Posted on 05/09/2007 7:18:18 AM PDT by malibu2008
"Fortunately, President Bush has pledged to veto HR 1592. Of course, I would vote to uphold the president’s veto." - Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX)
May 7, 2007
Last week, the House of Representatives acted with disdain for the Constitution and individual liberty by passing HR 1592, a bill creating new federal programs to combat so-called “hate crimes.” The legislation defines a hate crime as an act of violence committed against an individual because of the victim’s race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Federal hate crime laws violate the Tenth Amendment’s limitations on federal power. Hate crime laws may also violate the First Amendment guaranteed freedom of speech and religion by criminalizing speech federal bureaucrats define as “hateful.”
There is no evidence that local governments are failing to apprehend and prosecute criminals motivated by prejudice, in comparison to the apprehension and conviction rates of other crimes. Therefore, new hate crime laws will not significantly reduce crime. Instead of increasing the effectiveness of law enforcement, hate crime laws undermine equal justice under the law by requiring law enforcement and judicial system officers to give priority to investigating and prosecuting hate crimes. Of course, all decent people should condemn criminal acts motivated by prejudice. But why should an assault victim be treated by the legal system as a second-class citizen because his assailant was motivated by greed instead of hate?
HR 1592, like all hate crime laws, imposes a longer sentence on a criminal motivated by hate than on someone who commits the same crime with a different motivation. Increasing sentences because of motivation goes beyond criminalizing acts; it makes it a crime to think certain thoughts. Criminalizing even the vilest hateful thoughts--as opposed to willful criminal acts--is inconsistent with a free society.
HR 1592 could lead to federal censorship of religious or political speech on the grounds that the speech incites hate. Hate crime laws have been used to silence free speech and even the free exercise of religion. For example, a Pennsylvania hate crime law has been used to prosecute peaceful religious demonstrators on the grounds that their public Bible readings could incite violence. One of HR 1592’s supporters admitted that this legislation could allow the government to silence a preacher if one of the preacher’s parishioners commits a hate crime. More evidence that hate crime laws lead to censorship came recently when one member of Congress suggested that the Federal Communications Commission ban hate speech from the airwaves.
Hate crime laws not only violate the First Amendment, they also violate the Tenth Amendment. Under the United States Constitution, there are only three federal crimes: piracy, treason, and counterfeiting. All other criminal matters are left to the individual states. Any federal legislation dealing with criminal matters not related to these three issues usurps state authority over criminal law and takes a step toward turning the states into mere administrative units of the federal government.
Because federal hate crime laws criminalize thoughts, they are incompatible with a free society. Fortunately, President Bush has pledged to veto HR 1592. Of course, I would vote to uphold the president’s veto.
It is implied by your statement that those who don't choose to support Paul's principles are "assumed to be unfit, unwilling and unable to make a principled decision about who their leaders should be."
It is inferred. It was not implied. As for being "unfit, unwilling and unable to make a principled decision about who their leaders should be.", that's how you have characterized the general electorate, and suggest that is how they are to be considered when choosing a candidate.
Can we have a discussion without you miscasting my stance and using hot-button sneers like "pander" every few posts? It is a straw man tactic to take.
What I expect is that the successful primary candidate will be the one who realizes that the RP is a coalition, and needs to honestly represent aspects important to each part. Without that honest desire to address the motivating interests of the other parts, no candidate can or should win the Republican nomination.
Libertarians and Constitutionalists are not a subset of Republicans, but an intersecting set. The more they hew to their own motivating interests to the exclusion of the others — the more "pure" libertarian they are — the less representative they become of Republicans on the average whole. That is why, way back at the beginning of this discussion, I threw out the (deliberately provocative) RINO bomb. At some blurry point, such a person becomes a Republican in name, but not a Republican in actions, because they stop representing a significant percentage of the Republican platform as a whole. If what you represent is essentially the Libertarian platform with the serial numbers filed off, then you aren't really a (R).
No, it is how you have chosen to interpret it.
I'm not concerned about being a Republican in name. I'm concerned about being a republican in actions.
"Your fellow "self-governing" citizens are too much invested in "American Idol" and protecting their govt. bennies to start there."
Looked plain enough to me. Maybe you've got something there. I certainly didn't invest any time watching "American Idol" last night. Did you?
And I totally agree with his point about the tenth amendment.
Agreed. That is, however, a pretty low bar, since I see Rudy's support of the (R) platform at around 20-25%.
That statement was in regards to the general electorate. I admit some contempt and cynicism for that group. What we were discussing when you brought up the phrase, however, was the republican primary voters, and Paul’s need to appeal to them, which is a differently motivated set of people.
What conplicates a rational discussion of the issue is that he does appeal to the vast majority of republicans. It's the Republicans that are the problem.
Nice sounding turn of phrase, but what do you mean by it? That you are not concerned for the Republican Party, but only for the action of electing governmental representatives in which to invest power? You are interested in the structure, but not the implementation? Semantically, I am getting a null meaning here.
No, he doesn't, since a (r)epublican is simply someone who supports representative government empowered by the electorate. Dems, Reps, Libertarians, Greens - all Parties in the U.S. are (r)epublican. Our whole government is (r)epublican. Unless you are using the word in a different manner than it's dictionary definition.
I am interested in having representatives that actively support and seek to advance and preserve a republican form of government, in substance.
A republic is a government having a hierarchial structure. In our case that structure is defined by the Constituiton, and that hierarchy defines the different levels of government (state and federal), and defines the boundaries of responsibility and authority for each. I want a federal representative who holds that it is important to maintain and respect those boundaries in order to preserve that structure, even if it is an unpopular decision at the moment.
I want a federal representative who holds that it is important to maintain and respect those boundaries in order to preserve that structure, even if it is an unpopular decision at the moment.
So, how do you get the electorate to vote for what is unpopular?
I am a military veteran also, and so is every male in my family going back several generations. You ARE giving up the liberties we have fought for, whether you admit it or not. When I was a boy I walked into a gun shop and bought all the guns and powder I wanted, and blew stuff in my lawn with no cares. I could go out onto state lands shooting without anyone stopping me. Now I have to get the governments permission to these things, and face an inquisition anytime I take my guns anywhere. Every thing I do now requires permits and government permission. I DO NOT believe a wall will protect us perfectly; that is my point. The government can not prevent a terrorist attack unless there is a policeman in every bedroom. Those are the choices when you get to the heart of the matter. Of course I care very much if a city or two get nuked, but I am intellectually honest enough and willing to admit that nothing can stop an insane person from murdering others without enslaving everyone. I trust in God’s will above all, and if He is for us then He will protect us according to His plan. The names of those who are saved are already written in His book, no matter what our enemies do to us. Victory comes through the toughness to endure casualties, even whole cities. I am not against war, just against wars that do not serve their intended purpose.
If you wish. In our case we are a constitutional republic, and that constitution defines the structure and heirachy. Our republic as it is defined in that document does not exist without that heirarchy, and cannot stand unless it is preserved.
So, how do you get the electorate to vote for what is unpopular?
You make the consequences even more unpopular.
How? You can't even get the majority motivated enough to vote. That would indicate that either they are pretty much satisfied with the status quo, they think it irrelevant to them, or they have given up the process as hopeless.
Every chance I get, I try to explain what the consequences of sitting on your ass, watching American Idol and expecting the federal government to take care of you are going to be.
Don't you think everyone doing that is eventually going to lead us to ruin? Do you think we ought to be telling them the truth, or lying to them and saying "Sure, the federal government can take care of you, but our guys can do a better job of it, so you should vote for them!"?
It’s a cute theory, but I don’t know of any constitutional scholar who would take it seriously. Nor does Alberto Gonzolaes, whom I don’t consider a serious constitutional scholar, but he’s the Attprney General of the United States, so his opinion carries a little weight. A declaration of war must, at a bare minimum, declare that a state of was exists; Congress has not done that in Iraq.
If Congress did, de facto, declare war, then we’re still at war with the Iraqi and the Afghan governments we claim to support. There has been no peace treaty, no surrender. If you want to play those technicalities, they swing both ways.
But I did err when I said that Congress had not declared war since December 8, 1941 — the declaration of war against Germany and Italy didn’t ass until the 11th, and a formal declaration against the Nazi puppet states in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania followed in June 1942.
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