Steve Deace

[helmuth_hubener]

Um, no, I do not believe it is 'illegal', I believe the question has to do with governmental sanction of gay marriage, not gayness being illegal.

Well, you may be right. We'd have to ask him: Do you think homosexuality should be outlawed? I'm betting his answer would come down to: Yes.

 

[matt0611]

Well, you may be right. We'd have to ask him: Do you think homosexuality should be outlawed? I'm betting his answer would come down to: Yes.

If homosexuality should be outlawed, why not blasphemy? why not worshippping the devil? why not sex outside of marriage? why not outlaw "greed" ? outlawing burning the bible? etc etc

 

[helmuth_hubener]

If homosexuality should be outlawed, why not blasphemy? why not worshippping the devil? why not sex outside of marriage? why not outlaw "greed" ? outlawing burning the bible? etc etc

Well..... some of those things maybe should be banned! Not according to me, according to Mr. Deace. I think he would have good moral reasons to advocate such sin-banning. If opposes banning these things, his opposition would be purely pragmatic, I think, as in the ban would not be effective or would be impossible to enforce. But this is all just speculating and putting words into his mouth which probably isn't fair.

 

[Eric21ND]

The only reason the Mullah's stay in power in Iran is because they can use the US as a rallying point for thier people. If the US said "Okay Iran, you got oil, we'll buy it, do what you want", I think the mullah's power would crumble overnight. Our foreign policy keeps us hated and our enemies in power.

There's many ways to skin a cat, people get tunnel vision when it comes to foreign policy.

 

[evadmurd]

He ends every show with that. He just likes Eph. 5:11. Nothing to do with Iran.

I guess I blurred/combined two of his final comments. My bad. Thanks for the correction.

 

[ronpaultag]

My opinion is endorsements are nice but they are really just for people that can't do their own research due to laziness or plain ignorance.

Which is unfortunately a LOT of people

 

[cavalier973]

Well..... some of those things maybe should be banned! Not according to me, according to Mr. Deace. I think he would have good moral reasons to advocate such sin-banning. If opposes banning these things, his opposition would be purely pragmatic, I think, as in the ban would not be effective or would be impossible to enforce. But this is all just speculating and putting words into his mouth which probably isn't fair.

The tact to take is to ask, "Is God's law good?" The obvious answer is "Yes". Then ask, "Is God's law superior to man's law?" Yes. Then, "Can God's Law make a person moral?" The answer here is a resounding "NO!", not because God's law has failed, but because it is impossible for fallen man to keep it. Then ask, "If God's law, which is good, cannot make a person moral, why would we expect inferior man-made laws to do so?" The government is as effective in promoting a moral society as it is in establishing economic growth, which is to say, "Not at all".

 

[Eric21ND]

So basically this guy believes Christians should be in a constant state of war with Muslims because in his mind they(Muslims) want to replace anybody different. As if every little Muslim worker bee wakes up in the morning with the goal to destroy groups of people they have never even seen before.

He needs more Michael Scheuer in his life. The Neo-conservative basis for intervention abroad hinges upon Muslims being inherently irrational, and terrorism being irrational, as if its genesis was spawned from some mysterious unintelligible void. The trick is showing the perpetrators rationale behind committing acts of terrorism. Now where people get lost upon hearing this is that they emotionally feel like its justification of terroristic acts, which isn't the case at all, this only getting into the mind of the perpetrator in a clinical way. Everyone from Sun Tzu to Robert McNamara understands the importance of understanding your enemies motivation, or as McNamara reiterated it in his eleven lessons of war, "Empathize with your enemy." What seems completely like an illogical atrocity to Western eyes, is likewise, completely rationally justified in the mind if the suicide terrorist. What is it in their thinking that makes a suicidal act, seem like a reasonable choice. We do ourselves an incredible intellectual and strategic injustice blithely and simplistically passing this off as "crazy Muslims acting out" or spinning this into some large scale cultural war against Islam. The cultural war only becomes a reality if continually fail by prodding along with the same foreign policy interventions.

Does this mean everything would be solved and terrorism would end completed worldwide? No, but I do believe it would help stem the vast majority of it. You will still have lone wolf activity, such as the D.C. Snipers, that guy in Norway, the Virginia Tech massacre, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shooting. You will still have the more irrational actors carrying out terrorism, especially the homegrown variety. Its very difficult to protect against these irrational actors, its just an inevitability you will have a certain number of Charles Whitmans or Jared Loughners in a society of 300 million people. We have to categorize rational, perpetrator-reasoned out terrorism and the irrational, spree-killing variety, largely carried out by the severely mentally unstable. We have to step back and re-categorize Muslim suicide terrorists and differentiate between them and mentally defectives. If we continue to treat them as mentally defectives, devoid of reasoning, we will not win and will be attacked endlessly. I would also state that irrational actors of violence on some conscious or subconscious level illicit an increased level of fear, that is why there is a visceral, knee-jerk reaction when discussing Muslim suicide terrorism with many people because Americans as a whole have categorized them as such. They are perceived as fanatic and suffering from psychosis; crazed Muslims without the ability reason. There are very few people on the scene with nation media reach who are trying to smash these preconceived notions. Simultaneously, the populace of this country are continually bombarded with media misrepresentation that feeds into this worldview; namely modernity, western values, rationality vs. backwards, middle eastern superstitions, irrationality. It's a programing in a sense, that is extremely difficult to deprogram.

 

[bluesc]

He needs more Michael Scheuer in his life.

Didn't Scheuer advise 3 presidents on the Middle East? Along with leading the Bin Laden unit. The campaign needs to use him more. He gave an open invite on the Lew Rockwell show saying he would help the campaign in any way he could. The CAMPAIGN needs more Michael Scheuer in their lives.

 

[undergroundrr]

Listening to this show last night was my first exposure to Deace. So maybe I'm lacking context. But after his 40% rant, it became clear that he's a standard-issue chickenhawk evangelical who reads dimestore biblical commentaries as a hobby. He certainly hasn't encountered Augustine.

It sounds like Deace would have endorsed Santorum by now. But, like every other talking head whose ratings trump their purported belief system, he feels like he has to pick somebody he thinks will win. I guess he wouldn't have had this "Should I endorse Ron Paul" show if he didn't think Ron Paul had a good chance of winning Iowa. I'm sure Tom Woods' commendable outreach to Deace was a very positive move and resulted in a small part of this show audience reassessing Paul. But the only way this guy would endorse Paul is if he was polling 20 points above Newt.

Also, Obama won Iowa by 10% in 2008. Would association with Deace be a net negative in the final battle there? It just looks like a bunch of wasted energy for Paul or supporters to try to court Deace.

 

[MRoCkEd]

Please remember that anything you post in here is a reflection on Ron Paul, and people deciding whether to endorse him will be reading it.

 

[wistfulthinker]

Eric, thank you for posting the videos and for your thoughtful commentary.

 

[specsaregood]

Well looks like he is pushing Bachmann.
http://stevedeace.com/news/iowa-politics/we-wont-get-fooled-again-or-will-we/

Not even a mention of Dr. Paul.

 

[Feeding the Abscess]

"These people"? Really?

Well, yeah, those who use religion to position themselves as pro-life while supporting an aggressive foreign policy are despicable people. I wouldn't have much of an issue calling them degenerates and false witnesses.

 

[georgiaboy]

I wonder, did Doug Wead talk to this guy?

 

[Eric21ND]

Eric, thank you for posting the videos and for your thoughtful commentary.

Thank you for the kind words.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

As I think about it more, I decide we did right. We were not going to convince Deace. You can't convince the talk show host on his talk show. He's not even *thinking* about being convinced of anything in that context; he's stressed out thinking about keeping the conversation moving, keeping things entertaining for ratings, when the next break is coming up, etc. etc. Plus, he controls the format. He decides when to stop taking calls and begin his soliliquy. If we would have all talked to him about abortion and gays, he would have likely won those points, and we would have never got across the "60%" that he agrees with Ron Paul on, which for normal people, some of which may be among his audience, is more like 95%.

The normal people of Iowa do not consider gay marriage to be 20% of their top issues list, with Iran being the other 20%. The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll confirms what I've found in my phoning from home: the top issues are the jobs and economy and the debt. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_120411.html

So I now think it's OK I was all about "small government" in my call instead of social issues. Since that's the top issue with Iowans, though not with Deace, some undecided (which is most of Iowa) audience members may have been persuaded. Persuading the audience members is important too, and persuading the host while on-the-air is just not realistic.

Deace had his storyline all prepared as far as what was going to happen on the show: he was going to take calls, be polite, then poo-poo Paul for not talking tough on sin. We could have messed up the perfection of his storyline somewhat by all talking about how strong Paul is on social issues, but that wouldn't have changed the storyline, because the fact is Ron Paul doesn't talk tough on sin and no argument we can make can change that.

 

[1836]

You realize these folks CAN be our allies?

 

[Badger Paul]

"then poo-poo Paul for not talking tough on sin. "

Apparently Deace's preachers in Iowa can't do this well enough so he needs politicians to do so.

 

[specsaregood]

You realize these folks CAN be our allies?

Really? You should read his endorsement of Bachmann then. Says she is the only consistent candidate without flipflops. Doesn't even mention Dr. Paul. And you think he is an ally?