I appreciate Paul's candidacy as he is one of the few politicians willing to speak about issues without consulting the pollster/strategist/establishment handbook. He is injecting issues into Republican debates that otherwise would go unhead of. He represents the views of a segment of the population that generally do not get their views represented; anyone who values democracy will approve of that.

But there are also issues raised by Paul's candidacy that relate to issues that are important to me, which is why I focus on the other stuff about Paul, too. Particularly, the Limbaugh's Youth I've been listening to for several years now are almost overwhelmingly supporting Paul. I find that interesting, and I also find the near universal support Paul gets from the far right interesting ... I believe it pertinent to attempt to understand why that is so.

I also find it irresistable to not comment on Paul's views on the 1st, 9th, 10th, and 14th amendments. Ultimately, though, I think the views of Paul would long-term do more damage than good. That's because I feel that the biggest problem with democracy is the corrupting influence of money and I don't think Paul's market orthodoxy would help solve that.

In the next week or so I was planning to write something longer explaining my thoughts on Paul. This shouldn't in anyway be considered a defense of Klein.

Gimme an inch, dude! Paul believes there is a collectivist war on Christmas by secular leftists who ignore that the Constitution is "replete"* with references to God ... that's gotta be a genuine, not just a perceived, flaw.

*replete = zero

This was supposed to come across as good natured ribbing ...

"Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive."

Reading that ruined by day. Probably ruined the rest of the year for me, actually. It's absolutely sickening.

It's a variation of the truly poisonous "the constitution isn't a suicide pact" refrain. This reveals that the person making the statement considers the Constitution a suicide pact, and therefore will approve of being ruled by a Ruler. It's like the characters in It Can't Happen Here who kept telling Doremus that "you can't make an omellette without breaking a few eggs."

Its the mindset of tyranny. Of totalitarianism.

It's a sentiment that should be foreign to America. Yet a leading presidential candidate thinks our greatest "civil liberty" is the gov't promising to keep us alive so long as we sacrifice our human rights to his fiat.

Looking at this administration and this authoritarian movement, it's not just Orwellian. It's like they've read all the great dystopic literature and thought it all sounded like a swell idea.

The Handmaid's Tale? You got John Achcroft sponsoring legislation to protect life starting at "fertilization."

The Trial? Read some of the stories about renditions or GITMO.

Neoconservatives have read The Republic and thought all the arguments from Thrasymachus sounded swell.

Etc.

Vote GOP. Your nightmares come true!

You're right about the differing reactions.

But I think its naive to think that the people that came up with the Huckabee ad did not know what they were doing when that bookshelf was lighted so as to form a cross. Even if it had been unintentionally shot that way, it would have come up in testing.

Background cues like that can subliminally affect people's perceptions. There's ample research demonstrating that.

The McCain ad is straight up pandering to the Religious Right, which given McCain's past would seem highly disengenuous. Huck's seems more sly, but at least genuine.

Either way, it's sad to see the Republican Party prisoner to the Religious Right.

on a scale of ethics, a subliminal cross would be worse than an overt one

Here's a classic in dirty, rotten, unethical advertising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NPKxhfFQMs

Psychologists call that "priming" - and it is clearly unethical.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/01/0081346

To break this cycle will require breaking the stranglehold money has on politics.

Can we forward the commission copies of On Liberty by John Stuart Mill?

"Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error" - Mill, On Liberty

"Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme;" not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case." - Mill