Because it needs to be said…

29 comments »

1. Greg, you ask:

   “Moreover, why is he the lone dissenter in these cases?

   “In 1999, he was the only naysayer in a 424-1 vote in favor of casting a medal to honor Rosa Parks. Nothing against Rosa Parks: Paul voted against similar medals for Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. He routinely opposes resolutions that presume to advise foreign governments how to run their affairs: He has refused to condemn Robert Mugabe’s violence against Zimbabwean citizens (421-1), to call on Vietnam to release political prisoners (425-1) or to ask the League of Arab States to help stop the killing in Darfur (425-1).”

   *Sigh.* I’m not a Ron Paul supporter. And yes, some of his policies are daffy. But your having to ask this question says a lot about the brushing up you and a lot of others should do on some background about Ron Paul.

   To answer the question in the simplest terms - and anybody that has even a passing familarity with Paul’s voting record the past couple decades would know this - he is the lone dissenter because he believes none of those resolutions should be handled by Congress. He believes it explicitly un-constitutional. He thinks the taxpayers money should not be spent on pork that has no basis in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. He believes the Congress should stop wasting the peoples time and money and get back to doing the responsible business as drafted in the Constitution.

   It’s an open secret, and it’s not so sinister. he votes on his principles, whether you like them or not.

   Paul voted against Congress appropriating taxpayers money for the casting of a Rosa Parks medal, and then turned around and took money out of his own pocket and made it as a private contribution. He held the same priniples for the resolutions for the Pope and Ronnie Reagan. His district knows his stand on these positions. Do you expect him to be a hypocrite and hold double-standards? Sorry, that’s not what you get with Paul.

   There are plenty of things you could narrow down and criticize Paul about, but the ignorance here is exasperating, because it makes everything else look like a canard when you can’t even get that one simple fact established - and it has been established for years, because his opponents have trotted out the same tired nonsense for years, and it’s been smacked down every time.

   If you don’t like his principles, then say so. Don’t start extracting racism out of it, because it is bunkum.

   Thank you.

   Comment by billy bob tweed — August 1, 2007 @ 3:36 pm

2. If you don’t like his principles, then say so. Don’t start extracting racism out of it

   I didn’t extract racism from his “principles”. I extracted it from his racism, like “our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists — and they can be identified by the color of their skin”

   Comment by greg — August 1, 2007 @ 3:55 pm

3. Greg, you miss the context. He did say, “This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.” Read it s-l-o-w-l-y. Look at the background and context. Paul wasn’t talking about himself. He was talking about the electorate. He himself said it wasn’t fair, just that it was a very real sentiment, as in, “out there.”

   Paul has always been steadfast about groups that identify themselves along racial lines, are in fact exercising divisiveness. In this he talks like a libertarian, not a racist. He believes people should identify themselves as individuals, not groups identified by race and color. Is that a crime? If so, then it’s not a wonder why he appeals to so many libertarians and Constitutionalists who believe government is getting carried away with irrational stupidity. Paul may be wrong on that essential point, but that doesn’t make him a racist. I wish people would stop throwing that filthy bomb at all candidates, no matter the party, without at least examining the macro and the micro. Look at his ENTIRE record. What you are re-cycling here is PNAC Republican propaganda ~ and Paul has plenty of Republican enemies who want hi expunged from their party.

   The first caller had it right. You need to brush up just a little and stop taking Paul’s Republican opponents’ out-of-context talking-points at face value. Republicans have played a dirty underhanded game with Dem opponents for years. Why do you think they’d act so differently when one of their own marches to a beat of a different drummer? (chirp, chirp…)

   When you wrap your head around that, ask yourself if maybe there’s another story that Paul’s fascist NWO enemies don’t want you to know. The out-of-context “racist” meme here is just as silly, and as lazy, as the garbage that was thrown at Al Gore in 2000, and was allowed to stick because the Maureen Dowd’s of the world thought it made a great soundbite and repeated the narrative ad nauseum. Too bad that it wasn’t true, the attack-dogs will drown out the truth repeating it often enough that everybody, even pundits we thought were otherwise reasonable, will jump to blinkered conclusions and believe it, the facts be damned.

   That’s the state of our discourse in America, on both sides. Pete Townsend was right. But then, Pete Townsend’s a pedophile, ri-i-i-i-ght?

   Comment by sami i ami — August 1, 2007 @ 4:21 pm

4. Via TMW. Can’t speak to all of that but what also needs to be said is most of the stuff in that dummy-spit is more neoconservative cheapshots & disinformation. The spin on that Rosa Parks story was discredited as baloney before most people had the internets and the google. Somewhere Dick Cheney is smirking, and not just because Bill Kristol is jerking him off. No way Paul wins the Repug nomination, and no way the IRS gets abolished, never gonna happen. But to see progressives carrying neocon water is, well, to say the least, uber-lame.

   Comment by Fred W. Martin — August 1, 2007 @ 4:55 pm

5. The left’s embrace of Ron Paul is insane. Al Gore and John Kerry were corporate puppets barely distinguishable from George W Bush, but Ron Paul is a heroic liberal crusader.

   (Locate temple, insert bullet)

   Comment by Rory — August 1, 2007 @ 5:11 pm

6. Right on Greg. I agree with half of “libertarianism” - the half about respecting individual rights. But the other half is looonnnneeey-tunes. And by siding with the wingnuts rather than the Democrats, Paul and other “libertarians” seem to care more about their pathologically selfish and unworkable economic ideology than the human rights part.

   I guess it’s true that I’d rather have Ron Paul than George W. Bush, but at this point, I’m not sure whether Henry VIII might not be better than George Bush. Even the most “corporate” Democrat is better than a well-meaning but unreasonble ideologue with a pre-1840 economic agenda.

   However, Paul does show some signs of being a decent guy on a personal level, until proven otherwise. I’m going to assume that his remark, although clearly racist by objective standards, was more an expression of his age and naivete than of malice.

   Comment by harold — August 1, 2007 @ 5:46 pm

7. I don’t entirely agree with Paul’s IRS stance, or his total free market wankery, BUT I don’t hear Obama or Hillary saying one damned THING about the Constitution, or the need to have a REAL 9/11 investigation, or talking about how the War on Terra is as dumb as Bush is, or, or, or, the list goes on and on.
   Ron Paul is one of the ONLY Congressmen to reject the Congressional Golden Parachute Retirement plan, because it’s wasteful.
   He supports impeachment.
   When you compare Ron Paul to the corporate whore Hillary, or the establishment’s mouthpiece, Obama (you KNOW he will be, otherwise he’d have gotten shouted away by the moronic press)–you find that there is no comparison.
   I vote for PEOPLE, not parties. one of the main reasons I like Paul is because he scares the living shit out of Republicans.
   But hey, thanks for playing into Corporate America’s game of keeping principled folk out of the electoral process.

   You think he’s “unelectable” because the media tells you so.
   I think you’ve been had.

   Comment by joe mama — August 1, 2007 @ 6:23 pm

8. I….what? Wait a second. Ron Paul is better than Bush so let’s vote him in? You know who else is better than Bush? Almost anybody.

   I guess anybody can read Ron Paul’s racist remarks and figure out how they’re not racist, if that’s what you want. But I read it sl-ow-ow-ow-ly and it seems to me like he’s saying 95% of black people are criminals. (What the hell is a semi-criminal?)

   Are we all going to agree on one candidate, even within a party? No. But can we at least all agree that voting for Ron Paul is a vote in the wrong direction?

   I know we’re desperate for anybody that’s not GWB, but let’s find someone who isn’t crazy.

   Comment by Dr. Pants — August 1, 2007 @ 8:19 pm

9. I think the left’s attraction to Paul (and I’m saying this as someone on the left who was intrigued by him post-Giuliani-spat) is the fact that so far he’s the only candidate on either to have said that American policy was in some way responsible for the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Having watched just about every debate so far, I can say that I’m terribly disappointed with the Democrats’ foreign policy positions. The only candidate I’ve heard from so far who seems like he would do something close to what I’d want done when it comes to the military (and its involvement and deployment in other countries) is Ron Paul–which is incredibly bizarre.

   I know that if Hillary or Obama get elected, they will in many ways represent a continuation of American post-Cold-War policy of bombing nations, exerting force, dominating other people across the world–policies I don’t think we can afford to maintain much longer. I like Ron Paul because I know that he would end them–I dislike Ron Paul because he says Global Warming is caused by Volcanoes.

   Kucinich, anyone?

   Comment by Marshall — August 1, 2007 @ 8:29 pm

10. I’ve read up on Ron Paul. I do have to give him mad props for talking realistically about the occupation of Iraq and the whole bullshit ‘War on Terror’- something that takes a lot of guts, and which he has taken major fire for. He’s the only one I know other than Kucinich that has done that. At the same time, it seems pretty clear to me that the guy is an extremist, and is absolutely opposed to many of my values. So, I don’t know what to say. I’m glad he’s in the race, and I won’t vote for him.

    Comment by atheist — August 2, 2007 @ 4:43 am

11. Ron Paul is the only Republican presidential candidate who voted against Bush’s war. yeh, Ron Paul sucks.

    Ron Paul is the only Republican presidential candidate who demands accountability and holds the White House feet to the fire. yeh, Ron Paul sucks.

    Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate warning against a policy of “preemptive war” and scolding White House (and other Republican) nukular-threat sabre-rattling against Iran. Yeh, Ron Paul sucks.

    Ron Paul is the only Republican to talk about the war escalating America’s spiralling debt, and talking about inflation and calling it what it is - a tax. Yeh, Ron Paul Sucks, Sucks, Suckssssssss.

    Easily deluded firebreathers have been kowed by the neocon koolaid. Ron Paul does not say nor has ever said 95% of black people are criminals. That is ridiculous subversion of reality, extrapolating nonsense and making whole cloth out of a couple fibres picked out of a cat’s dirty tail. Putting words in his mouth is a Dick Cheney tactic, it’s pathetic cherry-picking the way Bill O’Reilly goes after Kos. It’s embarrassing. I am a liberal democrat all the way, and many of Paul’s policies like his opposition to universal health care scare me. Nothing wrong with rounding on that. Why then the need to invent boogeymen? Oops, almostt forgot, there’s that neocon koolaid agin. Reading these noxious lies makes me real skeptical about everything else here. Where’s the intellectual honesty? Michelle Malkin would be proud.

    Comment by dannyboy — August 2, 2007 @ 5:14 am

12. I have to say, I thought it was really great that someone in the Republican debate (or any presidential debate), would actually suggest that the core of our U.S. foreign policy might be bad in some way, and might have some bad effects. That the American public and MSM applauded Giuliani’s response was ridiculous. That said, after the debate I checked and saw that there’s nothing else I agreed with Ron Paul on. Liberal/progressive support for Paul makes about as much sense as supporting McCain on 2000, based solely on campaign finance reform.

    And how on earth any person can claim the statements above aren’t racist is beyond me. “Don’t you see, he’s not saying that blacks are criminals and terrorists who are destroying our cities. He’s just saying that it sure looks that way!” Puh-lease. I suppose it would be nice if every racist politician followed up their semi-coded racist statements with “By the way, if that was unclear, I should stress that I’m a racist.” But short of that, this is about as fucking close as you’re going to get.

    And this shit about how ethnic groups should stop identifying themselves on racial lines may not be exactly racist, but it is primarily the perspective of whites who can’t be bothered to think about what it might be like to not be white. (To save you some time, I said “primarily.” I know that you can all find examples of minorities who hold that perspective.) Being a minority in America is NOT the same as being a white person in America. Acting as if it is, and as if minorities are only treated differently because they choose to be treated differently, is just so much B.S. And yes, no one says those things explicitly, but complaining about people identifying themselves by their race makes no sense unless you levieve that B.S.

    I will concede that those lone dissenter cases that Greg cites don’t strike me as particularly bad.

    Comment by Autumn Harvest — August 2, 2007 @ 5:22 am

13. Joe Mama -

    I don’t entirely agree with Paul’s IRS stance, or his total free market wankery,

    Then you shouldn’t vote for him, because that’s the agenda he’ll push in the extremely unlikely event that he gets elected president.

    BUT I don’t hear Obama or Hillary saying one damned THING about the Constitution

    That’s a halfway decent point, but the best pragmatic way to stop, and at least partially reverse, the Bush-Cheney assault on civil rights, at this time, is to elect Democrats.

    I vote for PEOPLE, not parties

    A better idea would be to vote for policies and agendas, rather than subjectively perceived personal characteristics. Because that’s how politicians will affect you. By the laws and policies they enact.

    Of course, extremely poor character, such as that possessed by GWB, is a good sign that a politician will do a bad job and pursure a harmful agenda.

    Even then, when a politician runs on a progressive agenda and pursues it with sincerity, it goes a long way toward making up for personal failings. And the best “character” in the world won’t make a harmful agenda any less bad. Furthermore, advocating a harmful agenda is, in and of itself, a reason to question character.

    Party identification associates a lot better with policy that personal traits do. Your best bet really is to choose the politician, among those with a realistic chance, whose policy positions you most agree with. Party affiliation is definitely a partial guide to this.

    Comment by harold — August 2, 2007 @ 6:17 am

14. Agreed. Ron’s had his 15 minutes, wish he’d just go away now.

    Comment by W. Powell — August 2, 2007 @ 6:48 am

15. Looks like a rerun of the Kucinich debate. Some people see a candidate like Kucinich or Paul saying things that other candidates won’t say (like the radical idea that US foreign policy is partly responsible for the 9/11 attacks), want to encourage that sort of truth-telling, and cheer on the candidates doing it.

    Meanwhile, people like Greg imagine a Kucinich or Paul presidency, and shudder.

    I think there’s room for both, and no need for these two points of view to be at war with each other, because neither Kucinich or Paul have a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming President.

    So I can say, “Thank you, Ron Paul, for having the courage to point out the obvious,” without having to worry that FEMA will be abolished anytime soon.

    In general, I see a huge divide between those who see candidates for office as a means of “sending a message” and those who view all elections as essentially a job interview.

    I think we need both. Without the message senders, political discussion gets squeezed into the narrow contraints of what the consultants for the “front-runners” think is permissible.

    But obviously, someone (not me) needs to think about who would actually make a good President. So thanks, Greg, for pointing out that Ron Paul would not be a very good President.

    Comment by SteveB — August 2, 2007 @ 8:45 am

16. “…overturn Roe v. Wade…” How is this libertarian? Roe v. Wade is about as libertarian a decision as the Supreme Court has ever made. What could be more libertarian than refusing to let governments invade medical decisions. If the libertarian position is “let the states handle this” it’s sophistry, because it’s absolutely the case that some states will limit the availability of abortions.

    Comment by Larry Epke — August 2, 2007 @ 9:12 am

17. My views are mostly libertarian, but not as extreme as Ron Paul’s. I wouldn’t abolish the IRS and FEMA or pull our of NATO, but I would end the war on drugs, legalize internet poker, and get our troops out of Iraq. You wondered if libertarians are phonies. For the most part we are not. We favor individual rights and responsibility, and view both major political parties as trampling upon these in differt ways, and favoring the group over the individual. It’s fair to say that we are basically socially liberal and economically conservative. Yes, I favor a free market, but do believe that some restraints are necessary such as environmental and worker protection. On the other hand the government should be careful not to over-regulate. It is possilbe to be moderately libertarian just as it is to be moderately conservative or liberal.

    Comment by George Cobau — August 2, 2007 @ 9:27 am

18. Greg,

    While, I disagree with Ron Paul on the need for gov. regulation, and on other issues. On the balance I find myself more in agreement with him more often then not. On foreign policy, on ending the war on drugs, on civil liberties he’s not only said what I want to hear, but he’s also voted accordingly. In contrast, the leading democrat canidates (to say nothing of the Republican field) have voted for the patriot act, and reautorizing it. On Iraq, only very recently have Hillary/Obama actually voted against funding, and only once it was apparent the bill would pass. Nor are their statements in regards to their plans for leaving troops behind in the region very reassuring to my mind. No doubt a Hillary or Obama foreign policy would be at least marginally better then Bush’s, how could it not be? However, at least in regards to Clinton, I still recall Albright’s comments in regards to sanctions versus 500,000 iraqi children. Again, comments like that are not very reassuring.

    “That’s a halfway decent point, but the best pragmatic way to stop, and at least partially reverse, the Bush-Cheney assault on civil rights, at this time, is to elect Democrats.”

    That’s just the problem, to my mind, under Bush we’ve had a major shift on civil rights. I want something more then a partial reversal.

    “Even then, when a politician runs on a progressive agenda and pursues it with sincerity, it goes a long way toward making up for personal failings.”

    Except as far as I can tell none of the leading democractic canadates (Edwards, Clinton, Obama) are running on much of a progressive agenda. I don’t think any of them is supporting single payer healthcare. If by healthcare reform they’re talking about something like what Mass. passed, then count me out. I’ve already mentioned my concerns in regards to foreign policy and civil rights.

    “Of course, the way liberals are jumping on the Ron Paul bandwagon, I can’t help but wonder if their support is equally based on a myopic one-issue platform…”

    I don’t think it’s myopia to put a canadates stand on the War on terror and the resulting loss of liberty at the forefront of one’s reasons to vote. These are very big, big issues. In fact the bigest I’d say. While, I’d prefer Kuchinch, if the choice came down to Ron Paul or Hillary/obama/Edwards, as long congress is controlled by the democrats I’d take Paul in a heartbeat.

    Comment by Joao — August 2, 2007 @ 10:43 am

19. Except as far as I can tell none of the leading democractic canadates (Edwards, Clinton, Obama) are running on much of a progressive agenda. I don’t think any of them is supporting single payer healthcare. If by healthcare reform they’re talking about something like what Mass. passed, then count me out.

    That’s a damn good point (I’m in favor of essentially covering everyone of every age under Medicare as an imperfect starting point). They also aren’t running overtly against the death penalty, or against ridiculous drug laws, or strongly against pointless militarism.

    Sucks. But if I can’t fine dining this time, I’d still rather eat frozen pizza than rat poison. There is such a thing as “moving in the right direction”, not to mention “the (much) lesser of two evils”, or perhaps even “the battle of neutral versus evil”.

    if the choice came down to Ron Paul or Hillary/obama/Edwards, as long congress is controlled by the democrats I’d take Paul in a heartbeat

    And you’d end up with a president doing everything in his power to dismantle or disrupt the EPA, the FDA, the FCC, the FAA, every social program (including Medicare, social security, food stamps, etc, etc, etc), any aspect of public education that he could get at from the administration, and a lot of other things that you don’t know how badly you need, but will miss very much if they get taken away. And that’s EVEN IF you could guarantee a permanent Democrat congress. Let the Republicans get a majority with Paul in the White House, and crazy Gingrich/Delay dreams of getting back to good old 1900-level unregulated “laissez faire” corruption would come true.

    Comment by harold — August 2, 2007 @ 12:05 pm

20. Greg, put aside what Paul thinks about the IRS for a minute, even if it’s never likely to pass even if the impossible happened and he became the Repug nom, let alone Commander in Chief. Put that aside. But using the Rosa Parks vote to condemn him? Please, that’s junk. Don’t tell me this if the first time you’ve heard that bamboozle!? You could put Murray Rothbard’s name up for a congressional medal, and he’d vote against that too. Get real. If that’s one of the hammerblows you have to attack Paul, jeebus you don’t have much. A couple other commenters mentioned the Parks flap, and you have remained silent about it. That’s bonkers and makes you look foolishly simple-minded, seriously, get past it. A point lost on you is the REASON that Paul is running for the Repug nom, and it’s very plain and simple reason: He wanted to get a paleocon voice — what he believs is the real old-skool “conservative” position — on the war into the debate and on the public record. Ask yourself: prior to his campaign, when was the last time you saw him as a guest interviewee on CNN and Fox? Did you ever see him on Meet the Press or Face the Nations? He was never booked. Not once. You’d think a ten-time Republican congressman from Texas who knows firsthand all dirty tricks from Bush and Rove, and who was genuinely anti-war before it became fashionable to phonies like Hillary, might have been somebody that Pumpikhead and Wolf Blitzer might have wanted to hear from, rather than, say, the usual venal Ann “blow up Mecca and convert ‘em to Christianity” Coulters of the world. Fat chance. Paul never sang from the neocon hymnbook, and warned against the Iraq fiasco well before “Mission Accomplished.” It’s just that the mainstream media never wanted to hear about it, better to shut him up, which they did. Well Paul used the presidential campaign to kick the door open, and kick the door open he has. His hands are clean on this fiasco. He has integrity and deserved to be heard, but he was purposely ignored and marginalized as a racist wacko who didn’t vote to cast a medal for Rosa Parks. I mean, who could dare be against that, even if he did contribute his own money to the cause. Paul viewed the landscape, understood the way the media operates, saw the Repug presidential hopefuls and realized the ONLY way he was going to be able to staunch the bleeding of the Conservative movement in America was to throw his hat into the race and get on the platform. Finally, the news networks were OBLIGED to listen to him, even if his opponents wanted him expunged, and his views on the war have resonated with Americans who never even heard of the guy four months ago, because he has integrity and common sense on the subject. Look at those clowns in the debate, all nine lined up on one side repeating the same tired 9/11 scare-mongering, and Paul on the other side exposing the Emperor Wearing No Clothes. Progressives should be thanking Paul for his contribution to the election discourse, because he dares to ask questions the news media and even most Dems, save Kucinich, won’t. Worse, Hillary, Obama and Edwards seem to be in their own macho gamesmanship trying to outdo each other about who’s tougher and more anxious to nuke Iran. Where’s the sanity, Paul asks, and yes, it’s the right question. The Rosa Parks stunt his attackers are throwing at him is just that, a pathetic transparent stunt, and an ignorant and uneducated stunt at that. Peace!

    Comment by beny more more more! — August 2, 2007 @ 3:15 pm

21. Of course, Ron Paul is a paleocon, as opposed to a neocon. He seems to be cut from roughly the same idelogical cloth as Pat Buchanan, he just seems a bit more sincere and gentlemanly, but leftists shouldn’t want Pat Buchanan in the Oval Office regardless of how sincere and gentlemanly he is.

    Comment by Rory — August 2, 2007 @ 3:31 pm

22. Hmmmm, half-truths and disinformation used to protect the interests of neoconservative warpigs. Greg, you’ve been punkd!

    Comment by swanee — August 2, 2007 @ 6:13 pm

23. Chaos not Anarchy.

    Hi Greg,

    I read your comment in This Modern World and wanted to comment on your missuse of the term anarchy.

    “pulling out completely (UN, NATO) is anarchy”

    Let me start by including Kropotkin’s Definition of Anarchism from the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannia.

    “ANARCHISM (from the Gr. , and , contrary to authority), the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions. ”

    This is not what you are describing. Chaos as a philosophical and mathematical term is more accurate for what you are describing.

    From Wikipedia.
    “Mathematically, chaos means an aperiodic deterministic behavior which is very sensitive to its initial conditions, i.e., infinitesimal perturbations of boundary conditions for a chaotic dynamic system originate finite variations of the orbit in the phase space.”

    If we pull out of Iraq, we will leave a situation where the outcome is dependent on local power centers (militias) and intial conditions (guns, money, and organizations). This would be a textbook case of CHAOS. It is not “harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements” between equals.

    As someone who has been active in the Anarchist Movements for the past 15 years, you are making mine and other anarchist, IWW, CNT, Zapatista, Co-Operative, union, and Catholic Worker activists work difficult by propogating Right Wing Lies that Anarchy = Chaos.

    Don’t shoot your allies.

    Charles

    Comment by Charles — August 2, 2007 @ 8:03 pm

24. Lots of Ron Paul supporters here have explained that we’ve been tricked by the MSM, and the a Republican party machine. Quite possible. I’ve been tricked lots of times. But I wish that some of you would explain to me how I’ve been tricked this time. Let’s start with this racism charge. There’s a big three paragraph exceprt from the “Ron Paul Political Report” at the top of this post, which I gotta say, looks pretty racist to me. So why shouldn’t I think the guy who had it written is racists? Is there context that I’m missing here? Was it opposite day? Poor judgment in hiring a writer, whom he immediately fired? What?

    sami i ami claimed that the paragraphs were not even racist, but just talking about a racist sentiment in the country. Let me ask you this, sami i ami. If I wrote the following about you, how would you react?

    Regardless of what some simpletons tell us, most liberal bloggers are not going to believe that sami i ami is not a racist. Sami i ami’s friends may have cowed some yellow-bellied weaklings, but good sense survives throughout the liberal blogosphere. Many more are going to have difficulty avoiding the belief that sami i ami is a semi-coherent, illiterate buffoon. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

    What would your reaction if I said such things about you? Would you feel attacked, or would you feel relieved by my admission that such conclusions might not be “entirely fair”? If the former, then clearly Ron Paul was attacking blacks as a class. If the latter, then you are insane.

    (clarification: I am not in fact accusing sami i ami of being a semi-cohenere, illiterate, racist buffoon. The above paragraph is illustrative.)

    Comment by Autumn Harvest — August 2, 2007 @ 9:44 pm

25. But to see progressives carrying neocon water is, well, to say the least, uber-lame.

    This is the same kind of bullshit people were throwing at me when I criticized Hugo Chavez. If somebody critizes your guy, it must be part of some grand conspiracy. There’s no way I could have possibly come to the conclusion that Ron Paul sucks on my own, right?

    Fine, here’s Ron Paul’s page at OnTheIssues.com and here’s a similar page on Wikipedia. I can find plenty of reasons why Ron Paul doesn’t deserve my vote or the votes of anyone else who considers themselves a liberal. Abortion, Net Neutrality, the electoral college, immigration, don’t ask, don’t tell, universal healthcare, opposition to higher CAFE standards, etc. I don’t care if he has a consistent political philosophy that he can explain he can use to tie all of his views together. I disagree with him a lot.

    Comment by greg — August 3, 2007 @ 9:34 am

26. I’ll Be honest, I like this Paul guys character; but anyone who votes on character and not issues is an idiot. Yes the man makes some good points on foreign policy but that doesn’t make him a fcking gandhi. He’s definitely better than his republican competition, but then, so is a poodle on a meth binge .
    I think the left leaning can find a better candidate than him. Also, you got to know something is screwy when you stay consistently as a republican candidate for so many years.
    People shouldn’t confuse small government on a social scale, with the small government that is advocated by neo conservatives, which is about no government to interfere with the corporate rape and pillaging, and has nothing to do with the small government of “staying out of your bedroom” Which is supposedly a traditonal conservative view, but now a days seems to be represented much more by liberals than conservatives.
    This new neo-con Demonization of Taxes as a whole, that Paul seems to stand for, is completely irresponsible and ridiculous. Thats why you NEED to pay taxes, so that bridges don’t go falling in to rivers, But these idiot conservatives think it’s just fine to pass the check down to our children and grandchildren. So I say lets put a half ass democrat in office, at least they might fix the economy a little bit, and have some half way sensible social policies, and don’t waist your votes on some charming loon, just because he has a little bit of common sense over the war.

    Comment by Sam — August 4, 2007 @ 1:27 am

27. I’m sorry by my bad English.

    I think that the Ron Paul’s idea of return to gold as money is the most crazy one.

    A set of questions for “gold believers”.
    - who are the main owners of gold today?
    - when gold become parity with money, will not be revalue
    artificially?
    - How could be taxed the great fortunes in future if the money is gold and could be hidden in any place?
    - when the money couldn’t be created, it not be more expensive (higher interest rates)?
    - If Inflation reduces the savings, is tt not reduces the debt too?
    - if fiat money inflation reduces the debts and make interests , will not be more easy to invest in something?

    In my humble opinion.
    - Adopt again gold standard is an act that transfers almost everything wealth to actual private gold owners “magically”.
    - Investment and people economic emancipation will became near to impossible because a credit will require very high interests but inflaction will be near 0, making investments without money too much difficult.
    - Gold is a metal with little real usefull uses, then paper money by little gold is near the same transaction. Nothing for almost nothing, real minus than nothing because the actual gold owners are richest people and make gold became money will generate an artificial demand and will raise a lot its values. If the rich became richer without making real wealth then the rest of people became more poor.
    - Gold is easy to hide and protect, making taxes ineffective and the wealth of gold owners (mainly, the richest) untouchable.

    My opinion is that return to gold is
    highly harmful to people.

    Comment by GoldIsBad — August 4, 2007 @ 3:16 pm

28. Sadly, I suspect Ron is a bit racist. We know he has trouble empathizing with people from other “races” because he has trouble empathizing with other people period. Empathy would have made it difficult to vote on principal against funding FEMA.
    Leaving aside his racism, he advocates massive cuts in federal spending and massive cuts in taxes to go with them. These are not positions that, “anyone…who considers themselves a liberal,” is going to support, or even have much sympathy for. SO for the other 80% of the country there are two issues to consider about Ron Paul (or any candidate for President, really), namely; on what issues do I agree with Ron Paul, and what will a Ron Paul presidency actually look like? To answer the first question is the work Greg has done here, and Greg has come out with a balance sheet that looks like this:
    Ron Paul’s positions I agree with -
    Impeaching the President
    Ending the war
    Shrinking the military
    Ron Paul’s positions I do not agree with -
    Everything else
    SO Greg is not going to be voting for this guy. If you agree with a few more of Paul’s positions, or don’t think they are that bad, then you might want to look at the probable Paul presidency. Not only would it be tragicomic(not unlike Kucinich, Ron Paul does not have the presidential gravitas), but open political insurrection from all sides would make the nation basically ungovernable, and Ron Paul would be unable to get much of his agenda accomplished. It’s not like congress would be filled with libertarians.
    But I think this is the time of the election cycle when you should support those who really appeal to you, which is why I’m voting for Chris Dodd. Just kidding, Chris Dodd appeals to nobody.
    Ron Paul is basically the Nihilists’ candidate - and I mean that as a recommendation.

    Comment by Pants — August 5, 2007 @ 4:08 pm

29. Greg: Excellent work. You may also want to note that Paul has a long history of consorting with right-wing extemists of the conspiratorial, a characteristic reflected in his advocacy of “New World Order” theories, a return to the gold standard, and the abolition of the IRS and public education. I’ve written about at it some length at my blog.

    There’s a reason why, when you go to Stormfront, you see a dozen or more threads plumping Paul’s candidacy.

    Comment by David Neiwert — August 6, 2007 @ 11:33 pm

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