OK... a little too tired tonight for a detailed manifesto of my political belief system (even if the TH posting length limit allowed for it) but I believe in individual freedom (including the freedom of both religious AND non-religious people to live their lives as they choose), limited Constitutionally based government, and free-market capitalism as a good economic system.

So perhaps Prager, and his new idol Mitt Romney, would prefer I not defile their pristine political-religious cause with my filthy, un-American vote. If that's what they want, I am increasingly inclined to oblige them.

Just as contrary to stereotypes there is such a thing as a "Religious Left," there is also a "Secular Right". I happen to be a member of the latter. When I vote for a candidate of either of the major parties, it is almost always a Republican. However, I do not believe that America is intrinsically a "Christian" or "Judeo-Christian" nation, that the First Amendment ban on establishment of religion is a polite lie, that our nation can solve or our problems by "trusting in God" and in the ulttimate wisdom of the fallible human beings who wrote the Bible many centuries ago or that non-believers such as myself are at best second-class citizens who can be tolerated (as Prager claims) only if we pay public obeisance to a faith we don't share.

Continued...And that was just what happened. Most historians of the conservative movement agree that the disastrously "failed" Goldwater campaign of '64 helped create a viable conservative movement that could win victories later on. I think something like that is what Ron Paul is hoping for. He's as much as said he doesn't expect to win the nomination or the Presidency, but he wants his ideas of seriously limited Constitutional government and of a more non-interventionist foreign policy to have a voice and a place within the GOP, and he hopes the movement he is building can win nominations and elections in the future with newer candidates. And I, for one, hope the same thing.

Remember 1964? Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination, but everybody with any political savvy-- including Goldwater himself-- KNEW he wasn't actually going to beat Lyndon Johnson in the general election. By the standards some now want to apply to Ron Paul, I guess that means Goldwater should have folded his tent, quit letting his followers delude themselves that he had a chance to win, and forfeited the election to LBJ. But Goldwater didn't do that. He had a message to deliver, a viewpoint to stand up for, and though he knew he wouldn't be President, he hoped to build something that would outlast a single campaign.

I suppose this calls for another round of "Get that liberal/commie/atheist Chapman off Townhall, because we don't agree with him!" But yes, Virginia, there is a "secular right", as well as a "religious left". Some of us support concepts such as individual freedom and limited government (including government that is limited from interfering with the freedom of religious people to live as they choose) but not the idea of a "Christian nation" where contrary to the First Amendment "Judeo-Christianity" is the "established" religion of the U.S. government, and non-believers are second-class cittizes at best. In a nation closely divided between parties and ideologies, can the Right afford to banish us "secular rightists" and write us off?

Continued...of course, Prager would certainly be entitled to say something like, "I acknowledge Ron Paul's political courage, but on this issue I think he happens to be wrong and the popular majority is right." I suppose he could even say, "Paul is so wrong that in this case, his political courage is a bad thing, as the courage of Nazi soldiers fighting for a bad cause was a bad thing." (That's something Prager might say, not my own opinion.) But he ought to acknowledge that people he disagrees with can have "political courage" too.

I'm way late in coming across this column and commting, but I can't help noting: it's ironic, to say the least, that Dennis Prager uses a column praising the "political courage" of Chris Christie for "standing with Israel" as an occasion to denounce Ron Paul. It seems obvious that Dr. Paul deserves a lot more credit for "political courage" than Christie does on this issue. Support for Israel is widely popular among Americans and especially among Republicans, so it takes courage for a Republican candidate to suggest that the benefits of the U.S./Israel alliance may be one-sided and that the U.S. needs to look more to its own interests.

You know, it's funny how little some people-- who claim to be staunch defenders of the whole Bill of Rights *except* for the Second Amendment-- think of things like "due process" and "innocent until proven guilty", when the person accused is somebody whom they consider to be politically incorrect. I'm troubled by what I've heard about the Trayvon Martin shooting, and I think the person who did the shooting needs to be called to account in court. But that doesn't mean it makes sense to pronounce him guilty *before* hs day in court, let alone to assume that we can read his mind and know his motive was just "sport".

Funny how "Patriotic Liberal"'s viewpoint is the mirror image of that of the fundamentalist Christians he despises so much. They say that sharing THEIR religious beliefs is the only road to "sallvation". He says that "liberalism is the only route to authentic manhood"., ie, we all have to agree with HIM to be "men", "rational, "moral," etc.