The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.

The 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 fai’th 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.

So he wants to replace morality-based government regulation with an increase in church attendance. I’m sure this would surprise a lot of Paulites, who probably don’t want religion to eclipse the state. And he’s never been more deluded if he thinks religion is making people more civil and tolerant.

I seem to be doing a lot of Ron Paul bashing. I’ll actually come to his defense about this one:

WALLACE: Congressman, it’s not just a liberal view. It was the decision of the Supreme Court in 1937 when they said that Social Security was constitutional under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

PAUL: And the Constitution and the courts said slavery was legal too, and we had to reverse that.

He’s not equating Medicare and slavery, he’s saying that just because something is law doesn’t make it right. And he’s right about that. But given the quote above, he likely thinks Christian charity is the way for people to care for the poor, sick, and elderly. That would require a disturbing increase in the number of churches – call it Big Religion.

This is why I like Ron Paul. He’s dead on about legalization of drugs or prostitution – and many on the left would probably agree with him. Matthews question – “Should parents be allowed to be heroin addicts?” – couldn’t be more stupid. Should parents be “allowed” to be alcoholics? Legalization isn’t sanctioning abuse. There will always be abusers, as there are right now. And yes, if it was legal, there would be more abusers because heroin is highly addictive, but conceivably there’d also be more support networks.

But drug legalization and the Civil Rights Act are totally separate issues. Drugs are a personal choice – while barring minorities from your establishment affects other people. This is why murder is illegal – because you’re injuring someone else. This is the limit of liberty – laws are required to prevent people from hurting each other. This goes for environmental regulation and financial regulation – has less direct of an impact than murder, but not exactly, if anti-pollution regulations saves lives.

And I don’t totally get why this is a property rights issue – he wants people to have the right to do whatever they want with their property. Not really, it’s also a zoning rights issue – you can’t open up a 7-11 in a residential neighborhood. He must believe this curbs property freedom as well – and there could even be an argument for that, except if this brings down the property value of houses in the neighborhood. And so couldn’t the same be said if your a shopkeeper with a store next to a whites only restaurant. That’ll affect other people’s business, as well as whoever’s being discriminated against. His claim that there would be “zero” whites-only signs if the Civil Rights Act was repealed is a total fantasy. “That’s ancient history, that’s over and done with” – so racism is dead, really?  It could create entire regions of whites-only establishments – that seems like less of a fantasy than the idea that nobody would open up a whites-only establishment.

Finally, Paul always says it’s up to states to make regulations on an individual basis. I’m unclear why state regulations are so much better than federal regulations. If the regulations are identical, what’s the difference? Anyway, there are flaws in Paul’s logic, even if his basic premise of ensuring “freedom” is a good one – however that freedom can just as often impinge on the freedom of other people.

Why is the freedom to do what you want with your property more important than the freedom from discrimination? It’s a weird sort of materialism. Property is an object – ownership of land is hardly the be all end all of human existence. But one could say that tolerance is an enormously important part of a free society. So fostering that tolerance through legal means is more important than letting people do whatever they want on their land. If you answer, “people will vote with their wallet,” this is again materialist – letting money dictate a society’s moral center. Personally, I don’t want money to have that much power. And though forcing people not to discriminate might not be an ideal solution, it’s more sensible than giving people the freedom to be abusive. That lets profit-minded business dictate a society’s morality – and business really hasn’t been shown to have a great moral center. Government may not be the greatest arbiter of morality either, but at least a democracy gives voice to people without money, as well as the rich – at least, ideally.

Democracy seems to be the temporary fix for a society until people are more self-regulating. But given free reign to do whatever they want, people have been shown over and over again to break things. And though democracy isn’t ideal either – people are getting so stupid that the majority could vote in the dumbest representatives imaginable – this is not the fault of democracy, it’s the fault of money taking over democracy. Money is filtering up towards businesses and away from education and a sustainable environment. Libertarianism could work in some distant future when people naturally act for the good of society overall, but until that point there need to be laws ensuring that people don’t dick each other over. If this means limited property rights – meaning, at its core, limited rights for rich people, who have a special aptitude with dicking people over – then I’m all for it.

Many people did not understand the financial house of cards that are derivatives, but since they were legal and promised a great return, people invested. It is much the same in any area rife with government involvement.

The point is to make certain financial practices illegal so that people can’t exploit the system. The point is that they were legal, and shouldn’t have been. What kind of logic is this? He’s proving his own counter-argument.

These principles explain why the free market works so much better than a centrally planned economy. With central planning, everything shifts from one’s own judgment about safety, wisdom and relative benefits of a behavior, to the discretion of government bureaucrats.

With the free market, everything shifts from reasonable restrictions to blindly trusting business’s judgments “about safety, wisdom and relative benefits of behavior.” Time and again, businesses prove that they can’t be trusted – exactly what more proof do you need than Enron, Lehman, Goldman Sachs, AIG, etc. etc. In short: blind faith in business doesn’t make any more sense than blind faith in government. And though government can’t cover every loophole, making the system itself a gigantic loophole makes no sense whatsoever.

Very wealthy corporations hire attorneys who may discover a myriad of loopholes to exploit and render the spirit of the regulations null and void. For this reason, heavy regulation favors big business against those small businesses who cannot afford high-priced attorneys.

Perhaps, but the operative word here is “may” – they also may not. If they do, new laws get written – not a perfect system, but better than lawlessness, as he proves regarding derivatives. And chances are small businesses aren’t the ones polluting the planet and crushing the economy. If “You can’t manufacture plastic that gives babies cancer” is bad for small business, then fuck them. If Libertarians are all about absolutes, this is the inevitable result of non-regulation: it doesn’t matter what you do so long as it’s profitable. After all, this is “freedom.”

I’ll add too that Ron Paul is pro-life – meaning he does want some regulation on moral grounds. And there is something to be said for regulating based on the morality of throwing people out of work, polluting the planet, denying health care, and collapsing the world financial system. These things affect a hell of a lot more people than the abortion issue, and they all curb “freedom” in one way or another – such as the freedom to obtain health care when you’re sick, the freedom to not lose your job because of corporate greed.

I really want to like Ron Paul, and I like him on some issues – but Big Money is no better than Big Government.

Though I disagree with the non-regulation of corporations of libertarianism, Ron Paul is very good on the anti-war effort.  He says,

If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.

Last week Jonah Goldberg had this post, which makes the case that anti-Muslim bigotry is not that rampant in this country.  I’d make this argument: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are anti-Muslim backlash.  Hundreds of thousands have died – and there’s hardly concern on the part of the American public, likely due in large part due to who we’re killing and the residual hate and fear unleashed on 9-11.  Even if there were no hate crimes on our home soil, there’s continuing violence against Muslims on theirs.  For many, this is a war against Islam – and the idea “we’re fighting them there so we don’t fight them here” is satisfying their anger.

Here’s Dennis Kucinich, that famous conservative Paulite, using the same terminology used by the Libertarian right, “The Federal Reserve is as federal as Federal Express.” (around 4:00):

True lefty, socialist liberals hate this system as much as the Ron Paul right. Only the left wants to bring back the regulations that were stripped out during a Democratic administration (by Robert Rubin et al.) contributing to the financial crisis. And Ron Paul writes, Why More Regulation Makes Things Worse:

The other problem is the trust that people blindly put in regulations, and the moral hazard this creates. Too many people trust government regulators so completely that they abdicate their own common sense to these government bureaucrats….The free market works so much better than a centrally planned economy. With central planning, everything shifts from one’s own judgment about safety, wisdom and relative benefits of a behavior, to the discretion of government bureaucrats.

Yes, but how about the moral hazard of letting people roam free?  Is government intervention perfect?  Obviously not.  But when given unfettered rein to do whatever they want, profiteers will do what they’re in the business to do: profit.  I can’t claim to be an expert on the economy, but Paul’s argument doesn’t seem to hold up.  Because it’s the lack of regulation that led to the crisis.

In many cases, the nanny state goes too far.  But Libertarians take this idea too far by saying that all regulations are evidence of the nanny state.  The financial crisis proves that rabid capitalists will destroy the system if given the opportunity.  As Michael Moore points out in “Capitalism,” I don’t trust these guys to be guided by their own moral compass:

Though I find elements of Paul’s outlook interesting, I also think libertarianism is impractical. Yes, a stateless utopia via the Venus Project is a nice idea, but it’s not possible currently with the current U.S. system. You could argue that the system necessarily needs to fall apart in order to usher in a new stateless system, and given human instincts, libertarianism would probably usher in that downfall faster than any other system. As has been proven countless times, if the unfettered free market is given free reign to do whatever it wants, it sides with abuse of the planet and its people. To have government intervene with new regulation isn’t proof of creeping fascism, it’s proof that humans won’t do the right thing if they have the choice not to.

Whenever anyone cries socialism about Obama I recoil – it’s just such an inaccurate reading of the tea leaves.  If Obama was a Communist, he wouldn’t be making the far left so angry.  He’s a Clinton centrist, and for that reason he’s a disappointment.  I figured he was running towards the center for the election and would be a bit more open when he finally got into office.  And by open, I mean, yes, more socialist.

The problem we’re in is that we’re in a corporatocracy, so anything that takes away corporate power is fine by me.  But some conspiracy theorists and the “small government” right see nefarious encroachment in any government – which doesn’t make sense.  All government isn’t evil.  Of course not.  At what point do libertarians draw the line at regulations?  I’m glad my tap water doesn’t kill me, for one.  Much regulation is reasonably self-protecting.

Doubtlessly, the entire system needs reworking because people are basically forced into a system in which their income doesn’t much exceed their basic needs, so they’re tied endlessly to the 40 hour work week.  People then blame taxes for their troubles, but really they should be blaming the amount of their paycheck, not the amount that goes to taxes – how much profit is the business making relative to what its paying its employees? Make no mistake, if the monthly paycheck was higher, people wouldn’t be so concerned with the amount taken out by taxes. Perhaps that makes me a Communist – because I see no fault in there being some equality between what a business owner makes and what an employee makes. Perhaps not equal, but some better disparity is more equitable.

Likewise, the hardliner conspiracy-minded rightwing that scream about the global warming “hoax” also makes me want to flee. The mounting scientific evidence aside, the fact that global warming is inspiring more environmental awareness can only be positive. At my kid’s school, there’s a board where kids have created collages saying “Protect the earth” and so on. Some would call this “indoctrination.” It’s not because at its core, it’s positive.

If you look at the rhetoric of the right – libtards, et al. – it doesn’t take into account how Teabagger-style angry the left is about the state of the country.  For example, Game Over:

Without a single iota of hyperbole, it may now be said that regulatory capture of our government by Wall Street has been concluded. Done deal. Since Monday, the sheer volume of news supporting the truth that Wall Street essentially controls our government has become–quite simply–overwhelming.

It is the total sellout of Main Street and our country as a whole that’s been all but concluded before our very eyes. To call it anything less than that would be inaccurate reportage.

It’s beyond disgusting, IMHO. Words cannot convey my sense of contempt…that to which we’re bearing witness today.  It is the definition of betrayal.

That sounds exactly like Teabagger hysteria, but unlike “Obama is a socialist,” this one has some merit.  It’s actually closer to fascism – the marriage of corporations and government – except that doesn’t make Obama a fascist, because this is an ideology perpetrated by the right much more than what remains of the left in power.  An idea very much lost on the right wing.  The purpose of a government health care plan, for example, is not “socialism,” but to take power away from Blue Cross and other corporations who are screwing their consumers.

Where the right stupidly think Obama represents a socialist takeover, they don’t seem to realize that they basically have a Republican, corporate-centered candidate who is stripping regulation, not adding more government “interference.”  People’s sense of logic really does seem to be devolving – though I imagine this is how it’s always been.  Stupidity has no generation:

More in this vein:

There’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

Think that’s from a Paulite conspiracy screed?  Joe Stack’s manifesto?  No, it’s from The Atlantic.

Obama is enough to make one paranoid – I’ll grant conspiracists that.  In the sense that he had more honest idealism during the campaign (wasn’t entirely just exploiting people’s hopes) and then once he was handed the reins he learned – this is how it really works.  I continually can’t get my head around a system that is continually built so that it destroys itself.  He seems to be playing the same game as everyone else.  Basically, all of Obama’s slogans were crap: “Change doesn’t happen from the top down, but from the bottom up.”  “We’re the change we’ve been waiting for.”  “This is the moment.” Etc.  The crash from all that hope is pretty stark.

I’m glad I didn’t see Zeitgeist until now because in 2008, during Obama’s rise, I wouldn’t have wanted to absorb it.  The primary and election season were a fucking lot of fun.  It felt like Kennedy – don’t insert Kennedy’s bad policies here, on a more thematic level than that.  I’ve held on for a long time that Obama’s presidency was transformative enough by just who he is, but basically all we get with Obama is financial collapse at a slower rate than would have happened with McCain/Palin.

So I’m kind of in no man’s land. Too liberal for the libertarian right, and too whacked out entertaining 9-11 truth, UFO’s, et al. for the Daily Kos left.  I’m not sure such a forum exists.  So I’m writing here.