Robert Nisbet reminded us in his 1953 book The Quest for Community that one of the most destructive acts of a strong central government is that it deliberately weakens churches and other community organizations.  A strong central government wishes to redirect the proper functions of our local neighborhoods to itself as a distant authority, because it wants power it cannot get in any legitimate way.  So what is the machinery that makes this possible?

1. Divorce power from responsibility.  As individuals, and as communities, we know that our wealth and our liberty to act are deeply embedded with our responsibility to make our communities better.  Power and responsibility must therefore always remain firmly wedded in order for a moral individual to live a good life.  This marriage is exactly what a strong central government must destroy, because government wants that power for itself.  So how does government break the marriage of individual power and responsibility?

2. Government begins by aggressively demanding responsibility for all the problems that individuals would normally have to solve for themselves.  This aggression is the key to the misery that follows, because a bully who demands to solve all our individual problems always sounds especially seductive and appealing to the morally weak.

3. Having seized all responsibility, government then announces that it must have power to solve all the problems that it has just taken on.  The morally weak assume that the government will take only a little of their individual wealth and liberty, or better still, will take only the wealth and liberty of people other than themselves.

4. Government now aggressively demands all power, not just a little, and not just from some individuals.  Even though the government is stripping all wealth and all  liberty from all individuals, an act that is clearly offensive to everybody, the government argues at this stage that it is better at solving problems than people who are acting on their own.

5. Now comes the best part.  Government retains control of all wealth and all liberty, and relinquishes all the problems back to the individuals who had them to start with.  The divorce of power and responsibility is now complete.  Each individual has the same responsibility he started out with, but has now lost the power that was once wedded to that responsibility.  The strong central government now has all the power, and bears none of the responsibility.

I am confident that Ron Paul will never build this obscene machine.  His political adversaries, however, have shown themselves all too willing.

Hi Tom -

I know I’m just a far away guy from Holland, starting my day by visiting your site, but I seriously think that Ron Paul’s campaign team should follow my example

You’re one of a rare kind, capable of being bold and courteous at the same time. That’s part character (and you have character!) but me thinks it’s also due to very clever manoeuvring and a spot on delivery of the core message, like you did in this vid.

In the end, you don’t just present Ron Paul as the guy one would like to drink a beer with, no, you deliver the philosophy of freedom and in the end, Ron Paul is the guy you’d not only like to join and share some brew, but to also run the bar with, or the entire brewery for that matter!

Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Richard

Btw: looking good and healthy, Tom. Did you perhaps pick up on the Gary Taubes writings or Mark Sisson’s daily apple?

Hi Tom,

Excellent plea to Mr. Deace.  Being a Catholic Christian (former Baptist) myself, I can tell you EVERYTHING you said is true.

What it REALLY comes down to is this~~

Do you want to SAVE OUR ECONOMY & OUR CULTURE?

–or–

Do you want to BOMB IRAN…..

Which is more important to you?  Because I know that I could live with a Ron Paul who would bomb the smithereens out of Iran, if they DARED to do anything to us, and I could live with that, but what I can’t live with anymore is……..all the corruption…….the BIG BANKS & the FEDERAL RESERVE who not only dumped on us the Banking Bailout, but also have recently & OUTRAGEOUSLY dumped on us the EUROPEAN BAILOUTS—This alone should give Mr. Deace pause, as it does me!

Besides, NONE of the other candidates even want to bring our troops home from Japan or Germany!  That gives me pause, too.

So, in the end, I do hope AND pray that more & more commentators come around to Dr. Paul, a man who would be SUCH A WONDERFUL ADVOCATE for PRO-LIFE, and turn so many people’s brainwashed ideas about it around.

Tom, if you like the way I’ve worded any of this, please feel free to put it in your own words & post it on your page to Mr. Deace.  Good luck, my friend, from both me & my husband.

Thanks, Richard. Actually, we’re planning to go primal around here sometime
within the next month.

Well done, Tom.  Thanks you for your hard work.

Follow-up:

Gingrich’s desperate back-peddling on his support for global warming alarmism and carbon taxes is yet more evidence that the former Congressman is a political chameleon who flip-flops whenever it’s convenient for him and whose political campaign has no principled foundation whatsoever.

“Geo-engineering holds forth the promise of addressing global warming concerns for just a few billion dollars a year,” Gingrich said back in 2008. “We would have an option to address global warming by rewarding scientific innovation. Bring on American ingenuity. Stop the green pig.”

From:  http://bit.ly/tsVTRm and http://bit.ly/oydCIh

As an Iowan, I am guessing that Deace is leaning toward Santorum or Bachmann.  They are on his show all of the time.  Tom, come to Iowa and stump on Paul’s behalf.

The quote of Steve’s you present at the end is an emphatic slam dunk of a closing argument. Very well done, Tom!

I posted a comment the other day (4th) about browsing gingrich’s “Real Change” at the library.
In the book, which published in 2008, he praises the political changes that were creating such a boom for the Irish economy. He even predicts that the Irish economy may become the biggest and strongest in Europe. Truly a horrific warning that every American should know about this bum.
On top of all he says in his book I also discovered that he has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (along with Albright, Greenspan, and Geithner) since ’92.

Now, do the American people know this about Newt? Do they really believe this man will uphold the American constitution?

Ron Paul is indisputably the most genuinely Christian candidate to seek the Presidency in my lifetime, but good luck persuading a nominal “Christian” to support him. Many, if not most, nominal “Christians” are anti-Christians. Anti-Christian churches have more followers than genuinely Christian churches. Ironically, the anti-Christians expect this marginalization of true Christians by a dominant church masquerading as “Christianity” but preaching the anti-thesis. They can’t comprehend the possibility that they’ve embraced the latter rather than the former.

No offense to Roman Catholics intended, but many Protestant reformers held during the Reformation that the Roman Catholic church was anti-Christian. These days, most Protestant churches fit the description as well or better, particularly the most nominally “fundamental” and evangelical.

As an example, here’s the forum of a group of self-described “conservative Christians” accepting some brand of dispensationalism. They’re “Rapture Ready”.

http://rr-bb.com

Browse to the board rules and guidelines for posting, and you’ll find this admonition.

“No posts supporting issues on pacifism: Continuous wars will exist on this planet until the Prince of Peace establishes His Kingdom on earth, and only after a great and bloody war that Jesus Himself will wage against His enemies. Laws and governments (with armies) are established to restrain evil, if left unrestrained, evil will overtake peaceful countries, including “pacifists”. “Pacifist Christians” would be persecuted, oppressed, slaughtered…” [emphasis in the original]

The guideline goes on to quote a passage from Romans (13:4) that doesn’t say a word about pacifists being slaughtered. It rather says that lawful authorities punish evil people, so the site simply assumes that pacifism is evil.

Some governments persecute pacifists, and others don’t. Right? These people believe fundamentally that the Kingdom of God is the sort of government that persecutes pacifists. The idea is absolutely central to their thinking. It is axiomatic.

The Prince of Peace Himself will lead a great and bloody war … soon. This belief creates no cognitive dissonance for its believers, and if you don’t share the belief, they will not communicate with you at all, so they stop listening as soon as Ron Paul opens his mouth. Paul can’t possibly be a “Christian” in the minds of these people, because he doesn’t pine for a great and bloody war. Period.

I don’t know Steve Deace, so I don’t know what sort of “Christian” he is, but if he’s anything like these Left Behinders, you’re probably wasting your breath. They’ll take a flip flopping, war mongering, serial adulterer over a consistent, peace loving paragon of fidelity any day. Don’t ask how Christians could make this choice. We aren’t discussing Christians here. We’re discussing anti-Christians labeling themselves “Christian”. Don’t be fooled.

I don’t accept the “Christian” label myself. These days, I might as well tattoo 666 on my forehead.

What conservatives don’t practice is tolerance.
In his letters the biblical Paul did advise Christians to be tolerant.
These lessons appear to be totally lost on today’s Christians.

I hope someday the truth comes out about 9/11.  A friend of mine died that day in the North Tower.  So much evidence has been brought forward by over 1,500 architects and engineers.  I can no longer be in denial, but the presstitutes are, and they are culpable for not conveying the truth.  Bill Moyer, a well respected journalist, has said that it is a shame that journalists no longer investigate.  But, 9/11 is really the key to the terrorism fears pervasive today.  And, I would like to know how much the Federal Reserve is involved with decisions about our military, something NOBODY ever talks about or even questions.

Could someone link me to the 2010 interview that got awarded interview of the year?

Call steave deace on the air now!

My reply to Steve Deace’s closing remarks following his broadcast response to Tom  Woods’ appeal to Deace to endorse Paul: http://stevedeace.com/steve-deace-live/
———-

Mr. Deace, please consider these opportunities to re-evaluate your summary of the facts concerning Ron Paul:

(1) Marines Corps

The Marines were formed in 1775, their first Battle was in New Providence, Bahamas, against the British. The Marines were not formed to fight “radical Islam”.  When the Marines did fight the Barbary Pirates, they were fighting them because they were pirates; injurious to our mariners, and disruptive of our commerce.  Whether or not they were Islamic, was quite beside the point.  Recall also that the Marines fought our fellow Christians in 1812 when they were also injurious to our mariners, and disruptive of our commerce.  There were few Muslims in the royal Navy at the time.

   Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Marines

(2) Radical Muslims

There are fewer Christians in Iraq now because of our foreign policy.  Noeconservative, pro-war foreign policy has resulted in the retreat of the Church in the Middle East, and the advance of radical Islam.  Ron Paul’s foreign policy might actually result in an expansion of the Church in the Middle East; what we’re doing now certainly hasn’t.  Most Muslim do not hate Christians, but our foreign policy has given many of them reasons to associate drone strikes, invasions, bombings with a Christian United States.  The Neocon foreign policy puts reaching the Middle East for Christ at a great disadvantage.

   Link:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/july-23-2010/disappearing-christians-of-iraq/6701/

   Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-11-12-iraqchristians12_ST_N.htm

(3) Homosexuality

You are wanting Ron Paul, a candidate for the Presidency, to advocate engaging the Executive Branch in outlawing or prosecuting homosexuality; when or if that is the task of Government, why is it the task of the Federal government?  Where is that in the Constitution? 

More specifically, the task of discouraging sin, and freeing people from it, belongs to the Church first and foremost.  Why should the Church abdicate this moral authority to a Federal bureaucracy? 

Pragmatically, giving that power to punish and prosecute homosexuality to the Federal government, may seem good for some Christians when we are in power, but it puts our freedom of religion and our own exercise of conscience at great peril when we are not.  Is everything we do and believe as Christians regarded as moral by non-believers?  When non-believers are in power over Christians how rigorous are they in protecting what we esteem?

Both Christians and non-believers are safest when we remove such power from the Federal government completely; and as Christians we are most effective when we by our example, charity, and our evangelism we reach sinners for Christ.  The Federal government is not, and should not be greater than the power of the Gospel.

Thanks, Jen! I started to connect the dots while I was reading Murray Rothbard’s incredible narrative An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, which has hundreds of case histories.  He starts with the Greeks and just relentlessly works his way forward for 2300 years.  I bought the two-volume set from the Mises Institute (about 1000 pages).

There are no masses.  I think Rothbard and Nisbet would both agree on that point.  Each individual struggles separately with pain, fear, anger, sadness, and boredom, at the same time embracing anticipation, progress, completion, and joy.  Ordinary conversation is the great engine of social change, because it specifically requires that we speak to one another as individual to individual, not as an individual speaking to “the masses”.

I am highly intrigued by your last point above, because it’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot recently.  We are all individuals, but that also means we are not all the same. We differ.  We value things differently.  We have different personalities. In particular, we find about a dozen basic kinds of personalities in any local community, and I’m actively trying to understand how this has caused our larger political structure to emerge in the way that it has.  Once we understand the real cause of a disease, it becomes much easier to treat or prevent that disease.

Went primal a few weeks ago and can already tell the difference in both shape and energy level.  Plus a lot of red meat!  What’s not to like.  Though, I do love milk, so that goes in my 20% column

Primal doesn’t exclude full-fat milk; the paleo diet does.

Well, no surprise to me.  Here’s how Deace writes up his political views as of today (12-7-11):
There are several good candidates running, and I’m still an undecided voter myself. But there is one candidate running whose worldview lines up almost completely with my own. This is also the only candidate that doesn’t have a YouTube’s greatest hits of flip-flops, tough-to-justify endorsements of pro-infanticide RINOs, a comfy couch moment with Nancy Pelosi, nor any hint of scandal.That candidate is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.According to this genius, Bachmann is the “ONLY” candidate who doesn’t flip-flop, doesn’t have the endorsement of abortionist RINOs, doesn’t buy into Global Warming and the only candidate with no hint of scandal.  No one else even comes into his mind.This is the guy you’re trying to persuade to support RP.  Good luck…

Newt is not the best candidate.  However, remember he is opposed to the Fed and the only other candidate other than Paul, to make the public aware of the trillions printed by the Fed and made reigning in the Fed as part of his economic plan.  One of his biggest goofs is saying that is was a good idea to get rid of Qaddafi and then backpedaled.   

Romney is by far the worse candidate.  Bachmann follows with Santorum in third place.  Cain’s lack of seriousness means noone ever considered him in the running, especially as most candidates didn’t even bother mentioning him.  Recently, Huntsman has been too caught up with Trump. 

Tom,
Please post any response from Mr. Deace. If none, please let us know via your site.
Thanks.

Tom knocks it out of the park again. Your youtubes keep getting better and better!

I have seen this before. Steve Deace shows all the symptoms of being told not to endorse Ron Paul. His excuses for not doing so are flimsy, and just look at the quote that this youtube ends with. 

Unfortunately, Steve Deace works for someone else, and if he were to say the words “I endorse Ron Paul” it would probably be his last show. Almost all of the radio stations in the country are owned by one of the “big 5″ media companies. They have control over what is broadcast.

Of course, if Deace happened to have more interest in his own personal integrity, he would announce the endorsement anyway, even if it meant he would have to find another job. Too bad we can’t take him to a bar and get a couple of drinks in him, to find out what’s really going on.

The problem with Far Right thinking is that they never want to follow the Constitution and declare war.  So, to criticize Democrats is ridiculous.  They need to set an example.  There is no excuse for not voting for Ron Paul.  They just don’t “get it”~~~that America is on the precipice of a HISTORIC FINANCIAL CALAMITY.  Mainstream Americans may lose everything!  They don’t realize that if the likes of Corzine of MF Global get off, then, all of our financial accounts are vulnerable.  Without enforcement of laws, the criminals will keep robbing our bank accounts.

Hi Tom, this took me several hours to compose, but I posted on Steve’s website by the interview with Mike Huckabee.
_______________________________________________________________________

First, I apologize for the length.  It took me several hours to compose, though!

I agree with you that the debate is “who is the Theo”, as it implies a spiritual battle for mankind.  I don’t think, though, that a libertarian philosophy prevents a person from voting into office one who “reflects” their moral and cultural values.  So, for me, it comes down to voting for someone who not just “says” he has my values, but really has “lived” my values.  

So, what happened to America?  Besides the Hollywood/TV influences and the indoctrination by the Dpt. of Education of our youth, many cultural forces have combined to make the electorate wholly depenedent on TV news to tell them who to vote for.  Unfortunately, deceptive politicians used this to their advantage.  That’s why they say the one who has the most campaign contributions is the one who wins an election (as you know).  What can change this?  It is only now, after the Crash of ’08 and the immoral Banking Bailout that the public is now waking up from their long slumber.  Simply put, the masses do not trust the Right or Left politicians anymore.  It comes down to a matter of TRUST & INTEGRITY, doesn’t it?  Obama & Gingrich & Romney all supported the Banking Bailouts, not Paul.  Obama is weak, because he broke his campaign promises.  Paul can fight this and take many votes away from him.  

Commentators always marvel at the enthusiasm of Paul’s supporters.  But, we are nothing but real people who give our time and money!  We hate that we have to fork out our own money, when other people who blindly vote don’t.  The other candidates rely on lobbyist campaign contributions, so they don’t have the electorate involvement Paul does.  This alone should give us pause.

While I hear your fears, I think we don’t have a better choice.  Ron paul will take us to war, if it’s declared.  That’s good enough for us.  Regarding the muslims being warmongers, history shows mankind of all creeds have been warmongers at different times.  Look at the Romans.  Look at other civilizations.  As far as trading with them, I’ll give you that it might be “naieve”, but why not let a President Paul “try”, and if it doesn’t work, he’ll know soon enough.  Remember 9/11?  Bill Meehan, an acquaintance of mine, died that day in the North Tower.  The White House took us to war against Iraq, but later we found out the Muslims on the planes were from Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.  So, why didn’t we invade Saudi Arabia?  My point is that at least with Ron Paul, the truth will always be sought after and relayed to the public, as he is a principled man.  But, he’s not afraid to attack another country, if they even dare get close to attacking us.  But he chooses to error on the side of caution, as well.  We find Ron Paul a balanced man morally, as a result, but I digress.

The problem with Gingrich & romney is this—who do they serve?  Who gives them their campaign contributions?  Can we trust them?  The evidence shows otherwise.  A President paul wants to put a stop to the economic catastrophe he sees coming!  Paul will only be one term, and by then, Americans will be woken up to make sure our ship continues in the right direction.  If we fall into an abyss economically, it will cripple us, and isntead of the power being concentrated into our hands, it will be even more concentrated into the hands of the powerful elite.  So, in the end, it is clear to me we will have much more power, both morally and economically, if we can keep from falling into that shocking abyss.  If the dollar crashes, as Paul has said will happen, we may not ever have that peaceful chance again to turn our ship around.  We cannot operate from a position of weakness, but then, that’ the 60% you agree with, right?

Everything comes down to TRUST, Steve.  We can trust Ron Paul to abolish the morally bankrupt Dpt. of Education.  We want that.  We don’t want our kids being indoctrinated.  Neither Gingrich nor Romney will do this.  I could go on, but you are right in your astute observation that Ron Paul will give us the “control, alt, delete button”.  I just see him as our “only” chance to start this nation back onto the right path.  So, who can we trust the most?  And, is bombing Iran more important than regaining control of our country from the criminals in D.C.?  We feel our country’s very survival is more important than that.  And, this is why we’re going to vote for Dr. Paul….this time!