The Real Face of a Republican

As readers of this blog already know; Republican candidates promise to fight toeva, and once they are elected they do just the opposite.Now the GOP is changing course.

In an interview with Mike Spikes, Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul was asked the following:

There was a consensus among young people at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference that the GOP needs to get out of social issues. Do you agree?

I think it’s partly that. But I also think young people are very concerned with privacy. I think most young people’s lives revolve around their cellphones. They communicate with their parents by cellphone even when they’re in the house. And I think they are horrified by the idea of the government searching their records and being in possession of their records when they’ve not been suspected of a crime.

Right. But it seems what they’re saying is that the Republican Party should stay out of issues like gay marriage.

I think that the Republican Party, in order to get bigger, will have to agree to disagree on social issues. The Republican Party is not going to give up on having quite a few people who do believe in traditional marriage. But the Republican Party also has to find a place for young people and others who don’t want to be festooned by those issues.

As a libertarian, you believe in the sovereignty of the individual. But when it comes to the right for gays to marry, you said it should be left up to the states. Isn’t that a contradiction?

On issues that are very contentious, that involve social mores—I think that allowing different parts of the country to make their decision based on the local mores and culture is a good idea. But when it comes to taxes and benefits, the [federal] government out to take a neutral position—a way where marriage wouldn’t have an effect, positive or negative, on those things.