Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - The Ron Paul 08 thread! Step on in and learn about him :)

eggman414 · 07-27-2007, 09:09 PM

Ron Paul is a rare creature, an honest man in politics. I respect him, but I usually disagree with him and would NEVER vote for him for President. I mostly agree with the posters who likened him to a Republican Kucinich - a good man, but out there. And I'm not talking about electability; I'm talking about policy. I'm pretty moderate and would be likely to vote for someone closer to the "center" (though, really, I prefer not to speak in political categories).

Also - I forget where I first heard this, but it always comes to mind when I hear these debates about the Constitution - The Constitution is not a suicide pact. What that means is that the Constitution, a great and wise document though it is, was not handed down by God. Its purpose was to create a nation of laws, for men. How did it do that? By the clever use of language.

What does this mean? It means that just like language, the Constitution can be interpreted. This is why the slippery-slope argument with regards to constitutionality usually doesn't hold water. Most - though not all, mind you - ways in which the Constitution has been interpreted fit pretty well within the paradigms of the interpretation of language. Anyone who has ever tried to discern meaning from a cryptic phrase knows that the are a number of possibly valid interpretations; the same applies to the Constitution (and most legal matters). Furthermore, the Constitution is vague deliberately. If it weren't vague, nobody would ever have agreed to it, and the framers understood that. So, they left a lot up in the air, figuring that future generations would sort it out. As their disagreements make plain, they had some pretty different ideas of how it should be interpreted, too.

And sort it out we have, albeit tragically at times. Generally speaking, in terms of federal powers, the Hamiltonian doctrine has won out. You may disagree with this outcome, and have some very good reasons why. Lots of very intelligent, well-informed people, believe federal powers have been interpreted too broadly (I tend to disagree with this view, though there are some notable exceptions). The key word there, though, is interpreted. You don't know what the Constitution means because the Constitution is open to interpretation and it was always meant to be that way. If people could read the Constitution and know its exact implications for everything, there would be no lawyers or judges.

07-27-2007, 09:09 PM	#87 (permalink)
eggman414 Upright Location: NYC, USA	Ron Paul is a rare creature, an honest man in politics. I respect him, but I usually disagree with him and would NEVER vote for him for President. I mostly agree with the posters who likened him to a Republican Kucinich - a good man, but out there. And I'm not talking about electability; I'm talking about policy. I'm pretty moderate and would be likely to vote for someone closer to the "center" (though, really, I prefer not to speak in political categories). Also - I forget where I first heard this, but it always comes to mind when I hear these debates about the Constitution - The Constitution is not a suicide pact. What that means is that the Constitution, a great and wise document though it is, was not handed down by God. Its purpose was to create a nation of laws, for men. How did it do that? By the clever use of language. What does this mean? It means that just like language, the Constitution can be interpreted. This is why the slippery-slope argument with regards to constitutionality usually doesn't hold water. Most - though not all, mind you - ways in which the Constitution has been interpreted fit pretty well within the paradigms of the interpretation of language. Anyone who has ever tried to discern meaning from a cryptic phrase knows that the are a number of possibly valid interpretations; the same applies to the Constitution (and most legal matters). Furthermore, the Constitution is vague deliberately. If it weren't vague, nobody would ever have agreed to it, and the framers understood that. So, they left a lot up in the air, figuring that future generations would sort it out. As their disagreements make plain, they had some pretty different ideas of how it should be interpreted, too. And sort it out we have, albeit tragically at times. Generally speaking, in terms of federal powers, the Hamiltonian doctrine has won out. You may disagree with this outcome, and have some very good reasons why. Lots of very intelligent, well-informed people, believe federal powers have been interpreted too broadly (I tend to disagree with this view, though there are some notable exceptions). The key word there, though, is interpreted. You don't know what the Constitution means because the Constitution is open to interpretation and it was always meant to be that way. If people could read the Constitution and know its exact implications for everything, there would be no lawyers or judges.