Ron Paul on the Romney-Paul Conspiracy, Taxes, Rising Gas Prices & the Fake Iran Threat

"You're Awesome"

Tom Woods is a smart guy and very clever. I like the videos he puts together, but I wasn't going to post this video, titled "A Dozen Things that Non-Paul Voters are Basically Saying" until he got down the last one: "Tell me I'm awesome". It is funny, and covertly... very thoughtful.

Stephan Kinsella on Intellectual Property & SOPA/PIPA

HT2: LvM facebook page

Everything is Illegal

Ron Paul in the CNN GOP Debate in Arizona

Is Ron Paul's Foreign Policy Correct?

For neo-conservatives, the flaw of candidate Ron Paul is his foreign policy. Indeed, he would likely have a much larger support if he would simply drop his non-interventionist foreign policy and adopt a policeman of the world stance, yet he remains firm in his principles--something one would think would make him endearing to a crowd whose enthusiasm was dampened with the moderate (at best) John McCain in 2008 and remains wet with Mitt "flip-flop" Romney in the current nomination process.

To address the question, then, whether Paul's foreign policy philosophy is correct, it might be instructive to consider the opinion of those in the military. That is to say, what's important here is not that Paul lacks support among neo-cons, but that he is strongly supported by the military. This fact alone seems to illuminate something about the wisdom of the current foreign policy (vs. Paul's philosophy), the optimism of the current wars (vs. ending the war on terrorism as it currently exists), and the support among the troops for militarism adventures (and concurrently, their support for RP). To be sure, this does not say he holds the correct policy, but it is certainly worth considering the weight this information should hold.

The Right Theology

Rick Santorum continues to insist on using his religious faith as a basis to win the nomination. This weekend, he argued that the Obama agenda and his policies are bad because he has the wrong theology.

For me, this is is all very strange because, as I'm watching this unfold, I'm finishing Darryl Hart's book, A Secular Faith. In this book, Hart recounts the concern raised about JFK's candidacy among Protestant voters. The concern was that JFK, a Roman Catholic (R.C.), wouldn't be able to separate his religious ideology from his political duties. The fear was that his marching orders would come from the Pope, which according to R.C. doctrine holds the weight of Scripture. How the times have changed: the R. C. Santorum makes this a centerpiece in his campaign; whereas, JFK had to do everything he could to convince people that it did not matter.

This emphasis on the religiosity of public policy raises an interesting paradox. Since Santorum himself admits that bad theology has brought about bad public policy, then shouldn't we expect that the Protestant evangelicals will shift their support away from Santorum? After all, Santorum is R.C. and as such has a theology different in important ways from Protestants.

In short, if value-voting Protestants hold the "right theology" as the litmus test, then Protestants should look elsewhere, no? If they see his theology as compatible, then this seems to miss several important distinctives in these traditions. Furthermore, if Santorum's theology doesn't affect policy in ways that are distinct from Protestants, what theological tenants do and don't, or to use Santorum's terminology: what stripes of Christianity make distinct differences in public policy?

All of this underscores the problems making religion as politics. It is why I become more and more convinced that a two-kingdom framework makes sense and causes less (not more) confusion.

Voter Fraud?

UPDATE I & II (2/17/12)

This is a must see. (HT2: Bob Murphy for posting this on facebook).

UPDATE I: (2/17/12)


HT2: Lew Rockwell

UPDATE II (2/17/12): Maine will recount the votes.

The Christian Secularist

In light of my discussion of Doug Wilson's critique of Ron Paul (see here and here), I can see that it is difficult to reconcile how one can be so "liberal" in some respects with public policy, yet claim to be a devout Christian in his personal life. The best way to understand this position might be described as "Christian Secularism." This term, admittedly, may seem like an oxymoron or someone who is wrapped in a contradiction.

The solution to this seeming contradiction may be that this term may simply reflect the awareness of a two-kingdom perspective--i.e., an awareness of the role of the church distinct from the role of the state and culture. In his book (A Secular Faith), D. G. Hart describes the Christian Secularists like this:

They are Christians who dissent vigorously from the notion that government has any role in promoting faith or its moral teaching. The institution charged with this task is the church, through its teaching and worship, along with the instruction and counsel that comes through Christian families. For Christian secularists, the work of government lacks any overtly religious or spiritual purpose. This is not because Christian secularism has a certain political philosophy that involves government's religious neutrality. The Christian secularist who could not admit that history is littered with governments, both Christian and pagan, that used religion to promote social order and unity would be foolish. Instead the reason for keeping Christianity out of the hands of government stems from a particular understanding of the Christian religion and the institutions that bear responsibility for its propagation. Christian secularists disagree vigorously with values evangelicals both about the nature of Christianity and what it means for statecraft. Where Christian secularists differ from legal secularists is a nicer question. On the matter of religion's role in public life, both sides would agree that faith is properly a private concern-with some qualifications. If private means the category we reserve for private schools, or private social clubs, that is, institutions that are not open to citizens but spring from voluntary associations, then calling Christianity a private affair makes perfect sense. The local congregation, the synod or assembly of a denomination, a parochial school-these are all private institutions, and their separate status from public bodies is an important contribution of the dissolution of Christendom that the American and French revolutions heralded when they disestablished the church. For theological reasons having to do with the role of divine agency in the development of human faith, Christian secularists might not be prepared to go as far as legal secularists in calling belief a matter of personal preference. But even here, in the personal dimensions of religion, calling acts of piety personal and private does seem basically sound from a Christian secularist's perspective. The reason is that the most intimate and sacred acts of religious devotion, those that fulfill the Christian's duty to love God, take place in either personal (the home) or private (the church) settings. Beyond these similar perspectives on Christianity, Christian and legal secularists will likely agree or disagree on public policy or legislation or electoral candidates on the basis of political philosophy or gut instincts about public life, not on the basis of belief or nonbelief. From the Christian secularist's perspective, this is precisely how politics should proceed. Citizens and public officials should articulate their ideas about the true, the good, and the beautiful, or about the American Experiment, or about the GNP and tax rates, and debate these matters forthrightly. Because the United States is a free country, citizens have the liberty to marshal arguments about these ideals and policies on the basis of their religious convictions. But... if anything, the contribution of religion to recent American politics is not to offer unparalleled insights but to make elections, policy debates, and court appointments extremely partisan. Keeping religion out of politics along the lines proposed by Christian secularism may be a welcome relief to the fear-mongering practiced by both sides in the red-versus-blue-state partisanship that dominates so much of contemporary American political discourse.

Admittedly, this short sketch simplifies ideas that are complex and nuanced, and the application of these philosophies are numerous and may become cumbersome. It has been for me as I think through this. Still, these categories and distinctions (including those below) have been useful for me to think through.
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Hart mentions values evangelicals and legal secularist in this quote. Here is how he defines those:

Values Evangelicals: "[P]eople who themselves are not necessarily born-again Protestants but who are sympathetic to the notion, popularized by the Protestant right, that 'the right answers to questions of government policy must come from the wisdom of religious tradition.' Because religion provides the best way to live a peaceful and productive life, values evangelicals (which include Jews, Roman Catholics, and Muslims) believe government 'adopt those values and encourage them wherever possible."

Legal Secularists: "[P]eople for whom religion is a 'matter of personal belief and choice largely irrelevant to government,' and who fear that ultimately religion will be divisive socially and politically."

Psychology & Love

For a little fun and in honors of Valentines Day, I thought I'd direct attention to a few studies (and the corresponding abstracts) from the latest edition of Psychological Science. In full disclosure, I haven't read these works yet. I just happened to receive notice of this latest issue and felt they were appropriate to the day.

• Some men think women are more interested in them than the women actually are; women, on the other hand, think men are less interested in them than they actually are.

  In the current study (N = 199), we utilized a speed-meeting methodology to investigate misperceptions of sexual interest. This method allowed us to evaluate the magnitude of men’s overperception of women’s sexual interest, to examine whether and how women misperceive men’s sexual interest, and to assess individual differences in susceptibility to sexual misperception. We found strong support for the prediction that women would underestimate men’s sexual interest. Men who were more oriented toward short-term mating strategies or who rated themselves more attractive were more likely to overperceive women’s sexual interest. The magnitude of men’s overperception of women’s sexual interest was predicted by the women’s physical attractiveness. We discuss implications of gender differences and within-sex individual differences in susceptibility to sexual misperception.

(It just feels like there is a joke here; I just can't quite come up with a great punchline). Lots of interesting findings reported in this study, though.

• For the recently divorced, here's how to handle this well. (This is not very "Valentine's Day talk," is it?)

  Divorce is a highly stressful event, and much remains to be learned about the factors that promote psychological resilience when marriages come to an end. In this study, divorcing adults (N = 109) completed a 4-min stream-of-consciousness recording about their marital separation at an initial laboratory visit. Four judges rated the degree to which participants exhibited self-compassion (defined by self-kindness, an awareness of one’s place in shared humanity, and emotional equanimity) in their recordings. Judges evidenced considerable agreement in their ratings of participants’ self-compassion, and these ratings demonstrated strong predictive utility: Higher levels of self-compassion at the initial visit were associated with less divorce-related emotional intrusion into daily life at the start of the study, and this effect persisted up to 9 months later. These effects held when we accounted for a number of competing predictors. Self-compassion is a modifiable variable, and if our findings can be replicated, they may have implications for improving the lives of divorcing adults.

• If you want to make someone feel like they belong, simply look at them (and maybe even smile).

  Past research has indicated that people are generally not accurate in predicting how they will feel at a future time-point -- known as affective forecasting. Researchers examined the absolute and the relative accuracy of affective forecasting from 16 studies. Although the results indicated that participants' predictions did not display absolute accuracy (predictions did not match well to actual feelings), the predictions did display relative accuracy: Those who predicted they would be more or less upset than others by a future event actually were either more or less upset than others when that event occurred. This finding presents a more nuanced view of the accuracy of affective forecasting.

Doug Wilson, Ron Paul, & Moral Dilemmas (Part II)

(See Part I)
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I recently argued that Doug Wilson dealt unfairly with Ron Paul's answer on the Piers Morgan show, where he was asked how he would handle a potentially pregnant woman who was recently raped. I wrote:

For Wilson, RP's answer exposes the glaring contradiction of his philosophy, revealing that all of Libertarianism is a "false ideology" that "will necessitate self-contradiction."

To the contrary, I suspect that RP knows that A is A. He recognizes the uncomfortable and even inconsistent place his position puts him in. I suspect that, if anything is consistent about his position, it is that he doesn't feel it is necessary that the State identify A as A, and this is the difference between RP and Doug Wilson. In the end--whether RP or Doug Wilson think so--God--the author and creator of all things, the one who is sovereign in a rape-pregnancy situation, identifies A as A and B as B, regardless of whether the State (or the President of the United States) does so. So, when someone sins in the classic abortion dilemma, God will deal rightly with that person even if RP, Doug Wilson, or the powerful State ever acknowledged that this act was evil.

To be more precise, it is not that I think Doug Wilson believes that the State needs to acknowledge right and wrong for it to be so, but as I understand his position, it seems that he wants the State and believes it is the State's role to acknowledge and enforce God's full standards.

Let me begin by clarifying what I believe him to be saying. Earlier in the same post where he criticizes Paul's answer to the rape-pregnancy-dilemma, he criticizes his position on homosexual marriage, saying:

... Paul whiffed a couple others too. He continues far too ambiguous on the homosexual marriage issue -- as though YHWH would have been fine with the Cities of the Plain had they only had a federal system that allowed for states' rights on the issue, with each city being allowed by the Constitution to make their own decisions. Say that one of them had not legalized sodomy, we might have had one four/fifths of the brimstone.

Wilson's critique targets RP's strong states' rights stance. Incidentally, this does not accurately represent RP's position on this issue (see the interview at ~27 minute mark). Paul has routinely said that he thinks the government should be out of the business of marriage all together, and similarly, in the interview, he says that the State shouldn't have a say in people's voluntary relationships or what people call it. This has nothing to do with his personal view of marriage, though, but simply the role the State has in marriage. (I suspect that this would not curtail Wilson's critique, though).

More substantially, the difference I have with Wilson and his view on RP is at the heart of his critique, where he says if "[a city in the area of Sodom] had not legalized sodomy, we might have had one four/fifths of the brimstone." This tongue-in-cheek statement isn't lost on me, but the essence of his disagreement with RP ("he continues far too ambiguous on the homosexual marriage issue") is that the State should make homosexual marriage illegal--essentially, to establish marriage as God would have it. This is where I find my greatest disagreement with him: the role of the State in regulating morality.

I wonder--to use his Sodom and Gomorrah analogy--by doing so, would this save people from God's wrath?

I do not deny the particular nature of the sin of Sodom (Jude 1:7), but l don't think I am making a liberal interpretation to consider this broadly, as well. That is to say, the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed (Genesis 19:24-25). This surely included children who were not actively engaged in these same acts, yet still there could not be found even 10 righteous people (Genesis 18: 22-32).

The point I am trying to make is that the destruction of S & G was a response to their particularly grievous sins (Genesis 18:20), but it is also evidence of God's indignation against sin, in general. R. C. Sproul draws our attention to the reality of sin, when he writes:

The slightest sin is an act of defiance against cosmic authority. It is a revolutionary act, a rebellious act in which we are setting ourselves in opposition to the One to whom we owe everything. It is an insult to His holiness. We become false witnesses to God. When we sin as the image bearers of God, we are saying to the whole creation, to all of nature under our dominion, to the birds of the a it and the beasts of the field: "This is how God is. This is how your Creator behaves. Look in this mirror; look at us, and you will see the character of the Almighty."(The Holiness of God, Ch. 6, "Holy Justice" [Kindle edition])

Considered this way, I'm again compelled to turn Wilson's statement back on him: "as though YHWH would have been fine with the Cities of the Plain had they only had a... Constitution[al band against gay marriage], we might have [been spared the] brimstone." Of course, this is tongue-in-cheek too. The reality is that the people of S & G were sinful, deserving God's wrath even if they had laws in place that regulated their behavior. Sproul, in that same chapter, continues:

[God] is indeed long-suffering, patient, and slow to anger. In fact He is so slow to anger that when His anger does erupt, we are shocked and offended by it. We forget rather quickly that God's patience is designed to lead us to repentance, to give us time to be redeemed. Instead of taking advantage of this patience by coming humbly to Him for forgiveness, we use this grace as an opportunity to become more bold in our sin. We delude ourselves into thinking that either God doesn't care about it, or that He is powerless to punish us.

All of this is to say that, to see S & G simply as a response to the allowance of homosexuality surely misses the mark. God's judgment wasn't about public policy at S & G, as though the right laws make people right with Him. In short, the State is an inadequate mediator.

I know Doug Wilson knows this, and let me be clear that I am not making this charge against Wilson. However, it is good to be clear about this and all that this means.

1. Even if there were laws to outlaw sinful behavior--whether that has to do with the 7th commandment or any other--this does not prevent sinful behavior from occurring.
2. Even if the laws were to prevent some of these sins, they are still in rebellion against God. To create social law that regulates morality--or attempts to produce morality--seems to mistake the symptoms for the sickness. It is putting concealer on chicken-pox and saying that you are healed.
3. RP has said (and I find this position very compelling), the laws of the land are really a reflection of the culture, not the other way around. This, then, brings me back to point #2: developing a top-down system of morality will not necessarily or likely translate into moral behavior in the culture (e.g., see the drug war).
   
4. Finally, all of these points leads me to clarify that what I've said in these related posts is not an attack on Doug Wilson. I'm sure I have much to gain from him, but as I see it, we hold decidedly differing perspectives on the role of the Church and the State. This is why I see his critique of RP as a critique about what role the State should play in moral behavior. As I can see it right now, the State isn't necessary for this particular role. I hope the reader will find it useful to think through these issues (as I'm thinking through them, as well).

(See Part I)

Someone's Watching You

Some links:

• Congress--all of whom have sworn an oath to protect the Constitution, including the 4th amendment--have okay'd the use of spy planes--drones (yes, those drones) over U.S. airspace. (HT2: Lew Rockwell)

• The FBI was keeping tabs on Steve Jobs.

• We're not done with SOPA.
  

Doug Wilson, Ron Paul, & Moral Dilemmas (Part I)

One of the standard topics in nearly (probably every) introductory psychology book is the work of Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg was interested in how people made moral decisions and found that people's reasoning for their moral decisions became more complex as they got older (no surprise there, I'm sure), but what Kohlberg was particularly known for was the identification of particular patterns in their moral reasoning process, discovering a pattern of "moral development."

The other thing Kohlberg was known for was his methods for testing his hypotheses. Kohlberg developed a series of 'moral dilemmas' that he presented to people to assess the pattern in their reasoning. For example, one of his most famous dilemmas was about a man named Heinz, who wanted to purchase a drug that he believed would save his dying wife's life. The drug, however, cost $2,000. The dilemma goes on to say that Heinz was able to gather $1,000 of the money that he then took to the druggist, where he asked if he could pay 1/2 now and the rest later because he simply couldn't come up with the money. The druggist turned the offer down, saying that he invented the drug and believed he earned the right to profit from this discovery. Heinz, desperate to save his wife's life, broke in to the druggist's store and stole the drug.

The participants in Kohlberg's studies were to tell whether they thought Heinz did the right thing. Kohlberg wasn't interested in whether they said he was right or wrong, for Kohlberg this dilemma was just that --a dilemma. Heinz was right for trying to save his wife's life; he was wrong for stealing. The druggist was right to claim ownership of his property; he was wrong to ignore the plight of a dying woman. The point for Kohlberg wasn't that there would be the perfect solution, but the reasoning process behind the decision. In short, such moral dilemmas can probably illuminate the process or principles one uses to decipher right and wrong, but they probably are ill-equipped to indicate the moral character of someone's heart.

This isn't to say that no useful information about a person's character is revealed when their moral principles are tested. To the contrary, I'm thinking of Joseph, who was faced with the temptation by Potiphar's wife (Genesis 39). Here Joseph's character shines through. Faced with a situation that he could have 'gotten away with,' he chooses to do what's right, even though it, ultimately, cost him his job (and some time in prison; Genesis 39:19-20). Still, it is important to note that Joseph was faced with doing the wrong thing--yielding to the temptation of Potiphar's wife--or the right thing--turning her down. It wasn't as though Joseph was faced with a moral dilemma: e.g., the sin of having an affair, on the one hand, but by doing so would somehow be able to save thousands of starving kids from certain death, on the other hand.

All this is to say that moral dilemmas may have limitations as to what they say about a person. They hold two "rights" and two "wrongs" pitted against each other, such that reasonable people may disagree about the solution. This is not even to say that there is no solution, but the solution is not easy and is not clear from the human perspective.

Yet, they are used as the moral test:

For example, Piers Morgan presented Ron Paul with the classic abortion-moral-dilemma in this interview. RP was asked to imagine if his daughter was raped (of course, it has to be his daughter!! It makes the dilemma that more personal and him that more cold-hearted depending on his answer). Continuing in high-drama, the situation continues, where (Yes, you got it!)...she becomes pregnant in this (admittedly) unlikely scenario. Now... Dr. Paul, would you forbid or recommend that your daughter carry her rapist's child to full term, deliver, (and, perhaps) lovingly nurture that child to adulthood or would you destroy the life of this unborn child? This scenario is so tired, it borders on cliche. Anyone who advocates for the protection of life of the unborn is immediately thrown into some society where women are carrying rapists' babies, as though the pro-choice movement was simply to protect victims of rape and incest.

RP's answer was that if a woman is truly raped, he would recommend she immediately go to the hospital and get a shot of estrogen. Morgan shoots back: but this would terminate the pregnancy, and don't you believe that life begins at conception? RP makes it clear that he believes life begins at conception, but in this scenario, he acquiesces, saying that you don't know if she is pregnant. There is no medical evidence for this.

I don't intend to defend RP's answer here or carve out a position of my own. Instead, I want to look at what this does not say about RP. Namely, that in such a dilemma, it hardly seems to--as it did in Joseph's moral test--say that we have discovered the seedy under-belly of RP.

Doug Wilson disagrees, though:

The most charitable takeaway is that Ron Paul does not understand the issue, or the meaning of the words he is using. At all. He does not understand the ramifications of what it means to confess that "life begins at conception." Further, this ignorance on a point of high magnitude was coming from a medical doctor who confessed that life begins at conception, and that, provided he didn't know of that person's presence, that he personally would have no problem taking that person's life. If that's not a muddle, I don't know what would count at one.

When I was in Minneapolis last week, we had a number of really edifying conversations in the context of the speakers' dinners. One of the most edifying was the last one, where John Piper and I spent a lot of time exulting in (get this) the law of identity. A is A. A is A means that A is not something else, like B, for instance. And those who want it to be something else, or a little bit fuzzier for them, are trying to escape accountability.

For Wilson, RP's answer exposes the glaring contradiction of his philosophy, revealing that all of Libertarianism is a "false ideology" that "will necessitate self-contradiction."

To the contrary, I suspect that RP knows that A is A. He recognizes the uncomfortable and even inconsistent place his position puts him in. I suspect that, if anything is consistent about his position, it is that he doesn't feel it is necessary that the State identify A as A, and this is the difference between RP and Doug Wilson. In the end--whether RP or Doug Wilson think so--God--the author and creator of all things, the one who is sovereign in a rape-pregnancy situation, identifies A as A and B as B, regardless of whether the State (or the President of the United States) does so. So, when someone sins in the classic abortion dilemma, God will deal rightly with that person even if RP, Doug Wilson, or the powerful State ever acknowledged that this act was evil.
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My intention was to develop this more fully, but it took me longer to get to it than I expected. To save the reader some reading time, I'll pick up with a slightly different, but related point in an upcoming post.

UPDATE: See Part II

The Failing War in Afghanistan (and the lies to hide this fact)

Drudge posted a story from the Armed Forces Journal, written by an apparently very brave and honest man--Lt. Col Daniel Davis--that is a must read. Davis' piece illuminates the disconnect between the public profession of a successful war in Afghanistan and the reality of the situation. He writes:

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

Moreover, the troops realize the futility of their efforts:

In August, I went on a dismounted patrol with troops in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. Several troops from the unit had recently been killed in action, one of whom was a very popular and experienced soldier. One of the unit’s senior officers rhetorically asked me, “How do I look these men in the eye and ask them to go out day after day on these missions? What’s harder: How do I look [my soldier’s] wife in the eye when I get back and tell her that her husband died for something meaningful? How do I do that?”

The whole piece is worth reading, but primarily, what's made clear in the articles is that the moment U.S. soldiers walk out of Afghanistan anything that was gained in holding off the Taliban will be lost.

The Presidential candidates (all except Ron Paul, of course) say that they would listen to the generals on the ground to make the decision to leave. If this situation is really failing so badly, will there be a time where they feel they have secured Afghanistan? Until the financial burden of perpetual war ends in a collapsed economy, I fear the officials will need to figure out how to "look ..[a] soldier's wife in the eye ...and tell her that her husband died for something meaningful." This, no doubt, is a sad state of affairs--one that the current (and future) political class are proudly supporting (and vowing) to continue at the expense of lives, lies, and peace.

Ron Paul on Piers Morgan

Ron Paul on the High Cost of Education (and more)

Doug Wilson & Ron Paul: All about Confusion

Doug Wilson is a brilliant man, so any confusion I have (over his seeming confusion) regarding his opinion on Ron Paul (RP) is probably on my shoulders more than him. I've documented Wilson's back-and-forth on RP before; this isn't problematic at all to me. Surely, a thoughtful man like Wilson can have nuanced opinions about any subject or person. Indeed, we often find people that have characteristics that we find charming and wonderful, on the one hand, and other characteristics that are annoying and, perhaps, deplorable, on the other.

His latest post on Ron Paul, though, has raised serious confusion in my head (even though, he's certain it's RP who's confused). It's not that he has various opinions on RP that confuses me; it is why he finds Paul so confusing that raises questions about how Wilson applies the rubric he uses to assess RP to other areas of his life and how he applies this rubric to politics, in general. Wilson writes:

[Ron Paul] whiffed it last night in the debate when asked how his faith would affect his behavior in office. He said that it wouldn't. Not only did he whiff it, but Santorum jacked it out of the park. Santorum said, quite rightly, ... that government doesn't give us our rights -- God does that -- and he said that the government's role is to protect God-given rights. This was a dead-on bull's eye.

As I understand it, Wilson's criticism of Paul isn't his stance on government's role. One would have to be completely oblivious to the 'Ron Paul philosophy' to make such a claim. Paul has repeatedly defended the individual's rights and espoused this as the proper function of the government. Instead, Wilson's criticism (again, as I understand it) is that Paul didn't explicitly acknowledge that these rights were given by God (although, I'm certain that he has in the past), and as such, Paul believes that he can sequester his religious beliefs from his outstanding record of protecting those God-given rights. All this leaves me... well... confused.

**1**If Ron Paul promises to defend the Constitution that protects those God-given rights, and abides by this oath, would he not be fulfilling the role of government, according to Wilson? As such, do we really need Paul to be a Christian, or, at the very least, acknowledge his relationship with God--which he has--to be a good President? (On a side-note, Paul said in his debate answer that this is where his religious beliefs would influence his Presidency--keeping his oath). By analogy, if Wilson were to hire a security service to protect himself, his family, and his property from murderers and thieves, would he need them to acknowledge that the rights to his life and property are given by God or could they do their job without such acknowledgement?

**2**Pres. Obama recently said that his push for health care reform was fulfilling the Biblical instruction to love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 19:19). How does a Christian doing his duty reconcile government's role to protect rights and God's call to love your neighbor? (I'm making the assumption here, without making a case at this point, that the health care law goes beyond protecting rights and even violates those rights). Does Wilson support "Obama-care" or is providing health care to the needy not loving your neighbor? (I know this sounds rhetorical and a bit of a jab, but my emphasis is on the awkward space this stance creates, not an attack on something I'm honestly unsure about how Wilson would respond.)

It is these things that makes me believe that it is not the "secularist" (to use Wilson's words) that are confused. It seems that trying to blur the church and state lines causes confusion. To my mind, a good deal of confusion on this is cleared by a 2k perspective, where an understanding of the Bible's teaching for the lives of the Christian is distinct from honest disagreements about the role of the state [1]. I also acknowledge that Wilson's mind is sharp and may be able to reconcile any and all of these things that my mind can't at this point.

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[1] VanDrunen, D. (2008). The two kingdoms and the ordo salutis: Life beyond judgment and the question of a duel ethic. Westminster Theology Journal, 70, 207-24