U.S. Rep. Ron Paul

Far be it from me to defy the force that is Chuck Norris. After all, it is a recognized fact that we are not living in a democracy, but rather a Chucktatorship. It is less well-known, however, that Chuck Norris does not actually write his columns here at WND, they simply assemble themselves out of fear.

While it is good to see that the living legend has not fallen for the Hillary-lite candidates offered by the Republican Party elite, I fear that in rejecting the Tennessee Toad as well as the media-approved triumvirate of Romney, Giuliani and McCain, he has bought into the charade of a second-rate Arkansas charlatan.

There is no doubting that Mike Huckabee talks a promising game, but that is a job requirement for a preacher or a self-help guru, not a president. Unfortunately, Huckabee's gubernatorial record, as chronicled in no little detail last week by Ilana Mercer, is more than spotty, it is downright rife with the very sort of warning signs that many conservatives now wish that they had heeded when George W. Bush was first running for president.

Moreover, like most of the other candidates, Huckabee is unelectable because he basically mimics Hillary's position on the two primary issues of the election cycle. He is pro-occupation, pro-imperial and pro-delusional, being very hawkish on dealing with the imaginary threat posed by Iran, while at the same time being dovish on the matter of the actual invasion of the country by tens of millions of foreign nationals. One has to wonder if Huckabee would change his mind were Iranians physically to invade the country armed only with infants instead of pursuing a weapons technology in the obvious interest of avoiding a third American-sponsored overthrow of their government in the last 50 years.

Now, Mr. Norris did a nice job last week of demonstrating that Huckabee is less egregiously anti-American than most of his fellow Republican candidates on the issue of the ongoing Mexican migration. However, in doing so, he missed two key points. The first is the way in which history shows very clearly that the effects of a migration of this size, legal or illegal, will permanently alter the target culture. One need only analyze Mexican history to realize that the politics of Spanish-speaking immigrants are, quite literally, entirely foreign to the American political spectrum and they are more likely to change the American spectrum than they are to be shaped by it.

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Second, and more importantly, Norris and Huckabee are both confusing government policies with private religious responsibilities. One cannot be "charitable" via the mechanism of government nor can one impose "Christian" measures through the passage of laws and regulations; this is the same socially liberal thinking which left-wingers use to justify anti-poverty programs. To use the example of children coming to Jesus Christ as an argument for anchor babies and against the deportation of underage illegal immigrants borders on the blasphemous, as the analogy equates American citizenship with Christianity and the federal government with Jesus Christ.

Huckabee is in many ways the philosophical successor to George W. Bush, and as such, it should be no surprise that he appeals to the same sort of Christian conservative who bought into the vision of "compassionate conservativism." But the vision is a false one, a deceptive one, and just as many Christian conservatives now regret their 2000 and 2004 votes for the current president, those who support Huckabee would likely come to regret that support in the unlikely event that the man should gain traction over the course of the early primaries and go on to upset Mitt Romney and the other frontrunners.

The reality that Christians must keep in mind is this: Any Republican candidate who does not abide strictly by the U.S. Constitution is an oathbreaker and a proven liar. His words are meaningless, his promises are null and void, because he has already demonstrated that he will not hesitate to break his word in the interest of exercising political power.

Mike Huckabee may be a good man, but like most of his rivals, he has openly stated that he has no intention of abiding by the Constitution. Therefore, he should be rejected as a potential president by every Christian, every conservative and every constitutionalist, especially in light of the fact that there is another candidate whose personal integrity and respect for the Constitution are unquestioned, even by his enemies. I suggest, therefore, that it is Ron Paul, and not Mike Huckabee, who is far worthier of the martial arts master's regard.