Glenn Greenwald: Ron Paul distortions and smears

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Ron Paul distortions and smears
(updated below)

I'm not trying to be Ron Paul's advocate but, still, outright distortions and smears are distortions and smears. In an otherwise informative and legitimate (and widely-cited) post today about Paul's record in Congress, Dave Neiwert claims:

Even though he claims to be a "libertarian", he opposes people's freedom to burn or destroy their own copies of the design of the U.S. flag.
He then links to two bills which Paul introduced in Congress which would, in essence, amend the Constitution in order to allow prohibitions on flag burning.

But Neiwert's claim here is, in one respect, completely misleading and, in another respect, outright false (in both cases, I assume the error is unintentional). Unlike Hillary Clinton -- the Democratic Party front-runner who, "along with Sen. Robert Bennett, a Utah Republican, introduced a bill that would make flag burning illegal" -- Ron Paul was and is vehemently against any and all laws to criminalize flag burning, including the constitutional amendment he introduced. He introduced that amendment solely to make a point -- one he makes frequently -- that the legislation being offered to criminalize flag burning was plainly unconstitutional, and that the only legitimate way to ban flag burning was to amend the First Amendment.

Indeed, he only introduced those flag-burning amendments in order to dare his colleagues who wanted to pass a law banning flag burning to do it that way -- i.e., the constitutional way. When introducing his amendments, he delivered an eloquent and impassioned speech on the floor of the House explaining why he considered anti-flag-burning measures to be "very unnecessary and very dangerous." And he urged his colleagues to vote against them, including the ones he introduced:

As for my viewpoint, I see the amendment as very unnecessary and very dangerous. I want to make a few points along those lines.

It has been inferred too often by those who promote this amendment that those who oppose it are less patriotic, and I think that is unfair. . . .

It has also been said that if one does not support this amendment to the flag that they are disloyal to the military, and that cannot possibly be true. I have served 5 years in the military, and I do not feel less respectful of the military because I have a different interpretation on how we should handle the flag. But nevertheless, I think what we are doing here is very serious business because it deals with more than just the flag.

First off, I think what we are trying to achieve through an amendment to the Constitution is to impose values on people -- that is, teach people patriotism with our definition of what patriotism is. But we cannot force values on people; we cannot say there will be a law that a person will do such and such because it is disrespectful if they do not, and therefore, we are going to make sure that people have these values that we want to teach.

Values in a free society are accepted voluntarily, not through coercion, and certainly not by law, because the law implies that there are guns, and that means the federal government and others will have to enforce these laws.

Rep. Paul did exactly the same thing with the invasion of Iraq, which he opposed. He argued (accurately) that the only constitutional method for Congress to authorize the President to invade another country was to declare war on that country. The Constitution does not allow the Congress to "authorize" military force without a war declaration. Rep. Paul thus introduced a Declaration of War in the House on the ground that such a Declaration was constitutionally required to invade Iraq -- and he then proceeded to vote against the AUMF (because, unlike Hillary Clinton, he actually opposed the invasion). Thus, saying that Paul wants to outlaw flag burning (as Neiwert's post does) -- or that he supported the war in Iraq -- is just false.