User:Woozle/positions/2013/Ron Paul
According to this source, Ron Paul takes the following positions:
- believes abortion is murder, should not be state-funded even as a side-effect; Roe v. Wade should be repealed; "life begins at conception" is a scientific statement which should be enshrined in law
- supports creationism and is dishonest about certain details of the debate (claims atheists believe in a right not to be offended; believes scientists who teach creationism should not be fired, claims astronomer was fired merely for supporting creationism but I'm pretty sure this was not the case)
- wants government funding for Christian schools, thinks school officials should be allowed to sponsor prayer -- apparently doesn't believe the establishment clause of the constitution applies at the state level
- supports abstinence-based education
- wants to eliminate the EPA (because it's "ineffective"), reduce recycling, reduce funding for Amtrak
....and I'm only about 1/4 of the way down the page.
Admittedly there is much to like about his positions, and I admire many of the stands he has taken, but I worry that the establishment would be happy to allow him progress on the above items while completely stonewalling the items where I agree with him.
I mean, look what happened with Obama -- he supported almost everything I wanted, and yet we have (at best) halting progress in just a few areas, and vast regression in most.
Admittedly, I have (and had, even in 2007) somewhat more confidence in Paul's ability to stick to his principles in the face of manipulation and the DC Bubble.
And if he seemed more interested in getting into online dialogue, we might be able to work something out.
But at this point, I'd be very reluctant to take the risk of even more egregious backsliding than Obama's (or, worse, someone like Romney winning because of someone like Paul splitting the vote) unless we can resolve these issues sufficient to be able to rationally defend Paul as the best choice for liberals (and mount a serious campaign to this effect).
Furthermore, if we're going to do that (and I think we should), I'd much rather put our energy and resources into candidates I can support with less reservation, such as Jerome White, Jill Stein, Laurence Kotlikoff, or Rocky Anderson.