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Ron Paul vs. The Christian Right
Of those
contending for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, only
one candidate has compiled a perfect constitutional
record – which is why he is anathema to the Christian
Right.
By Laurence
M. Vance, contributing writer
Ever
since Congressman Ron Paul announced that he was a candidate
for
the Republican presidential nomination, I have maintained
that, even though he appears to live up to the Christian Right’s
own criteria, I believe the leadership of the Christian Right
will reject him Christian leaders, many of whom make up what
I have called “The Christian Axis of Evil,” love
centralization more than federalism, political power more than
liberty, war more than peace, politicians more than principles, “faith-based” socialism
more than the free market, and the state more than God Almighty.
Why?
Why would the leadership of the Christian Right reject someone
who was pro-religion, pro-life, pro-family values, pro-religious
liberty, pro-Constitution, and a veteran, who not only was opposed
to same-sex marriage, unrestricted immigration, gun control,
and the United Nations, but never, in all his years in Congress,
voted to raise taxes, took a government-paid junket, or voted
for a congressional pay raise?
Why?
I believe this is due to three things: ignorance, stupidity,
and statolatry.
The
first reason I believe the leadership of the Christian Right
will
reject a candidate like Ron Paul is ignorance. Some Christians
don’t understand how someone can oppose abortion but also
oppose a constitutional amendment banning abortion, oppose same-sex
marriage but also oppose a constitutional amendment defining
marriage as the union between a man and a woman, and oppose flag
burning but also oppose a constitutional amendment outlawing
flag burning. The answer is that congressmen who oppose such
amendments are following the Constitution to which they swore
allegiance.
Strict
constitutionalists believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided
because abortion
is simply not a constitutional issue.
There is no serious argument based on the text of the Constitution
that there exists a federal “right to abortion.” The
federalization of abortion law is not based on constitutional
principles, but on a social and political construct created out
of thin air by the Roe court. Since the federal government has
no authority to involve itself in the abortion issue, a federal
law banning abortion in all the states would be just as wrong
as Roe v. Wade.
Many
religious people consider marriage to be first and foremost
a religious
matter, not a government matter. Strict constitutionalists,
religious or otherwise, don’t think social problems can
be solved by constitutional amendments or government edicts.
Taken to its logical conclusion, the turning of regulation of
domestic family relations over to the federal government means
that presumably anything can be federalized. Because the federal
government has only been granted limited, enumerated powers by
the Constitution, it has no role whatsoever regarding marriage
law. Although the states should enforce marriage contracts and
settle divorces, they too should otherwise stay out of marriage.
When it comes to the subject of flag burning, strict constitutionalists
maintain that the offensive conduct of a few does not justify
making an exception to the First Amendment protections of political
speech that the majority considers to be offensive. Since freedom
of speech and freedom of expression depend ultimately on private
property, making flag burning a federal crime is an attack on
property rights. However, strict constitutionalists would have
no trouble supporting overriding the Supreme Court case that
overturned State laws prohibiting flag burning.
One reason some members of Congress oppose these constitutional
amendments is because they are advocates of that forgotten constitutional
principle of federalism. The division of power between the federal
government and the states is one of the virtues of our American
political system. To alter this balance would endanger self-government
and individual liberty. State legislatures should decide social
policy because federalism was established to allow decentralized,
local decision-making. Following the Ninth and Tenth Amendments,
all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the
Constitution should remain with state legislatures.
The second reason I believe the leadership of the Christian
Right will reject a candidate like Ron Paul is stupidity. Some
Christians are dumb enough to think that because someone is a
libertarian that he is also a libertine. The essence of libertarianism
is that it is wrong to threaten or initiate violence against
a person or his property. Force is justified only in self-defense.
Libertarianism,
as explained by Murray Rothbard, the twentieth century’s greatest proponent of it, is a political philosophy
that “holds that the only proper role of violence is to
defend person and property against violence, that any use of
violence that goes beyond such just defense is itself aggressive,
unjust, and criminal. Libertarianism, therefore, is a theory
which states that everyone should be free of violent invasion,
should be free to do as he sees fit except invade the person
or property of another.”
Libertinism,
by way of distinction, is a way of life that might be considered
hedonistic or sympathetic to “alternative
lifestyles.” A libertine might be a libertarian, a liberal,
a conservative, a socialist, a progressive, or an anarchist.
He might be a member of the Libertarian Party, the Democratic
Party, the Republican Party, some lesser-known third party, or
no political party. One does not have to be a Christian to oppose
libertinism. And there are plentiful examples illustrating the
fact that self-described “traditional values” conservatives
can be practicing libertines.
Other
Christians are dumb enough to think that because someone opposes
the war
on drugs that he supports drug use. Physicians
know firsthand the harmful effects of mind-altering narcotics.
But drug addiction is a social problem, not a crime. For the
first 140 years of our country’s history we had no federal
drug war -- and far fewer problems with drug addiction and crime.
The federal war on drugs encourages violence, has led to the
militarization of law enforcement, created an unnecessarily vast
prison population, has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars
of the taxpayers’ money, has been used as an excuse to
attack our civil liberties and personal privacy, has been an
excuse to undermine our financial privacy, has promoted illegal
searches and seizures resulting in innocent people losing their
lives and property, criminalizes the actions of legitimate physicians
who act in good faith when prescribing pain relief drugs, threatens
the effective treatment of chronic pain, and corrupts our police,
the military, border guards, and the judicial system.
Still other Christians are dumb enough to think that because
one opposes giving foreign aid to Israel that he is pro-Palestinian
or anti-Semitic. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign
aid, receiving over $50 billion in military grants since 1949.
Congressmen who are strict constitutionalists oppose giving foreign
aid to Israel for the simple reason that they oppose giving foreign
aid to any country. Their perspective is that of the Founding
Fathers: America should not intervene in the internal affairs
of other nations. They believe that our meddling in the Middle
East has only intensified strife, conflict, and violence. Both
sides in the Middle East conflict have more military weapons
as a result of our foolish and unconstitutional foreign aid.
Some of our foreign aid no doubt winds up in the hands of terrorists.
The third reason I believe the leadership of the Christian Right
will reject a candidate like Ron Paul is statolatry. There are
a few of members of Congress who have consistently opposed both
war and the warfare state. Many Christians, however, support
both. In fact, some of the greatest defenders of the state, its
president, its legislation, its military, and its wars are conservative
Christians.
With
their “obey the powers that be” mantra they
blindly follow any president as long as he is not an “evil” Democrat.
And even worse, because of the unholy alliance that exists between
certain evangelical Christians and the military, they defend,
and in some cases even participate in, the state’s latest
military adventure no matter what the political party of the
commander in chief, all the while, of course, repeating their
mantra of “support the troops.”
Some
conservative Christians are so in love with the state that
they support
(in the name of national security, of course) pre-emptive
war, bloated defense and intelligence budgets, secret military
tribunals, torture of “enemy combatants,” extraordinary
renditions, an increasingly militarized society, the violation
of basic civil liberties, undue government secrecy, and domestic
spying programs. If we had a draft they would probably support
it too.
The best way we can support the troops is to bring them home.
Not just from Iraq, but from all the countries in which we have
troops stationed. Members of Congress who wish to return to the
noninterventionist foreign policy of the Founders should, to
be consistent, have voted against funding the U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
The 9/11 attacks should be seen as guerrilla attacks in retaliation
against the United States for what the Arabs and Muslim world
see as our invasion and interference in their homelands. The
attacks should have led to less foreign intervention, not more.
If the federal government is going to follow the Constitution,
its activities should be limited to real national defense, securing
the borders, providing a federal court system, and doing very
little else but what is enumerated in the Constitution.
Although the leadership of the Christian Right may prove me
wrong and wholeheartedly embrace the candidacy of Ron Paul, their
ignorance of federalism, aversion to libertarianism, envious
puritanism, rejection of the foreign policy of the founders,
and overwhelming show of support for the state, its president,
its wars leads me to believe otherwise.
Mr. Vance, who teaches at Pensacola Junior College, is Director
of The Francis Wayland Institute. He is also author of two books:
Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State,
and King James, His Bible, and Its Translators.
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