Welcome to USAREPUBLIC.com.  My name is Ben Motten.  I’ve created this site because I like so many of you have had it with the daily mindless drone of uneducated assumptions.  I am of the opinion that my uneducated points of view are better and should be shared.  Please enjoy!

Sincerely,

Ben Motten

I can almost hear the music in the background, “I see your true colors shining
through.” as a look out of a sea of Tea Partiers. I think it’s important for
Americans to have a good honest and open conversation about this party. There
is a saying in computers that many of us can completely relate to. A person can
be just smart enough to break the computer but not smart enough to fix it. You
know what’s that’s like. Knowing just enough mess the computer up real good and
then you’re stuck calling the family geek to undo whatever it is you just did.
When I watch Rand Paul speak that’s kind of how feel. With his intelligence he
applies a certain degree of logic but does not follow through to its logical
conclusion. In this, his libertarian view points, “Gone Wild” works but only to
a point. I think viewpoints like the one expressed below miss something
important. Society works because we have certain base principles. Society works
because there is an underlying fabric which connects us all. We all understand
and work together because of this fabric. Paul’s big point is freedom of
speech/expression trumps the common goal of society to working together. He
attempts to walk that narrow line between freedom, principle and absolutism. In
this I think he fails. While I’m a person who tends to acknowledge the world is
grey but think most solutions should be black and white I have a problem here.
Society is more complex than Paul would have you believe. The fabric of society
works because there is a certain measure of trust that any civilized nation has
and in some cases has been imposed. Please listen closely below to the
explanation about restaurants by Paul.

In the abstract, being able to express yourself anyway you chose, sound great.
Even going so far as to say a business owner can refuse service to whoever
sounds very ideal. The truth though is this is a very naive and completely
ignorant of the social complex we live in. Take noise pollution for example,
aren’t you glad government has stepped in and said you can express yourself,
with loud music if you choose, but not so much you infringe on someone’s else’s
right to quiet. It does not matter that you own your property and the stereo.
Your activity would be harmful to the fabric of society and is therefore
curbed, by the government, for the better of the society. Your right to
expression be damned in the face of civility, common understanding and this
right to get a good night’s rest.

Paul mentions restaurants. Now there is a novel idea. I wonder if Paul is against
the government telling restaurants how clean they should be or what is or is
not considered safe food to consume. By extension of his absolutist logic it
would seem he does not want government interference in what he deems private
enterprise. Think about the consequence of this for a second. During your lunch
time do you question which restaurant to give your patronage to based unsafe
food quality? I mean many lunch debates are around Mexican, Thai or Italian
food today, not which one of these is safe to eat? When you travel you can eat
anywhere you want in the country (Common sense applied). Are you concerned with
the quality of the food or whether or not it’s spoiled? I doubt it. We have
something called the FDA here. It’s not perfect but it’s better than the wild
wild west of foods. When you buy food you often wolf it down without inspecting
it? Did you check to see if there are rat tails in your hamburger? Insects in
soda? My first point is society’s fabric demands that we have some basic
principles and understandings. One of those principals is that I can trust the
food I eat. I can trust that hamburger is not ground up dog. Not because I
completely rely on the private business owner to do what’s right but because I
pay my government to do that and the private business owner more often than not
fears my government’s scrutiny and/or the financial penalty imposed for
breaking that law. The government regulation resulting in the meat that was
served to me meeting minimum standards of consumption and health. Well if it’s
a fried cheeseburger between doughnuts maybe not health.

Second point is this, for society to work basic assumptions must be met. If I’m to
travel across the country with my pregnant wife I will feel more likely to be
able to do so if I know my wife will not be denied access to use the bathroom
because she is black, a women, Jewish or unknown to me a lesbian. Without this
common understanding the fabric is torn and society and commerce tend not to
work well.

Finally let’s say hypothetically that Wal-Mart has decided that it not only won’t
service black people it won’t employ them either. This trends into the realm of
the employment act, yet another federal law telling business owners who they
can say no too.  According to Paul this would be ok and the choice of the business owner
and in no way should the federal government step in. Shouldn’t this kind of
logic be balanced by good judgment, foresight and a scoch of common sense? Who
here thinks this absolutist philosophy works for our society’s fabric? A fabric
which has been wrought from government telling private farm owners they can’t
have slaves. A fabric which tells us we can’t have sweat shops? We can’t abuse
our employees. We can’t coerce our malefemale employees to have sex with us
because we control their pay. We can’t create a hostile work environment. These
things enhance our society, creating a narrative that says we will work
together and can assume basics civilized settings to be observed whether you
agree with them or not. Its taken years to get to the point where a person gets
denied a job and their first thought isn’t, “I didn’t get the job because…
I was black, or a woman or a lesbian”. Paul’s absolutism philosophy could
take us back in a flash.

CitizenX