The Freedom To Oppress: Why Ron Paul's Old Racist Newsletters Matter
Let's face it -- Ron Paul's lame denials about his repulsively racist and homophobic newsletters of the '80s and '90s on CNN should permanently lay to rest everyone's favorite myth about the man, i.e., that he's a "straight shooter" and an "honest man". No he's not. He's a liar.
Anyone who can make millions of dollars for years off a notorious newsletter with their name on it and then later look into a camera and claim with a straight face: "I didn't write them. I didn't read them at the time. I disavow them. That's it" -- that man is a liar, pure and simple. Especially when you can find videos as recent as the above 1995 interview on C-SPAN in which he clearly embraces the content of those newsletters.
That alone should tell us everything we need to know about the man. The facts: Ron Paul had a significant role in determining the editorial direction of his newsletters, which were edited and largely written by Lew Rockwell and a staff under his direction. And yes, those newsletters were ugly, racist, homophobic, and bizarre excursions in right-wing extremism, extraordinarily popular with militiamen and other far-right "Patriots". But then, that would be because Paul built his political career in pandering to such extremists.
Conor Friedersdorf, who is inclined to libertarianism and thus has a soft spot for Paul, has a thoughtful and nuanced take on the matter, but he also makes excuses for the inexcusable:
Do I think that Paul wrote the offending newsletters? I do not. Their style and racially bigoted philosophy is so starkly different from anything he has publicly espoused during his long career in public life -- and he is so forthright and uncensored in his pronouncements, even when they depart from mainstream or politically correct opinion -- that I'd wager substantially against his authorship if Las Vegas took such bets.
That's probably a safe bet, but it's beside the point: whether or not Paul did the actual writing, the newsletters were produced at Paul's behest and written deliberately in a way to make it sound as if it were Paul himself addressing the readers. More to the point, we also know that he had a significant role in the editorial decisions, and was responsible for the newsletters' larger thrust which -- from my reading of them at the time, picked up at various militia meeting tables in the 1990s -- was largely about "New World Order" conspiracy theories, as well as various other themes tailored to the far-right militia audience: Eliminating the IRS and the Fed, returning to the gold standard, and the usual fearmongering about minorities, crime, and immigration.
And all you have to do is examine Paul's record in Congress to realize that his newsletters reflected his actual politics at the time, since (by way of example), at the time he was viciously attacking the MLK holiday on his newsletter's pages, he was simultaneously opposing it on the floor of the House. Likewise, the newsletters' extremist content was similar in nature to the bills he proposed -- for example, his newsletters' paranoid theorizing about the United Nations and the "New World Order" was reflected in his actual attempts to withdraw the United States from the United Nations.
This same paranoid worldview came up not merely in the newsletters, but in Paul's other publications, such as his 1988 tract World Money, World Banking, and World Government: A Special Report from the Ron Paul Investment Letter". The first two pages of this tract give you the flavor:
Paul has never repudiated his conspiracy-mongering ways. After all, he continues to appear on Alex Jones' "Conspiracy Planet" radio show and expound on the evils of the New World Order. This is all of a piece with Ron Paul's longtime embrace of right-wing extremism, of which the racist elements are only a component.
Indeed, these kinds of things are going to keep cropping up. Now Paul is denying having written a fundraising letter warning of "race war" that was sent out with his signature on it.
These revelations are significant beyond the merely tawdry and embarrassing aspects they present. Because they also tell us a great deal about the kind of president a man like Ron Paul would be.
Friedersrdorf, to his great credit, acknowledges this, but nonetheless concludes:
Should Paul continue to perform well in the polls, or even win the Iowa caucuses, national media attention is going to focus intensely on his newsletters as never before, and it won't represent a double-standard: published racism under any candidate's name would rightly attract press attention! Paul ought to stop acting aggrieved. He is not a victim here. Voters ought to do their best to understand the controversy, gauge Paul's character, and render judgment about his likely behavior were he elected to the presidency, relative to his competitors.
The racist newsletters should in fact be part of the calculus.
So should the uncomfortable fact that bygone complicity in racist newsletters doesn't necessarily make Paul the candidate most complicit in human depravity (sad as that is), or tell us whose policies, which candidate, would do the most to square American government with the highest ideals of our polity. Support for Paul is grounded for many in the judgment that he is that candidate. That his policies, the ones he would champion in general election debates and pursue if elected, are the most moral on offer among the GOP contenders. I remain sympathetic to that argument.
Well then, let us consider whether or not Paul's policies would be moral ones. And we know, as he has expressed over many years on many occasions, what the outline of his policies would look like: eliminating the income tax, dismantling the IRS, dismantling the Fed, returning to the gold standard, and radically gutting the federal government and its power, notably including its power to enforce civil-rights laws and to protect minorities. It was only recently, after all, that Paul reaffirmed that he would have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That agenda, as it happens, matches up with the agenda that has long been promoted by the most racist elements in American politics of the past two generations and more -- the Posse Comitatus, the Aryan Nations, the Klan -- as well as by a variety of extremists with deep roots in far-right anti-Semitism, such as the John Birch Society (with whom Paul has enjoyed a long association).
And while they may employ vicious racism and bizarre extremism in their rhetoric supporting this agenda -- something largely absent from Paul's -- their reasons for pursuing an agenda identical to Paul's supposed "freedom" agenda have to do with the way they define "freedom" -- that is, as the freedom to oppress other people.
The roots of this lie in the Civil War, which was fought on one side by people who were willing to take up arms to defend their freedom to enslave other people. They clothed it in the language of "states' rights," but in the end the right in question was essentially the right to deprive other people of their rights. It should go without saying, at least in this day and age, that the very concept is not only laughably illogical but profoundly immoral as well -- not to mention fundamentally anti-democratic.
The whole panoply of subsequent court rulings (think Plessy v. Ferguson) and legislative miscreancies that created and supported the system of Jim Crow in the South and the Sundown Town phenomenon in the rest of the country, as well as the many failures of Congress to enact anti-lynching legislation -- the roots of institutionalized racism, as it were -- were likewise couched in the language of preserving "freedom" and "states rights". The America that Ron Paul's long-enunciated agenda would return us to, as it happens, would closely resemble the America of 1900. If Americans really understood what America looked like then, they would realize that this would not be a good thing at all.
As Bruce Bartlett sagely observed when the same issue arose regarding Ron Paul's son, Rand:
As we know from history, the free market did not lead to a breakdown of segregation. Indeed, it got much worse, not just because it was enforced by law but because it was mandated by self-reinforcing societal pressure. Any store owner in the South who chose to serve blacks would certainly have lost far more business among whites than he gained. There is no reason to believe that this system wouldn't have perpetuated itself absent outside pressure for change.
In short, the libertarian philosophy of Rand Paul and the Supreme Court of the 1880s and 1890s gave us almost 100 years of segregation, white supremacy, lynchings, chain gangs, the KKK, and discrimination of African Americans for no other reason except their skin color. The gains made by the former slaves in the years after the Civil War were completely reversed once the Supreme Court effectively prevented the federal government from protecting them. Thus we have a perfect test of the libertarian philosophy and an indisputable conclusion: it didn't work. Freedom did not lead to a decline in racism; it only got worse.
The handwringing over whether Paul is a racist or not really is beside the point. Labels really become inconsequential when the real issue is how their politics would play out on the ground if they achieved power. And in the end, there is a reason racists support Ron Paul's agenda: It would be a dream come true, a return to the days when the freedom to oppress others was protected by the American legal system.
To the extent that Paul's agenda really reflects a libertarian agenda, then this same problem reflects on the great shortcoming of libertarianism as a political philosophy. Friedersdorf objects to this strenuously, but he does not provide us with an adequate explanation for what amounts to a monstrous blind spot in libertarianism -- namely, their apparent belief that the only element of American political life capable of depriving Americans of their rights is the government, while pretending away the long and ugly history of Americans being deprived of their rights (including the simple right to live) not by the government, but by their fellow Americans.
What is utterly missing from libertarianism -- and particularly the libertarianism of Ron Paul -- is a recognition that their love of freedom is easily perverted into the freedom to deprive other people of their freedoms. When confronted with it, they simply try to shrug it off as a problem that freedom itself will eventually overcome -- when history, of course, has proven them wrong time and time again.
As we observed back then:
Ron Paul and Rand Paul both like to present radical ideas in reasonable clothing. But the consequences of their ideas have outcomes that we have seen proven in our own history as toxic and destructive to our democratic ideals. Their ideas were long ago discredited, and simply fluffing them up in new language will not make their real-life consequences any less horrific.
There is, after all, a simple reason the Pauls attract racists to their campaigns: Their ideologies would make racist discrimination legal again. You can call it a matter of deep intellectual consistency if you like. I call it selling cheap rationalizations for real evil in the world.
Obama has been a huge disappointment. I'd rather have Ron Paul in the White House with the democrats getting the house back and keeping the senate. A democratically controlled house & senate w/ Paul in the oval office will probably get much more done than Obama would. Hell, Obama had the house & a super majority in the senate and he couldn't do shit.
I'd rather have Paul's beliefs of cutting the military, legalizing marijuana (and ending the wasteful war on drugs) and taking a serious look at cutting the size of government with the Democrats putting a restraint on it than another 4 years of Obama.
They've been at it hammer and tongs over at Towleroad all weekend.
The Ron Paul cult is strikingly similar to Lyndon Larouche's.
The notion that Paul stands for "Liberty" is a of course a lie. He's a racist and homophobe and there are no two ways about it.
...unlike the Obama cheer squad right?
never went away.
And I rarely see one of those in here. I am, however, part of the Progressive Democracy Cheer Squad.
~albabe (The Writer/Artist Formally Known As Al Gordon)
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon
"Larouche is crazy! Paul is Nutz!" - cheers the self delusional voters!
We believe that another term of war, criminality and corruption will bring this country back to what it was.....when.....um....oh shit, the government has always oppressed the people....but....if Obama....isn't elected......the world will....um....why is he still in office again?
Ron Paul would make for a pretty lousy President...but between him and Obama - he is the lesser of two evils. Never mind that Paul did not actually write any of those things...since Paul is this week's republican nominee fad, Neiwert is just being a good little worker bee. Strange that so many liberal blogs seem to be spouting the same talking points...
And if every liberal blog stated that the Earth was round, would they merely be "spouting talking points"?
Facts are facts, moron, no matter how hard you try to deny them.
"Whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, the Republicans are not the least bit interested in solving it. They are interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it."
Clarification: DrRonPaul would make a lousy president. No "pretty" about it.
Strange how so many DrRonPaul-bots also spout the same talking points. He's just so great, I guess. No, wait, he sucks, but he apparently doesn't suck as much as:
if site="liberal"
then "doesn't suck as much as Obama";
else
"doesn't suck as much as Republican"
endif
Provide no examples in spouting nonsense.
Two, glimmer and bask in your self-delusion.
Three. Watch MSM and think you are special.
Four. Rinse and repeat.
-- whcih is what the Paultards want.
Killing "terrorists" citizens without due process or evidence. Hail to secrecy and your war apologist party! David, it's no surprise you sound like a child....and write for one of the shittiest websites around. Your blind, ignorant and weak....enjoy your shitty life bud.
let alone type.
"that's the secret password that we use down at the club"
Like the facts? I know. How inconvenient.
As for Paul being the lesser of two evils? OK. If you don't mind his racist, homophobic, anti-choice 'tendencies' and long-time membership in the party of Thugs, you probably have something there.
me-oww!
Journalism is out the door, the crackpots they have writing in here are in complete self denial of their failure, voting for a noble lie.
where I have to differ with Paul supporters. "Paul did not actually write any of those things...". He says he didn't write them. He says he did read them before they were published. He says he doen't support them. BUT they went out under his name. They were distributed as coming from him. They were promoted by him. They brought in a boadload of $$ to him. So it would seem that he was either a pawn (being used bt bigots and racists) or he didn't care as long as it was profitable. Neither is appealing to me in a leader.
Okee... now you've proven yourself insignificant because you are just a Paul-Bot who doesn't pay attention to David's writing. He is in no way, shape or form, a "good little worker bee."
Either actually read David's work... or shut up and keep your inane insipid uninformed opinions to yourself. (Oh my gawd! That crazy Progressive (me) is trying to take away my Right Of Free Speech).
~albabe (The Writer/Artist Formally Known As Al Gordon)
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon
After seeing the unmitigated disaster W was as president, we cannot take the risk of having someone like Paul as president. Those few good things he espouses are overwhelmed by the risk of all the bad he embodies. We dare not take the risk.
When Paul ends civil rights, and your daughter is facing a lynch mob for getting an abortion or dating a black guy, what do you say to her then? "Sorry, I was hoping he'd legalize pot"?
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." -- Robert E. Howard
You ARE nutz.
the house & senate don't work with him. I said I'd prefer a democratic house & senate working with Ron Paul instead of Obama and the same. Bush had a Republican controlled house & senate for most of his 8 years that's why he was able to inflict so much damage on the U.S. & the world.
A democratically controlled house & senate would reign in Paul's extreme views but would help with other issues like cutting the military & the war on drugs.
But we ain't gonna shout down the Paultards.
One good thing to them makes up for all the bad to them.
A lot of people voted for Chimpy McBush because of "No child left behind". It was then basically left unfunded by that retard except for the testing part; paid for by us and performed by Bush family cronies. It became "No child left untested" and improved NOTHING.
...but you're a fool. Paul would be a Social Catastrophe. Paul is heartless sociopath with delusions of Economic and Personal Philosophy.
Ron is against Public Schools. He thinks only those that can afford it should have an Education.
He's not really for Sepatation of Church and State: "The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion."
He thinks Evolution is just a theory: "You know it is a theory, nobody has concrete proof of any of this. But quite frankly I think it's sort of irrelevant, that because we don't know the exact details and we don't have geologic support for evolutionary forms…"
He stated that he would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and he is not against individual states practicing discrimination against their gay and lesbian residents.
Just like his idiot sociopath son, He says he would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
He's for the Regressive idea of a Flat Tax.
He opposes regulations on industries… He believes that government regulations are burdens rather than consumer protections, and the much hailed "free market" will regulate itself. This ignores the fact that the financial industry had steadily been in a state of deregulation for over two decades, and look what happened.
He calls anti-trust laws "much more harmful than helpful.
He also opposes the federal minimum wage,
He believes that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs are unconstitutional and should be abolished.
He also believes that the Departments of Energy, Education, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Labor should all be abolished.
Ron was the Publisher of a Newsletter with very Clearly defined Racist Commentary.
Ron was obviously just another faction of the racist John Birch Cociety.
Paul also opposes the notion that man-made climate change is a "major problem."
http://www.peoplesworld.org/why-progressives-...
~albabe (The Writer/Artist Formally Known As Al Gordon)
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon
It's quite lengthy but very much worth reading as it provides full exposure to the Ron Paul mindset.
Do you mean dutiful in that it is a place where people have not heard of the evil stirring!?!?!?!?!?!
My god, a misrepresentation! Complete blind ignorance to facts and reality!??!?!!?
the C & L war apologists are sincerely delusional......would it not also make your head explode to find out that even racists voted for OBAMA!?!?!! Lets all think 2-dimensional, it helps make sense of the world.
In lieu of a "like" button, I give the previous comments a like. *
Except the fella who challanges their thoughts with name-calling "Paultards". David Ehrenstein must think that blind allegiance and childish behavior is the sign of a good Democrat. It's not.
I don't love Paul - as I suspect most persons here don't either - however, we have clear proof that Obama is the wrong choice. Must I again repeat the list of his horrendous policies? David, to be so fearful of the unknown that you'd support the status quo over actual change is actually quite foolish. Taking the same action and expecting different results is....
is the sine qua non of Paultards.
.....his newsletters, which were edited and largely written by Lew Rockwell and a staff under his direction
Lew Rockwell. Hmmm, I wonder if he's any relation to George Lincoln Rockwell, the father of the American Neo-NAZI movement. Nice friends you've got there, Ron!
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
David, why do you keep rehashing the same old debunked chestnut about the Civil War? Anyone with an 8th grade education knows slavery didn't become a factor until AFTER the war started. Just because you keep repeating something doesn't make it true.
I suppose "bloody Kansas" had nothing to do with slavery.
So it appears that a lot of posters are espousing the same philosophy that precipitated the republican wave. "I am disappointed that I didn't get everything I wanted so lets throw the POTUS out and elect a totally unsuitable crank because he says thing I want to hear". That worked out so well in 2010.
That's kind of the whole point of elections dude. If a politician fails to deliver, or even deliver enough - then voters have the right to get rid of him or her...politicians are not entitled to a second term "just because"...
and stayed for the straw men...
CTHULHU 2012 "Why vote for a lesser evil?"
... that Ron Paul is not only racist, but also sexist. He has said that the right to an abortion should be a state issue, thereby throwing to the wolves all women and girls of all races who need this medical service. And by wolves, I mean the packs of religious fundamentalists in state legislatures across the U.S. who are working hard to oppress women and girls by restricting abortions and even birth control.
And this is not only a women's issue, because husbands are of course integrally involved in family planning -- forcing women to bear unwanted children also contributes to keeping husbands and fathers chained to the wheel of consumerism.
You're right Kate, It's all about you.
Christ is King!
Happy Holidays to you and your family.
This video says a little something about his alleged racism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_e...
I doubt that there is any national holiday that Paul would vote for because he doesn't think that's the fed govs responsibility.
"...they define "freedom" -- that is, as the freedom to oppress other people."
Please do tell how you would be able to oppress your neighbor without some so called "law", and all that comes with it, to help you.
"The roots of this lie in the Civil War, which was fought on one side by people who were willing to take up arms to defend their freedom to enslave other people. They clothed it in the language of "states' rights," but in the end the right in question was essentially the right to deprive other people of their rights."
That statement is nothing but opinion. I'm confident that many who fought for the south just wanted to be free from the fed gov's oppressive taxes.
"As we know from history, the free market did not lead to a breakdown of segregation."
You don't know squat about what the free market did because it didn't exist. Please tell me what effect bitcoin and it's markets have on the race of those involved.
"And in the end, there is a reason racists support Ron Paul's agenda: It would be a dream come true, a return to the days when the freedom to oppress others was protected by the American legal system."
Yes indeed, because there are no oppressors protected by the present "American legal system". Pffft!
"...a monstrous blind spot in libertarianism -- namely, their apparent belief that the only element of American political life capable of depriving Americans of their rights is the government, while pretending away the long and ugly history of Americans being deprived of their rights (including the simple right to live) not by the government, but by their fellow Americans."
Once again, do tell how you are going to deprive your neighbor of rightful claims without a so called "government law" to help you.
"What is utterly missing from libertarianism -- and particularly the libertarianism of Ron Paul -- is a recognition that their love of freedom is easily perverted into the freedom to deprive other people of their freedoms."
At least you admit that you're against the love of freedom.
"There is, after all, a simple reason the Pauls attract racists to their campaigns: Their ideologies would make racist discrimination legal again. You can call it a matter of deep intellectual consistency if you like. I call it selling cheap rationalizations for real evil in the world."
Any proof that the Pauls attract racists to their campaigns?
It seems to me that pointing a government gun at someone in order to eliminate their discriminatory leanings is a cheap rationalization for real evil in the world.
A lot of the Paultards are very verbose.
I like the way they think that if you take up all your time not actually proving anything means they win.
You asked, "Any proof that the Pauls attract racists to their campaigns?"
You didn't read the Newsletters? You don't think Ron and the other John Birchers with new names, were dog-whistling to the Racists?
~albabe (The Writer/Artist Formally Known As Al Gordon)
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon
There are plenty of racists who say Social Security should be abolished because on average, black people don't collect as much of the benefits as whites do. Ron Paul holding up the disparate treatment of black people in the war on drugs is a similar example of a white person using feigned concern for blacks to get what they want.
Paul merely mentions some unspecified business/investment newsletters on economics and education. That's the only content whatsoever mentioned in the video, and there is no possible way to discern exactly what newsletters he's talking about - let alone that they are the very same racist newsletters referenced in this article.
Yet we're unequivocally told that this is a 1995 video which shows where Ron Paul "clearly embraces the content of those [racist] newsletters" immediately after being told that Ron Paul is "a liar, pure and simple."
Huh?
The next paragraph begins appropriately enough (with some modification): "That alone should tell us everything we need to know about
the man[this article].""Pure and simple."
Corruption favors the wealthy.
How about clearly stating which newsletter is being talked about? (something neither the article or the video clip does). Also, tell us the bill number(s) and lets look at everything in the bill Mr. Paul might have been voting against, not just the MKJ holiday. All of us are not in line for this carrot-on-a-string-B.S.
Christ is King!
......... I could give you all the "bill number(s)" if you want. Or..........you could click on the link "Paul's record in Congress" about halfway through the article. It will give you not only the "bill number(s)" but also what the bill was, etc. So much for your sanctimonious "carrot-on-a-string-B.S." BS.
And you are right---Christ IS King. Try living that instead of just putting it in your tag.
only now do I see good reason to fear Ron Paul: his died-in-the-wool crackpot supporters.
As soon as I saw an article about him, I knew these people would be out in force.
I like the way they always try to stroke the dissatisfaction with Obama as a lead in to every Paul excuse session they give.
He reminds me of Charlie Manson; if you listened to his interview with Frost, he had moments in his ramblings that sounded profound. I likened that to a 1000 monkeys typing, sooner or later something will sound right. That is how he got such a deathly loyal following (drugging them up helps).
Same for Paul. He catches some of these limited attention span people with something profound and they ignore the rest and run with the supposed profundity.
Yeah I agree with ending the wars including the one on
the american peopledrugs, but I am not willing to allow untethered Corporations to just do what they want in exchange, or allow private discrimination to rule instead of protecting minorities of all kinds, or not having the police tasked with protecting our choices affecting only ourselves. (last sentence re-edited).I say, let him get the nomination; he isn't an insider so they won't allow him access to the controls on the "vote" counting machines, and most of the thinking population isn't going to be fooled by his wacko bullshit.
well said, jonnyj.
Why it doesn't matter:
Ron Paul has about as much chance to win the Presidency as I have to be a starting defensive back in this year's Super Bowl.
He's the GOP's version of Jesse Jackson back in the 80s. He has a solid 15-20% of highly motivated voters and absolutely no potential to significantly raise his ceiling.
I wish they would hold some of this stuff back until AFTER the Repug nomination. I would love to have him run against
Obamaa decent Democrat.Of course Paul is a liar. All you have to do is remember grade school. If you turned in a homework assignment as your own you got a grade for it, not your best friend. You get credit for what you claim to do and put your name upon it. Paul is a racist liar. Plain and simple. In other words, "A Great Republican". I hope he does every thing he can to destroy his Party. More lies, please. Comedians can hardly keep up with his stories and lies already so let's have some more Paul.
I just LOVE election season. Don't you?
And Gloria is about to pee her pants over IRAN, "WHEN WILL YOU BOMB THEM IF PRESIDENT".....Who sounds unreasonable here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLonnC_ZWQ0&fe...
Anyone who believes that the Civil War was not fought over slavery, is welcome to visit your university or state library archives and inspect 1850's periodicals on microfilm. Serious racists, of course, won't do that. It's also a misconception that all stores banned blacks. Those who allowed colored custom did so because they financed their own merchandise, and they charged blacks higher interest--something the racists would love to reinstate. The lag between the end of the Civil War and the Jim Crow era was the period when freed slaves learned to compete for jobs in an open market. White workers wanted Jim Crow to get rid of the competition; the bosses wanted to keep their new labor pool's wages at rock bottom, thereby cheapening white wages. The historical evidence makes Paul and his kind even scarier in the current economy.
Did anybody else see
.
.
Am I missing something here? This is HUGE. And I missed. I didn't see it on Dec. 23 when it was published. Fuck. This is great news isn't it?
I don't want to link to another site, but FDL's been all over it.
That all the Paul Supporters have rational well thought comments about a candidate they believe in. Then on the other side you have all of the war apologist haters who think he is "fake", delusional? Maybe just a little, but it's clear the people claiming to be political "realists" live in self-denial, do nothing but assassinate the character of a man from their couch. Way to go ladies and gentlemen, you sound nothing of a delusional populace willing to vote in your own serfdom, enjoy the imperium's fourth term as president, enjoy another war and the looting/theft of our hard earned money. Go back to sleep sociopath apologists. It will all feel good, just pop your pills and think the system is working in your favor.
Wrong. We think he's full blown delusional, as are his followers. They make hippies seem like amateurs in the self-delusion department.
Thanks for your concern though.
When the Global Economy is tanking and you have complacent politcians colluding in mass criminality by the financial sector? What do you suppose we do? Sit on our hands like the current administration and DOJ?
Because more and more of you war apologists are difficult to pick out now-a-days the failure of your leader to produce ANYTHING thus far goes to show that you fell too hard for the noble lie and cannot fathom anything outside of your pragmatic dystopia.. Enjoy!
"live in self-denial"
Good luck with your "reality" pal, you should take your own advice. You're heading the same way as Lyndon La Rouche, you people sound just like his android supporters I talked to in the 70's.
In the meantime, I'll enjoy the fortunate fact that I'm not you. And if you need something more redemptive to do, try reading Siddartha by your namesake instead of spouting psychobabble by a racist.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
is GREAT foreign policy, guess pscyhobabble now-a-days is being a rational compassionate human being....I can live with that fortunate fact.....
do you espouse? Specifically in YOUR life, not in the pragmatic fantasy that is C & L "pscyhobabble".
Your posts on this thread are in violation of TOS. You are flamebaiting, trolling, leveling personal insults at the staff and posters here.
There isn't one sane Reslug left in their sick, racist party.
That sound good. In theory . But, most, if not all, are just a theory. Not applicable in this day and age.
But hey, it sounds good. right? States rights and all. Right?
Nevermind reality.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Isn't it admirable of Ron Paul to admit ownership of his racy newsletters....?
Oh wait, that was then (1995) and not now!
Now it isn't to his political advantage to be a racist, Texan pig? I see.
For all you Ron Paul supporters, I encourage you to go to this link and check out all the bills Paul has sponsored; read the texts and then think about what this country would REALLY be like if he got his way with all these. http://paxamericana.tumblr.com/post/13507194341
Because, sunshine, your "new messiah" wants to return to an era that never existed, except in his addled brain.\
"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" - Red Green
Freedom Ain't Free - Pay Your Share
Anyone see this article?
It shows the weasel for what he is.
. . . on Paul Ryan.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
My bad.
Sorry, was doing a quick read.
His name was on it, he owns it. It boggles the mind that people can believe that he was that careless with his name and allowed all that hatred to be written in his name.
Either he knew it an is lying about it now, or he is such a poor business man that he allowed all that stuff to be written and Never, ever read it, checked on how the publication was doing or what they were saying(with his name of course).
Diane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rv0Z5SNrF4&fe...
If you think Ron Paul is a racist, watch this.
I'm nothing short of astounded yet unsurprised at the red herrings and ad hominems in full swarm from the mo-Ron Paul cult; and that is EXACTLY what they are given his manifest far-right reactionary positions on everything political guised up as 'true freedom'. Funny how they (i.e. the libertarians) say the oppressive federal government is the problem with it all yet they want to use it even to suppress and oppress every demographic and group that isn't European Caucasian white, male, rich and Fundamentalist Christian. None of you actually discredited any of the facts and realities of David's report, but than again, anti-intellectualism is de facto right-wing style nowadays.
And please stop stuffing this Obama straw man and putting a match to it, because the excuses are getting tired. Almost every disaster of the previous decade in America, whether its the economy, foreign policy, deficit spending, unemployment rates, etc. have been the result of conservative Republican, and specifically Curious George's neo-con agenda and philosophy. Obama has governed as a manifest moderate centrist who's been more than accommodating to the special interest and lobbying cronyism of the Corporate/Private Sector Right that is the Republican's and Teabagger's bread and butter, and indeed many blue-dog Democrats, which has been his costliest misstep as President above all else. With that mentality of unhinged greed, its no shock that you'd rather us go into default on our debt, have (greater) failing health care, and continue these obscene Bush tax cuts than have anything under the Obama administration succeed.TROLLING WINGNUTS VISITING HERE, I REPEAT, YOU ARE THE ROOT PROBLEM NOT THE SOLUTION!
Like it or not, Obama's second term is all but guaranteed at this point of writing; the War in Iraq is finally over, we've had marginal but sure employment growth in the private sector for more than two years consecutively, he's killed Bin Laden (no thanks to Baby Bush) and has passed a major, imperfect but still much needed health care overhaul, exactly what the Occupy Wall St. crowd and the rest of us 99%'ers have been pulling hair and sanity out of our heads for months. This G.O.P chain of fools, especially lying, racist, homophobic, sexist and classist (all on-point adjectives) Ron and Rand Pauls are their own ultimate undoing than any progressive and liberal in office or running for it presently. The only thing Ronnie is qualified to be President for are the voices in his head convincing him that he has the remotest chance of putting any of this nonsense into reality, given hell freezing over and Lady GaGa becoming an anti-gay crusader, the same level-odds of him actually getting nominated and elected. November 2012 can't come soon enough...
President Obama is like the AHCA his administration miraculously passed: marginally helpful, efficient enough to be built upon, and will only become a uniform disaster if Republicans win 2012 & repeal it (with all the other good he did)!
No matter what political philosophy or persuasion you most identify with, its important to recall that we are called THE UNITED States of America for a very specific reason, and our Founding Fathers, God rest their souls, were smart enough at our nation's conception to include a federal supremacy clause in the 10th amendment. I know, I know, but we (i.e. our ancestors) continue to ignore and explain it away, right Reich-wingers who are states' rights advocates?
Almost every major political, social and historical dilemma in American history can be traced back to this nebulous nonsense of states' rights, which in almost every case is a dog whistle for 'whites' right to oppress'. If it wasn't for federal establishment and the Great Compromise, we'd still have slavery (13th), segregation (14th & 15th), no woman's suffrage (19th), progressive taxation/income tax (16th), civil rights for any marginalized minority group and too many other things to even mention or count in a blog post. Its true that it can be a way to minimally move towards liberal legislation, such as the gay marriage and abortion debate, but it'd be impossible for us to exist as a democratic republic or anything else without having some superior central power superseding the individual states.
The American Revolution and the Civil War ought to permanently discredit any pro-states' rights ideology still present on the body politic (and outside wing nut fringe anti-communists sects like the Jon Birch Society, Constitution Party, and the latest right-wing populist cesspool of the Tea Parties protests, it doesn't). Anti-Federalism isn't an ideology or philosophy as much as it is an opportunistic narcissist's dream world (which makes it prime choice worldview for Republicans & Libertarians)...
President Obama is like the AHCA his administration miraculously passed: marginally helpful, efficient enough to be built upon, and will only become a uniform disaster if Republicans win 2012 & repeal it (with all the other good he did)!
Incredible journalist and Constitutional lawyer, Glenn Greenwald, lays out exactly why the RON PAUL question is such a critical one for people who consider themselves progressives.
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton/
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nxmdw/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/
Ron Paul holds a mirror to progressives who Voted Obama into office and intend to vote for him again...and reveals the MASSIVE contradiction/betrayal you have to make to your ideals in doing so.
Greenwald does not deny the many worst of 2 evils analyses you have to make given unlikely overlap in positions, but it forces you to decide exactly what's more important - and GREENWALD honestly and succinctly lays out the major issues at hand (WHICH HAS NOT BEEN DONE SO IN THE MANY MANY ANTI-RON PAUL RANTS ON The C&L Comment boards AND by the C&L blog posters themselves.)
I CHALLENGE YOU TO ADDRESS GLENN GREENWALDS ARGUEMENTS!! How do you come to piece with these moral decisions you're forced to face when you pile on the criticism on the ONLY CANDIDATE WHO IS TRULY AGAINST WAR OF AGRESSION, INDISCRIMINATE excess in breach of executive branch power and DESTRUCTION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES.
By the way, President Obama signed into law the NDAA with a long signing statement saying he would be sure to play good president and not indefinitely detain American citizens, even though the very bill he signs into law says he can... YOUR PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENT DID THIS. RON PAUL AND RAND PAUL WERE AGAINST THIS KIND OF POWER. YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS!
"The thing I loathe most about election season is reflected in the central fallacy that drives progressive discussion the minute “Ron Paul” is mentioned. As soon as his candidacy is discussed, progressives will reflexively point to a slew of positions he holds that are anathema to liberalism and odious in their own right and then say: how can you support someone who holds this awful, destructive position? The premise here — the game that’s being played — is that if you can identify some heinous views that a certain candidate holds, then it means they are beyond the pale, that no Decent Person should even consider praising any part of their candidacy.
The fallacy in this reasoning is glaring. The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient."
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