YouTube Video: "RonPauled"

Creator: ariieess
Original idea: flipsidestory
Music: "Freedom", Michael W. Smith

"The Separation of Art and State"

From the Cato Institute, a 1997 piece by David Boaz (emphasis mine):

...[W]hen government gets into the arts funding business, we get political conflicts: Conservatives denounce the National Endowment for the Arts for funding erotic photography and the Public Broadcasting System for broadcasting Tales of the City, which has gay characters. Civil rights activists make the Library of Congress take down an exhibit on antebellum slave life, and veterans' groups pressure the Smithsonian to remove a display on the bombing of Hiroshima. To avoid political battles over how to spend the taxpayers' money, to keep art and its power in the realm of persuasion, we would be well advised to establish the separation of art and state.

Ron Paul supports abolishing the National Endowment for the Arts per the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. More on that soon.

Ron Paul on why he is running for president

Here are some words from Ron Paul that really strike home:

"You know, in some ways it's ironic, people ask me why i want to be president. You know, I don't have the greatest desire in the world to be president. I'm responding to many, many requests of people wanting me to run and I think it's very worthwhile, and who knows what will happen tomorrow; some surprising events could happen and we may do a lot better than anybody ever dreamed."

From a four-part YouTube interview that took place in James Kotecki's dorm room. [ Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV ]

Ron Paul on the NEA

As a part-time Catholic church musician, I have always lived by the statement that the Church is the patron of the arts; not the government. I've always questioned the government's role in promoting the arts, since the grants that the National Endowment for the Arts gives to artists, so-called and otherwise, come not from voluntary donations, but forced taxes. Of course, the answer is that there shouldn't be such a bureaucracy as the NEA in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, this is Ron Paul's position.

The easiest way to research it is to search using the terms "'Ron Paul' 'National Endowment' arts" in your favorite search engine. Here are the results from Google and Yahoo.

Here goes...

Welcome to the hastily cobbled-together blog of what hopes to 1) become a place for artists who support Dr. Ron Paul's bid for President of the United States of America and 2) to critique the role that government plays (via the National Endowment of the Arts) in the promotion of art.

To be clear, this site will not critique works of art sponsored by the NEA, although commenters may be free to do so. Also, this site shall not be censored, although it is hoped that everyone exercises restraint when tempted by raw emotion.

Who knows where this will take us? Hang on...