I’m posting this here because I think there’s a fairly large cross-over between Technoccultists and Ron Paul supporters, and because I’d really like to get the bottom of this. Paul’s not going to get to get a fair shake in the mainstream media or the progressive media, and the libertarian media (such that it is) seems a bit quiet on the issue of Ron Paul’s alleged racism. Though I admittedly skew to the left for the most part, I have a few libertarian tendencies as well so I feel like maybe I can give him a fair shake. For your inspection:
Ron Paul: The Radical Right’s Man in Washington.
The defenses of Paul I’ve seen so far are:
1. Deny that the newsletters even exist and claim that the Daily Kos poster who posted this is “obviously a neocon Guiliani supporter who has been building up a record on this site in an attempt to give you some sort of street cred to run bullcrap like this diary throughout the Republican primary.” (From “libertynow”‘s comments on the Kos diaries).
2. Take the Paul’s defense that he didn’t write the newsletters at face value.
The former I find fairly absurd, and the latter just doesn’t quite work for me. And while it’s true that you can’t choose your supporters, one has to look at why the racist right tends to support Ron Paul. Even before I read about these newsletters, I was worried by Paul’s immigration positions and asserted that he was deliberately playing to the racist right. But I’m quite open to being proved wrong.
May 21, 2007 at 1:28 am
It concerns me but I want to hear what Dr. Paul has to say. I find it hard to believe that he implied racism by them based on everything else he has been saying.
May 21, 2007 at 1:49 am
Well, Ron Paul did not write the newsletters, but he did accept “moral responsibility” for them, even though he did not agree with the sentiment.
I think to start along a line of thinking that he is racist you need to look for a consistent history of it, and with Ron Paul, it just is not there.
May 21, 2007 at 1:56 am
Bill, unless you libertynow and think the whole thing (including the Texas Monthly article) are made up, Paul’s official position is that he did not write them and didn’t know about them until after they were published.
Matt, as far as I’ve seen there aren’t any other overtly racist comments from Paul out there (though I find his rabid anti-immigration positions implicitly racist). My current suspicion is not so much that Paul is himself a racist, but that he’s deliberately courting racist groups.
May 21, 2007 at 5:23 am
What a load of BS!
There are 1000s of pages online written by Ron Paul himself, in his own words, on what he thinks on almost every possible issue, even some on racism.
The proof that this is just a disgusting smear campaign is how they had to go to some obscure newsletter of dubious authorship, given the amount of material readily available.
Ron Paul is not afraid of speaking out very unpopular fringe opinions that make him a lot of enemies or win him a lot of ridicule. He is certainly not afraid of saying what he thinks. If he was a white supremacist or anything of the sort, believe me there would be 100 boring newsletters and youtube videos of hims saying that stuff.
May 21, 2007 at 5:26 am
The man wants to end the welfare state!
Can’t you attack him on real issues instead of made up ones?
This slander is repulsive.
May 21, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I think you’re being a little unfair. Presenting this story is useful, but your take on it seems far too beholden to Daily Kos and co. Simply put, Ron Paul has personally accepted responsibility for words that he did not pen. What more is he expected to do? The fact that the KoSers are tweaking over this isn’t surprising. They’d find a way to smear anyone opposed to the welfare state.
I agree that David Duke’s infatuation with Paul is problematic, but I understand why Paul would appeal to a figure like Duke. A republic operating on the grounds of the Constitution provides for much more leeway for organic, non-governmental groups of all stripes to operate be they racial nationalists or green anarchists.
I think my favorite part of the DK articles are hearing the liberals freak over “militias.”
May 21, 2007 at 3:35 pm
“Can?t you attack him on real issues instead of made up ones?
This slander is repulsive.”
I have attacked him on real issues (mostly immigration). And how is this slander, he admitted himself that these statements were in his newsletter.
Ulysses, there’s a lot to the critique from leftys that I don’t agree with. Calling him an anti-Semite because he opposes Israeli policy, the outrage at his support for a gold standard, etc. etc.
The problems I have with his response is that it took him 6 years to provide, and I’m still not sure I buy it. Some anonymous staffer was allowed to write whatever he pleased and send it out under Paul’s name? And he just pretended he agreed with it for six years?
May 21, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Exhibit B: http://www.samwilkinson.org/2007/03/06/ron-pauls-office-calls-back/#comment-7552
I don’t think Paul should be “rigorously enforcing his copyright” but I do think he should at least make some effort to distance himself from the Nationalist Times and similar groups.
May 23, 2007 at 2:12 am
he’s running on the undercurrents of the truth movement, which has a lot of ties to that network that’s obviously out there, since that’s the network that continues to pass around badly mimeographed stacks of bad translations (with fascist alterations) of Dialog in Hell between Machiavelli and Montisquieu
May 24, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I’ve known Dr. Paul for about 20 years — he is absolutely NOT a racist. All of the quotes came from the same short period of time, which supports the contention that they were “ghost written” by a staffer (long since departed).
Dr. Paul has written hundreds of articles and given scores of speeches in the well of the House. There is nothing akin to the racist newsletter quotes anywhere else in his writings or speeches.
June 10, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Occult techies? Where did you get that data from? A salvia dream?
Try 40-year-old suburban, white-collar, married yuppie. That would be me.
When you first put the neocon candidates through the well-deserved meat-grinder, your competence and reliability to serve as a some kind of political critic will shine.
Until that happens, stay away from the pink-colored meth, would ya?
June 10, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Tekno-Lucifer – WTF are you even talking about?