Rand Introduces the Life at Conception Act:

[TheTyke]

How does this differ from the Sanctity of Life Act that Ron introduced every year as a congressman? It also defined life as beginning at conception. I gathered Rand was just keeping up the family defense of life and liberty.

Without life, there can be no liberty. My family and many of my friends would not support Ron & Rand if they weren't pro-life. For those who believe the unborn are human, it is the highest priority and a make-or-break issue. For those who don't, they may not like it, but many other issues seem more important and they can often overlook disagreement. Polls have been showing over 50% and an increasing trend of Americans toward being pro-life (probably because of technology and science revealing more details.) Therefore it's always better for liberty candidates to be pro-life.

 

[dancjm]

Quite a few people seem to be saying that Rand is not pandering enough. He is not obscuring his position enough. He is not telling people what they want to hear enough.

Think about that.

 

[Slutter McGee]

The only thing I can think politically is that he wins a lot of points with social conservatives. Which may be needed if he is going to start getting into his opinions on allowing gay marriage (not having a federal definition or the word) and scaling back on the war on drugs. He can point to this to argue he agrees with them fully on their most important issue.

And by doing this early enough hopefully the blow back will not be huge. The only votes you absolutely lose are single issue pro-choicers which we were not going to get anyway.

Either way, it could come back to bite us in the ass. But I have to believe we didn't get to where we are without some gambles.

Slutter McGee

 

[Christian Liberty]

He can still get support from them, even Ron had some evangelical/religious-right supporters.

I'm one of them. Granted, I'm not POLITICALLY "Right-wing" in the usual sense, I agree with Ron politically almost all of the time. But I am definitely personally quite socially conservative. And I agree with Ron/Rand on the right to life (Although not with Rand on the Federalization of it) as well.

Rand cannot win IA without evangelicals. So he does want to be the evangelical candidate.

The problem is he has to win NH as well. So when he lands in NH he just has to talk liberty and freedom issues. When in Iowa he can point to things like this.

This will be a fine balancing act and he needs to plot this carefully if he's to pull it off because being anti-abortion might hurt him in NH but I guess not if he doesn't talk much about it or doesn't communicate it widely. He can only dodge it for so long though especially if gets out of the primary and becomes the nominee.

Would NH really discount Rand just because of abortion? I mean, who the heck else are they gonna vote for? Maybe in the general election they might go Dem (Although not if they're serious about liberty) but in the primary Rand is the most libertarian they're going to have, clear cut, unless maybe if Gary Johnson runs, in which case it might be up in the air.

Being pro-abortion is NOT a "libertarian position"

I personally think pro-life is the correct libertarian position, but this is hardly agreed upon.

How does this differ from the Sanctity of Life Act that Ron introduced every year as a congressman? It also defined life as beginning at conception. I gathered Rand was just keeping up the family defense of life and liberty.

Without life, there can be no liberty. My family and many of my friends would not support Ron & Rand if they weren't pro-life. For those who believe the unborn are human, it is the highest priority and a make-or-break issue. For those who don't, they may not like it, but many other issues seem more important and they can often overlook disagreement. Polls have been showing over 50% and an increasing trend of Americans toward being pro-life (probably because of technology and science revealing more details.) Therefore it's always better for liberty candidates to be pro-life.

Would you support Rand if he was pro-choice?

Not everyone who is pro-life thinks that's the #1 issue. As someone who thinks the abortion doctors rightfully ought to be Nuremberged and sentenced to death, foreign policy is STILL more important.

 

[Christian Liberty]

It should all be about the economy and obamcare. Simple as that.

What about foreign policy and civil liberties?

 

[alucard13mmfmj]

"Pro-Choice, BUT"... would be the nice, realistic way.

Life begins when egg meets sperm.

Mother can have option to abort IF: raped and/or incest and/or life threatening for mother and/or genetic disorder.

No abortion for one night stand mistake.

 

[supermario21]

Gary Johnson will not run for president, and if he does, will achieve no support in the GOP. The liberty movement is solidly behind Rand. Maybe the pro-choicers would go with Gary but that's not going to be much either way.

 

[Christian Liberty]

"Pro-Choice, BUT"... would be the nice, realistic way.

Life begins when egg meets sperm.

Mother can have option to abort IF: raped and/or incest and/or life threatening for mother and/or genetic disorder.

No abortion for one night stand mistake.

I can agree with life of the mother. Otherwise, rape, incest, and genetic disorders do not justify murder.

Gary Johnson will not run for president, and if he does, will achieve no support in the GOP. The liberty movement is solidly behind Rand. Maybe the pro-choicers would go with Gary but that's not going to be much either way.

There was a time when I would have preferred Gary over Rand, but I don't think that's the case anymore. I liked that Gary didn't endorse Romney. But Rand has really impressed me lately. I'm behind him 100%.

Granted, he's not perfect on every issue, but he's the best we got and would almost certainly make our country a better place.

Gary definitely has a more "Social liberal" spin when compared to Rand. Rand also understands constituttional issues more, much like Ron did.

 

[supermario21]

Johnson was very murky on foreign policy and arguably worse than Rand. Issues aside, Johnson didn't seem confident or articulate when discussing the issues. Rand is much more confident and articulate, it shows especially when compared to Rubio. Gary should just run for NM Senate in 2014. As a Republican.

 

[Christian Liberty]

Johnson was very murky on foreign policy and arguably worse than Rand. Issues aside, Johnson didn't seem confident or articulate when discussing the issues. Rand is much more confident and articulate, it shows especially when compared to Rubio. Gary should just run for NM Senate in 2014. As a Republican.

Johnson wasn't good on foreign policy compared to Ron Paul, but then, neither is Rand. Its hard to tell. Johnson explained exactly when he would intervene, in a humanitarian crisis on the UN's request. Rand won't exactly tell us other than "Somewhere, some of the time", a meaningless statement that could mean a lot of different things.

Ultimately though, Rand is Ron's son. Ron Paul, of all people, is going to have influence on him. And I do think most, though not all, of his "Edgy" foreign policy talk is indeed to sound better to neocons. Johnson also doesn't have much of an understanding of what libertarianism is. Just by being Ron Paul's son, I know Rand understands, whether or not he actually accepts all of it.

 

[ronaldo23]

so much for expanding the GOP base to all those youth in California and New England that Rand keeps talking about. Strong social conservatist opinions qualify as part of the "old GOP that has grown stale and moss-covered." He doesn't need to take strong social stances to win the primary either; his stock will be very high for a number of other reasons.

Why doesn't Rand drop the whole moral argument and solely talk about state's rights on abortion? He could even frame it as "The federal government has no right to stop New York from legalizing abortion." That way he's being consistent with his pro-life ideology (overturning roe v wade) but appealing to independents and moderates

 

[Christian Liberty]

so much for expanding the GOP base to all those youth in California and New England that Rand keeps talking about. Strong social conservatist opinions qualify as part of the "old GOP that has grown stale and moss-covered." He doesn't need to take strong social stances to win the primary either; his stock will be very high for a number of other reasons.

Why doesn't Rand drop the whole moral argument and solely talk about state's rights on abortion? He could even frame it as "The federal government has no right to stop New York from legalizing abortion." That way he's being consistent with his pro-life ideology (overturning roe v wade) but appealing to independents and moderates

How could he possibly say "We need to repeal Roe v Wade so that New York could legalize abortion" when New York already has legal abortion. That makes no sense...

 

[TheTyke]

Would you support Rand if he was pro-choice?

No. If a candidate won't defend life, how could they reliably defend liberty? It'd be inconsistent or show flawed reasoning.

I marvel at people who say there are bigger issues. We've killed 55 million of the unborn in the US alone since Roe vs. Wade. I oppose our foreign entanglements because I am consistently pro-life. Even for all our war machine, have we killed more than 2 million that way? 6 million is the number frequently cited for holocaust. Is the economy more important? Devalued money? I guess those of us who are allowed to live might see it as a more immediate problem, since we have to deal with it, and can forget those who are dead. Is legal due process or any civil liberty more important when swathes of us are being arbitrarily denied of every single liberty with no due process at all?

It all comes down to whether you see the unborn as human. If you do, and you really think about it, it looms far beyond any other issue. And that's why many pro-life people see it as a make or break issue.

 

[ronaldo23]

How could he possibly say "We need to repeal Roe v Wade so that New York could legalize abortion" when New York already has legal abortion. That makes no sense...

I meant it as him saying, that even if we overturn roe v wade, "the federal government has no right to interfere with abortion laws in NY". Period. And leave any/all abortion talk at the state's right level, without talking deeply about his own personal views. That is, if he plans to win national elections by appealing to those voters he keeps trying to court.

 

[ronaldo23]

No. If a candidate won't defend life, how could they reliably defend liberty? It'd be inconsistent or show flawed reasoning.

I marvel at people who say there are bigger issues. We've killed 55 million of the unborn in the US alone since Roe vs. Wade. I oppose our foreign entanglements because I am consistently pro-life. Even for all our war machine, have we killed more than 2 million that way? 6 million is the number frequently cited for holocaust. Is the economy more important? Devalued money? I guess those of us who are allowed to live might see it as a more immediate problem, since we have to deal with it, and can forget those who are dead. Is legal due process or any civil liberty more important when swathes of us are being arbitrarily denied of every single liberty with no due process at all?

It all comes down to whether you see the unborn as human. If you do, and you really think about it, it looms far beyond any other issue. And that's why many pro-life people see it as a make or break issue.

Rothbard did not see legalized abortion as incompatible with liberty, and he was arguably among the top 3 most important libertarians of all time.

 

[Brett85]

Is there actually some kind of poll people can point to that shows that a majority of Americans would never vote for a Presidential candidate who supports banning abortion?

 

[brandon]

I like to pretend this side of the Paul family doesn't exist. It's really the only thing I disagree with them on and it's not a major issue to me, but unfortunately it is a major issue to a lot of young people who will never give them the time of day because of this.

 

[TheTyke]

Rothbard did not see legalized abortion as incompatible with liberty, and he was arguably the top 3 most important libertarians of all time.

That's why Ron had to refute his argument in The Revolution. With scientific advances, it would prove a serious flaw in our philosophical consistency.

 

[Brett85]

Oh no, Rand might say he's a pro-life Republican and have legislation to back up the claim. It's all over.

Yeah, it seems to me like a lot of members here don't mind politicians who say they are pro life as long as they don't actually back up their pro life rhetoric with legislation.

 

[brandon]

Is there actually some kind of poll people can point to that shows that a majority of Americans would never vote for a Presidential candidate who supports banning abortion?

There's thousands of polls I'm sure, but I think most Americans take a moderate stance on this and the hardline "life at conception" is not widely popular.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx