Thread: Ron Paul Toughest on Terror

[quote]Tancredo, Romney and Ron Paul’s campaigns adress right to life ideals, effects and ethics at the New Hampshire Right to Life forum.

Coverage of the speeches and points of view from our friends at lifenews.com.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


“Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo is a pro-life Colorado congressman best known for his views on illegal immigration.

However, he tied the two issues together in a weekend speech to members of New Hampshire Right to Life — who also heard representatives of Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Gov. Mitt Romney.

Tancredo told the pro-life group on Sunday that his pro-life record goes back to his days in the Colorado state legislature where he was first elected in 1976. His state was the first to make abortions legal in 1967.

……

Ron Paul’s son represented him at the pro-life forum and said the Texas congressman uses a Libertarian approach to the issue which opposes federal restrictions on abortions but advocates that states be allowed to make abortions illegal again.

He said Paul believes that other rights Americans enjoy are violated when the right to life is abrogated.

And a representative of Mitt Romney’s campaign also attended and said the ex-Massachusetts governor is the strongest pro-life candidate seeking the GOP nomination.

Also this weekend, three more GOP candidates, Fred Thompson, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter, addressed Republican candidates forums in Wyoming, which has moved up its primary to January 5.

Brownback and Hunter touted their pro-life views extensively and said they would only appoint judicial candidates for the Supreme Court who understand Roe v. Wade was wrongly decidedâ€

The point Dr. Paul correctly makes is that regulating abortion ONE WAY OR THE OTHER is NOT, I repeat NOT, a Constitutional use of Federal power.

Abortion is an issue that rightfully should be dealt with on a State level.

And again, Ron Paul is not the sole authority on the U.S. Constitution.

There are a lot of experts on Constitutional law, including Judge Robert Bork. Judge Bork believes that the 2nd Amendment isn't an individual right, which is demonstrably false-IMO-yet he is still a brilliant Constitutional scholar. My point is that there are wild divergences of opinion when it comes to interpreting the Bill of Rights, and how they should be applied to individuals and to states.

I'm not implying that everything Paul says about the Constitution is incorrect, but I don't believe simply because he says a specific interpretation of a law is unconstitutional that makes it so.

There are several very well-regarded Constitutional scholars who have made persuasive arguments that the 14th Amendment and the incorporation doctrine forbid the taking of unborn life, which is the worst civil rights violation, IMO.

Paul might believe that allowing states to come up with their own abortion laws is the best way to address this issue-and he might even be right-but I don't think that necessarily means it is the "Constitutional" way to address the subject of abortion/euthanasia.

[quote]There’s a reason why our nation’s finest, America’s military men and women, both active and veteran, have given more donations to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul than any other candidate in either party. [b]As a veteran, he’s the only candidate who understands how to properly defend America from its enemies, “both foreign and domestic.â€

The fact is, it is a state's right and duty to make such calls.

There are many laws that are enacted in various states regarding murder, what consitutes murder, first degree murder, various robbery, and assault laws. The states also have different determinations of punishment for those.

Of course, the federal government is doing it's best to take over many of those - but as yet, it is a state's determination - unless it involves a federal law.

As someone else pointed out - if we give the federal government the right to say abortion is right or wrong, then we give them power of life and death - they don't and should not have that right.

That goes for prayers in school (that is not high on my agenda), but the federal government has no constitutional right to take away the state's right to make those determinations.

If you truly do think abortion should be illegal, then give this some thought. What chance do you think we actually have getting this federal government - ever - to go against that ruling? Slim to none. Not with the bunch we have there now and unless we do something very differently, we are going to have the same crowd.

Now what if the power rightly rested with the state. The people of each state could petition their own lawmakers to change the law. It would be a lot easier to convince or elect enough lawmakers in a state to change it, than it is to get something done with the behemoth of a federal government.

What scares people so much about the states taking back the rights given them by the consitution? That's where the people get their power. WE have almost no power with Washington - truly we don't. We can make them pause once in a while, but their agenda has marched on for decades.

What scares them, Trixie, is that they don't want to be responsible for it. They'd rather have it 'taken care of by their Big Brother government, even though Big Brother is an abusive bully.

Is the federal government being a bully when it criminalizes assaults against pregnant women?

This is the same facile argument that people made in order to defer the question of abolition, i.e. we need to keep a federalized system where some states are free and some slave, otherwise the union will dissolve.

It's completely absurd. Yes, there are some matters that are reserved exclusively to the states, but murder is not one of them. There are different criminal codes governing what constitutes murder, but when you kill someone with premeditation it is Murder 1. It's homocide in every state and muicipality of the country. Plus, there are several FEDERAL murder statutes. Your argument that no behavior whatsoever should be governed by federal statute can just as easily be used to strike those down.

This is the problem I have with libertarianism.

There are some things that are absolute and there are some things that are shaded in gray, and libertarians can't seem to distinguish between the two.

Allowing states to decide what laws they want with respect to drug consumption or BAC limits is one thing, but when an issue rises to the level of stripping away the civil rights of Americans it supercedes concerns about the infringement upon a state's prerogative, which-as I've already explained-is a dubious assumption in this situation.

Certainly the laws are similar - but not the same and the punishments are not the same.

And please, please don't fall for that old 'states rights equal segregation' stuff we had pushed down our throats on a daily basis during the power grab from the federal government using civil rights as a basis.

It is a lie - and it was designed to keep people from governing themselves. That kind of rhetoric is no different than when the President called us bigots for opposing illegal immigration. It was a lie then, and the President's utterance was a lie.


The federal government, under the guise of civil rights, hurt the black comunity in so many ways. They are just now finding their way out of the 'help' from the federal government.

So yes, states didn't make all the right choices - given time, I think they would have - and it would have been the RIGHT choice - and it would not have given the federal government more and more power.

Right now, do you think the federal government is doing what is right for it's people?

The law against hurting pregnant women? Geesh, no state would have thought of that one.

What civil rights? and whose civil rights?

I'm not implying that states' rights and segregation are synonymous. What I'm getting at is that your argument can be used to justify the restriction of federal government regulation of any matter under the Sun, from anti trust laws to civil rights. Literally, anything. There are clear demarcation lines that divide what powers are delegated to the federal government vs. what powers are reserved to the states. However, that doesn't mean that there are no issues where the federal government has an interest in intervening.

I simply don't agree with Ron Paul supporters who believe that the federal government has no business passing any statute that might infringe upon the domain of specific states. There is such a thing as federal supremacy under certain circumstances-this is a well-established article of Constitutional law-which is something that Ron Paul either does not understand, or does not agree with, in which case his understanding of the Constitution is not as perceptive as some would have us believe.

Shapka wrote:

I simply don't agree with Ron Paul supporters who believe that the federal government has no business passing any statute that might infringe upon the domain of specific states. There is such a thing as federal supremacy under certain circumstances-this is a well-established article of Constitutional law-which is something that Ron Paul either does not understand, or does not agree with, in which case his understanding of the Constitution is not as perceptive as some would have us believe.

Very well said!