Dude, he wants the states to decide on gay marriage but also wants the federal gov't to make sure that judges that try to redefine marriage (ruling on the side of the gheys) can be fired for doing so? Correct me if I'm wrong but that means any gay marriage case that gets brought to supreme court has to be an auto ruling against gay marriage?

Ill read that bill again tomorrow when I'm not on my phone. I'm not defending it either way, just wondering if its consistent with other things he's said and what I thought his position was.

I looked through that site quite a bit. They believe that liberalism is the bastion of all reason and that anyone with any other views is a joke. This makes them fundamentalists, not skeptics. The libertarian summary is somewhat amusing though, albeit full of straw men and other fallacies.

Wat? Of course his "personal belief" as stated is anti-gay.

That's not even an anti-gay personal belief so much as a belief that marriage is a religious thing. He didn't say he disliked gays or didn't want the best for them in any way.

Gonna need to hear how Ronnie feels about two dudes ****ing then.

just because you don't agree with something doesn't automatically mean you're anti something.

This topic?

Just let the old racist bigot retire in peace and allow his followers to rewrite RP's history to make him look less racist and bigoted. They're not hurting anyone.

Lol at more Ron Paul hypocrisy.

This is the man who literally wrote many bills that if they were signed into law would force people to accept his standards.

By the way, no man who says this:
Can ever be defended as not being anti gay.

He is literally calling it an abuse of powers for judges to give equal protection to gay people as they did when they struck down laws against interracial marriage.

He also co sponsored the Marriage Protection Act which was designed to limit the federal government from overturning DOMA. In other words people can get married according to their own standards in New York but if you go down to his state you will be forced to live under his standards because if you are gay and are legally married you dont deserve to have that marriage recognised in another state. Yay liberty.

He also sponsored legislation to amend the constitution to change the definition of citizenship to come in line with his own viewers on birthright being used to grant citizenship.

He has sponsored and written several bills relating to the use of as currency and also the taxation by states and the federal government of gold and silver - states rights yay, except when Ron Paul disagrees then he will use the power of the fed to control you!

He has sponsored multiple bills just that are 'pro life' attempting to overturn women's rights such as the Sanctity of Life Act.

Here is the thing. When Ron Paul has fundamentally flawed opinions on the rights that some minorities should have that you disagree with - you dont have to still defend him on the internet when people point this out.

These conversations always end the same way "I dont agree with him on that, but..." - just no. Stop making excuses for him. He never did a single thing positive for the libertarian movement, if he had any impact it was negative.

He is an opportunistic selfish hypocritical douchebag that is either a racist conspiracy theorist nut or he decided to make money 'exploiting' racists and conspiracy theorists by telling them what they want to hear. Defending him like he has principles that stretch beyond doing what is best for him at all times is the height of pathetic.

lol wat, ron paul's impact was growing the libertarian movement by like 20000000000% percent.

Ron Paul endorsed Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party for President in 2008, who thinks Republicans are too nice to gays or something:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_baldwin.html

The Constitution Party was, of course, was founded and still dominated by Christian Reconstructionists who want to literally stone the gays because according to Gary North, a former Ron Paul staffer and the son-in-law of the father of Christian Reconstructinism, rocks are "cheap, plentiful, and convenient."

And not surprisingly, there's a huge overlap between Christian Reconstructionists and Neo-Nazis/Confederates.


They have a very coherent reason for supporting Ron Paul and have reason to believe that he is one of them. They are not conservative - the correct term is reactionary. Ron Paul isn't supported by the run-of-the-mill evangelical social conservatives who want gay people to stay in the closet and stop ruining marriage with gay rights. He's supported by the far right wing lunatics who want to execute the gays.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...gn.php?ref=fpa

We went over this:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1509

Social liberals/fringe who support Ron Paul mostly have poor understanding of the US government. The federal government has been socially progressive, much more so than state governments, especially federal courts. One of the greatest forces for civil liberties in the past few decades has been federal courts striking down state/local laws and upholding individual rights guaranteed in the constitution. Of course, we all know where Ron Paul stands on that issue.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul120.html

After re-reading I do think you're mistaken:

Sounds like it would just prohibit federal courts from deciding on state laws concerning religion, sexuality, or marriage, which would still allow states to have gay marriage or abortion if they chose to.

That being said, I don't agree with this at all and it's an anti-federalist, not libertarian, policy. If we didn't let the supreme court decide on these matters, we never would have had Loving v Virginia (no interracial marriage) and sodomy laws would still be on the books and I think those two cases were major steps out of the medieval ages for this country.

Would you (or Phil, Fly, etc) agree with me on this though: Ron Paul would have been less of a threat to abortion and gay rights as President than any of the other potential Republican nominees, barring Gary Johnson and probably Jon Huntsman. I suppose you could possibly add Romney to that list if you read him on doing a major flip-flop off his severe conservative and unwavering defender of life and traditional marriage spiel he was giving during the primaries.

So you say he has grown the libertarian movement by 20000000000%.

And yet the facts say...

- The Libertarian candidate again received less than 1% of 2012 vote, despite running a former popular GOP governor, successful businessman, and himself being an outspoken advocate for drugs decriminalization within the Republican Party.

- Ron Paul's own party is increasingly more outspoken and fervently anti-libertarian on almost every singly social issue. And those social issues gaining the most momentum across the country (gay marriage, drug decriminalization, etc.) are almost completely occurring within liberal states and spearheaded by liberal organizations, which are not only unrelated to Ron Paul, but they generally despise him.

- There is continued and growing emphasis on a more aggressive foreign policy within Paul's party, and their platform was based on big increases in defense spending and saber rattling. Those anti-war voices that were resonating in the last decade have mostly tapered off, as they were driven by the left and neither led or endorsed by Paul.

- The heir apparent to Paul's "legacy" is a son who is even more of a pandering, anti-social freedoms for all, and paleoconservative descendent than his father, and a "Tea Party" which stands for whatever Fox News is selling them.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!


Paulites like you are living in your own echo chamber. You can't understand how reality is consistently failing to meet your expectations and can't fathom how the libertarian "movement" isn't sweeping the country. We've seen it play it for years here. Rinse, repeat. Time to admit that Paul's "movement" has been an utter failure in advancing a meaningful libertarian philosophy, and has been devoid of hope and promises of real freedoms for real Americans, and instead has played as far as it can on their fears of minorities, "liberals", and the Washington boogeymen. As a former self-identified libertarian, and original (naive) supporter of Paul's earlier in the decade, I am disgusted what his legacy really amounts to.

Please put in plain English why you think extreme social conservatives (or reactionaries if you'd prefer) would support Ron Paul. Do you think it's because Ron Paul wants to stone or execute gays, keep gays in the closet, bring back the nazi movement... Because that's what you seem to be insinuating and I do not agree.

Throughout the primaries Ron Paul was questioned for not being socially conservative enough. "OMG would you actually allow two dudes to marry, really you're alright with that?"



As for your last paragraph, I resent the notion that I have a poor understanding of the US government. While I agree that Federal courts have stepped in to protect civil liberties on many occasions, I think it's ridiculous to suggest that the Federal government as a whole has been a friend to civil liberties over the past few decades. We have the absurd Patriot Act and NDAA, the miserable war on drugs (where Federal agents have raided old ladies growing medical mj for themselves with a legal prescription, and then been vindicated by the SCOTUS), the TSA... not to mention the de facto ban on internet poker which has really limited and damaged my lifestyle. And recently, the only government entities to allow legal drug use or gay marriage have been - you guessed it - states.

The We The People Act would act as a firewall against any effort to legalize same-sex marriage through the federal courts. Under Paul's bill, a federal judge would not have had the opportunity to overturn California's Proposition 8--a referendum prohibiting same-sex marriage--under the 14th Amendment's due process clause after the state Supreme Court upheld the ban.

The We the People Act also protects the traditional definition of marriage from judicial activism by ensuring the Supreme Court cannot abuse the equal protection clause to redefine marriage.”


This is like as close as a federal ban as you can get imo. Basically he's saying that he knows what's coming and wants the bigots in TX to be able to do whatever they want.

This is only possibly true in the sense that Ron Paul is probably too incompetent to get anything done. If you normalize for competence, Ron Paul is a lot more dangerous and it's not even close. Would Gary North with the political ability to become elected President be more dangerous for abortion and gay rights than a typical Republican president? Of course, he wants to stone women who have abortion, their doctors and non-celibate gays. What's the political difference between Gary North and Ron Paul? There is none.

Ron Paul being either a largely incompetent buffoon or a conman out to enrich himself, family and friends at the expense of his supporters and their cause, or a little bit of both, may be a net positive for society because he takes resources away from others who may be harmful. But such is the fate of bad causes in an enlightened society - they get the political representation they deserve.

We have gone from "Ron Paul loves the gays" to "OK well he may not actually love the gays but don't you believe he's better than the other Republicans" again.

Doesn't hate the gays, just endorses policies that will screw over the gays. Ron Paul! Freedom¡

Gary Johnson failed to attract to many or Ron Paul supporters largely because he lacked RP's strong non-interventionist stance on foreign policy. Johnson came out in favor of sending foreign aid to Israel and sending the military to hunt down KONY2012 in Africa early in his campaign. During the last months of the campaign Johnson tried to portray himself as the peace candidate but the damage had already been done.

It seems to me many on this site play up gay marriage as the most important issue of the day largely because their boyfriend Obama is dropping bombs on civilians from robots in the sky and being as bad or worse as W. on civil liberties.

That bill wasn't just Ron Paul spitballing around some anti-federal positions. It was a direct response to the SCOTUS case that overturned sodomy laws. He felt, and stated, that case was the multicultural secular left advancing their agenda by legislating through the courts.

Do you know what other group likes to blame activist judges for pushing leftist views through the courts? Like, what group gets furiously furiously angry when some ivory tower federal judges tell Real Americans that they can't have segregation, or school prayer, or a big ole' monument to the 10 commandments? Reactionary social conservatives.

fyp, mark

You do realise the size of a movement is not proportional to the amount of +1s it gets on reddit and youtube, right?

Worth noting that anti sodomy and anti interracial marriage laws are still "on the books", they just dont get used because of the SCOTUS rulings. But if the We The People act has the right language they would instantly reactivate.

Re Ron Paul worse than any other politician on gay rights and abortion in the primary - it is asking the wrong question. The better question is why did you phrase it so that Jon Huntsman who signed multiple pro life bills as governor get given a pass by you as being less of a danger to abortion rights.

But sure, overlooking that and taking the same Phone Booth clause of overlooking the speed to which he would make his own party vote against him and probably impeach him I do think he is noteworthy as the only politician in that primary who has tried multiple times to undermine the balance of powers in the constitution by using the legislative body to restrict the power of the judicial branch. Even Newt and Romney were only talking about pushing through a constitutional amendment and frankly I think only Ron Paul would be arrogant enough to try and push through a bill as dangerous as the We The People act.

Reactionaries like Paul because he would empower them to do everything just short of stoning gay people. He didnt just disagree with the supreme court overruling a ban on sodomy but he though they shouldnt have even heard the case under states rights. He thinks the civil rights act is one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed and is actively worried about the inevitable SCOTUS case about gay marriage that will apply the 14th amendment and legalise it across the nation.

As for the last paragraph, that just isnt true. Picking up on a small number of backsliding examples of the federal government and then combining it with literally two examples from this month of states actions is a terrible way to start.

Some states have tried to ban being Muslim. The fed stops them. As recent as 2000 Texas was prosecuting people for gay sex. The fed stopped them. Arizona passed a law literally designed to racially harass latinos. The fed stopped them (mostly). Multiple states tried to pass ID laws to strip voting rights for racial minorities and other vulnerable people and the fed stopped them (under the Voting Rights act). Literally over 100 new pro life laws have been passed and signed in the past 2 years. Multiple mosques have had construction blocked then later resumed due to the first amendment. Multiple states dont just stop you playing online poker but stop gambling of any kind and used to raid home games (I stopped paying attention to poker a few years ago, I dont know if it still happens). Since you said the last few decades I can easily go right back to the civil rights movement but I do not feel the need to explain to you how the fed won a lot of hard fought battles against Ron Paul supporters on that. Roe v Wade would also be included in this where states used to force women to have their rapists babies against their will until the fed stopped that practice - something so barbaric I doubt anyone would ever advocate it now

Look, no one is saying the fed is perfect, but it is clearly better than the states on civil rights. It just isnt even close. And this is while the fed has forced them to give people civil rights, if the fed didnt exist who ****ing knows what would be going on in Mississippi today if they dont have to worry about the first, 14th and other nice amendments you take for granted. States rights is the politics of hatred.

You sir are a great example of why Ron Paul has done nothing positive for the libertarian movement.

The real states/feds thing is exactly what PB said. A lot of RP fans try to frame it in the terms of "where" the "power" goes, like the debate is between letting the states ban gay marriage if they want or letting the feds ban gay marriage. But you don't have to let either do that.

Our government is one of limited powers. The federal government does not have general police powers the way the states do. So when we have debates about the federal government taking away part of the state's police powers, that does not mean the federal government becomes more powerful. It just means more freedom. Ron Paul, tireless defender of freedom, opposes the federal government in those situations. Because Ron Paul's inner circle, his intellectual and fundraising core? Almost entirely composed of socially conservative white nationalists. Rockwell, North, Woods, the whole Mises roster really.

LOL I remember last time some poor deluded Paul fan tried to defend the We the People act tried to argue that it was a good thing because it would stop federal courts from banning marriage, like that was a possible outcome.

That's what PB is talking about when he says RP fans who like "states rights" tend not to really understand how the government works. They tend to be reflexively anti-government anti-authority types who like how states rights people hate the federal government, and that's really as far as it goes.