*Chance that Paul secretly believes all races are equal, but was just wanking off to appeal to the racist voters of his district: 1%

Even if that were the case, it’d be awfully irresponsible behavior. If he secretly believed all races were equal, then he could have avoided alienating the racist voters by keeping his damn mouth shut about race. If you present yourself as holding more reprehensible views than you actually do, then you’re part of the problem.

Of course he’s a racist - he’s also a huge misogynist who takes hardest possible line on choice, but no one gives a shit (including a disturbing number of supposedly progressive men).

Any time someone asks the question “is Ron Paul a racist in his heart,” I respond “what the fuck does it matter?” Seriously, whether he means it or whether he’s doing it for political gain is irrelevant—the net result is the same, and it means I’m not going to vote for him. And that sets aside the fact that the answer to that question is unknowable in any real sense.

Hey, don’t forget the disturbing number of supposedly progressive women, PlutocracyFiles.  I saw them every weekend at the farmer’s market here in Fairfield, Iowa, working the Paul campaign table with their brothers-in-arms.

There’s really no defending Ron Paul at this point.  He’s not the nice libertarian who has crazy views on taxes but at least gets all of the social and war issues right that some liberals wanted.  What we really need, then, is a darned real liberal who understands that we shouldn’t have laws against consensual crimes and that we should avoid war fighting.

I wonder if part of the MSM fear of taking him on is fear of his supporters. The paulite hive mind seems to tingle whenever anyone says anything negative about “the doctor” and his supporters are as relentless as MRAs. I think part of the reluctance to take him on is knowing that there will be a shit-storm of spam and harassment coming your way.

I think there’s another possibility, namely that he’s an agnostic racist—somebody who doesn’t really care whether the races are equal, because what he cares about is himself and the people close to him. Oh yeah, and all those people just happen to be white. He saw a chance to make money and political capital by writing (or having ghost-written by a staffer) racist screeds and was on it. No hard feelings.

Which is a lot like the standard “centrist” politician’s approach to women’s rights: sure, nice to talk about, but easy to throw under the bus when “real” politics needs to get done.

idiosynchronic, it must be awful there. All those maharishi’s are a whole lotta crazy for such a little town.

Sadly, I have to agree with Will Wilkinson’s assessment of Ron Paul:

“If you were an evil genius determined to promote the idea that libertarianism is a morally dubious ideology of privilege poorly disguised as a doctrine of liberation, you’d be hard pressed to improve on Ron Paul.”

Racism is, in many ways, the Achilles’ heel of classical liberalism in America. It is far too easy for a defense of markets to slip into a knee-jerk defense of current economic outcomes, which inevitably comes into conflict with the obvious gap between whites and non-whites. At that point, a libertarian must come up with an “explanation” for this gap—and the subtle racism lurking beneath the surface of our culture is all too ready to supply that answer.

I think Maddow is right that Paul could yet turn the corner on this issue, and denounce his past. But, I suspect that Paul is just too old and set in his ways to do so.

I haven’t read the newsletters in question, but I thought it was a fact of the political fundraising business that those things are ghostwritten. Not that Paul isn’t capable of believing or espousing those things, just that a ghostwriter is more likely to express it in such a way as to maximize the flow of ducats from rich scumbags to the Paul campaign coffers. 

The fact that our media is the most willfully gullible group of people in the world should be alarming to a lot more people than it currently is.

I think Paul-paying-lipservice-to-his-constituents theory is less likely than he just hired some guy to write his articles and didn’t read them. As the Maddow bit pointed out, the newsletter’s blatant racism helped him with the election handily. If his congressional district is really that backwards and racist, it’s not like Paul is going to be immune from that. He has to represent those people. I have never met someone who wasn’t racist (as in, really wasn’t racist, not someone who didn’t think they were racist BUT…) who could stomach to be around racists, much less pander to their ignorance. 

If Paul was really doing a calculated ploy to win votes for that miserable little shitwater that ate up his racist rants and repeatedly re-elected him, he’d be a fucking moron to think he could launch a national campaign with that sort of stuff in his past. It might play in Whiteflightburg, TX, but it won’t export well.

The part about how to kill a black person and get away with it made me ill.

@Libertarian (Comment #13)  This is a guy who wouldn’t even vote for a resolution memorializing the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

  Why is this news? The New Republic has been pointing out that all evidence suggests that Ron Paul is racist for years.

As far as the claims go, I am with Amanda on this one- I grew up in an area similar to where she did, and racist people are everywhere.  It’s so prevalent it stops being noteworthy.  Now that I live in the city, it’s shocking when people say these things, but back then it wasn’t at all.  On the contrary, a white, conservative non-racist male from a rural area is a mythical creature, not unlike Bigfoot. 

Salon had a clip of him on CNN in the 90’s discussing his newsletters, so it’s not like he didn’t know they were being published.  Add to the his story keeps changing.  Finally, Ron Paul says all kinds of crazy things, so I don’t know this is surprising- the only difference is that in our society you can be openly pro-gold standard, pro-forced birth, and opposed to social safety nets, but not openly racist.

 
  Various Jewish organizations have also been tracking Ron Paul’s relationship with hate groups for years.

If somebody is ghostwriting stuff for you, don’t you check over the content before it’s published?  Don’t you also give the ghostwriter guidelines about what you want to say?

If Paul didn’t believe this stuff, but was pandering to voters, that’s almost worse.

If his name is on it, and it was issued by his campaign, then he’s responsible for it, or AT BEST for not knowing what his campaign was publishing and stopping it if he didn’t approve of the content.

Isn’t that what “personal responsibility” is about?

@Libertarian: and yet, in “disavowing” them, he doesn’t talk about correcting the supposed management problems that he would like us to believe created them in the first place.

We have here a man seeking to become President of the USA.  He tells us that the newsletters, which made him over a million dollars, were created by mysterious, shadowy, never named or identified, other people.  He claims that during the ten years during which racist rants went out in his newsletters he somehow had absolutely no idea what was going on.

That, to me, looks like evidence that Ron Paul is simply too incompetent to be president regardless of any other issues.  And nothing he’s said has ever indicated that, assuming his pretty transparently false story were true, he’s changed his management style so that the same random, shadowy, crazy, people who wrote the rants won’t be able to, say, launch a war on Iran or something.

And yes, actually, there is evidence of Ron Paul doing racist things other than the newsletters.  He gave an exclusive interview to the natorious white supremicist website VDare back in the 2007. 

So yes, actually, we do have recent examples of Ron Paul doing racist things.

He’s also extremely anti-choice, going so far as to lie and claim that there is never such a thing as a medically necessary abortion.  Despite his much vaunted claims of believing in “State’s Rights” he voted on several occasions to outlaw abortion.

He’s also a homobigot, and voted to prohibit same sex couples from adopting in Washington DC.  Despite, I might add, that being opposed by a large majority of DC residents; apparently Ron Paul’s claim to support local rule isn’t as strong as his burning hatred of homosexuals.

He also pushes for measures that will, demonstrably, reduce the civil liberties available to many Americans.  His “We The People Act”, for example, would have immediately put homosexuals in Texas at risk of incarceration simply for being gay, criminalized anyone owning more than six sex toys, and prohibited me and any other Texan atheists from holding office.

You can argue that is merely a consequence of his “State’s Rights” believes and that he personally doesn’t like such things.  I say that doesn’t matter.  I care about results, not ideals.  If the results of Ron Paul getting his way would be a decrease in civil rights than I’m opposed to Ron Paul regardless of whether or not he personally wants that decrease in civil rights or not.

To make an analogy, imagine that I’m strapped down and a killing weight is suspended over my by a rope.  Ron Paul wants to cut that rope.  He says that he doesn’t hate me, and he says he’s personally opposed to me being crushed by a killing weight.  He claims he just has an ideological position that all ropes must be cut.

You can see how I wouldn’t really care whether or not he’s motivated by malice towards me, I still wouldn’t support his policies, yes?

He uses the word “I” in his rants, repeatedly. Basically, case closed.

Ghostwriters don’t generally work without a script. Having done work somewhat along those lines, I can tell you that it usually involves lots of reading of other stuff the ostensible author has written, plus at least a few discussions of what points are going to be highlighted. Or it involves being a close associate of the ostensible author, so that you can hit the right notes from memory.

States’ rights have got to be the fundamental stupidity of American libertarianism. I mean, states are government and believing in states’ rights even when they are people is the exact opposite of freedom, even by libertarian definitions.

Libertarian, how is your argument at all relevant? We have a clear track record of Paul using racism to sell is organization, candidacy, and belief system. You can’t “disavow” it and pretend it didn’t happen.

My assumption is in line with the “racism-agnostic” claim made above—he thinks that African Americans are poor because they deserve it for whatever reasons he invents in his head. It is also well known that in an effort to attract support to the otherwise unpopular fringe ideology of Libertarianism, there was an effort to attract disaffected white racists to he cause by convincing them that libertarians had the same concerns that they did.

If libertarianism is such a valid belief system, why is it espoused by such crazed moral idiots like Ron Paul? If this is the best that libertarianism has to offer, and of they rely on racist texans whipped up into a hateful fervor to get them elected to congress, then maybe it’s actually a defective belief system incompatible with the American way of life and incompatible with being a good person.

should say “even when they are opposed to people’s rights”

Look, he’s currently running ads where he claims that abortion providers through dead babies in baskets, whatever that means.

Which one is that? I got some people I need to confront with uncomfortable facts.

Chances that Ron Paul at some point figured out that gathering a bunch of gullible fanboys by doing/saying anything that might appeal to them, regardless of how crass and immoral, because they give him political influence way above and beyond what the bare merits (such as they may be) of his twisted political philosophy would ordinarily grant?  100%

Odds he’ll ride the massive wave of worshipful idiocy that has followed him for some years already right into his grave?  100%

Odds that anything he has said or done during his decades on earth will have a lasting positive influence on the course of politics in this country?  0.001%

This just reminds me why I’m still angry that Steve Gilliard ain’t around anymore to ream this bastard… :(

Here’s a list of some memorable quotes from the newsletter. Notice the heavy use of the first person and personal details.

Here’s the ad. A man capable of telling that lie with a straight face is capable of all sorts of things.

If you read the quotes, you’ll realize Paul is not “racism-agnostic”. He suggests that car-jacking is a sport for black men, and uses the word “animals” to describe them. He whines that whites can’t have their own stuff that black people can’t use. He predicts a race war. He accuses MLK of pedophilia. That’s not agnostic or trying to rationalize racial inequality. It’s pretty pure.

But… but… but…  Ron Paul is the only candidate that will finally end all wars.  And he will defeat SOPA and NDAA and every other anti-freedom bill by dissolving the federal government on his first day in office.  And he’ll shit sunshine and piss rainbows.  And the nation will rejoice as we are released into a new Gilded Age of free-market good and plenty.  Only Ron Paul can do this!  Obama has failed and the GOP has failed and he is your absolute no-questions 100% last best hope for a brighter tomorrow.

I love how Paulbots will tell you “This has been debunked and discredited over and over”. Apparently a simple “I didn’t do it” now counts as a debunking.

You know, the whole “attract racist rednecks to libertarianism by sending out racist newsletters” got me thinking that opposition to the war and SOPA and the NDAA is probably just another scam. “Libertarianism is unpopular, but we can attract young voters with opposition issues they are also against.” Was Ron Paul ever standing up to increased militarization of law enforcement and use of copyright as a bludgeon against individuals until it became something to give him and his anti-tax fanaticism more attention and support?

  Why is this news? The New Republic has been pointing out that all evidence suggests that Ron Paul is racist for years.
Comment #15: Lee on 12/23 at 04:17 PM

The New Republic has their own problems with racism against Muslims. This has made them increasingly suspect, over the past decade or so, in the eyes of many progressives.

@Comment #31: Tyro on 12/23 at 04:39 PM

You know, the whole “attract racist rednecks to libertarianism by sending out racist newsletters” got me thinking that [Paul’s] opposition to the war and SOPA and the NDAA is probably just another scam. “Libertarianism is unpopular, but we can attract young voters with opposition issues they are also against.”

It’s possible, but what if Paul actually is a far-right-wing racist anti-war candidate, exactly as he appears to be?

Chance that Paul secretly believes all races are equal, but was just wanking off to appeal to the racist voters of his district: 1%

Yeah.  I call that the “he’s not a racist because all he did is pretend to be one in order to garner votes and earn money” defense.  It’s not as absurd however as the one the Paultards in Reddit were spamming the most: “He’s a doctor, so he was too busy to pay any attention to a company that he owns and presides and whose purpose is to promote him, his ideas and his life’s greatest ambition to be President of the United States, so by making this excusable mistake he got taken advantage of by the actual editor and ghostwriter of the newsletter, who he still employs as a top political advisor 20+ years later.”

It’s possible, but what if Paul actually is a far-right-wing racist anti-war candidate, exactly as he appears to be?

It’s certainly possible, but I think it’s more likely that he doesn’t really care about wars or individual rights, but these issues attract attention towards his broader anti-government belief system.

Comment #13: Libertarian on 12/23 at 04:07 PM

What evidence is there, other than the newletters, of him ever making racist statements, or committing racist acts?  Any?

Well, some people have given you straight answers on this one, so I’ll just paraphrase your question: “Other than the evidence and arguments that you have presented, what evidence do you have?”

@Comment #35: Tyro on 12/23 at 06:04 PM

It’s certainly possible, but I think it’s more likely that he doesn’t really care about wars or individual rights, but these issues attract attention towards his broader anti-government belief system.

Why do you believe that Paul doesn’t really care about wars or individual rights?

I don’t think Paul’s antiwar views are sincere, old right paleocons have always hated war not out of humanitarianism but of a distaste for getting involved in the affairs of dirty foreigners.

I do think the popularity of his antiwar views have led a lot of impressionable young people down the libertarian path however. “If the nice man is right about the war he’s probably also right about Medicare being a huge scam and that we need to go back to the gold standard”

And that’s really a shame.

I meant I don’t think his antiwar views are *insincere*

*Chance that someone ghost-wrote it with Paul’s blessing and knowledge: 3%
*Chance that Paul is a racist crank who wrote every word in his rants where he refers to himself as “I” and mentions his house and other personal details: 95%

Actually, from what I’ve been reading, the top theory is that Lew Rockwell (or a close associate of his) ghostwrote most of the content for Ron Paul’s newsletters.  So it’s more like a 75% chance that Lew Rockwell ghostwrote it with Paul’s blessing and knowledge.

Who cares if Paul wrote them or not?  Profiting from these nauseating racist screeds which endanger and demean real people is itself racist.  It’s impossible to think that’s a worthwhile trade-off and not deny the worth of people of color.

@Comment #38: typist on 12/23 at 06:14 PM

I don’t think Paul’s antiwar views are [in]sincere, old right paleocons have always hated war not out of humanitarianism but of a distaste for getting involved in the affairs of dirty foreigners.

This is basically my view as well. Actually racist & actually anti-war.

This point may seem nitpicky, but I think it is important to appreciate that people can “actually” hold the same opinions you do, while still being of very different overall mentality than you. Not that you have to support them—just so you understand.

@Comment #40: sacundim on 12/23 at 05:30 PM

Actually, from what I’ve been reading, the top theory is that Lew Rockwell (or a close associate of his) ghostwrote most of the content for Ron Paul’s newsletters.  So it’s more like a 75% chance that Lew Rockwell ghostwrote it with Paul’s blessing and knowledge.

Isn’t this rather like the CEO’s who, when their organization is shown to have broken the law, claim that they had no knowledge of what was going on? Whatever the hell happened to “the buck stops here”?

themasses @41, atheist @43: see my earlier comment #34.  The reason for pointing this out is because it leads to further inconsistencies with Paul’s dodges of this story.

Ron Paul claims these days that he doesn’t know who wrote his newsletters, that he never read them and that whoever wrote them completely misrepresented him—but the newsletter’s most likely ghostwriter is, to this day, one of his close associates.

atheist, in my house we call that the “stopped clock” phenomenon. Hey, it’s right twice a day!

Frankly, if Paul is not personally a racist, but was spreading this racist BS, it is even worse.  Also worth noting that he was doing this all through the 1990s, long after this sort of thing was generally abandoned by Southern politicians (usually in favor of coded dog whistles).  Either way, the man needs to be permanently debarred from polite company and the public discourse.

I have long had a soft spot for Paul. Partly due to his foreign policy but mostly because the Republican Establishment detests the man. If the GOP moneymen and their mouthpieces such as Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh don’t like him, then he’s gotta be the least-bad option of the circus, right?

Nope. I tried to cut him a break at first when this was first surfacing, attributing it merely to Mitt’s mud-slinging machine. But the evidence is overwhelming. As Amanda said, case closed.

A pity.

It is simply impossible to be a Republican officeholder and not be pretty darn racist.  The GOP is so institutionally racist that human beings who aren’t racist aren’t capable of compartmentalizing that well.

Plus, he’s a libertarian, so he hates women with every fiber of his being.

Ron Paul is as honest as his eyebrows are real.

Ron Paul still supports the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but with slavery only for women.

Look, he’s currently running ads where he claims that abortion providers through [sic] dead babies in baskets, whatever that means.

Which one is that? I got some people I need to confront with uncomfortable facts.
Comment #25: Sherm on 12/23 at 04:39 PM

...Sherm. Paul is a hypocritical sham and his beliefs a danger to truly consistently good people (unlike him), and the claim you cite is false, but there is something to the smoke.  A company in Texas, I think, was supposed to dispose of fetal remains was caught a while back disposing of them as trash or environmental waste, or something like that.  Sorry I can’t recall the details.  The company has to pay a fine (and follow their contract, which called for a more respectful disposal) but is not banned from continuing their work in that regard.

Yet Paul is a fraud and liar and should be treated as such. Shunning would be good.  But I sort of like how he’s acting like a rocket aimed at the heart of the GOP nomination process.  Hopefully he will be a useful (idiot) sociopath.

Ron Paul is Ralph Nader but without a past history of integrity or a record of improving life in this country.

I don’t care if he wrote it, didn’t read it, whatever - his name was on it and he didn’t care until now, despite questions.

If he were truly repentant, he’d repent publicly anyhow.  He’s never done this, and still doesn’t have an answer to what should be simple, ‘I’m sorry’.

He votes racist anyhow.  Don’t care about his newsletters, care about his actions.  He’s had twenty years of votes.

“Actually racist & actually anti-war.” Yes, there’s plenty of wiggle room for the paleocons to do their damage in.  Another example of this phenomenon is that a strand of the American neo-nazi and white supremacist movement/s considers itself to be pro-environment, desiring clean air and water, etc, but…wait for it….because a pure white country deserves a pure clean environment.

Yes, Paul’s a long-time sincere antiwar crank, but it would be interesting to see what wars and military adventures a President Paul WOULD choose to be involved in, as you know he’d let the military-industrial complex run wild during his own administration.

Oh, oh! I know, President Paul would declare on (some of) the United States.  It would be a new civil war, between the 21st century U.S. and the pre-1950s U.S.  Certain states would be demoted to territories until they fell into line with the feudalism that Paul’s cafeteria libertarianism would enforce.  Finally, revenge for Reconstruction!  Why, Ron Paul, where are your manors?!

@atheist: I’d say that his anti-abortion views alone make him anti-civil rights. I can’t see a position that reconciles the two—at bare minimum, the argument is: blastocyte>woman.

One last (deserved) snarky comment about Paul.  How could this have eluded the Pandagon comment thread until now?  Ron Paul is a trademarked Nice Guy!  He’ll tell you how to live your life!  Vote for Ron! How bad could it be?  How the Patriarchs have awaited his ascension!  And his supporters?  Nice Guys all!  And their internalizing female self-oppressors!  They should have their own political party!  Oh, wait, they already have one and a half parties, not counting the libertarians.  “A Nice Guy in the White House”, a ready-made bumper sticker.  But has there ever NOT been a Nice Guy in the White House?

Say what you will, he is the only republican taking a strong stand against racial profiling and pointing out the clear racial bias in the judicial system.  Those sentiments are clearly in contradiction with what’s written in his newsletters.  You can’t argue he’s pandering those views because if he were pandering, he wouldn’t be bringing that up in the republican party, which makes me skeptical as to whether he’s actually a racist.

The paulite hive mind seems to tingle whenever anyone says anything negative about “the doctor” and his supporters are as relentless as MRAs.

A Venn diagram of Paul supporters and MRAs would consist largely or mostly of overlap, so that’s really not surprising.

One thing about racism is that people never think they’re racist. They think they’re normal, and they gauge everyone else by that standard.  (1)

So from your POV—whatever it is—everyone who’s (shall we say) less comfortable with people who don’t look like them is a racist; and everyone who’s more comfortable . . . well, they used to be called “[N-word]-lovers,” and now you get complaints about “political correctness” (which implies that the complainers’ racism is a normal state), and assertions that Americans who voted for Obama (who won in a landslide, so that’s most of us) did so, not because they had misgivings about the GOP or McCain/Palin, or because Obama is a brainy, hard-working guy who ran a beautifully organized campaign, but specifically because Obama is black (i.e., we are not sufficiently uncomfortable with his race, according to those making such assertions). 

Obviously, this particular POV-based scale of who’s racist and who’s not is more applicable to the Right; progressives, pretty much to a one, accept that our level of race-based discomfort should ideally be zero, even if we don’t always live up to it.

Anyway, Ron Paul is racist compared to us.
_________
(1)This may be tangentially related to the Kruger-Dunning model, in which incompetent people believe themselves to be normally competent.

@Comment #55: Mark Temporis on 12/24 at 01:27 AM

@atheist: I’d say that his anti-abortion views alone make him anti-civil rights. I can’t see a position that reconciles the two—at bare minimum, the argument is: blastocyte>woman.

Very good point. I’d say that Paul’s conception of civil liberties is a far right wing one.

A friend of mine and I confronted some Paul supporters in a public square in 2008.  My friend loudly announced that Ron Paul was a racist.  The Paul supporters said “no he’s not.  Visit his website.”

I was fucking floored that this was their response.  No defense, no explanation, no anger, no ad hominem reply, just “visit his website”.  It was bizarre.

Does anyone honestly believe, for one single second, that if something in the Ron Paul newsletters was being praised…some poetic turn of phrase, or I don’t know, a hypothesis that contributed to a cure for cancer…that he wouldn’t take credit for it? That he wouldn’t be all over it as his original brilliant contribution?

You take the bad with the good. It’s got your name on it, it’s yours. And if it walks like a racist and quacks like a racist…

“Very good point. I’d say that Paul’s conception of civil liberties is a far right wing one.”

...which is “You can have as many civil liberties you can afford — just as long as you’re not brown or female or mooslim…”

***

“I don’t know if this latest regurgitation of old news will make a difference, but maybe less than in the past.”

Republican/Libertarian rule of thumb regarding past transgressions against the-law/common-societal-rules/basic-human-morality/basic-common-sense:  Unless it happened this morning, and was caught on tape, it’s “old news” and doesn’t count — unless you’re a Democrat and/or The Kenyan Usurper, in which case even things you did (or even might have done) as a child will remain on your “permanent record” forever, and can be used to condemn you under any and all circumstances.  Amen.

“Your lot have used the “racist” rant so much it’s pretty discredited by now.”

So, help me understand this: If I was a Republican or a Libertarian or a teabagging/wingnut and I can’t even complete a sentence without pulling some bogus nonsense out of my ass, that doesn’t discredit me or my political movement.  But if I’m a liberal, dirty hippie, feminazi, socialist, etc., and I level charges of racism against someone on the right, regardless of how much factual evidence there is to support my claim, I’m discredited immediately.  Is that about right?

“Blah blah blah - everyone you disagree with is a racist.”

...just like from your perspective everyone you disagree with is a liberal, communist, and fascist, as well as a dirty hippie…

I’m getting tired of Maddow destroying whoever goes a bit up in that week’s polls. She’s done that with every candidate. You can predict what’s going to happen in the show by looking at a poll.

The overlap between Ron Paul fans and MRAs:

http://ashleyfmiller.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/my-vagina-is-destroying-america-or-love-from-ron-paulians/

Note the MRA talking points, like that she must have a rich boyfriend paying for her education/the rape wishes.

No, Ron Paul’s defense is nothing. “I didn’t do it”. That’s not a defense, it’s just a denail, if he were on trial for murder the jury would reach a verdict in ten minutes.

Even if he didn’t write the racist rants(I think he probably did), I’m surprised folks didn’t write in saying “dude, what’s with this shit? I’m unsubscribing”.

“Especially the liberal facists, those are the worst, and the norm.  Right?”

The “liberal fascists” are bad (something both you and Jonah “Doughy Pantload” Goldberg agree on), but personally, I really hate Christian atheists, meat-eating vegetarians, gay heterosexuals, MILF-loving pedophiles, PIV-loving virgins, and the very worst are the capitalism-hating libertarian communists who comment on liberal feminist blogs — and they’re the norm, amirite?...

There was a time when most libertarians were pro-choice, like their atheist hero Ayn Rand. Those days are long gone, and the “movement” has been taken over by Obama haters with racist signs and no grasp of actual free market theory. Oh wait, those are just a “few bad apples”.

Don’t take that as an endorsement of Ayn Rand. It’s not. But she was strongly pro-choice, I’ll give her that.

@Libertarian

Are you under the impression that there are no “black, brown or muslim” women? Because otherwise you answered your own question there. (And before you try to pull that being pro-life isn’t specifically anti-those groups, stop and think about which groups are always disproportionally affected by anti-woman policies. If you can’t answer, maybe ought to keep your thoughts on racism and who is or isn’t a racist to yourself.)

Libertarian, we have a full track record of Ron Paul’s odious ness from his movement, his newsletters, and his awful belief system which, even for Libertarianism his morally odious. The man clearlymlacksmthe moral judgment to pass the lowest possibly bar to be considered seriously or have his philosophy in any way respected by decent people. It is why he doesn’t even receive even the barest among of, “you have to respect his consistency” lip service.People who look at Ron Paul, see his history, and look at his statements and the disgusting things he engaged in to build his “movement” back in the newsletter days are repulsed by him. Yes, we looked at his newsletters and books and speeches, and he is repulsive and appeals to the most immoral and hateful elements of our society to attract attention. It’s no surprise at all that you are so attracted to him.

Why is Paul supposed to get some sort of do-over on those newsletters? “Well, he hasn’t said anything racist since then.” So fucking what? Only a racist would let that kind of garbage go out over his signature, and unless and until he convinces me otherwise, that’s what I’ll consider him.

Query:  How is being pro life anti black, brown or muslim?

You’re conflating two valid criticisms of Paul’s stances.  He is not racist because he is pro-life.  He is racist (evidence of which has been supplied multiple times on this thread), AND he is pro-life, which makes him a hypocritical libertarian.  He would get rid of the Civil Rights amendment if he could.  He would overturn Roe v Wade if he could.  His lovely newsletters also praised AIDS for getting rid of homosexuals.  So when people mention that only white cis men benefit from Paul’s style of governing, it’s because of all the vile shit he stands for.  Not just the racism.

atheist @43

What makes those arguments so glorious is that they are always used. And those same CEOs defend their obscene salaries so many thousands of times higher than the workers on the grounds that they are somehow “personally responsible for everything that happens at the company” and “are taking all the risks”.

This is what I love about partisanship and elections in the United States. A President can wage war in multiple fronts in the Middle East, killing several thousand innocent civilians and hundreds of US soldiers, pass a law that allows the indefinite detention of US civilians, and you become unelectable because an obscure newsletter in the 80s in your name had racial undertones.

and you become unelectable because an obscure newsletter in the 80s in your name had racial undertones.

Well, be fair. Paul’s gutlessness about his racist past (and present, lest we forget) is merely a drop in the bucket of the ocean of reasons the average progressive finds his possible presidency incredibly horrifying. And while I love the idea that the good doctor will come in and totally change America’s foreign policy paradigm, given his history, I’m pretty sure he’d march in lockstep and do what he’s told. But in any event, it’s not so much his racist past that’s an issue, it’s that he pretends it doesn’t matter… when it really does, much as his followers would dearly love to think otherwise.

This is banal. Ron Paul is a Republican candidate. He’s supposed to horrify progressives in the same way that Kucinich would horrify conservatives. Coincidentally, Kucinich and Paul are very close friends.

This article, and the MSNBC clip, is nothing more than a silly drive-by shooting of a candidate on the other side of the fence. Fox does it all the time in their profiles of Democratic candidates. Lest we forget President Obama’‘s connections with Ayers and Wright.

In the end, Americans (as always) vote on personality and not on issues. Paul could be all for womens’ rights and we’ll still have bizarre articles about why he’s not “right” for America.

If you don’t believe me, ask Marcotte the name of the Presidential candidate she worked for.

Believe whatever you want, Sofia. Me, I’m voting against anyone who’s as anti-choice and pro-fundamentalist whackadoodlism as Paul is. Him being a gutless asshole who panders to racist jackasses is merely icing on my personal cake.

lol @ 79. Right, because Ron Paul was totally electable before this thing happened.

Damn you, Maddow! If not for you, Paul was totally going to be the next president!

How do you vote against someone? Is there a special ballot for that? Does their energy level drop?

And Baruk, are you suffering from some mental disorder?

Shorter Sofia Turkan:

“Barak Obama’s connection to Jeremiah Wright is every bit as damning as Ron Paul’s connection to Ron Paul!”

Well, look at the analogies, pillsy: Ron Paul has been to many parties and fundraisers for Ron Paul; Ron Paul has served on a board with Ron Paul; Ron Paul for many years has attended the same church as Ron Paul; Ron Paul accepted the assistance of Ron Paul early in his career for his own advancement. Ron Paul has even been accused by his enemies of writing Ron Paul’s articles: the relationship is just like Ayers and Obama!

Actually, it’s more like “President Obama’s decision to continue a failing counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan against an enemy that doesn’t pose an existential threat to global security, bypassing Congress to initiate military aggression against Libya, fighting multiple secret wars in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and Iran that violate international law and allowing a law to pass that allows indefinite detention is every bit as damning as Ron Paul’s connection to an obscure 80s newspaper with racism.”

I don’t endorse all of the military actions Obama has taken but I think he’s generally been on the side of right in navigating the foreign policy challenges of our fucked up world. None of those things lose my vote, but (among many, many other things) Paul’s racism, misogyny and homophobia do. Like someone else said, the newsletters are a drop in the bucket but they are damning indeed, I’m not sure why you think breathless invective about Libya and Afghanistan are going to change that. If your progressive conscience means you can’t support Obama I respect that, but if you think you can support Paul, I suggest getting said progressive conscience checked.

Many if not most of the people who are voting for Ron Paul are doing so out of a protest vote.  Paul is the only candidate for president who is opposed to the imperial presidency,  he is the only one opposed to use of drones spying on people,  he is the only one who spoke out against violations of civil liberties in the so called “Patriot Act”.

It helps that there is essentially zero chance that he will become president and wouldn’t enact his hair brained poliicies of abolishing the fed etc.

An interesting fact is that Paul is the candidate who has received the most political donations from members of the military.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/310783

I suspect it is because of his opposition to nation building and anti war policies.

“prohibited me and any other Texan atheists from holding office”

Okay, so, if he supports shit like this, can we start calling Paul and his sheep out on their insistence that he “follows the Constitution”? Because even in the most literal, strict-constructionist reading of the Constitution, this doesn’t pass the smell-test. Article VI very clearly outlines that there should be “no religious test” for holding public office.

Overall, Ron Paul’s extreme insistence to letting the states decide in just about EVERYTHING makes him more of a follower of the Articles of Confederation, not the Constitution. And there’s a reason we didn’t stick with those.

“Well, be fair. Paul’s gutlessness about his racist past (and present, lest we forget) is merely a drop in the bucket of the ocean of reasons the average progressive finds his possible presidency incredibly horrifying.”

Not even progressives, but any sane person REGARDLESS of political persuasions should be horrified by someone like Paul having access to the nuclear codes. It’s not just the bigotry, it’s also his connection to conspiracy theorists (including the really whackaloon ones who think major world leaders are space aliens in disguise) or, most importantly, his general ideological fanaticism.  He goes well beyond “having principles” - which is normally admirable in a politician - to the point where he thinks being the best, purest states-rights-libertarian ever should be his top priority as a legislator. When you’re voting against even trivial stuff like giving notable people medals because “it’s too much government power,” how can I trust you to put idealism aside in a crisis situation? I can’t.

We’re quick to point out how the rigid religious fanaticism of a Michele Bachmann or a Rick Santorum is dangerous, but Ron Paul is a rigid fanatic, too, just that he’s taking his from a secular source. Both are equally dangerous when we’re talking about giving someone access to the nuclear codes.

Which is why I’ve been seeing people say Ron Paul is just as crazy as Bachmann or Santorum, just a different breed of crazy. Actually, it’s the same brand of crazy - the same exact mindset - they just have different sources of inspiration. But no matter the inspiration, it’s a mindset that is incompatible with responsible leadership, especially of the world’s (currently) most powerful nation.

@75 - “He would overturn Roe v Wade if he could.”

To be fair, this is perfectly in line with the “states rights” brand of libertarianism Ron Paul preaches, since before Roe v. Wade, it was up to the states to decide if abortion was legal or not. The decision didn’t legalize abortion all over the nation, just in the states where it had been previously banned.

What makes Ron Paul a hypocrite w/r/t this is that he also has supported federal restrictions on abortions. It’s the same with the gay rights issues. He claims he just wants states to decide the issue on their own, and his support of DOMA is because he doesn’t want the federal government recognizing anyone’s marriage (although, funny he’s not exactly working to end federal recognition of opposite-sex marriage). But then he turns around and supports the Federal Marriage Amendment.

And if you’re talking about the philosophy of libertarianism as a whole, the “states’ rights” brand that Ron Paul subscribes to is contradictory to the larger philosophy, since it amounts to “restricting rights is okay as long as it comes from local and state rather than federal governments.” Or, as I’ve often joked, “states have more rights than people.”

If there’s a more overrated virtue in the world than “consistency” I have no idea what it is. I don’t get why people admire this man for consistently sucking.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

100 quatloos for the name of this American writer.

Ralph Waldo Emerson! Quatloos please!

Yeah, people won’t vote for Paul because of partisan politics and his newsletters. It couldn’t possibly be because (warning: Paulbomb incoming; a version of the following with links to confirm the information therein is widely available across the net):

Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception, build a fence along the US-Mexico border, prevent the Supreme Court from hearing Establishment Clause cases or the right to privacy (a bill which he has repeatedly re-introduced), pull out of the UN, disband NATO, end birthright citizenship, deny federal funding to any organisation “which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style”, and abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard. He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan.

Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas, he’s against gay marriage, is against the popular vote, wants the estate tax repealed, is STILL making racist remarks, believes that the Panama Canal should be the property of the United States, and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories, not to mention his belief that the International Baccalaureate program is UN mind control.

Also, I’ll add that Ron Paul wants to bring back letters of Marque and Reprisal, AKA: Privateers.

He is the king of pork barrel spending. His method is to stuff legislation that is sure to pass full of them and then to vote against it.

Also even though he was SO AGAINST the NDAA, and claimed that he would do anything in his power to stop it, he still didn’t even vote against it.

BTW, 16 years ago, Paul was quite willing to take credit for his newsletters:

“I also do an investment letter—it’s called the ‘Ron Paul Survival Report’—which is a gold oriented newsletter. But it’s also expressing concern about surviving in this age of big government,” Paul says, by way of introduction, in this 1995 video filmed by an MBA student at the University of New Mexico.

There’s really no defending Ron Paul at this point.  He’s not the nice libertarian who has crazy views on taxes but at least gets all of the social and war issues right that some liberals wanted.  What we really need, then, is a darned real liberal who understands that we shouldn’t have laws against consensual crimes and that we should avoid war fighting.
Comment #5: destor23 on 12/23 at 03:41 PM

I believe that President Obama comes closet to fitting that description.

@98 - For given values of close, I suppose.

#98:

Think “veterinarian delivering a human baby”. Obama’s not what we want, but he’s the best we can do, and he has, um, delivered on some things.

Your percentages are clearly off.  Given that the vast majority of people who have actually looked into the subject believe the newsletters were ghostwritten, probably by Rockwell, claiming that there’s a 3% chance of that, as opposed to a 95% chance that Paul wrote them himself, is absurd.

And it’s unnecessary, too.  The newsletters were published under Paul’s name.  He’s responsible for their content, whether or not he wrote them.  And the idea that he never read them and had no idea what they were saying is not even vaguely credible, and, even if true, would not say anything good about the man.

@phylosopher—if there’s one thing Obama will never understand, it’s the difference between crimes that hurt people and crimes that don’t.  Witness his passionate defense of bankster fraud compared to his silence on Occupy protesters getting brutalized.

Obama is not a liberal.  He’s not close to being a liberal.  The sooner we all realize this, the sooner we can stop wasting energy on his reelection campaign.

And what exactly is your alternate plan, Punditus?