There is an interesting controversy out of the Republican debates where Rep. Ron Paul was given just 90 seconds to speak during a 90 minute debate. I have never hidden my admiration for Paul for his courageous positions on issues like torture and his opposition to the various wars. What is particularly troubling is that Paul used his limited time (as did John Huntsman) to speak out against torture. We have previously discussed whether the mainstream media is actively marginalizing the candidate. On this occasion, however, it appears to have been an intentional decision by CBS in the South Carolina debates.
A study cited below by the University of Minnesota last month “confirmed that Ron Paul had been given the least speaking time out of all the Republican candidates during the debates, even less than the likes of John Huntsman and Rick Santorum, who have routinely been beaten by Paul in national polls.”
Supporters are also citing an email inadvertently sent to Michelle Bachmann’s campaign in which a CBS staffer referenced how Bachmann’s campaign had made representatives available for an after-debate webshow. In the email, CBS News political analyst John Dickerson responded by saying, “Okay let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else.”
Likewise, supporters are still smarting over an exchanged between Politico’s Roger Simon and CNN host Howard Kurtz after the Iowa straw poll where Paul basically tied for first with Bachmann. Simon dismissed Paul as relevant and said “we’re gonna ignore him.” Kurtz responded by saying “We are in the business of kicking candidates out of the race.”
Of course, at least Republican have debates and choices. These debates have proven highly useful for voters in sorting out candidates. Democrats will get no debate and no choice. Despite great opposition to Obama from civil libertarians and other groups, the Democratic National Committee and process is a lock for Obama and voters will be given no other options but to vote for him or choose a Republican or third-party candidate.
Source: InfoWars
Very off-topic, but important.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8909701/Germany-suffers-disaster-at-bond-auction.html
If my understanding is correct, the Euro just died.
@Garyonthenet: That is disingenuous. Either it is a libertarian right, or it is not.
Or libertarians cannot agree on whether it is a right, or cannot agree on how to balance the mother’s rights against the infant’s rights. Perhaps Paul recognizes that state of affairs and believes the only solution is state-by-state experimentation to arrive at some citizen-approved median.
Also, Paul has stated before (I have watched him doing it) that his position is that a human life is a human life from conception, and the mother (although he did not address non-consensual intercourse) assumed the risk and responsibility to carry the child to term at the time of impregnation. So Paul’s stance is principled, he is entitled to his religion and belief. Libertarians do not believe murder should be legal, and because of his erroneous relgiious beliefs he has convinced himself that abortion at any stage is murder.
Personally I disagree, I am completely pro-choice for the first 15 weeks (based on brain development), and conditionally pro-choice for the rest of the pregnancy, for cases of non-consensual pregnancy, physical mother endangerment (not psychological), and testably abnormal fetal development. A fetus is a potential person, but as science has shown, so is every cell in your body and every egg lost in menstruation. We cannot judge a woman’s choice to not realize a potential as a crime, otherwise every woman would be required to remain constantly pregnant. After 15 weeks, however, it becomes increasingly impossible to distinguish what a normal person with a right to life has that a fetus does not. Certainly once a fetus exhibits the brain activity of a normal infant, I do not think we should allow its life to be terminated on the mother’s decision alone, I think a more objective assessment of the risks is in order.
See an interview with Paul on Face the Nation:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul781.html
I am reposting a message I left on another JT article, since it seems particularly more relevant here.
It is on whether Ron Paul’s anti-abortion stance and his disbelief in evolution make him either a libertarian hypocrite or a bad choice for possible presidency.
As far as his creationist leanings go, I don’t see how that affects his proven track record on maintaining a voting record that is adherent to a rather rigorous interpretation of the Constitution.
Creationism is fairly much a sub-belief of many religions; as all religions are based upon magical thinking, and most politicians at least profess a religious belief system, excluding Paul on such a ground seems unduly harsh.
It is compartmentalized belief that has little affect on the believer’s abilities in other areas. Paul is obviously fundamentalist in his religious beliefs, and he is also fundamentalist in his governmental beliefs. And one of those latter beliefs is his belief in the separation of church and State.
I’d be voting for his ability to administer government, not for his mythological beliefs about the cosmos and the origins of Man.
As far as the accusation of him being a liberterian poser, most libertarians are pro-choice, about 99.5% of them, but there is actually some wiggle room in the libertarian theory that does not outright disallow a libertarian to be anti-abortion, even from a legal POV.
That wiggle room is the legal recognition of when does a pair of gametes or a zygote become a person that has legal rights.
I have pondered about that point from a libertarian pov and I cannot come up with an objectively valid argument of why it would be at any particular point in the development. It is an arguable point that runs anywhere between conception and live birth. Personally I would put it at the point where a fetus could survive outside the womb.
However, if that point is instead, say, at the zygote stage, then the whole panoply of libertarian laws protecting one individual from violence from another come into play, and effectively would outlaw abortion.
Of course there are other libertarian arguments that could be made, notwithstanding the legal status of the fetus, such as the fetus infringing upon the rights of the mother, but they are not as strong as the primary prohibition of killing another person.
So, in sum, Paul’s stance against abortion is not intrinsically anti-libertarian, it is just extreme, and certainly does not comport with the spirit of libertarianism, insofar that the mother is already a full blown person with inalienable rights, who should be able to do with her body what she pleases.
Also, I have issue with another poster here, that to argue that Paul is merely saying it shouldn’t be a federal issue but rather a decision for the states, is sophistry. From a libertarian POV, it shouldn’t make any difference from jurisdiction where the individual’s libertarian rights are upheld, it is simply a mandate that they ARE upheld.
Many politicians who lean libertarian but are afraid of directly opposing a voting bloc, will sidestep the issue by claiming it is a state’s rights issue.
That is disingenuous. Either it is a libertarian right, or it is not.
Paul is a little bit of both, he is explicitly anti-abortion, but he also mitigates that opinion by saying the federal govt should stay out of it.
Personally I think the federal govt should stay in it. The only issue I have with the federal govt’s upholding abortion rights is the legal premise upon which it is based in Roe v Wade. This is not privacy issue, it is a liberty issue.
Swarthmore mom, ” ….. is let people die uninsured …..”
Do you prefer that people die with insurance? It always gets me when people believe that having health insurance is some kind of magic immortality pill. Not only do people die WITH insurance everyday, having unfettered access to doctors IS the THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH!
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Even more significantly, the medical system has played a large role in undermining the health of Americans. According to several research studies in the last decade, a total of 225,000 Americans per year have died as a result of their medical treatments:
• 12,000 deaths per year due to unnecessary surgery
• 7000 deaths per year due to medication errors in hospitals
• 20,000 deaths per year due to other errors in hospitals
• 80,000 deaths per year due to infections in hospitals
• 106,000 deaths per year due to negative effects of drugs
Thus, America’s healthcare-system-induced deaths are the third leading cause of the death in the U.S., after heart disease and cancer.
——————-
Saying you want people to have government paid insurance is worse than wishing a stoke on someone, as stokes are only the fourth leading cause of death!
If you want to actually help people, allow natural and holistic practitioners to work, promote exercise and a good diet. Instead the government wants to restrict access to supplements.
“It is my opinion that the CIA runs the Oval Office and has done so since Bush I. Clinton fought them and lost … Bush II gave them carte blanche and they have burrowed in. It’s going to take one hell of a strong President, backed by a strong Congress, to drive them out.”
Bouise,
The question to me is who runs the CIA. They are certainly a conduit of power and have been since JFK’s assassination. In my estimation though, the CIA is also riddled with factions. There is a majority strain of personnel there that come from our country’s elite. Bush I is an example of this. There is definitely an Ivy League connection and indeed that is where they are thought to do much of their recruiting, particularly Yale. The CIA is no doubt one of the “Baronies” that make up our feudal, corporate State, but it to answers to “higher” authority.
Lest someone think that I’m off of the deep end, awash in conspiratorial paranoia, I’m not. Beside ego, the thread that unites our ruling elite is affinity of background. These are people who either grew up with each other and/or hang out in the same strata. They have developed friendships, hatreds and alliances. Having wealth they share similar interests and prejudices that are moderated, or not, by their desire to properly shepherd and/or shear the “common folk”. So this is not a “conspiracy” in the common sense of the word and because it isn’t, it is more loosely woven.
To my mind the best exposition of this affinity of class and of the operational mindset of the CIA, is what I think is Norman Mailer’s greatest novel
“Harlot’s Ghost”. Mailer is one of my favorite novelists because he combined the skill set of an investigate journalist with the craftsmanship of a literary talent.
This book really helped me to shape my concept of the CIA and in the macrocosm, how our society is run. To me he showed that looked at from an affinity of people standpoint, the “conspiracy” is less than meets the eye. Our country is analogous to High School, with the difference being that the stakes are much higher. All the ego, the cliques and the disputes are being played out on a grander scale. It doesn’t make the life of the 99% any better, but it does give clearer perspective on why things are so badly messed up and perhaps hints at what can be done to change it.
SwM,
Downtown (Philadelphia) and one of the best places to visit (Penn). Did a lot of classical music there in my youth.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art was one of my favorite places to go but no matter how many times I went I always ended up getting stuck in the circle. I broke more traffic laws around that Museum than anywhere else in my entire life … I even got out of there once by driving on the sidewalk.
Blouise, I became aware of the Huntsmans when we toured Penn some years ago. They have given Wharton tons of money and scholarships and a building or two are named after them.
Mike,
It is my opinion that the CIA runs the Oval Office and has done so since Bush I. Clinton fought them and lost … Bush II gave them carte blanche and they have burrowed in. It’s going to take one hell of a strong President, backed by a strong Congress, to drive them out.
Although I am in agreement with everyone about the heavy influence of corporate America on all things within the government … it is the unchecked black power of the CIA that rules the Presidency.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/huntsman-plays-down-fathers-role/
sorry … forgot to paste