Sen. Rand Paul: Right to privacy comes from God, ‘precedes’ the Constitution

[Bastiat's The Law]

He can be whatever he wants to be, but in all the speeches he has given i always got the feeling that he kind of acted more religious than he truly was. But whatever, I just will tune out when he goes into religion mode.

You want to hear something totally ironic coming from an unabashed atheist. One of my favorite speeches by Ron Paul is the religious speech he gave in Iowa. Of course he was asked to speak on religious matters, because its not really Ron Paul's nature to do so otherwise; he tends to believe religion is a private matter and doesn't wear his religiosity on his sleeve. It was absolutely brilliant how he tied the Bible and the allegory of Jesus and the money changers with the government debasing the currency in today's world. He then went on to compare Israel’s desire for a king with the encroaching power of the Federal government saying that we as a culture have made the Government our king. He also addressed the notion of war and peace. "The Bible doesn't say blessed are the war makers" was a phrase he used. The religious right desperately needs to hear this message, and it coming from religious people like Ron Paul and Thomas Woods, preaching peace is beautiful and very appropriate.

Anyway, here's the speech.

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

Are you so insecure that you have to attack me just because I mentioned that Rand might be a free-thinker? Nonetheless conceding the fact that he is indeed a christian.....

Nobody should attack you over it. I could see how you could come to that conclusion. The Pauls are something you rarely see in politics, maybe throwbacks to an earlier time, in that they don't wear their religiosity on their sleeve in an attempt to win votes. They are the anti-Huckabee, anti-Santorum candidate in that they are much more private in their faith, unless asked about it. Holier than thou podium thumpers are a huge turn off to me because Christians as a group are very low hanging fruit and are easily led astray by these types of politicians.

 

[trey4sports]

You want to hear something totally ironic coming from an unabashed atheist. One of my favorite speeches by Ron Paul is the religious speech he gave in Iowa. Of course he was asked to speak on religious matters, because its not really Ron Paul's nature to do so otherwise; he tends to believe religion is a private matter and doesn't wear his religiosity on his sleeve. It was absolutely brilliant how he tied the Bible and the allegory of Jesus and the money changers with the government debasing the currency in today's world. He then went on to compare Israel’s desire for a king with the encroaching power of the Federal government saying that we as a culture have made the Government our king. He also addressed the notion of war and peace. "The Bible doesn't say blessed are the war makers" was a phrase he used. The religious right desperately needs to hear this message, and it coming from religious people like Ron Paul and Thomas Woods, preaching peace is beautiful and very appropriate.

Anyway, here's the speech.

Yeah i rememebr that speech as well. It was definitely one of his premier speeches of '12 and he tailored it just perfectly to the crowd.

 

[specsaregood]

LOL @ the butthurt atheists. Rand even went out of his way to include you in the line:

"It precedes the Constitution, it preexists, it comes, if you believe in God, from your Creator," Paul said in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "It comes in a natural way. It's yours."

Nothing he said requires a belief in God to agree.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Are you so insecure that you have to attack me just because I mentioned that Rand might be a free-thinker? Nonetheless conceding the fact that he is indeed a christian.....

One can be a Christian and also a free-thinker, ya know.

People, please let this be a big tent.

 

[jmdrake]

Are you so insecure that you have to attack me just because I mentioned that Rand might be a free-thinker? Nonetheless conceding the fact that he is indeed a christian.....

I haven't "attacked" you. Not unless you are insecure about your imagination. Oh, and your insinuation that Christians and free thinkers are mutually exclusive is itself an attack.

 

[tttppp]

Rand is completely wrong. There are no rights that come from God. All the rights we have, came from people who had to fight for them. Rights aren't just given to you.

 

[July]

Being a free thinker/skeptic, or cynic... and being spiritual/religious... aren't mutually exclusive in the same person. Sometimes the one leads to the other. How many, when you first started to learn about the meaning of liberty, came to that realization after a period of disillusionment and skepticism of what you thought your previous worldview was? It's like that for some people.

 

[cajuncocoa]

Rand is completely wrong. There are no rights that come from God. All the rights we have, came from people who had to fight for them. Rights aren't just given to you.

Our Founding Fathers believed differently:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~ Declaration of Independence

 

[tttppp]

Liberty is an extremely Christian virtue to those who understand and known what actual liberty is and means, so don't be surprised if you see a growing number of Christians advocating for liberty, especially those in the more conservative Christian organizations. Liberty is the foundation for the most ethical system of society, so it can attract non-Christians as well. I absolutely LOVE the feeling of a room packed wall to wall with hard-core Christians and hard-core atheists (and everyone in between) all cheering for the principles of liberty and non-aggression.

Our Founding Fathers believed differently:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~ Declaration of Independence

And they are wrong too. People had to fight for those rights. The founders complely ignored the fact we had to go to war to win those rights.

 

[cajuncocoa]

I disagree. If I were born on a deserted island, with no one around by my parents (who had to be there because someone would have to give birth to me!) I would not have to fight anyone for my freedom of speech, freedom to worship as I please, etc...if one of my parents tried to hurt me, I would have the right to defend myself with any weapon I could find.

So why was there a fight?

There were people who had to fight to win those rights back for us, from tyrants who tried to take them away...but we were endowed by Our Creator with those Rights upon our birth. We must be ever vigilant because there are always people trying to take them away.

 

[tttppp]

I disagree. If I were born on a deserted island, with no one around by my parents (who had to be there because someone would have to give birth to me!) I would not have to fight anyone for my freedom of speech, freedom to worship as I please, etc...if one of my parents tried to hurt me, I would have the right to defend myself with any weapon I could find.

So why was there a fight?

There were people who had to fight to win those rights back for us, from tyrants who tried to take them away...but we were endowed by Our Creator with those Rights upon our birth. We must be ever vigilant because there are always people trying to take them away.

If you were born on an island with just your parents, there would be no rights that could prevent them from abusing you. You would have to stand up for yourself and fight for your rights. God will not step in and tell your parents you have certain rights.

 

[tttppp]

I disagree. If I were born on a deserted island, with no one around by my parents (who had to be there because someone would have to give birth to me!) I would not have to fight anyone for my freedom of speech, freedom to worship as I please, etc...if one of my parents tried to hurt me, I would have the right to defend myself with any weapon I could find.

So why was there a fight?

There were people who had to fight to win those rights back for us, from tyrants who tried to take them away...but we were endowed by Our Creator with those Rights upon our birth. We must be ever vigilant because there are always people trying to take them away.

If you were born on an island with just your parents, there would be no rights that could prevent them from abusing you. You would have to stand up for yourself and fight for your rights. God will not step in and tell your parents you have certain rights.

 

[cajuncocoa]

If you were born on an island with just your parents, there would be no rights that could prevent them from abusing you. You would have to stand up for yourself and fight for your rights. God will not step in and tell your parents you have certain rights.

Whether on a deserted island or here in sunny suburbia, there is nothing to prevent someone from abusing me (other than my own ability to defend myself against them). Having rights doesn't prevent bad things from happening, but that doesn't mean I don't have those rights just the same.

 

[tttppp]

Whether on a deserted island or here in sunny suburbia, there is nothing to prevent someone from abusing me (other than my own ability to defend myself against them). Having rights doesn't prevent bad things from happening, but that doesn't mean I don't have those rights just the same.

Rights are meaningless unless they are enforced. If someone was violating your rights you would contact the government to solve this problem. Praying to God is not going to restore your rights.

 

[ProvincialPeasant]

It's amazing how someone with 1,500 posts can be so uninformed.

 

[brandon]

Thanks Paul, but I know my rights come from force and not from some fairy tale. Human action "precedes" the bible, and I don't have much tolerance for your pandering.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

I have my gripes with Rand, and the latter part was clumsily argued, but I'm not really at odds with him here. He even gave a qualifier of religion, which is more than I would have expected from him, to be honest.

I think trey4sports probably based his expectations of Rand being a skeptic on Rand's collegiate anti-Christian antics. That's hardly unreasonable of trey to assume skepticism in light of that.

 

[LibertyEagle]

Thanks Paul, but I know my rights come from force and not from some fairy tale. Human action "precedes" the bible, and I don't have much tolerance for your pandering.

You need to read it again, because you totally misunderstood what he said.

And please stop it with the "fairy tale" comments. They are insulting and really not necessary.

We were born with rights. Whether you believe they came from God or as natural rights, doesn't really matter here. Sure, you have to fight to keep them. No one is questioning that. Especially not our Founders who fought a war for theirs.

 

[Sola_Fide]

My own personal opinion is that Rand's arguments are not very good. The utilitarian arguments he uses are irrational. His moral arguments don't make sense to me either (from my Christian perspective), but I give him points for trying to articulate a moral position.

Rand would do much better to study Ron's Faith and Freedom Speech from this year. I don't think I've heard a better concise manifesto of Christian libertarianism than that in a long time.