Point 2/3: When I mention he is conflating Christianity and government roles, I mean he is taking the basic moral premises most Christians follow (right to life at “conception”, whatever that may mean) and saying that they are rightfully protected under the government - when clearly such cases as Roe v Wade have stated it is not because of conflicting rights (in this case, the potential rights of life the fetus has when compared to both the due process clause within the 14th amendment and the right of privacy a grown human has when faced with government intervention). This is where he makes his mistake.
I don't think he's making the mistake you're attributing to him. He's not saying that violating his specific conception of a right to life is incompatible with actually existing legal rights and government practice. Indeed, he's perfectly aware of that, and that's the source of his objection. He's speaking in terms of ideal theory (at least that's what I assumed he was doing); it looks like his view is that protecting the right to life is a basic function of government
in the sense that it's a moral duty of government in principle, regardless of what legal rights government currently grants its citizens. So a government that fails to discharge this duty is failing to do what it's in principle supposed to do. He's not saying that it's currently a duty of government
by its own standards. Why would he even need to say something like that?
And if the courts conceive of the right to life in one way and he conceives of it differently, so what? How is he making a mistake? His conception is perfectly coherent; his difference is that he doesn't countenance the trade-off between rights that you mentioned. Again, so what?
A=B: Christians believe in protecting the right to life (starting at conception)
B=C: Governments exist to protect the right to life.
A=C Neither the government, nor Christians, would violate the sanctity of life
First of all, what's standing in for A, B, and C here? This makes no sense. For instance, in the statement "Governments exist to protect the right to life," what does B stand for and what does C stand for? You might as well have symbolized it as a simple premise-conclusion argument thusly:
P1: Christians believe in protecting the right to life (starting at conception)
P2: Governments exist to protect the right to life.
C: Neither the government, nor Christians, would violate the sanctity of life
Obviously, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. But that doesn't even matter, because nothing in what Paul said indicates that he would accept that conclusion. The conclusion he accepts is "The government
ought not to violate the sanctity of life." Moreover, I can't see where you're getting this argument from. It's not in the quote. I can't see how you could possibly parse those statements in such a way that you end up with that result.
Here's the full statement once again:
"Dr. Paul believes life begins at conception. He recognizes the most basic function of government is to protect life. It is unconscionable that government would facilitate the taking of innocent life. Dr. Paul opposes any federal funding for abortion."
If there's
any argument there, it's largely implicit in what's stated and it would look more like the following:
P1 (unstated): If something possesses human life, it has a right to life.
P2: Human life begins at conception.
P3 (unstated): Abortion ends human life.
--C1 (unstated): Abortion violates the right to life.
P4 (unstated): The government has a duty to protect rights.
--C2 (unstated): By C1 and P4, the government has a duty not to allow abortion.
P5 (unstated): If the government has a duty not to allow abortion, then it has a duty not to fund it.
--C3: If the government funds abortion, it acts contrary to its duty.
This is what I see as implicit in the full statement quoted above. It has the advantage of being far more charitable than the crazy interpretation you gave, and hence harder to dismiss out of hand.
A bad model for bad logic!
A bad model that
you conjured up in your own head!
To restate: the entire point here I am trying to drive home is that Rand is mixing up the Christian “right to life' with the usage of the governments.
Where's your evidence that he's doing that?
*He's an eye specialist; Dr. here is being evoked improperly (as if he is an obstetrician)
How is this relevant? And anyway, I think you might be reading too much into that. I thought it was very common to refer to the Pauls by the 'Dr.' title.
The "harder citation" was to point out that he is in fact using religion to justify his positions. That is it.
But it didn't! That page said
absolutely nothing about how he justifies his positions. Where in the world are you getting this idea from?
What that previous citation points out is that he is not against abortion because it deals with the misallocation of funds, he is against it due to religious reasons.
How does it point that out? Explain it. There's
nothing whatsoever in the citation that explains how Rand Paul justifies his views. Actually, what I was interested in was the statement that life begins at conception. That's a metaphysical/empirical claim that I don't think logically requires a specifically religious justification. I'm very skeptical about the claim that his primary reason for accepting that particular statement is religious. Moreover, the Christian idea of a right to life is not specifically Christian in the sense that there's plenty of secular argumentation out there in support of it (but obviously, Christians are more likely to accept it. I don't accept that you can only have religious reasons for believing in such a right though (yes, there are people who make that claim.)) But fine, I'll concede to you that his general moral principles are informed by his religious faith. I was more interested in that specific claim that I mentioned.
I think I was hinting at implicit reservations. I don't remember.
