Ron Paul’s Superficial Constitutionalism & Borg Collective
Graphic provided by A. Afterwit at Raisedonhoecakes.com .
Ron Paul has even less than a rudimentary understanding of our Constitution and federal powers and his collective is wooed by emotional platitudes and superficial appeals to freedom and liberty while applying zero critical thinking skills to his rhetoric.
If Ron Paul was as intelligent regarding the Constitution as his Paulbot-Borg Collective believes, he would have been able to rattle off two quick responses to the question in the clip below and rationally explain his reasoning in short order, sound bite style.
But I guess, since we are all media dupes, public school dupes or have fallen prey to the Bilderberg, Rothschild, Tri Lateral, Skull and Bones, CFR, military-industrial complex (Jewish) conspiracy we will just have to be assimilated.
As I wrote yesterday, in his opinions on international terrorism as stated Saturday night he completely dismisses the entire violent history of Islam. According to Ron Paul we have to believe every murderer that says he acted in self defense because al-Qaeda says they attacked us because we had our military in Saudi Arabia – actual evidence to the contrary be damned.
In his machinations describing acts of war versus run of the mill crimes he doesn’t understand the fundamental constitutional responsibilities and powers of the federal government or what our Constitution actually says.
Ron Paul is not able to put thoughts together in order to come up with a philosophy. He was asked during the Mike Huckabee/Fox News GOP Forum last Saturday night if he believed there were any constitutional amendments that were mistakes and he blew it according to his own stated beliefs.
Here is the question and his answer in his own words:
It is astounding to me that Ron Paul never mentioned the 16th and 17th Amendments – the income tax and the direct election of senators. If he believes his own BS and his own previous statements concerning the excesses of our federal government he could not possibly believe the 16th and 17th Amendments were not mistakes since they are the playgrounds of oppressive federal government and actually the doorway through which tyrannical and omnipotent federal government has walked.
The federal government could not perpetrate the vast majority of evil it does without the trillions of dollars it seizes through the Marxian progressive income tax. Even if the federal government tried to abuse the interstate, general welfare and necessary and proper clauses they would not be able to afford it in the absence of an income tax – not that we can afford it now but you get my drift. There could be no Department of Education or the other 4 departments Ron Paul claims to want to disband in the absence of at least the 16th Amendment.
Prior to the 17th Amendment senators were elected by state legislatures and that was a fundamental protection for state sovereignty and power. Any senator acting outside the best interest of his particular state could easily be removed during the next election by that state legislature and there was little to no chance of “career politicians” and lobbyist influence.
We currently have 28 Republican governors and 26 Republican-controlled state legislatures. Do you honestly believe the Democrats would have maintained control of the Senate in 2010 in the absence of the 17th Amendment? Do you believe it would even be in question in the 2012 elections?
The 17th Amendment allowed for the direct popular election of senators and thereby diluted one of our important safeguards in American government and the division of powers. Remember, the Founders established a system at the federal level whereby the people were represented in the House of Representatives and the States were represented, and thereby protected, by senators. Do you really believe the 10th Amendment would be so usurped today if senators were still elected by the State legislatures?
The House of Representatives is where the passions of the people – you and me – were expressed but the Senate is where those passions were tempered by statesmen and the States were represented.
The 17th Amendment turned senators from statesmen into populist politicians just like Representatives subject to the sway of popular public opinion and the influence of money.
If you wanted to, you could also make the argument for the 14th Amendment being poorly written and most oft abused throughout its relatively short history. One could argue that it was the 14th Amendment that created the problem of “anchor babies” with respect to illegal immigration. But then, as a libertarian Ron Paul believes in open borders I guess.
Ron Paul’s failure to address the question posed with a thoughtful answer including the 16th and 17th Amendments using the deeper philosophies of original American governance, the reasons, etc belies his ignorance of our Constitutional history and the protections provided us by our Founders.
His superficial knowledge of our Constitution and inability to think in deeper and more philosophical terms betrays his calls for individual liberty his Borg Collective parrots and renders him little more than a populist politician – a demagogue – versus a great statesman in the tradition of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and the rest.
His answer to the question in the video above renders him dangerous to the liberty he pretends to profess and actually our very way of life.
December 11th, 2011 at 6:43 am
[...] is just bat-guana crazy. Of you want more on Ron Paul, our friend Steve Bussey has an article where he exposes Paul’s alleged “Constitutional [...]
December 14th, 2011 at 10:40 am
‘Superficial Constitutionalism’ is a serious charge to level against Ron Paul, who has been elected repeatedly to Congress on nearly that basis alone. I read your article carefully, looking to find support for your claim. (I ignored the hyperbole and name calling in the first couple paragraphs and in the rest of the article.) Your argument seems to be based only on one answer given during the Huckabee debate, and that only because his answer differed from how you would answer, not that Paul’s answer was unconstitutional. It seems that with a thirty year record and several published books to choose from, you could build a more substantial case (if one existed) for your thesis. You have nothing, and this ‘article’ seems to only be an effort to drive traffic to your site.
December 14th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Ron Paul is my congress critter. He has not been returned to office term after term for all these many years because of his constitutional knowledge. He has been returned because the district Republican committee makes it extremely difficult to challenge him in the primary, and Democrats just do not get elected in this county. He may make a great President, but in my opinion he has not been a good or effective Congressman. He has been running for President for the past five years, which means I have had no representative in the House for that length of time.
January 27th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
What my issue with Ron Paul and his Paulites is that they can rationalize just about anything as long as it leaves their leader’s mouth.
I’ve taken a long, extensive look at that budget on his website. Is he really trying to deliver the knock-out blow to already hurting people? I know for a fact that there is a way to pick ourselves up and out of this horrible economy without taking away entitlements from people who depend on them. Is there entitlement fraud? Absolutely. Separate the bad from the good, and that’ll be a great start. Don’t take away from people and expect them to be responsible with the SNAP of a finger.
Second, the relentlessness, in my view, is not the sign of a great president. I respect more for people who run positively in life, in contests, and decisions, than people who down absolutely everyone.
Coming from a Newt supporter, Ron Paul should let his son take over from here.