Ron Paul is a terrifying man

People go on and on about how great Ron Paul is - but I admit I've done little research on him. But I watched a speech by him tonight - you can view it here on the Family Research Council website.

This man is terrifying. in the first 8 minutes of the speech, he talks about how he wants to remove various issues from the jurisdiction of the federal courts (including abortion rights, the definition of marriage, and prayer in schools), how he wants to eliminate income tax, and how he thinks we shouldn't be involved in the UN, WTO, the World Bank, etc. at all.

I can agree with the idea that we should not be involved in 'nation building' and playing world police. And I can agree with him that giving up personal liberties for safety and security is a bad idea. And yeah, parents and not the government should be the primary responsibility for the rearing of children. But I cannot believe that this idea of pulling out of the world society is a good answer to these problems. No, we shouldn't police the world and try to rebuild it in our image, but we shouldn't ignore its existence, either. Giving up personal liberties for safety isn't the answer either, but neither is giving up the social programs that do so much good for so many people. Granted, the welfare and social security systems need reworked, but a lot of people would be in dire straits without them - and I'm one of those people. Without governement medical aid, I would not be able to get treatment for my knees & back - if we were on a complete 'personal liberty' system such as he seems to be suggesting, I would be in vast amounts more pain and be much less functional in my daily life - and I certainly wouldn't be looking forward to the idea of being able to get back to work once I graduate my current school program!

We are interconnected as a society, and we need to realize that. All the talk of full personal liberty, what you earn belongs to you and not the government, and elimination of these social programs and incentives is fine if you are fully able to care for yourself personally and financially - but there are plenty of people who need help, either for a short time or in a longer term, and these ideas leave those people out in the cold to depend on the very limited resources of local charities, if they are able to get assistance even from those places.

If you eliminate income tax, how do you propose to fund government? Eliminating overseas involvement would reduce the money required, but is that really going to balance out? The cursory search I did on that this evening doesn't look like it would - at some point when it is not 3am, I will do some more digging into that part of this equation.

I marvel at the support I have seen for Ron Paul among the alternative communities, given his stance on abortion, same-sex marriage, and the like. This man wants to remove the ability for the courts to have a say in what happens, so that a ban on these things can be pushed through all the faster. How can people for whom these are bedrock issues support Paul? Just because he espouses libertarian views in several issues, that doesn't seem to extend as far a woman's personal liberty when deciding on her reproductive future, or the liberty of a same-sex couple who wants to marry.

This political rant brought to you by the hour 03:00 and the chance viewing of a Ron Paul video, thanks to digg.com.

Cross-posted to my personal journal.