Reaction from the Value Voters Debate

A couple of weeks ago, there was a GOP debate (more of a Q and A really) that had questions from the leaders of the "Values Voters". The distinguished questioners included Phyllis Schlafly (I'm a big fan of hers), and Joseph Farah (editor in chief of worldnetdaily.com). Worldnetdaily.com has literally been a daily stop for over a decade on my tour of websites that I frequent to get my fix since I'm an information junkie. You can watch the whole thing online here.

Janet Folger was also one of the panelists and has written her reaction and endorsement for President here. Here is what she said about Dr. Paul:

Here's what I saw: While he's been a courageous defender of the Constitution, Ron Paul had too many wrong answers at the Values Voter Debate to receive our support. Save your angry e-mails until you've seen the video of his podium lit "red" with "no votes" while everyone else voted "yes" to questions about whether they would protect disabled patients like Terri Schiavo from a starvation death, agree to prosecute all violators of the federal obscenity law, and support a trade policy with China contingent on improved human rights and quality standards.

Joe Glover of the Family Policy Network clarified it further when he asked Paul: "Many libertarians oppose laws against same-sex marriage, prostitution, and illegal drugs. Do you share this view?" Go watch it for yourself at http://www.valuesvoterdebate.com/. His answer was "yes," he's a libertarian and doesn't think the government has any business protecting marriage and human life. It was Thomas Jefferson who best outlined the role of government when he said, "The care of human life and not its destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government." Mr. Paul, to protect human life is the only reason government exists – even if that human life is disabled and unable to ask for food and water themselves.

Same sex marriage, prostitution, abortion, illegal drugs. These are all issues that are of obvious importance to social conservatives (otherwise questions on these issues wouldn't have been asked multiple times). But what this much neglected wing of the GOP fails to recognize is that the tool with which they want to impose their values on others is the same tool that can and has been used against them by people who have different viewpoints.

Abortion is the classic case. By Supreme Court fiat, abortion was made legal across the country. Did individual states get to make the decision on their own by voting on it? Not at all. Is it the place of the individual states to make choices on life or death issues? Yes, states decide whether or not they can impose the death penalty. Why not abortion? What Roe vs. Wade did was take away the right and power of individual states to decide whether they wanted to kill babies or not. It sounds crude but it's true. How many innocents have died because of that usurpation of states rights by the federal government? Millions.

What Ron Paul advocates is returning the power of making the decision on whether abortion is legal or not to the states. Let them make the choice for themselves.

The "values voters" raise so many important issues. I'm going continue this in another post.