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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

Those statements are clearly wrong.

1) He's against the present interventionist foreign policy. he has been extremely clear about that for years.

2) He's in favor of states being left to decide for themselves about drug legalization. If Texas wants to support the legalization of pot, his position is that that is up to Texas voters.

2a) Paul constantly makes the point that the war on drugs has been a disaster, and constantly hits against the mass incarceration system we have today. He makes the point non-stop. He points out the unfairness of our current system, such that it's putting black people in prison for the same things white people are getting away with (drug use).

3) He's in favor of states being left to choose about both abortion and gay marriage.

4) He is not in favor of any federal legislation to outlaw either abortion or gay marriage. Paul has said he would not attempt to change present laws on abortion.

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S.583 - A bill to implement equal protection under the 14th article of amendment to the Constitution for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/583

Sponsor: Rand Paul

Leaving up to the states to decide isn't freedom-oriented. It just kicks the can down the road. It absolves him of the responsibility of taking a stand on any of those issues.

False. Your influence as a voter is much greater at the state and local level than the federal level. On an individual basis, you have much more freedom to make your own choices and have them honored if the vote is left to your state or local government.

Not false.

"Gay people should have the same freedom to marry the people they love as straight people." That's a freedom-oriented stance.

"Whether gay people have the freedom to marry is up to ... someone else!" That's a cowardly dodge.

By your logic anyone who does not support the United Nations having binding legal powers to force the entire world to allow gay marriage, and the means to enforce compliance, is anti freedom and anti gay.

freedom is partly self determination. not having laws stuffed down our throats by Washington is freedom (it could be marriage today, but more anti drug laws tomorrow)

Oh, sure. I'm all about self-determination.

Know how much gay people marrying each other affects your life, if you're not gay and have no plans to marry someone of the same sex?

Zero. It doesn't affect you. Whether gay people marry one another doesn't affect a lot of the people who oppose gay marriage, because it's an entirely private matter.

Apply the same for a lot of other issues.

If you're a business owner, and enjoy the benefits the law gives to business owners, then you play by a slightly different set of rules; you don't get maximal freedom to choose your customers, you have limits in some general ways once you open a business to the public. That set of rules changes from time to time.

If Rand Paul was to have his way entirely, his stance would be for the government to stay out of marriage altogether, straight or gay. That is to say, Rand Paul does NOT oppose gay marriage, he oppose marriage being a LEGAL CONCEPT at all. You should be free to call yourself being married to anyone, and you don't need any recognition to do that.

Now, of course he won't get his way with that, so the next best things is to localize the effect of the law: if you dislike the law of where you're staying, it would be a lot easier if you can just move to the next city with a different set of laws that you agree with. That's basically the overarching ideal of libertarian: liberty and freedom of choice trumps all. There aren't much to choose if the law is federal (or if it's Earth-wide, to take to the extreme). In the US, that would for practical purposes mean advocate for State law over federal law.

There are many things to dislike about libertarian and Rand Paul (his version of libertarian is kind of Objectivism, which is quite ugly). But to characterize Rand Paul's stance as "opposing to gay marriage" is misleading. Calling him "opposing to X", with X being some perceived good thing is (most of the time) attacking a strawman. He's pretty much just opposing to making more law, in general.

Edit: you said that "It absolves him of the responsibility of taking a stand on any of those issues" in one of the comment above. Yes that's the whole point of his ideal: it doesn't matter what his stance is, you're free to do whatever you want.

> That is to say, Rand Paul does NOT oppose gay marriage, he oppose marriage being a LEGAL CONCEPT at all.

No, he believes that marriage contracts (LEGAL TERM) should be available for same sex couples.

He also believes that legal issues (like tax codes) should not mention marriage.

To make an opinion, as someone who firmly supports equal rights for all Americans, regardless of gender or sexuality (or any other dimension), Rand Paul is not someone I support.

So not false.

If it were up to the states, we'd still have Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws enforced, instead of just being on the books.

Taking the position that it's none of the federal government's business is perfectly sensible.

For many issues, it would be even more preferable to have such rights positively enforced at the federal level, but we have a process for doing exactly that: propose a constitutional amendment that gives the federal government the power to enforce that. It's perfectly consistent to hold the position that the federal government simply doesn't have any power that would give it a say one way or another.

> Those statements are clearly wrong.

If that's the case, feel free to edit his wikipedia page (the source for my statements) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Rand_Pau...

Fortunately his wikipedia page confirms what I said.

He's against our interventionist foreign policy:

- "He says he would have voted against the invasion of Iraq"

- "Paul also spoke against U.S. overseas military bases"

- "During his 2010 Senate campaign Paul questioned the idea that U.S. Middle East policy is 'killing more terrorists than it creates'"

- "Paul believes that when the United States goes to war, Congress must declare war as mandated by the United States Constitution"

More examples confirming what I said:

"Paul believes the issue of medical marijuana is a states' rights issue and that the federal government should not interfere"

"Paul was one of three U.S. senators in 2015 to introduce a bipartisan bill, CARERS, that would legalize medical marijuana under federal law"

- "Paul has expressed doubt about the fairness of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines"

- "He believes that these laws are applied disproportionately to African Americans, arguing that non-violent drug offenses have contributed to a third of African American males being unable to vote"

"Paul supported a Kentucky bill that would restore voting rights to felons after a five-year waiting period"

"In a 2014 op-ed in Time magazine, Paul criticized the increased militarization of law enforcement"

"Paul's staffers say he believes [on gay marriage] the issue should be left to the states to decide"

"He has said he thought that the Supreme Court's ruling in Windsor v. United States, which struck down the portion of the Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage at a federal level (as between a man and a woman), was appropriate"

Legalizing Recreational Drugs Use is not the same as Legalizing Medical Marijuana Use.

Second, we're both cherry picking sections from that article to make our point. Except I'm not trying to defending his political ideologies, just pointing out he is like every other major politician who has attempted a run for the presidency: says one thing, but in order to shore up their base, will say something else.

One isn't a libertarian if they simply say "let the states figure it out." That's the ideology of small-government focused conservatives.

A libertarian's point of view would be "Government (federal, state, city) should stay out of lives of people w.r.t (drugs, guns, bedroom).

None of what you've written suggests he has that mentality.

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