• Carl Levin voted for the Real ID act and continues to support funding for it. In case you havent heard, next year every state is required to make their states drivers license into a de-facto national ID card that will store personal information about you and will contain RF technology that will make it possible for the government to track your every move. It will require a national data base that will serve as a one-stop shop for identity thieves. Possession of the Real ID will be required for most travel and to carry out most financial activity.
• Carl Levin supports the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and the Anti-terrorism Wiretaps Amendment of 1995. Which make it easier for law enforcement authorities to use multi-point wiretaps. This removed restrictions that previously required judicial authorizations for every wiretap on a suspect, and creating a single multi-point wiretap authorization.
• Carl Levin voted in favor of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 that granted law enforcement more authority to search homes, tap phone lines, and track Internet use of those SUSPECTED of terrorism for FOUR YEARS.
• Carl Levin votes to continue support for the Iraq war while claiming to oppose it.
• Carl Levin voted for a federal definition of marriage (as heterosexual only).
• Carl Levin voted to create a Homeland Security Department and to keep detention and interrogation camps at Guantanamo.
• Carl Levin continues to support funding for the DEA.

Republican Jack Hoogendyk knows that Ron Paul's Michigan supporters are some of the best grassroots activists in the United States. Hoogendyk has made some overtures to followers of the R3VOLution, but make no mistake about it: Jack Hoogendyk is a typical Republican -- a big-government centralist -- NOT a "Ron Paul Republican."

Ron Paul understands the proper role of the federal government, and he opposes giving it any more authority than it already has. Ron Paul stands for "states' rights." Hoogendyk, by contrast, wishes to use the power of the federal government to force states into adhering to his social/religious views. This type of thinking is the antithesis of everything Ron Paul is about!

I'm speaking here, of course, of Hoogendyk's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment. According to Hoogendyk's Web site, he supports an amendment to the Constitution that says: "Only the marriage of one man and one woman shall be recognized as a marriage or its legal equivalent by the United States or its political subdivisions, excluding all other unions."

This proposed amendment clearly shows a desire to crush religious freedom in this country by imposing a definition of marriage -- a religious sacrament -- that should be defined by churches, not Jack Hoogendyk or other politicians.

It is a shame that Hoogendyk has such complete contempt for religious freedom, personal privacy, the right to contract, and constitutional federalism.

And Hoogendyk is bad on other issues too:

Unlike Ron Paul, he's against free trade. He talks about "mirroring" the trade policies of other countries. Free-market economists know that retalitory tariffs only spark trade wars and cause poverty and conflict. Tariffs ultimately hurt the exporters and consumers of the country that imposes them.

I, like Ron Paul, support truly free trade with no restrictions on your right as a producer or consumer and no faux-trade deals like NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. Just freedom!

For someone who is courting Ron Paul voters, Hoogendyk is awfully quiet about the War in Iraq and foreign policy in general. He has nothing to say about the Fed or the income tax either.

The facts are in: Hoogendyk is just another Bush Republican!