Ron Paul=bigot

[novapsyche]

This is something I've known about for around six months, due to frequenting DailyKos, but I haven't been on there very much recently.

However, seeing several of my friends (including the veritable fizzyland) intellectually endorse Ron Paul, I must make this DailyKos diary known (it was brought back into the limelight by kos today):

Ron Paul, In His Own Words

The only complete article from the Ron Paul Political Report on the Internet that I am aware of is a 1992 piece titled "LOS ANGELES RACIAL TERRORISM," on the subject of the so-called Rodney King riots in South Central Los Angeles in 1991. It is available to us today because it was posted to the talk.politics.misc newsgroup on July 30, 1993 by Dan Gannon, a notorious white supremacist and Holocaust denier, and archived by the Nizkor Project, an anti-revisionism organization that was active in cataloging hate speech on the early public Internet. [...] Some relevant passages from the article:

Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.... Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer.

Comments

[o-lucky-man.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you posted this. I almost voted for Ron Paul when he ran as a libertarian in 1988. Like his contemporary supporters, I was fooled by his easy going persona and only hearing what I wanted to hear. (Of course now I'm almost militantly anti-libertarian). When I began to read a lot of conspiracy stuff in the '90's I finally learned where he actually stood. His newsletter was really popular with the right-wing lunatic fringe (the Michigan militia and other sorts of survivalists) back then. Gold-hoarders and arms stockpilers--you know the type. It's really odd to see such a right-wing crackpot become mainstream. He's really not much different than David Duke. All of his financial platform is basically rooted in anti-semitism (wanting to do away with the Federal Reserve, social security, the IRS, all of which are supposed to be a Zionist plot) although he's much too slick to ever get called out on that. It was disappointing to see Tim Russert go so easy on him on Meet The Press last Sunday.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

I have lost faith in Russert as an interviewer. (Of course, he lost me several years ago, but definitely during the course of this administration.)

[o-lucky-man.livejournal.com]

Yeah I agree, Russert's a hack. David Shuster really gave it to Paul on Morning Joe this am though. Evidently he called Paul a 'crackpot' after some of the stuff Paul said on MTP about the Civil War.

[timiathan.livejournal.com]

Do you have confirmation that he really wrote this? I came across this story a few weeks ago, but the more I look into it, the less I can find direct attribution -- all we have is this post by Dan Gannon to a news group, claiming it was written by Paul. That's the textual equivalent of hearsay. Pretty damning if true, but there are lot of people who would love nothing more than to smear him, so until I see direct evidence, I'm going to have to stay on the fence.

I've said this before, but I think Ron Paul has the wrong solutions to some of the right problems -- as opposed to the more mainstream politicians, who have don't even address what's really wrong. I think it's very important to have his voice in the debate...assuming he's not this horrible a person, just slick enough to hide it.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

The DailyKos thread eventually unfolded to reveal that Paul, twelve years down the road, said that the column was ghostwritten.

However, as he himself will not release these newsletters for public view, we are left in the dark as to what exactly was printed.

[timiathan.livejournal.com]

Well, refusal to release the actual articles probably says enough on its own, but unless something has changed in the last week, it appeared as though the ghostwritten comment was taken a bit out of context -- he wasn't referring to this abhorrent article itself, but rather the newsletter as a whole. I don't know; it's probably nit-picking. The truth is, part of me was won over by some of his rhetoric, and I don't want to admit to myself that someone like this could fool me.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

All I'm saying is, if I had a newsletter (especially one with my name on it), I would not allow an article that furthered racist views to be published in it.