Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Correcting Will Moredock on Ron Paul and "Liberty"

Posted by Jack Hunter on Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 11:00 AM

In his most recent column Giving Freedom a Bad Name, my friend Will Moredock writes:

"Liberty" is also a word that has been co-opted by the right-wing, for example, Jerry Falwell's socially and academically repressive Liberty University, the deeply racist and anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby (which once had ties with the late Sen. Strom Thurmond), and the recently formed Young Americans for Liberty, an outgrowth of Ron Paul's presidential campaign.

Yet, in all this talk of freedom and liberty coming from the right, I have never heard a single conservative address the paradox of America holding more people in its prisons and jails than any other nation on earth. In 2007, a record 7.2 million people were behind bars, on probation, or parole. In 2008, America had 737 per 100,000 people incarcerated, by far the highest rate in the world.

The majority of Americans are incarcerated for non-violent crimes, which includes anything from writing bad checks to using drugs.

While I agree that the Right would do well to better define words like "liberty" or "freedom" when using them (as the Left would do well to actually define "hope" or "change") Will's example of conservatives ignoring the U.S. ridiculous and needlessly high incarceration rate does not ring true for one conservative included in his indictment.

Ron Paul has been a lifelong, consistent opponent of the federal War on Drugs and often mentions arrest and prison statistics to support his position. Here's something I found on a quick Google search. Says Paul:

We have now over 500,000 people in prison that never committed a violent crime for drug use, and there are mandatory jail sentences under these conditions. This makes no sense, it’s so expensive and it hasn’t achieved anything.

Link

I don't blame Will for not recognizing this or any other stark differences between Paul and other conservatives but also felt it necessary to point this one difference out.

Topics: National Politics
  |  

Comments (9)

Showing 1-9 of 9

Add a comment

Here here.

report   
Posted by ETimmonsP on September 2, 2009 at 1:43 PM

Ron Paul for President in 2012!

report   
Posted by Jael on September 2, 2009 at 2:34 PM

Ron Paul for President in 2012! x2

report   
Posted by MichaelMooreIsADoucheBag on September 2, 2009 at 4:19 PM

Jack, can you ask Will to his face if he'd amend his article? Maybe he'll correct it.

Lumping Ron Paul with Falwell and Thurmond, that's pretty bad. Hopefully people will notice the massive inconsistency and tend not to listen to Mr. Moredock.

report   
Posted by Vince on September 3, 2009 at 10:03 AM

Will Moredock obviously does not understand that Ron Paul is a Constitutionalist and defender of the Bill of Rights, he is not a neocon.

report   
Posted by Getusoutoftheun on September 3, 2009 at 11:09 AM

It would be nice to find someone to replace Ron Paul. His principles are right, but he is the wrong person. Jack, it would be great if you could find someone similar to Ron Paul....that isn't Ron Paul and help generate a buzz for that person.

I believe that more people would fall in line with these principles behind a more charismatic leader.

report   
Posted by Craig D on September 3, 2009 at 11:15 AM

I have to suggest that Will Moredock is either an idiot or a severe propogandist. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and let him choose which. Liberty University is neither racist or anti-semitic. It is instead fundamentalist Baptist whose viewpoints are simply at odds with the raging Mr. Will Moredock. This kind of comment is just further evidence of the liberal fascism that passes for commentary among the intolerant, leftist bigots.

report   
Posted by travelah on September 3, 2009 at 2:00 PM

Guilt by association is a vile tactic. When there is no actual association, it is particularly vile.

Ron Paul is for real liberty, not the warfare-police state. He opposes almost everything that Falwell promotes. If Mr. Moredock is a friend of Liberty, he will retract the slander and apologize for it.

report   
Posted by Jive Dadson on September 4, 2009 at 2:15 PM

travelah:

You need to bone up on your sentence structure. He only called Liberty U. socially and academically repressive. It was the Liberty Lobby he called racist and anti-semetic.

You might want to grab a dictionary while you're at it, too. While Fascism, as it's generally understood, does elevate the interests of the masses over those of the individual, in some senses (which is what I think you were getting at), it's also generally repressive and dictatorial, both of which would more accurately describe the Bush administration than the current one, however you feel about its values or orientation.

I'm pretty solidly Libertarian, and I'm all for better solutions than the ones currently being proposed, but people like you give honest, well-informed dissenters a bad name. And by "people like you" I simply mean people who care more about emotional attachment to being part of a gang than what the actual facts are.

And don't even try to argue that Liberty isn't "socially and academically repressive." Please do us all a favor and take the time to look up the three multi-syllable words in that quote, too, before you respond. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you know what "and" means.

report   
Posted by icanread on September 4, 2009 at 3:55 PM
Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS
Showing 1-9 of 9

Add a comment

Classified Listings
{ more } Recent Comments
{ more } Reader Reviews

Powered by Foundation   © Copyright 2012, Charleston City Paper   RSS