Casual Observation

8 Comments

1. 

   seabe on January 4, 2012 at 5:45 pm

   It should be pointed out that a Ron Paul presidency would look the same as Santorum’s on this front, as Paul doesn’t believe that Lawerence v. Texas or Griswold v. Connecticut were decided properly. After all, there is no “right to privacy.”

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     BooMan on January 4, 2012 at 6:03 pm

     I can feel the freedom.

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       seabe on January 4, 2012 at 6:15 pm

       I knew you would. So can Michelle Goldberg:

       Ron Paul has long been a favorite politician of Christian Reconstructionists. North was a Paul staffer during the Texas congressman’s first term and has called him the “mahatma of self-government.” As Adele Stan reported on Alternet, in 2008, Howard Phillips, a Christian Reconstructionist who founded the Constitution Party, was the keynote speaker at the rally Paul convened in the shadow of the Republican convention. (That year, Paul endorsed the Constitution Party candidate for president over John McCain.) “The people who I know who are big Ron Paul guys are old school Reconstructionists,” says Paul supporter Brian D. Nolder, the pastor of Christ the Redeemer Church in Pella, Iowa.

       It might seem that Paul’s libertarianism is the very opposite of theocracy, but that’s true only if you want to impose theocracy at the federal level. In general, Christian Reconstructionists favor a radically decentralized society, with communities ruled by male religious patriarchs. Freed from the power of the Supreme Court and the federal government, they believe that local governments could adopt official religions and enforce biblical law.

       “One of the things we forget is that when the Constitution was passed, even though the Bill of Rights said there was going to be no federal religions, every state in the union had basically a state religion and the Constitution was not designed to overturn that,” says Nolder. Among Reconstructionists, he says, “there’s a desire for a theocracy, but it has to be one from the bottom up, not from the top down.”

       Reconstructionists take biblical morality far beyond traditional social issues. They believe that the Bible contains specific instructions on every aspect of life, including monetary policy, something they place great emphasis on. Many argue that there’s a biblical mandate for a gold standard. “The constant concern of The Old Testament law with the honesty of weights and measures was equally applicable to honest money,” writes North in his book An Introduction to Christian Economics. He claims that “legal tender laws are immoral; currency debasement is immoral; printed unbacked paper money is immoral.”

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         BooMan on January 4, 2012 at 7:01 pm

         Does this mean we can expel anyone who isn’t a Quaker from Pennsylvania?  Got any real estate tips?

         • 

           nalbar on January 4, 2012 at 11:21 pm

           Always buy where you can see water.

2. 

   Steve M. on January 4, 2012 at 7:12 pm

   Ross Douthat today was arguing in all seriousness that Paul, Romney, and Santorum were deserving winners in Iowa because their positions are serious, not gimmicky like those of Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, and Cain.  Douthat said that “the former Pennsylvania senator’s emphasis on social mobility, family breakdown and blue-collar struggles spoke more directly to the challenges facing working Americans than any 9-9-9 fantasy or flat-tax gambit.”

   But the family thing boils down to exactly what you’re talking about — if we just stop screwing in ways that make the Baby Jesus cry, we’ll have peace and prosperity.  It’s utterly nuts.

   • 

     on January 4, 2012 at 7:29 pm

     The contraception thing is basically insane. They believe that sex is only valid if there is the possibility of pregnancy. It’s simply insane.

     • 

       Hurria on January 4, 2012 at 9:38 pm

       So practicing invalid sex will be outlawed?

       OK.