Happy Atheist Forum

So does anyone like Ron Paul? I know i'm fairly far to the left and while there are for sure many things I don't agree with him with he is most certainly starting to rub my good side, what's the rest of you guys' opinions on the man?

While some of Ron Paul's policies are admirable, here is one reason I would never vote for him:

QuoteThe Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

(an excerpt from his "The War on Religion")
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html)

Yeah, that's my point, he has some policies that sounds really, really good on the other hand he is kinda crazy like most republicans however he is more of a libertarian but that isn't a farcry from republican.

He's a fundamentalist libertarian. I'm not a big fan of fundamentalism because it doesn't leave room for doubt.

I don't think he can do anything redeeming enough to allow me to get over his crazy religious views that he apparently wants to force on people via government.  I don't get how he can be a libertarian yet wants to allow state and religion to mix; that would be more gov power not less.  Someone who basically wants a theocracy shouldn't be in a leadership role no matter what otherwise good ideas they may have.  Why trust someone who doesn't even follow the views of his own party?  From my understanding libertarianism is about maxing out freedom by making government involvement in our lives as small as possible (including cutting many socialized and welfare programs in favor of privately run schools and charities).  Ron Paul's religious views cloud his ability to realize that blurring the line between separation of church and state would give the government more power than less; why should we trust him to have clear reasoning on any other issue?

Quote from: "kenh"While some of Ron Paul's policies are admirable, here is one reason I would never vote for him:

QuoteThe Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

(an excerpt from his "The War on Religion")
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html)

What a nutter, note how fails to garnish his own views with some quotes from the founding fathers to back him up.

Also, welcome to the forum.

Quote from: "kenh"While some of Ron Paul's policies are admirable, here is one reason I would never vote for him:

QuoteThe Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

(an excerpt from his "The War on Religion")
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html)

Odd, that doesn't sound any less "religious wacko" than Obama's anti-gay marriage stance.  I think people on the left delude them selves into believing that the left is more secular than it is.

Quote from: "andrewclunn"

Quote from: "kenh"While some of Ron Paul's policies are admirable, here is one reason I would never vote for him:

QuoteThe Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people’s allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state. Knowing this, the secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s Christian heritage. Christmas itself may soon be a casualty of that war.

(an excerpt from his "The War on Religion")
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html (http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html)

Odd, that doesn't sound any less "religious wacko" than Obama's anti-gay marriage stance.  I think people on the left delude them selves into believing that the left is more secular than it is.

But Obama isn't spouting this is a Christian country and that the founding fathers founded the country on christian principles which isn't the case, not that makes his anti-gay marriage stance any less messed up, either way I'll have a hard time voting in 2012, maybe I'll consider Hilary more this time, I need to look up her policy however.

I'm just saying that the liberals are no more secular than the libertarians.  Both play to religion often.  But at least both are tolerant of secular views.  There are secular humanists in both camps and Marxist in the liberal camp and Objectivists in the libertarian camp.  The dismissal of the Libertarians and clinging to the Democrats, when they have clearly shown that they are much more interested in expanding government involvement in the economy than repealing the affronts to personal liberty put forth by the Republicans or expanding civil liberties just strikes me as complete madness.  Why?  I do not believe the Democrats stand for what you have been made to believe they stand for.  (the 'you' here is not directed at anyone here in particular.)

I agree with many of Ron Paul's views on government, taxes and laws.  I strongly disagree with his religious views.

I wrote him in as my vote for president in the last two elections.

I agree with mommasquid though i couldn't vote yet but in 2012 i can. My ideal candidate besides ron paul (besides his religious views) would be gary johnson who was governor of new mexico who was libertarian minded and if he ran in 2012 i would support the hell out of him.

Quote from: "Sheeplauncher"gary johnson who was governor of new mexico who was libertarian minded and if he ran in 2012 i would support the hell out of him.

Bill Richardson was my fav from this past election even though he had to drop out due to lack of support (which means he might have lost my vote if he had kept running and I had more time to research his background)...I don't really know who Gary Johnson is.

Quote from: "MommaSquid"I agree with many of Ron Paul's views on government, taxes and laws.  I strongly disagree with his religious views.

I wrote him in as my vote for president in the last two elections.

Ron Paul supports the Constitution!

QuoteRon Paul has a perfect voting record in congress.

What is a perfect voting record?  From what viewpoint?
Just asking, I don't know anything about his record.

Quote from: "kenh"

QuoteRon Paul has a perfect voting record in congress.

What is a perfect voting record?  From what viewpoint?
Just asking, I don't know anything about his record.

From my understanding, it just means he actually showed up and voted every time congress has voted on something while he is in office.  Most congressmen/women tend to miss a lot of voting opportunities due to absence.  "perfect voting record" has nothing to do with making quality choices.

Quote from: "andrewclunn"Odd, that doesn't sound any less "religious wacko" than Obama's anti-gay marriage stance.  I think people on the left delude them selves into believing that the left is more secular than it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnRkUJjazU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJnRkUJjazU)

Doesn't seem too looney to me. I think he's view is "I may not agree with it, but if it's not doing any harm it's none of my damn concern."

Ron's human and he has his own flaws and bias views. So far I've seen some rather intelligent and cogent ideas put forth by him. He isn't saying we should have no government but it should be minimal and do what it was meant to do: Provide for defense and judicial matters that private entities couldn't do. He isn't saying we should just get rid of all government but the wasteful pointless nonsense. It sounds insane for a politician to actually care about what's best for the People and that's a sad thing.

Yeah RP has his flaws like everyone else but he has integrity and has been saying the same things for almost 30 years and trying to get big government under control for years. He has been trying to audit the fed for years and years and he recently got his amendment which was the audit into a bill since they gutted his original legislation but still did not vote for the bill even though it had things he liked because it had a lot of other bad policy in it. in my opinion RP is great and i really hope him or his son( who is running for senate in kentucky) will have a larger role in government.

Who is Ron Paul? Is he related to Ru?

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F4%2F43%2FRuPaul_by_David_Shankbone.jpg%2F527px-RuPaul_by_David_Shankbone.jpg&hash=a02a0d01d6f20ad69db8c0a0b58629072b9dd9b9)


Sorry, just in one of those moods today!    One of my sons was supporting him for his Prez bid in 2008. I never bothered even looking the guy up to see what his platform was.

Nice.....You know most people would actually favor most of his positions.

He feels we should bring the troops home, we should work on removing a lot of government waste, we should look at real solutions to immigration/health/economic issues instead of just expanding government or creating more bureaucratic nonsense.

Quote from: "Big Mac"Nice.....You know most people would actually favor most of his positions.

He feels we should bring the troops home, we should work on removing a lot of government waste, we should look at real solutions to immigration/health/economic issues instead of just expanding government or creating more bureaucratic nonsense.

Yeah, this thread got me off my duff and I actually looked the guy up. Very interesting. I disagree with him on issues like health care and global climate change, but he's certainly different than a lot of other would be presidential hopefuls.

Quote from: "McQ"

Quote from: "Big Mac"Nice.....You know most people would actually favor most of his positions.

He feels we should bring the troops home, we should work on removing a lot of government waste, we should look at real solutions to immigration/health/economic issues instead of just expanding government or creating more bureaucratic nonsense.

Yeah, this thread got me off my duff and I actually looked the guy up. Very interesting. I disagree with him on issues like health care and global climate change, but he's certainly different than a lot of other would be presidential hopefuls.

I think his platform is so good it encompasses most people's hopes for America. I guess no one idea would be the solution, eh?

I've heard him say (in various speeches) that he would dismantle the IRS...I'd support that!  The code is too confusing for the average person to understand and too easily manipulated by unscrupulous people.

Quote from: "MommaSquid"I've heard him say (in various speeches) that he would dismantle the IRS...I'd support that!  The code is too confusing for the average person to understand and too easily manipulated by unscrupulous people.

I agree. I personally like the idea of a 23% tax on all goods and no income tax. It might be a little more expensive to buy stuff but you'd also have more money and it'd ensure that more people would pay taxes. It's not a perfect solution but I think a much better answer to our current problem with people avoiding taxes. That and it'd be one less thing for people to bitch and moan about illegal immigrants.

www.fairtax.org (http://www.fairtax.org)