware State Police were required to pay legal fees for the plaintiffs and provide training to officers on free-speech rights. The Santorum staff members who requested the ejection were required to apologize and to relinquish their salaries for the event — $2,500.00 — to the plaintiffs in damages.



NWS and ethics
Main article: National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005

Santorum introduced the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005 to "clarify the duties and responsibilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration[3] and the National Weather Service (NWS), and for other purposes".[83] This legislation, if enacted, would prohibit the NWS from publishing weather data to the public when private-sector entities, perform the same function commercially. .....The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association was galvanizing support to lobby against this bill,[85] but it never passed committee. Opponents of the bill suggested it was corporate welfare, where the private weather service companies, which often receive data from the National Weather Service, would be enabled to charge government and military agencies for that information.[85] The motivations surrounding this bill were controversial, as AccuWeather, a commercial weather company based in Santorum's home state, stood to profit from this legislation, and Accuweather employees had contributed at least $5500 to him since 1999. The liberal advocacy group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, subsequently listed Rick Santorum as one of its "most corrupt politicians", citing the bill as one of several reasons


On foreign policy, he is very anti-Islam and anti Iran.

When running for re-election in 2006:


Santorum shifted his campaign theme to the threat of radical Islam and Islamic terrorism in the United States. He gave a speech invoking British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, referring to multiple forces trying to undermine the U.S. in a "gathering storm" (the term Churchill used to describe the causes of World War II).[33] He pointed to the historical date of a Muslim siege in Europe, Sept. 11, 1683, as evidence that radical Islamists were waging a more than 300-year old crusade with the intent to restore Shia clerics to power in the Western world.[34] Casey told the press that Santorum's claims were outrageous, saying, "No one believes terrorists are going to be more likely to attack us, because I defeat Rick Santorum. Does even he believe that?" A heated debate between the candidates occurred on October 11, 2006.


In June 2006, Santorum declared that weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) had been found in Iraq.[93] Santorum's declaration was based, in part, on declassified portions of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command.[94] The report stated that coalition forces had recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions that contain degraded or vacant mustard or sarin nerve agent casings. The specific weapons he referred to were chemical munitions dating back to the Iran–Iraq War that were buried in the early 1990s. The report stated that while agents had degraded to an unknown degree, they remained dangerous and possibly lethal.[93] However, officials of the Department of Defense, CIA intelligence analysts, and the White House have all explicitly stated that these expired casings were not part of the WMDs threat that the Iraq War was launched to contain.[


In 2005, Santorum sponsored the Iran Freedom and Support Act, which appropriated $10 million aimed at regime change in Iran. The Act passed with overwhelming support. However, Santorum nevertheless voted against the Lautenberg amendment, which would have closed the loophole that allows companies like Halliburton to do business with Iran through their foreign affiliates.[96] He said Iran was at the center of "much of the world's conflict" but was opposed to direct military action against the country in 2006.

The Associated Press reported that on July 20, 2006, Santorum stated that "Islamic fascism rooted in Iran is behind much of the world's conflict, but he is opposed to military action against the country", in a speech where he "also defended the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo


I believe we are at war with Islamic fascists and I singled out Iran and Syria as examples of Islamic fascist regimes. Many Muslims say the same thing, and the editors should, too, for it is undeniable. [...] I have said time and time again across Pennsylvania these past weeks that the fight against Islamic fascism is the great test of our generation. Leaders are obliged to articulate this threat and to propose what is necessary to defeat it. That is my purpose, and our national calling. The American people have always rallied to the cause of freedom once they understood what was at stake. I have no doubt that they will again.
—Rick Santorum[98]”



During the lame-duck session of the 109th Congress, Santorum was one of only two Senators who voted against confirming the nomination of Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. Santorum stated that his objection was to Gates's support for talking with Iran and Syria, because, in Santorum's view, it would be an error to talk with "radical Islam".



In 2011 he said McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war, did not understand how the "enhanced interrogation" process works.[

[Dr.3D]

He has seen how well Ron Paul is doing with that message and thinks maybe he will be rewarded the same way if he uses that word.

Monkey see, monkey do.

[affa]

He is doing one thing and one thing only - diluting Ron Paul's message.

If everyone is saying it, it means nothing to the average person.