January 10, 2008
see
NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist
Ron Paul @ Fox Debate 1-10-08 (videos)
Don’t Be a Sucker (must-see videos; fascism)
Why Ron Paul’s left-wing champions are wrong by Elizabeth Schulte
January 10, 2008
see
NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist
Ron Paul @ Fox Debate 1-10-08 (videos)
Don’t Be a Sucker (must-see videos; fascism)
Why Ron Paul’s left-wing champions are wrong by Elizabeth Schulte
Dandelion Salad 
Your Ron Paul video is the best example of why you should never let other people write on your behalf.
“”I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one.) The Bohemian Grove–perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr. New Money.”
People, the dude is a wack-a-doo.
Believing that a white property owner has the right to discriminate against black people is not consistent with libertarian principles. Where in the world did you get that idea, bon? Is it because Paul claims to be a libertarian therefore what he says must be libertarian? Is that where you have screwed up in your thinking?
I’m a libertarian, and as a libertarian I can’t elevate private property over personal freedom. I can’t because it is a violation of libertarianism. Libertarians recognize the organic rights that founded this country: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Permitting property owners to curtail the personal freedoms of individuals (liberty), to harm their lives, to cause them unhappiness, is a violation of the founding principles, the whole purpose of our republic. This is why libertarians are the strongest supporters of civil rights. Civil rights is intrinsic to libertarianism!
You don’t believe that a person should be able to use his property in a way that causes cancer to those around him, do you? Of course not. We don’t allow property owners to harm other people. White property owners discriminating against blacks is harming people. Therefore, a just society – one based on libertarianism – stops such damaging behavior. Property is a means to an end, bon, not an end that trumps organic rights.
The truth is that Ron Paul is not a libertarian. He really isn’t. He is a states rights conservative. That’s a completely different thing. He is coding his racism in faux-libertarian rhetoric and people, not fully understanding of what libertarianism is, and too young to know the origin of Paul’s views, are falling for it. He is being dramatically Orwellian, taking his politics and saying that they are the opposite of what they really are. A man who is fundamentally opposed to civil rights is claiming to be a civil rights figure! Come on, people, don’t be suckers!
Very good point Bon regarding Clinton and Edward’s racism in voting for (and then Obama’s too) in continuing to fund the Iraq War.
Certainly that is a sort of racism (though more accurately nationalism) of a much more nasty and dangerous sort then anything evidenced by Paul. I’m less familiar with Paul’s writings but have also noticed the offending prose in those newsletters simply doesn’t flow/read like the Paul I’ve grown accustomed to.
Still, it was highly irresponsible. And one does have to wonder if Paul is comfortable with some repugnant company as long as he thinks some fundamental issue is being addressed. This is a real concern. How far right will Paul feel comfortable going in regards to immigration to secure support for an issue progressive-left supporters find critical? How far right before you feel uncomfortable?
Clearly his rhetoric is compromisable as when he talks about his preference for bringing troops home even if it means turning around and spending that money on social services at home (which clearly on libertarian grounds he opposes). That’s a sort of compromise the progressive-left would be thrilled about. Obviously it’s a very real possibility that a Paul presidency could make compromises which the progressive-left would genuinely and relevantly be horrified by.
So there’s some real substance behind these concerns, even if they’re being dressed with what looks like bullshit.
look.
opposing the civil rights act of 1964 on private property grounds is not racist. it is consistent with libertarian principles. you *do* have the right to discriminate as to who enters your home and/or your property. paul has made it clear, however, that when it comes to public schools and the federal government, there is no such right. it is the difference between *your* property and *our* property.
and paul’s new money bomb isn’t an insult to MLK. in fact, he compromised his constitutional principles to put forth a vote in recognition of MLK’s federally-recognized holiday. we will be marching EN MASSE on this day not only to counter the mainstream media’s blatant smears on dr. paul’s character, but also to remind people that the Ron Paul Revolution is about liberty and justice FOR ALL, not one group at the expense of another, and that this time we are ALL being rendered slaves by a carefully crafted central economic system of socialism for the rich that doesn’t care ONE JOT about the color of your skin.
i can see how writers with more racist intent would flock to ron paul’s newsletters while he took a vacation from politics to practice medicine full time. but there is a big difference between those who oppose the civil war on federalist/libertarian grounds and those who oppose the civil war because they think slavery should still be a valid institution in the united states. anyone who has read paul’s writings on the subject knows that paul is more in line with the libertarian historical revisionist category than the neo-confederate movement.
i have read paul’s voluminous writings. everything from his books on austrian economics, “freedom under siege,” a “foreign policy of freedom,” nearly all his articles, essays, speeches to congress on ronpaullibrary.org, and not only do the suspect newsletters clearly not resemble his general tone or writing style, the small-minded slurs are clearly not recognizable from a man of such scholarly insight into economics and u.s. history.
as other people have noted, this is old news, paul has taken moral responsibility for what has been written under his name for over a decade now, and this is being rehashed in mainstream news for political reasons. we all knew it would happen. “first they ignore you…” well, we’re in the attack phase now. we clearly beat some of the so-called “front-runners” in iowa and new hampshire (notably giuliani and thompson). the establishment is scared. for once, a candidate is targeting their REAL center of power, the monetary system, not just promising “hope” and “change.”
and let me just say this: even IF (and this is a big IF) ron paul had some unsavory personal views…his voting record has shown him to be a consistent, principled libertarian and constitutionalist, and just as his views on abortion or free markets or what have you would not be implemented at the federal level by executive orders or anything of the sort (paul does not believe the executive branch has any such legislative authority), neither would any of these things.
what would happen, on the other hand, if paul was commander in chief is this: our troops would come home, immediately, all our money that is wasted overseas would be invested domestically, government would be returned to the local level and we would have a fighting chance of ending american empire before we all go bankrupt.
to me, a vote for the iraq war (and/or its funding) is more “racist” in the real sense of leading to the wholesale slaughter and enslavement of a whole group of people based on racist ethnocentric lies than allegedly racist quips in a retro newsletter with likely ghostwriters who have their own personal agenda. in my view, hillary, obama, edwards, indeed, all the “top tier” candidates who voted for and funded this racist war, are much worse off in this regard than paul.
that’s my two cents.
-bon-
RON PAUL AND HIS RACE WAR
In an undated solicitation letter for The Ron Paul Investment Letter and the Ron Paul Political Report, Paul writes: “I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities.”
Click to access solicitation.pdf
As you can see,
RON PAUL SINCERELY SIGNED THE LETTER:
RON PAUL AND HIS RACE WAR:
In an undated solicitation letter for The Ron Paul Investment Letter and the Ron Paul Political Report, Paul writes: “I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities.”
Click to access solicitation.pdf
As you can see,
RON PAUL SINCERELY SIGNED THE LETTER:
This man is so full of it it’s incredible. He lies like a dog. He told Wolf that he celebrates the Civil Rights movement. This is what Ron Paul said on July 3, 2004 in the House of Representatives:
“[C]ontrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676 [a resolution honoring the signing of the bill, which every single congressperson but Paul voted for], the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.”
Why such opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and several other acts, such as the Voting Rights Act, which Paul opposes, as well)? Because Paul is a segregationist. He says that the “federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.”
Let me make this perfectly clear for those of you who like to pretend like you didn’t understand things that might nudge you out of denial. What this means it this: if a white store owner does not want to serve blacks at his soda shop, he does not have to. The white store owner has a legal right to discriminate against blacks. It’s his property, and he negotiates the contracts, therefore he wouldn’t have to hire any blacks either. That belief and practice is a fundamental part of the essence of racism. That is exactly what the Civil Rights movement opposed and fought to change. If you believe that white property owners can legally not serve or hire blacks, then you oppose Civil Rights.
See, Ron Paul doesn’t have to call black people names in public to be a racist. No person has to talk ugly about black people to be a racist. A racist is a white person who believes that he and other white people have a legal right to discriminate against black people. That is precisely what Ron Paul believes. That’s not opposition to collectivism, like Paul claims. (Which is why his claim, “Libertarians are incapable of being a racist, because racism is a collectivist idea,” is such a pile of crap.)
It’s astonishing the way Wolf sucked up to him and defended him. Blitzer is so completely ignorant of the racial history and ethical-moral-legal basis of racism and the struggle against it that he doesn’t see racism unless people say ugly words. In ignorance, he let Paul make such claims as King said people shouldn’t be treated on the basis of the color of their skin. No, what King said was that he had a dream that one day that could be true; but King knew it wasn’t true in his day or in the near future, and so he advocated affirmative action and reparations for black people. King’s philosophy is anti-racist. Paul’s is not.
Okay, so here’s what happened with the newsletters. It’s obvious when you read them and put them in the context of the times. The political right was emboldened during the 1980s by the election of Ronald Reagan, the expansion of the executive and the military-industrial complex, the ascendancy of Christianism (conservative Christian extremism), and the belligerent authoritarianism military Christianism breeds among the general public. The movement grew more extreme in the period between Reagan and the Oklahoma City bombing (an incident which delegitimated the militia movement over the next several years).
From the vantage point of the late 1980s, Paul thought the white militia movement had legs that would carry it well into the next decade. That’s why he changed the name of the report to the Ron Paul Survival Report. This was the ground from which Paul cultivated his grassroots following, namely the white nationalist neoconfederate crowd. He was tapping into the whole angry white man phenomenon, with all its raging against black criminals and welfare queens. This was also when AIDS put homosexuality on the political landscape in a big way. Paul was tapping into white anger during and after the LA riots. ( I monitored right-wing AM radio then and white nationalism was bursting out all over, in part due to Reagan killing the fairness doctrine and purging most liberal-progressive programming from the band. Talk show hosts were openly railing against blacks.) Racist language made a huge resurgence during this period, white supremacy was enjoying something of a renaissance, and, in the context of this frenzy, Ron Paul, whose politics have always been consistent with survivalist/separatist values, such as hatred of the federal government, found his voice.
But then the whole militia things goes away and Paul, with his political aspirations renewed, has a problem on his hands. When confronted with the newsletters the first time, he admits to writing them, but says the quotes are taken out of context. The problem goes away for few years while he (like George Wallace before him) carefully re-tools his language to rationalize everything in terms of states rights. But now the comments are back and now he denies having written any of it at all, in fact, not knowing who wrote it or even who was editor!
He was extremely evasive on this weak line of questioning. He kept distracting the public from the issue by talking about how much “the blacks” support him (like most of the public, they have been in the dark about Paul, too), about how he is helping “the blacks” by pardoning “all non-violent drug offenders” (most of whom are in state prisons – what about states rights, Paul?), and about the money bomb on Martin Luther King Jr., Holiday.
The money bomb thing is truly insulting. This is a little like Hitler celebrating Hanukkah. Paul loaths King and opposes everything King stood for. Paul even voted against the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. Paul writes:
“The official line among some conservatives and libertarians is that the civil rights movement started out well, but went astray after King’s death. In fact, it was bad from the beginning, never seeking the mere removal of Jim Crow laws, which would have been legitimate, but forced integration and wealth redistribution. In 1988 when I ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, I was berated for hours by LP members because I had refused to vote, while in Congress, for a Martin Luther King national holiday. I didn’t know about his plagiarism, but the rest of Kings crimes were clear. J. Edgar Hoover called him “the most dangerous man in America.” Who could have known the damage would continue after his death and threaten to strangle our culture?”
Totally missing from the picture is the fact that Hoover and the FBI declared war on Martin Luther King, Jr. They had a special program for Civil Rights leaders like King, X, Hampton, Carmichael called COINTELPRO. Damn straight Hoover thought King was “the most dangerous man in America.” King threatened the racial order of things Hoover believed it was his job to preserve. Paul stands with his fellow Republicans, such as Jesse Helms, who delivered a lengthy speech on the Senate floor making the same arguments about Martin Luther King, Jr. Paul’s pattern of racist thought is consistent, even while he codes his language.
Blitzer, like most talking heads, operates with no working grasp of historical context and dynamics. So all those people at home watching CNN walked away with a choice between whether to believe Paul did or did not write some racist rants in a newsletter with his name on it. They don’t leave the interview with an understanding that Paul lied and spun the entire time and, more important, that it’s what he believes and says in this decade that’s the real problem.
“This is undoubtedly serious dirt.”
Apparently not, this ‘big contraversy’ is over a decade old.
A lot of candidates say i’m the only candidate to… fill in the blank. Speaking of candidates the person who broke this story is a Giuliani supporter, Apperently the Paulbots weren’t the only ones who noticed Paul beat Rudy in Iowa.
Pingback: Ron Paul @ Fox Debate 1-10-08 (videos) « Dandelion Salad
“What other candidate” asks Paul, is for dismantling the racist drug laws?
Answer: Dennis Kucinich!
Dennis would have been much more dilligent about what was published in his name, and issued repudiations the moment they were published.
This is undoubtedly serious dirt.
So where are the paulbots to go if they have questions about his scruples? Republicans have no other anti-war candidates, paulbots have no option but to flock to Kucinich!
Thanks Seth!
Thanks to everyone for your comments.
Thanks for posting this, Lo. I had been hearing about this controversy for a few days and wanted to get to the bottom of it. We can always count on you to get the word out!
“I do not believe that Ron Paul is discriminatory, but I do think that it’s very stupid that he (and most politicians) would be willing to allow their name to be put on something that they haven’t even read. ”
Ditto
By the way Ron was one of what 4 candidates who showed up at the Morgan State University Forum.
I do not believe that Ron Paul is discriminatory, but I do think that it’s very stupid that he (and most politicians) would be willing to allow their name to be put on something that they haven’t even read. I do not agree at all with his stance on illegal immigration, but I don’t believe his misguided stance was motivated by xenophobia.
The Drug War is a racial injustice – perhaps not as much of a racially motivated injustice as an economically motivated injustice, but a racial injustice nonetheless. Why is it that rich white men can get out of doing any time for shipping thousands of kilograms of cocaine and heroin, but a black man in an impoverished neighborhood gets hard time for a bag of marijuana or a small amount of crack? These acts haven’t victimized anybody – so why are the prisons releasing white murderers and rapists from prisons in an attempt to make more room for black people that smoke weed?
Ron Paul is the only one with the cajones to fight that corruption. If he were a racist man, why would he be the only one standing up for the many innocent black men in women in prison?
“None of the articles we found say who wrote them.” – Brian Todd
Why wasn’t this brought up before the Morgan State University Forum? Hell, Why wasn’t this brought up when he announced his candidacy for President?
Old News, the Republic and Republicans are afraid that there lip service will be shown for what it is..