 | 62 Days Until Voting Begins. Who is Your Favorite Candidate? |
It’s only 62 days until the Iowa caucuses, when voting for the election of the next president of the United States begins.
Who’s your favorite presidential candidate? Of the Republican Party, Democratic Party, Third Party, or no party at all?
Identify and defend your choice!
P.S. My choice is still “undecided,” at least if I limit myself to the list of candidates who are actually running.
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My choice is “not Bush or any of his ilk”.
Comment by Damen — 11/2/2007 @ 1:26 pm
Does that mean you’d vote for anyone else? You know, Anybody But Bush-Ilk?
Comment by Jim — 11/2/2007 @ 1:30 pm
I really do think that Stephen Colbert would make a better President than anyone else, and now they’ve knocked him off the ballot in South Carolina, the brutes!
Comment by F.G. Fitzer — 11/2/2007 @ 1:37 pm
My vote will be for Ron Paul. The top issue to me is the extremely broad powers that have been turned over to the Executive branch (which I don’t think I have to detail here). In some ways, the body of the Constitution is weak in regards to personal liberty, and the only thing that reigns in these weak points is the Bill of Rights. From my perspective, RP is running mostly on the tenets of the BoRs. Our next POTUS must have a character that allows the divestment of the executive branch of its de facto legislative and judicial powers. The President, or anyone he delegates, can now call any of us an enemy combatant, stripping us of any common law redress. If any are mistakenly called an enemy combatant, they don’t even have the right to say “I think you made a mistake: let’s look at the facts.” Not only habeas corpus is lost with the current EOs (and MCA), but also a trial by a jury of peers. I feel that there are many issues involved in this eletion cycle, including the issue of what is really to be the supreme law of the land: the Constitution as applied today, or the Bill of Rights that restrains misuse of the Constitution. I apologize if I have gone on too long.
Comment by PM — 11/3/2007 @ 2:41 pm
Of course Ron Paul is not for the kind of “personal liberty” where people get to choose how many children they will have or what goes on in their own bedrooms. that is something for the government to legislate. Never mind religious freedom. Ron Paul stands with the Pope on that one.
Comment by Iroquois — 11/3/2007 @ 4:59 pm
Iroquois,
On what do you base your conclusion that RP is not “for” personal liberty in regards to number of children they have, or what they do in their bedroom, or religious freedom? He would not legislate, as president, on these issues anyway. His problem with Roe v Wades is that the federal government does not have jurisdiction over the states on these issues according to the Constitution. RvW is not law, or at least a legitimate one passed by Congress. Prior to RvW, many states had laws regarding abortion, and most of them with exceptions for incest, rape, and life of the mother. As far as I can tell, the Pope does not have a governmental position. I also have not heard the Pope state that civil governments should become theocracies (though, admittedly, I’m not Catholic, so I don’t know everything that all Popes in history have said).
Comment by PM — 11/3/2007 @ 5:26 pm
What about the exception for none of your business?
The pope says life begins at conception and birth control is murder. Catholics used to go out on ash wednesday after the sermon and get themselves arrested trying to bomb birth control clinics.
Being in favor of allowing states to infringe on personal liberty is not the same as being in favor of personal liberty.
Comment by Iroquois — 11/3/2007 @ 7:39 pm
Part of this debate concerns how far-reaching the laws regarding abortion (and birth control) should be. We have to accept the fact that many people believe this is a personal liberty, freedom of choice issue and many people believe this to be a right to life issue. Although RP errs on the side of life, I still believe that he would rather the solution not be a federal (centralized) one. It’s not that he or all of his supporters merely want the state governments to coerce the ppl to any particular belief, it’s that if states rights were given back, the people could have more say so on this issue, and the solution would more local. Some states, such as California probably, would continue for complete elective abortion, while other states may go so far as to outlaw it altogether. I actually believe those would be few, b/c as I stated earlier, most states already had exceptions. We have a real problem with the representative/constituency ratio on the federal level, which would be skewed more favorably to the people if they could decide things for their own state.
Comment by PM — 11/4/2007 @ 12:33 pm
But, PM, Ron Paul’s record shows that he DOES want to use the force of government to enforce his religious beliefs about the idea that human rights begin at the exact moment of fertilization.
That’s not truly libertarian. I see Ron Paul as more of an opportunist.
To continue with Iroquois’s critique, PM, do you think that states should be allowed whether they want to segregate schools according to race?
Comment by Peregrin Wood — 11/4/2007 @ 12:42 pm
In regard to PM’s argument, segregation of schools according to race is outlawed by the Constitution and the court cases stemming from it. Ron Paul may be against federal power, but he’s never stated opposition to the ability to amend the Constitution.
Comment by Joseph — 11/4/2007 @ 3:07 pm
The argument for the idea that life begins at conception is not based purely on religious beliefs. Several facts support the conclusion that life begins at conception, including that the fertilized egg is recognizable as human by the number and banding pattern on the chromosomes, and by DNA sequence. With this base, one can think that the ferilized egg is both human and alive. The next question is does this new organism have any rights, especially human rights. Why is it a crime punishable by a hefty fine to take a bald eagle’s egg? Because that egg, if fertilized and treated well is the beginning of the eagle’s life. If a congressman/woman believes that human life begins at conception, based upon the facts he/she knows, then is it his/her duty to allow that young human the protections as stated by the Constitution, or to ignore the the un-law that allows the destruction of these lives to continue? Like I said, he would rather this thorny issue to be resolved more locally, but in the meantime, try to protect what he believes is a life.
Comment by PM — 11/4/2007 @ 5:42 pm
Oh yeah, and by the way, the statement that Paul “DOES want to use the force of government to enforce his religious beliefs about the idea that human rights begin at the exact moment of fertilization.” is FALSE.
I remember the law that was posted on here that he voted for, and all it did was take the issue of abortion out of federal court jurisdiction. That isn’t using the “force of government” to DO anything. It’s taking the power away from the Federal courts, and letting the STATES decide whether or not to protect fertilized eggs or not.
Sure, it may end abortions in some states, but if that’s going to be the debate, lets argue about that instead of misrepresenting facts about Paul’s beliefs.
Comment by Joseph — 11/4/2007 @ 6:07 pm
Segregation of schools is not outlawed anywhere in the constitution. I challenge anyone to show me where is that in the constitution. Whenever Joseph doesn’t know the answer to something, he starts blathering about the constitution, which I doubt he has even read.
Did you know that sperm is recognizable by chromosome pattern and is fully alive and human? I say the states need to start making some laws to protect this valuable resource [in the same way that we as a nation worship eagle life by protecting eagle eggs from the moment of conception], and keep the sperms from being used inappropriately, i.e. in a way that does not lead to conception.
Comment by Iroquois — 11/4/2007 @ 7:35 pm
The Constitution is interpreted by the Supreme Court. How they interpret it determines “what is in” the Constitution. They have ruled it illegal to discriminate in schools via Brown v. Board of Education. Therefore, segregation of schools is outlawed. I don’t really see the relevence of that, or the comments about sperm, to Ron Paul or PMs comments as evolved through the discussion.
He’s for the Federal Courts not having jurisdiction over abortion, and for the people, through their state governments (as opposed to the federal courts or legislature) to determine the legality of abortion. The argument should be over that. Instead, people would rather misrepresent Ron Paul’s position.
Comment by Joseph — 11/4/2007 @ 8:17 pm
Joseph, even by what you accept of Ron Paul’s position, he is using the power of the federal government to take the right of citizens to go to the court for a redress of their grievances.
The issue is that Ron Paul is willing to deprive people of their constitutional rights when he’s got a personal agenda, but then claims that he’s a libertarian.
Ron Paul is not a libertarian. He just uses that ideology as an excuse to execute his radical social agenda.
Comment by Peregrin Wood — 11/4/2007 @ 8:23 pm
Wrong. He’s RESTRICTING the power of the federal courts in determining the legality of abortion. He’s advocating LIMITING federal government power, therefore leaving it to every state to decide. People still are able to seek redress in courts, they just can’t go federal.
His obvious intent is not to take “Constitutional rights” away, but to get the federal government out of peoples lives.
I don’t know Paul’s entire history, but I would love to see a case where Paul actually advocated the Federal Government’s power being used on American citizens moreso than clearly allowed via the Constitution.
Comment by Joseph — 11/4/2007 @ 8:50 pm