Of late, Ron Paul has been gathering a good deal of support from trendy netizens, based in large part upon his firmly anti Iraq war stance. As refreshing as it may be to see the power of the Internet propelling a distinctly non-mainstream political candidate, this is one bandwagon I will not even approach. Although Paul's stance on individual liberties appears sound, and if consistant would be compelling enough to tempt me to ignore his questionable economic positions and reprehensible party affiliation, it suffers from what appears to me to be an fundamental inconsistency.

The problem is Paul's position on abortion rights. As detailed in The American Prospect, Paul resoundingly rejects a womans right to choose. You can attempt to frame this in any number of ways, but ultimately whether you use "state's rights", or "rights of the unborn", or any other disingenuous framework you wish, you end up restricting the rights of someone who is unquestionably a person. To me, such inconsistencies render Paul fundamentally suspect. After all, if you can justify letting anyone abridging one set of rights for any reason, what stops you from justifying any other popular abridgement of liberty?

Posted on 2009-01-26, 19:29 0 Comments so far.