There are two important conversations going on about Ron Paul right now. The first is whether or not racist comments that came from old issues of the Ron Paul Report show that Paul is or was racist (they do). The other conversation is about whether or not progressives should support Paul because of his stances on the war, civil liberties and economic issues. The second conversation is much more important. Whether or not Paul is a racist (and I believe he is, as well as a bigot of various other types), that's not nearly as important as his stances on a myriad of other issues. Obviously, racism should automatically disqualify a candidate from serving in any office, much less president, but if he were elected, his views on race would have little impact on policy, outside of potential Supreme Court nominations. He didn't like the Civil Rights Act and opposes hate crimes legislation, but, as president, his alleged bigotry would not have a major impact on legislation, since most laws related to these issues pass with veto-proof majorities.
Anyone considering Paul as a candidate should certainly take into account his views on race, gender and the LGBT community -- all of which are atrocious -- but they should also take into account the vast array of other issues in which he is not only incredibly wrong, but where his policy prescriptions would make things worse. Some Occupy Wall Street supporters are Paul supporters, but Paul is very clearly aligned with the 1 percent. He says some things that sound good, but his voting record on issues related to corporations and the rest of us is bad. For instance, his lifetime voting record on:
Aid to Less Advantaged People, at Home & Abroad is 13.40 percent progressive Corporate Subsidies 31.18 percent Education, Humanities, & the Arts 13.19 percent Environment 11.35 percent Fair Taxation 9.01 percent Government Checks on Corporate Power 15.16 percent Health Care 12.62 percent Housing 6.10 percent Labor Rights 13.51 percent Making Government Work for Everyone, Not Just the Rich or Powerful 15.88 percent
Even on the issues he's supposed to be good on, his record is mediocre:
Human Rights & Civil Liberties 33.66 percent progressive Justice for All: Civil and Criminal 30.71 percent War & Peace 47.92 percent
Yes, even on war and foreign policy, Paul still votes the wrong way more than half the time. He does have a better record than most Republicans on these issues, but even the most conservative of Democrats do better than Paul on almost every issue. Everyone's most hated retiring Democrat, Ben Nelson votes more progressively than Paul on every one of these issues, usually by a factor of three or more. For instance, on health care, Nelson beats paul 55.02 to 12.62 percent -- and remember that Nelson was one of the people who killed the public option. On making government work for everyone, not just the rich, Nelson beats Paul 58.59 to 15.88 percent. Progressives rightfully hate Nelson, but Nelson is way, way better than Paul.
To get a full handle on how bad Paul's record and positions are, here is a quick rundown of his most offensive positions, those that would be the most damaging to the country. Ron Paul:
Would abolish the income tax Would place the U.S. on the gold standard Would allow citizens to engage in trade using gold and silver instead of currency Would arbitrarily cut government regulations and believes that regulations only hurt businesses Would eliminate the taxation of foreign income Is a global warming denier Says that Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are unconstitutional Would eliminate antitrust laws Would eliminate the federal minimum wage Would eliminate the Davis-Bacon Act and the Copeland Act Would eliminate the estate and gift taxes Would tax all earners at a 10 percent rate Would eliminate tax credits to individuals who are not corporations Would eliminate the elderly tax credit, child care credit and earned income credit Voted to make it easier to decertify unions Opposes Federal Deposit Insurance Would revert government spending to 2004 levels and freeze it there Opposes raising the debt ceiling for any reason Would allow people to opt out of Social Security Says that widespread bankruptcy is the stimulus the country needs Opposed the auto industry bailouts Favors tort reform Opposes the regulation of tobacco Would protect the 'privacy' of online sexual predators and child pornographers on public wi-fi networks Would prevent federal courts from protecting citizens who have their rights denied Opposed the Motor Voter law Would allow states to ban gay marriage Sponsored the Marriage Protection Act Would repeal affirmative action Would limit the scope of Brown v. Board of Education Says that emergency rooms should be able to turn away undocumented immigrants Opposes the Americans With Disabilities Act Voted anti-choice more than 90 times as a member of Congress Voted to eliminate all international family planning funds Voted for the Stupak amendment banning abortion coverage by private health insurance companies Voted in favor of fetal personhood laws Would eliminate all funding for Planned Parenthood Would ban flag burning Would weaken regulation of dietary supplements Supports a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research Opposes subsidies for prescription drugs for seniors Opposes mandatory vaccinations Would expand offshore oil drilling Would increase mining on federal lands Would weaken the Clean Air Act Would repeal the Soil and Water Conservation Act Would weaken the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Would eliminate departments of Energy, Education, Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Labor Would eliminate the Environmental Protection agency Would eliminate FEMA Would eliminate the Federal Reserve Would eliminate the Occupational Health and Safety Administration Would eliminate AmeriCorps Would eliminate spending to combat AIDS overseas Would eliminate gas taxes Opposes the census gathering demographic data on Americans Opposed the dismantling of U.S. nuclear missile silos Wanted to withdraw the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Wants to claim the Panama Canal as sovereign U.S. territory Opposes the International Criminal Court Would withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. Supports the electoral college and believes that the U.S. is not a democracy Believes that we have no right to health care Would eliminate birthright citizenship Believes that law enforcement can't help people, only armed citizens can prevent violence Would allow the legal sale of unpasteurized milk Believes that groups of people don't have rights, only individuals do Believes that government cannot redistribute wealth in any way Believes in the concept of 'jury nullification', the idea that a jury can judge not only the facts in a case but the justness of the law itself Believes that social welfare should be in the hands of individuals only, not government
Anyone that still thinks that a progressive vote for Paul is a legitimate vote under any circumstances doesn't know what the word progressive means. Anyone that thinks that Paul "understands the Constitution" and defends it either hasn't read the Constitution or doesn't know how to read.
NOTE: there are links inside for each in the above list.
"He shouted under his breath" .. can you feel it? .. it looks clear to me that Ron Paul has a volcano of angst, hate, racist and bigoted notions pent up down deep .. his pent up emotion before he walked out on the CNN interview was just another example of his fragile emotional state .. authoritarians, as my father was, believe you me, LOL, do not like to be pressed .. he doesn't like to be questioned, does he .. welcome to the kitchen, Mr Ron Paul.
"Of course, it is impossible to know what Ron Paul truly thinks about black or gay people or the other groups so viciously disparaged in his newsletters. What we do know with absolute certainty, however, is that Ron Paul is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who regularly imputes the worst possible motives to the very government he wants to lead. " [from the very end]
Earlier this week, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, said that he would not vote for his fellow presidential candidate Ron Paul should Paul become the Republican nominee. The immediate cause of this dissension – highly unusual in a party primary – was the repugnant newsletters that Paul published from the late 1970s until the mid-1990s, which contain a raft of bigoted statements. Paul has denied authorship and implausibly claims not to know who wrote them.
The story of the newsletters is not new. In 1996, Lefty Morris, Paul’s Democratic Congressional opponent, publicized a handful, and in January 2008, I published a long piece .. http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/angry-white-man .. in The New Republic based on my discovery of batches of the newsletters held at the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Yet Paul’s popularity in the prelude to the Iowa caucuses, where many polls put him in first place, has renewed attention to their revolting contents.
Recent media reports have tended to focus on the newsletters’ bigotry, which was primarily aimed at blacks, and to a smaller extent at gay people and Jews. The newsletters have complicated the situation for writers who have defended Paul, who point out that there is no trace of such prejudice in his public statements. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast, for instance, writing last week about “rethinking” his original endorsement of Paul, suggests that
A fringe protest candidate need not fully address issues two decades ago that do not in any way reflect the campaign he has run or the issues on which he has made an appeal. But a man who could win the Iowa caucuses and is now third in national polls has to have a plausible answer for this.
But there is one major aspect of the newsletters, no less disturbing than their racist content, that has always been present in Paul’s rhetoric, in every forum: a penchant for conspiracy theories.
Ron Paul at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Feb. 11, 2011. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
In a 1990 C-Span appearance, .. http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/12/23/ron_paul_on_the_trilateral_commission.html .. taped between Congressional stints, Paul was asked by a caller to comment on the “treasonous, Marxist, alcoholicdictators that pull the strings in our country.” Rather than roll his eyes, Paul responded,“there’s pretty good evidence that those who are involved in the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations usually end up in positions of power. And I believe this is true.”
Paul then went on to stress the negligible differences between various “Rockefeller Trilateralists.” The notion that these three specific groups — the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller family — run the world has been at the center of far-right conspiracy theorizing for a long time, promoted especially by the extremist John Birch Society, whose 50th anniversary gala dinner Paul keynoted in 2008. .. http://www.jbs.org/birchtube/viewvideo/1007/constitution/ron-paul-at-the-50th-anniversary-of-jbs ..
Paul is proud of his association with the society, telling the Times Magazine .. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22Paul-t.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1325070477-tGZ7CY/BQxCKqTCGVMX3zw .. in 2007, “I have a lot of friends in the John Birch Society. They’re generally well educated, and they understand the Constitution.” In 1998, Paul appeared in a Birch Society documentary .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X554O6TwiYM .. which lauded a bill he had introduced to force American withdrawal from the United Nations. With ominous music in the background and images of United Nations peacekeepers patrolling deserted streets, the film warned that the world body would destroy American private property rights, replace the Constitution with the United Nations Charter and burn churches to the ground.
Paul has frequently attacked the alleged New World Order that “elitist” cabals, like the Trilateral Commission and the Rockefeller family, in conjunction with “globalist” organizations, like the United Nations and the World Bank, wish to foist on Americans. In a 2006 column .. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul349.html .. published on the Web site of Lew Rockwell (his former Congressional chief of staff and the man widely suspected .. http://reason.com/archives/2008/01/16/who-wrote-ron-pauls-newsletter .. of being the ghostwriter of the newsletters, although he denied it to me [my bold,as it's the first time i've read of the Rockwell denial]), Paul addressed the alleged “Nafta Superhighway.” This is a system of pre-existing and proposed roads from Mexico to Canada that conspiracy theorists claim is part of a nefarious transnational attempt to open America’s borders and merge the United States with its neighbors into a supra-national entity. Paul wrote that the ultimate goal of the project was an “integrated North American Union” — yet one more bugbear of conspiracy theorists — which “would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.”
In his newsletters, Paul expressed support for far-right militia movements, which at the time saw validation for their extreme, anti-government beliefs in events like the F.B.I. assault on the Branch Davidians and at Ruby Ridge. Paul was eager to fan their paranoia and portray himself as the one man capable of doing anything about it politically. Three months before the Oklahoma City bombing, in an item for the Ron Paul Survival Report titled, “10 Militia Commandments,” he offered advice to militia members, including that they, “Keep the group size down,” “Keep quiet and you’re harder to find,” “Leave no clues,” “Avoid the phone as much as possible,” and “Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
The closest Paul has come in his public statements to endorsing violence against the government was during an interview in 2007, .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1RQkhjV85M .. when he was asked about Ed and Elaine Brown, a New Hampshire couple who had refused to pay federal income taxes. In the summer of that year, they instigated a five-month armed standoff with United States marshals, whom Ed Brown accused of being part of a “Zionist, Illuminati, Freemason movement.” Echoing a speech .. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul388.html .. he had just delivered on the House floor, Paul praised the pair as “heroic” “true patriots,” likened them to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and compared them favorably to “zombies,” that is, those of us who “just go along” and pay income tax.
Finally, there’s Paul’s stance on the most pervasive conspiracy theory in America today, the idea that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated not by Al Qaeda, but by the federal government or some other shadowy force. While Paul has never explicitly endorsed this claim, there is a reason so many 9/11 “truthers” flock to his campaign. In a recent YouTube video posted by a leading 9/11 conspiracy group, “We Are Change,” Paul is asked, .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrQVaiFYmcg .. “Why won’t you come out about the truth about 9/11?”
Rather than answer, say, that the “9/11 Commission already investigated the attacks,” or ask the questioner what particular element of “the truth” remained unknown, Paul knowingly replied, “Because I can’t handle the controversy, I have the I.M.F., the Federal Reserve to deal with, the I.R.S. to deal with, no because I just have more, too many things on my plate. Because I just have too much to do.”
Paul knows where his bread is buttered. He regularly appears on the radio program of Alex Jones, a vocal 9/11 and New World Order conspiracy theorist based in his home state of Texas. On Jones’s show earlier this month, Paul alleged that the Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador on United States soil was a “propaganda stunt” .. http://www.infowars.com/ron-paul-fast-furious-a-criminal-false-flag/ .. perpetrated by the Obama administration.
In light of the newsletters and his current rhetoric, it is no wonder that Paul has attracted not just prominent racists, but seemingly every conspiracy theorist in America. The title of one of Paul’s newsletter series – the Ron Paul Survival Report – was a conscious appeal to followers of the “survivalist” movement of the 1990s, whose ideology blended white supremacy and anti-government militancy in preparation for what Paul himself termed .. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/23/us-usa-campaign-paul-plots-idUSTRE7BM03320111223 .. the “coming race war.”
As Paul told The Times .. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/politics/ron-paul-disowns-extremists-views-but-doesnt-disavow-the-support.html .. last week, he has no interest in dissuading the various extremists from backing his campaign, which is hardly surprising considering he’s spent three decades cultivating their support. Paul’s shady associations are hardly “bygone” and the “facts” of his dangerous conspiracy-mongering are very much “in evidence.” Paul has not just marinated in a stew of far-right paranoia; he is one of the chefs.
Of course, it is impossible to know what Ron Paul truly thinks about black or gay people or the other groups so viciously disparaged in his newsletters. What we do know with absolute certainty, however, is that Ron Paul is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who regularly imputes the worst possible motives to the very government he wants to lead.
James Kirchick is a contributing editor for The New Republic and a fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
TO THE AMERICAN RIGHT, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY Monday, January 02, 2012
This is disheartening, but not surprising in the least:
Americans buy record numbers of guns for Christmas
According to the FBI, over 1.5 million background checks on customers were requested by gun dealers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System in December. Nearly 500,000 of those were in the six days before Christmas.
It was the highest number ever in a single month, surpassing the previous record set in November.
On Dec 23 alone there were 102,222 background checks, making it the second busiest single day for buying guns in history.
The actual number of guns bought may have been even higher if individual customers took home more than one each.
The National Rifle Association said people were concerned about self defence because police officer numbers were declining.
A spokesman said: "I think there's an increased realisation that when something bad occurs it's going to be between them and the criminal." ...
Now, you might imagine the NRA would want to downplay that last point -- after all, the Republican Party that acts in lockstep with the NRA, and for which a large number of NRA members regularly vote, is the same party that forces cutbacks in the ranks of police departments because the alternative -- higher taxes -- is utterly unacceptable.
But, of course, no one on the right is in any way embarrassed that cops are losing their jobs, because every wingnut knows that all government departments, agencies, and programs have a failure rate of 100%, so it doesn't matter that we don't have enough cops. (How that jibes with our nation's extraordinarily high rate of incarceration I can't explain, but no wingnut would ever take the time to examine the clear contradiction.)
They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.
To the average American wingnut, there are individuals and families -- and also affinity groups. There are fellow believers in "gun freedom." There are fellow "regular Americans" who aren't repulsive cosmopolitan liberal elitists. There are fellow Christians. There are fellow white people. These groups are worth defending. Society isn't. Any old SOB can become part of society -- Muslims, gays, people on welfare, you name it.
I suppose this harks back to Tom's point .. http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2011/12/ron-paul-not-civil-libertarian-last.html .. about the links connecting Ron Paul's present-day libertarianism and the racist states' rights movement. I agree that it's about race to some extent, but I don't think it's just about race. It's more flexible than that. It's about reserving the unilateral right, or the affinity-group right, to decide who belongs here and who doesn't. It's about deciding, if you choose, that "society" is just you and your guns, and everyone else can just stay the hell off your land (though with the definition of "your land" extended to the creche in the town square and the vacant lot the local Muslims have purchased so they can build a mosque on it).
And even though Ron Paul isn't going to be elected president this year, the libertarianism-by-inches of the mainstream GOP makes us less and less of a society. Thatcher may not have been right when she spoke -- not right about her own country, not right about humanity as a whole -- but, increasingly, her words describe America, or at least what we're becoming.
Posted by Steve M. at 11:34 AM
4 comments: [this is the first one]
c u n d gulag said...
We have a lot of sociopaths and psychopaths in this country.
And nothing speaks more to that than the sheer number of serial killers we have and the number of gun deaths, both of which would be an outrage in a saner nation.
But not us - we run out and buy more guns.
We're a country of crazy Calvinist cowboys - with solo and group insanity, a feeling of self-determined individual and collective exceptionalism combined with a religious belief that we are loved by our Christian God to the exclusion off all others, and armed to the teeth, to boot.
We not only tolerate the insane, we worship them - and even put them in Congress.
Welcome to The United Armed Christian States of Bellevue. 12:08 PM
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