matgb | Ron Paul is, and always has been, a bigot and a crank

Right then, the US primaries are on us, and a bunch of people are backing anyone they think is anti-establishment or just anti-Bush. One in particular is getting a load of support online. The "libertarian" called Ron Paul. The scare quotes are there for a reason, he ain't any kind of libertarian I recognise. Ages back I somehow got myself on left-leaning news magazine The New Republic emailing list. I've kept meaing to unsubscribe, but think I may keep it going for a bit longer. Real, proper investigative journalism, digging out and wading through years worth of his newsletter archives (anyone who tells you "blogging" is new has no clue what blogging is). In the past, when archives of his racism have been dug out, he's said that it was written by someone else, well digging back further into the depths gives us evidence of a very Angry White Man:

whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles ... seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him—and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing—but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.

Jennie has found more at The Gob and is linking to

pope_guilty's post on the same article and also to his regular copy/paste Paulbomb. Reading on in the TNR article gives quotes condemning Martin Luther King, supporting the KKK's David Duke, calling for the quarantine of AIDS victims (and perpetuating the saliva transmission myth way after it was proven false) and calling Israel a "national socialist state".

Paul is anti-war. So is Kucinich. Paul is pro-legalisation of marijuana. So is Kucinich. Paul is a racist bigot. Kucinich isn't. If you want an anti-establishment "big money" candidate, back Kucinich or an actual Libertarian (actually, don't do the latter, the US FPTP is even worse than ours). Paul's only main strength is his appeal to "the constitution" as if it's some hallowed document. Even the people that wrote it didn't expect it to be relelvent 50 years afterwards, that it's lasted 300 is testament to their genius. Times changes, the economy changes. Appealing to the "sacred words" of some dead white slaveowners and refusing to accept it'll ever need updating is insanity writ large.

In the primaries, if you've got a vote, vote for the candidate closest to you on the issues. If you genuinely think that candidate is Ron Paul, then, seriously, get a reality check. It isn't.

ETA: Paul has distanced himself from the articles, saying:

“When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”

So either he's lying, or he's not competent enough to take responsibility for words written in his name. Either way, he's unfit to be the leader of the free world. Thanks for the head's up Aaron!

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The whole racism thing has pretty much been argued to death over the web, particularly at the Daily Kos. If Ron Paul has got those racist skeletons in his closet (noting that he claims that the comments about LA blacks, MLK etc. were never written by him), he's long since disavowed racism publically many times. All this racism stuff is suddenly getting dredged up to discredit him, but I actually think that it's not the grounds to discredit Ron Paul at all because I don't think he's a racist. He can be discredited because he's a loony Libertarian. He's not even a consistent loony Libertarian, as the rejection of the federal level seems to stop at the issues of abortion and immigration.

But I like him a lot, as I like David Icke. Speaks a lot of sense, and speaks a lot of nonsense, with nary a cognitive boundary twixt the two. People have flocked to him because of the single issue of the War, which is a mistake on their part. But then again, were I American I wouldn't be voting for any of the bastards running for election. What a bunch of useless crypto-fascist arseholes, just like most Americans in fact.

He has a choice: Either he supported the message of the newsletter that he paid to have put out with his name and his byline, or he had no clue about the contents of the newsletter that he paid to put out with his name and his byline.

Either way, he's incompetent to hold an office higher than dogcatcher.

(And he STILL EMPLOYS the entire staff of his newsletter. They run his campaign in Texas. Go ahead, look up the names.)

Dude, you were writing this as I was writing my post edit. Get outta ma head!

But seriously, I agree completely, again, it was in his name, he should've been more responsible, some things can be forgiven, but not that level of crap.

Yeah, get out of his head. It's getting bloody crowded in here...

Yeah I've been reading the debate out of passing interest and have seen all the stuff about the donations from the white power groups etc. as well. There's also plenty of evidence that he's anti-gay. But these matters are open for contention, and I think the correct terrain to attack Ron Paul on are the things that he definitively advocates here and now rather than dubious comments made in the 90s: his absurd Hayekian belief in the gold standard and monetary policy, his creationism, his anti-choice stance, and so on. Like all Libertarians Ron Paul is only able to conceive of power as a top-down force flowing oppressively from central government, rather than something that has myriad points of origin (including most significantly, capital).

I think the reason his anti-gay and racist past is being dredged up by his opponents is to highlight to those who are supporting him solely on his anti-imperialist policy that there's more to Ron Paul than just calling for troops out. It's proving effective in dissuading the Democrat chattering classes from switching, but it does highlight the paucity of American political discourse that it is these issues, rather than questioning his Libertarianism per se, that are the main focus IMHO.

I agree on the latter point, but that's the nature of FPTP on such a large system, it's one or the other writ large, so you need to attack on easy targets, nuanced debate simply can't happen.

Agreed. I guess I just find it interesting how certain issues play so big in US political debate, namely abortion, God, sexuality... that sorta thing. Stances on these appear to be the vote clinchers, and the meaty stuff such as war, economics, and the role of Government seem almost secondary (though that's not to say that Americans don't recognise them as hugely important also). So when Ron Paul makes a tangible break from the pack by clearly defining his opposition to war and imperialism it's no wonder he attracts support, because he's treading on a different sort of political territory and people find this refreshing. And rather than attacking him on these grounds or through an ideological critique of Libertarianism itself, Democrats are instead deploying the social issues I mention above (racism, homophobia etc). I'm not saying these aren't legitimate grounds for criticism, I'm just noting the parameters of the discourse.

I reckon the reason is because Libertarianism is the defining aspect of American politics. A heady brew of the Founding Fathers, Hayek, and Rand infuses all mainstream US politics to a significant extent. I've been chatting to a lot of Americans online lately from both sides of the political divide and it's the social issues that grab them. When you get down to it, most are in agreement that small government, low taxes, and individual freedom are all a priori good things. Ron Paul seems like a living embodiment of these ideas taken (almost) to their logical conclusion and since the ideas are already a part of everyone else's US political discourse one could almost say that Ron Paul is a suicide-virus, exposing the limits of US politics itself!

That's interesting. I've lived in the United States all my life and I've met less than 1% of the population.

It must have taken a lot of time and work on your part to get to know so many Americans to be able to say that most of us are arseholes.

*cough*from the respondents interest list: obsconding with the urine*cough*

Just an FYI...

But also? Most people across the board are arseholes, including most Brits and most Americans ;-)

When it come to jerks, assholes, and morons, I've always thought more along the lines of percentages; whether by race, gender, nationality, or pretty much anything that doesn't categorize by opinion (there are just some things that attract certain types of people).

Watching Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares has exposed me to frequent (to say the least) usage of the phrase. I've got a general idea of what it means, but could you provide a more specific definition?

Taking the piss is making fun of someone, but in a mean-spirited or nasty way

Ron Paul is, and always has been, a bigot and a crank

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