To Answer A Reader's Question ...

Q:  Dear Rev. Paul, what is your political affiliation?

A. To answer that, let me first digress ... just a bit. (And didn't you just know I would?)

The first two political 'parties' to form after adoption of the Constitution, and during George Washington's administration, were the republicans and the federalists.

The republicans (please note the small 'r') aligned themselves with Thomas Jefferson, who was bitterly opposed to the increasingly-powerful central government envisioned by Alexander Hamilton and his supporters. The Jeffersonian republicans favored a strictly limited "General Government", as Jefferson called it, with an emphasis on States' rights & sovereignty.

Hamilton's falling out with Jefferson over this very issue - and peripheral issues including a national bank and an array of tax proposals from Hamilton - caused first Jefferson, then Hamilton himself, to resign their cabinet posts while George Washington was still in office.

Jefferson himself was a libertarian (again, please note the lower-case 'l'), and that works for me. His concept of the Republic, then newly-formed, was to emphasize the rights and power of The People and the States, with power flowing upward from the citizens.

So in answer to the e-mailed question, I am a Jeffersonian republican ... meaning a small-"l" libertarian who believes that the U.S. Constitution, as written and amended, and as defined by the Founders themselves, is the best possible form of government. ("That government governs best which governs least.") 

I am aligned with no particular political party, unless someone formed a Jefferson/Constitution Party while I wasn't looking.