{"id":14054,"date":"2011-08-27T21:29:27","date_gmt":"2011-08-28T04:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14054"},"modified":"2011-08-27T21:29:27","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T04:29:27","slug":"google-ron-pauls-abortion-views-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=14054","title":{"rendered":"Google Ron Paul’s Abortion Views. Please."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It’s understandable why many liberals like Ron Paul. After all, there are a few issues where he actually makes some sense (at least initially), like when he lays into the drug war, or when he questions U.S. military\u00a0entanglements\u00a0overseas.<\/p>\n

But one issue animates Ron Paul above all else. No, it’s not destroying the Fed, or returning to a1900-style hurricane response<\/a>, or denying that he actually okayed those racist letters that went out in his name. No, there’s one issue that Paul says is simply the most important issue of any facing America.<\/p>\n

It must be some grave threat to liberty!\u00a0Let’s see what it is<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Stuck in Washington as Congress faces votes on continued funding of American military action in Libya, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, making his third bid for the White House, spoke via Skype to pro-life activists convening in Jacksonville.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talk a lot about right-to-life,\u201d said Paul, who called it \u201cthe most important issue of our age.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, that’s right: ending abortion rights is the most important issue of our age. More important than unemployment, the stagnating economy, the wars overseas, or anything else. The most important thing, Ron Paul believes, is stripping women of their basic right to control their own bodies.<\/p>\n

How libertarian of him.<\/p>\n

No, really: how libertarian of him. Sure, any serious attempt abortion would require draconian government action that would seriously endanger liberty for women, and even then, it would probably fail. It would require a massive outlay of cash and capital, of police and state resources. It would require spot inspections of health care facilities, and investigation of miscarriages. It would be about as anti-freedom an act as one could reasonably expect. Clearly, if Ron Paul really believed in liberty for all, he’d oppose it.<\/p>\n

But Ron Paul, like most American libertarians, doesn’t believe in liberty for all. He believes in liberty for some — the rich, white, male elites who have generally ruled this nation. If some of those rights also accidentally fall to the poor or the non-white or the non-male, Paul’s fine with that. But it’s not what animates him, and indeed, I doubt he’s spent more than a minute or two considering the loss of freedom a ban on abortion would entail.<\/p>\n

Libertarianism in America is essentially about protecting the best off among us, which is why libertarians are so overwhelmingly white, and so overwhelmingly male, and so overwhelmingly middle-class or above in upbringing. And it’s why libertarians are so completely blind to the realities of being non-white, non-male, and non-well off. Banning abortion would be severely injurious to liberty. But I doubt Ron Paul realizes it. To him, “liberty” is something for people like him to enjoy. Rich people. White people. Male people.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s understandable why many liberals like Ron Paul. After all, there are a few issues where he actually makes some sense (at least initially), like when he lays into the drug war, or when he questions U.S. military\u00a0entanglements\u00a0overseas. But one … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14054"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14056,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054\/revisions\/14056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}