Ron Paul
Radley Balko | January 8, 2008, 6:20pm
I'm disappointed in Paul and in his campaign.
First, a few caveats. I think Paul's prone to nutty conspiracy theories, but I don't think he's a racist, at least not today. Perhaps there was a time when he held views that I and many people reading this site would find repugnant. But I certainly don't think that's the case now. Paul's temperament and demeanor in public does not suggest he's the kind of person capable of writing the bile Kirchick quotes in his article. Paul's position on the drug war alone—which he has acknowledged disproportionately affects minorities—would do more for blacks in America than any proposal any of the other candidates currently has on the table. Paul has also recently rescinded his support for the federal death penalty, also due to its disproportionate impact on blacks. Those two positions alone certainly don't indicate a candidate who fears "animal" blacks from the urban jungle are coming to kill all the white people.
I also think the Paul phenomenon ought to be separated from any personal baggage Paul may have. Yes, there are some losers who support Paul's candidacy. Any time you're a fringe candidate cobbling together support from those who feel disaffected and left behind by the two-party system, you're going to end up bumping elbows with a few weirdos. But there's nothing bigoted about the thousands of college kids, mainstream libertarians, war opponents, drug war opponents, and hundreds-long threads on sites like Digg and Reddit where enthusiasm for Paul's candidacy is strong. This movement is about ideas. There's a vocal, enthusiastic minority of people out there, skewing young, that is excited about "the Constitution," limited government, and personal freedom. That's significant and heartening, and shouldn't be tainted by the fallout from Kirchick's article (though I fear it will—more on that in a bit).
I'd also point out that if we're going to clean house, here, we should go ahead and give it a thorough cleaning. When it comes to alleged sordid associations with neo-confederate organizations, Paul's in good company in the Republican Party (see Haley Barbour and John Ashcroft, among others). When it comes to anti-Semitism, one needn't look any farther than Al Sharpton, who still commands inexplicable respect from the Democratic establishment. None of this excuses what's in those newsletters, nor does it excuse Paul's association with them. It just means he has company, and I suspect the outrage we'll see in the coming days will be rather selective.
All of that said, let me get to the scolding. Like Nick Gillespie, I think the most disappointing thing about all of this is what Dave Weigel posted this afternoon from New Hampshire: Paul doesn't consider this worthy of a serious reaction. I was hoping for much, much more. If Paul didn't write these screeds, he should tell us who did, or assign someone from the campaign to do some research, and reveal the authors' identity. He should explain his relationship with the authors, and how it is they came to write for a newsletter that went out under his name. He should acknowledge which of these positions he at one time supported but now repudiates, which he has never supported, and which he still supports. If he's going to claim he merely lent his name to some people and causes he shouldn't have, and with whom he didn't at the time or doesn't now agree, he should say so, and explain how he could let a newsletter continue to be published under his name after first, fifth, tenth, or twentieth time it ran something he found offensive. Like Kirchick, I find the prospect that Paul never read the newsletter implausible.
The 1990s is not "ancient history." We were by then well past the point in American history where the kind of racism and bigotry present in those articles had any place in civil discourse. I simply can't imagine seeing any piece of paper go out under my name that included sympathetic words for David Duke. That a newsletter with Paul's name did just that demands an explanation from Paul. The "I've answered that in the past" reply isn't sufficient. You're running for president, now. You have a national platform. You've been an ambassador for libertarian ideas on Colbert, the Daily Show, Meet the Press, and Jay Leno. That you've provided a brief explanation for some of these passages a decade ago during a little-noticed congressional campaign doesn't cut it. No one was paying attention then. Just about everyone is now.
That Paul and his campaign don't consider this worthy of a serious reaction I'm afraid makes it all the more difficult to buy into the least damning spin on the story (and even that is still pretty damning). It suggests at the very least a certain obliviousness to the resonance and impact of racism and bigotry.
Of course, Paul was never going to win. So the real concern here is what happens to the momentum for the ideas his campaign has revived. The danger is that the ignorance in those newsletters becomes inextricably tethered to the ideas that have drawn people to Paul's campaign, and soils those ideas for years to come. You needn't be a gold bug or buy into conspiracies about Jewish bankers, for example, to see the merit in allowing for private, competing currencies (what PayPal once aspired to become). You needn't believe blacks are animals or savages or genetically inferior to believe that the welfare state's perverse incentives have done immeasurable damage to black families. You needn't be a confederate sympathizer to appreciate the wisdom of federalism. You needn't be an anti-Semite to wonder about the implications of the U.S.'s broad support for Israel.
Some of these ideas have always faced a certain hurdle in the national debate. To argue against welfare, hate crimes laws, and affirmative action, libertarians (and conservatives) always have to clear the racism card first. To argue for ending the drug war or knocking out huge federal agencies, we always have to clear the "'I'm not a kook" card. Today's news, combined with Paul's high profile, I think carries the potential to make all of that a little more difficult.
I also fear that newly-minted Paulites on sites like Reddit, Digg, Slashdot and the like—whose first exposure to libertarianism was Ron Paul—are going to click over to the New Republic piece in the coming days, become disillusioned, and assume that this is really what libertarianism is all about.
Paul's candidacy attracted broad support because he unabashedly embraced what the GOP claims to be on fiscal issues—low tax, limited government, pro-federalist—and what the Democrats claim to be on social issues—pro individual freedom and pro-privacy. Paul's campaign has essentially called both parties on their bullshit, and made them explain the gap between their stated principles and the way they've governed. Both sides I think were surprised at how strong he came on. So both sides dismissed him as a nut, and cited the kookiest fringes of libertarianism and dug up the most whacked-out Paul supporters to prove their point. Unfortunately, the quotes pulled from these newsletters will for many only confirm those worst stereotypes of what he represents. The good ideas Paul represents then get sullied by association. The Ann Althouses of the world, for example, are now only more certain that opponents of federal anti-discrimination laws should have to prove that they aren't racist before being taken seriously.
There have always been issues where I disagree pretty profoundly with Paul—immigration and the Fourteenth Amendment, to name two. Still, I've been encouraged by his campaign because it's been heartening to not only watch a candidate talk about limited government, humble foreign policy, and individual liberty over the last several months, but to see his support actually grow as he does.
Paul's success and media coverage have exposed a large portion of the country to libertarian ideas for the first time. Before yesterday, that was a good thing. But now I'm not so sure. If this new audience's first exposure to libertarianism now comes with all of this decidedly unlibertarian baggage—that many may now wrongly associate with libertarian ideas—maybe it would have been better if Paul's campaign had sputtered out months ago, and we waited a cycle or two for someone else to come along to tap the sentiment.
Brian Miller | January 8, 2008, 7:45pm | #
Cause up 'til now the LP has been doing so well.
I love when the Ron Paul people drag out this slur against the LP as some justification for the Ron Paul disaster.
Ron Paul won 10% of Iowa's GOP caucus-goers, or 5,000 votes.
If he wins another 10% of New Hampshire's GOP voters, he'll get an additional 25,000 or so.
So 30,000. Figure he doubles that total by the end of the primaries.
A whole 60,000 voters, or about 10% of what a decent recent Libertarian campaign can muster.
For comparison's sake, in 1980, Ed Clark won over a million votes.
Barack Obama has been stripping off many of the Libertarian future voters -- much of his support are first-time voters who want change.
So the "libertarians" rush out and give them a 72-year-old has-been who has links to racist and homophobic articles written under his name that he claims he didn't really write.
Immigration is changing the makeup of the country. And rather than embrace that change, "libertarians" rush to support a 72-year-old has-been who channeled Tom Tancredo in a ridiculous anti-immigration advertisement in Iowa.
Attitudes towards gay people are changing towards tolerance and inclusion. So "libertarians" embrace a guy who was an outspoken supporter of Bill Clinton's anti-gay DOMA law and who has made a career in the newsletter business out of bashing gays.
Then they claim they're doing "better" than the Libertarian Party with their "message of liberty." Some "message," kids.
Time to move out of mom's basement and join us in the real world.
rho | January 8, 2008, 8:33pm | #
And Paul is just as human as you and i and clinton and obama and huckabee and romney
Was I unclear when I said I don't think Ron Paul is the Savior? Paul is popular because of his message. He's certainly not a great orator, nor does he make infallible decisions.
Everybody's pulling long faces and saying, "but, but, but it
sounds so bad," yet nobody (or few enough) come out and say that Dr. Paul is a racist.
This is not a complicated problem. If you think he wrote those things, and that he means them--if not now, then at least then--say so. Say he's a dirty Jew-hating racist. If you don't think he is, then say so. Say that you don't think he's a racist, and therefore you accept his explanation as to where these things come from.
But don't go wishy-washy and run crying because you're scared somebody's going to call you names. And definitely don't agonize over the fate of libertarianism because of this, since libertarianism has not been more than a fringe me-too political philosophy. Ron Paul's popularity owes nothing, or little enough, to libertarianism, and indeed downplays it in interviews.
Besides, as some folks here are so fond of noting, Ron Paul cuts a poor figure of a libertarian because he doesn't sufficiently support abortion, or free immigration, or whatever personal bugaboo the poster harbors as his Pure Libertarian Codeword. Libertarians are "those folks who want to sell meth to fifth graders"--a closet racist is not what's keeping libertarianism from sweeping the nation.
Chad | January 8, 2008, 11:37pm | #
Assuming Paul is being honest when he states that he did not write those controversial statements himself, I have some theories that I would like to propose for discussion.
Paul is by no means a stupid individual, and he must certainly know what his unwillingness to be more forthcoming is doing to his campaign, so he must have thought through the pros and cons very carefully before responding. Here are the theories that came to mind:
1) Paul is downplaying the accusations in hopes they will just go away, the same thing he was advised to do when they came up in years past. In other words, the more time he publicly deals with the accusations, the more likely they are to linger and continue to harm his campaign.
It is a bit like when well-meaning people picket a controversial movie; their goal is dissuade others from watching the movie, but the attention they bring to the movie through their picketing actually makes more people want to go see it. It would have been far more effective for them to NOT make a to-do about the movie in question.
2) Paul is trying to be "honorable" to a fault by not exposing the actual author or authors of those articles. It is like when a captain of a ship (or starship for those sci-fi fans out there) states, "I take full responsibility for the actions of my entire crew. I am their leader, so any consequences for their wrongful actions fall on me and me alone."
Although he is probably irritated at the writer who got him into this situation, he knows it was his name on that title page, after all; I would not be surprised if he has beating himself up mentally for not being more careful with that newsletter years ago.
3) This is actual a variation of #2 above. I am not sure if I have seen anyone suggest this, but could it be possible that the person (or persons) who authored those articles are actually someone quite close to Paul, someone whom he would not want to throw under the bus? Could it have even been a relative or a lifelong friend whom he had originally trusted completely to not write anything foolish in the newsletter bearing his name, only to find that trust betrayed? In the name of loyalty to that person (whom he probably forgave years ago, being the nice guy he is), he is taking all the heat on himself.
I hate to even suggest that third option, because we have all let down people close to us at one time or another, but that is the only scenario in which I could see Paul being willing to have all of the positive momentum of his national, presidential campaign killed by his refusal to name names.
Anyway, I will be interested to see what people have to say about the above theories.
Shawn Levasseur | January 9, 2008, 2:45pm | #
I wish RP would deal with this matter better. The manner in which RP did handle it treating it as if it was old news long forgotten was wrong. It felt like he was trying to just sweep it under the rug instead of dealing with it.
The quotes that he has given in response to this, allow his response to be characterized as non-denial denials.
For so many people, Ron Paul is entirely new to them, and even old news about him in new news, and must be treated as such. The fact that they ARE old news to Ron himself means that he should have been better prepared for this moment, and have a better, more confident response ready to go.
I know the prime mover of the RP Revolution was ideas. But you can't escape the fact that elections are also about the character of the people running for office.
Ideas are the core of any good political movement. That's why one should never get caught up in any cults of personality. For the most part, Ron's campaign has been about ideas. But blind or over forgiving defenses of Ron make the whole enterprise look like a cult of personality, and not of ideals.
To say that people who's vote would be swayed by such matters were never truly
As time goes by, the more I appreciate the professional image that Harry Browne put out as the LP's public face in the 1996 and 2000 races.
I don't know if Browne could have achieved what Ron Paul has done. But in a political environment where anti-war voters were looking for someone who they could trust not to flip flop, I'd think he'd have done as well as Ron, and been a better communicator in the process. But that's all speculation of what-ifs.
Paul | January 9, 2008, 4:51pm | #
You defenders and those with fingers in the ears really need to read the article again and again. Here is an example of what is said elsewhere....
(I didn't write any of this it was ghost-written)
Oh ........ it's even better than that . He was not aware of them as it was a business venture he lent his name to . A Business he failed to look at for years and years . If that is true it is not a lapse as some say . A lapse is a day , few weeks , maybe the sign of bad political wits for a few months . This would be gross incompetence . But let's play along shall we? He was angry about when he found out and has disavowed it . Well he was obviously aware in 1996 when a spokesman said the comments reflected Jesse Jackson . No denial , no outrage , no ghostwriters . If he finds the matters referred to then as things to disown ( and he was very quick to do that , it only took him 5 YEARS) , he surely would have looked at the other things written in his name . Of course the articles have no name attributed , apart from the publication title and the company , and a selection of personal references to his family and past , all written in the first person. Of course he did not write these things , just selected someone to run matters who obviously held the same views . No , wait , that doesn't wash .They do not come close his libertarian views now , apart from the Lincoln and the slaves thing , immigrants , abortions , gay rights , civil rights.... No I am sure it is not him , if he reads something he carefully weighs it up , like the understanding of the nature of theories in science .You know , the evolution question , which he made clear he disagreed with at the debate when he raised his hand like the other deleg.....are you sure?Surely he made a clean and frank admission there?. A biology based degree would teach him this and make him understand evolution is not to be understood as a theological questi.....he said what? No no , he reads carefully and is a man of principle. He has disavowed these things he must have been aware of for over a decade now . That's why he returned a racists money as he knew these writings would show a need politically to distance himsel.....oh...oh I see . Yes that argument is plausible in isolation too.But he is a man of principle , a constitutionalist who only follows the written consti.....14th what?.....he slips benefits for Texas into laws knowing he can vote against it and it will still pass? No , we have to accept he is totally clean in this . The Bart Simpson defence of " I didn't do it " is totally appropriate and satisfying.....
.... and RP is not a crazy conspiratorial type either . He just likes to hang around with them hating the UN and only wears the tin foil hat because it matches his eyes. He did not make the hat . It was ghostmade.Honest......
......... his legislative history does match the comments . He didn't vote to reaffirm the rights gained in the sixties etc . Keep looking it matches . Hell , the man can't even stay within his own philosophy of individual liberty and the constitution . Far be it for me to say that his religion affects his political stands . Don't think so? What about his weaselling over the separation of church and state and his constitutionalist position .He isn't even a good libertarian (and they are bad enough) , he wants free trade but not a free movement of dirty filthy foreigners ( that's sarcasm there before you say I am racist). Hell , the non-interventionist not a isolationist is more weaselling . If this guy was just currying favour ,trying to get cash or giving a free pass to minions , that sure as hell is not someone I would hitch my name to . All these ronbots spamming trying to make out the movement is massive when it's a fraction ( you need to turn to more conspiracy now to explain the lack of success you kept saying would happen for Mr 5th in a libertarian leaning state) have to do what they are doing as otherwise they know they are going to look damn silly having forked out so much cash,time and devotion to the ,hah,revolution. I think that scientologists and Heaven's Gater's look more credible , though it's certainly talking about the same fold .When in a hole , stop digging. Just walk away , walk away man. "I didn't do it" - Ron Paul/Bart Simpson. PS ..For those furiously trying to bury the story on social sites like Digg and Reddit, keep going , it's out there and will only be all the more delicious as it slowly leaks the further in the hole you are while the rains come down.
YOU_WANT_RACISTS? | January 10, 2008, 3:33am | #
Everyone knows Dr. Paul is no racist.
He delivered many minority babies for free.
He denounced those who said they would not vote for a candidate based on his religion.
Hillary and Obama openly support racism. Here is proof. They both pander to this organization. A Hillary or Obama presidency would mean more of your tax dollars going to -- racism!
Hillary Picks La Raza Leader As Campaign Co Chair
Thu, 04/12/2007
The former president of an extremist group that organized many of the country's disruptive pro illegal immigration marches and advocates the return of the American Southwest to Mexico will co-chair Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Best known for his radical pro Chicano work during 30 years as president of the National Council of La Raza, Raul Yzaguirre is being promoted by the Clinton campaign as a prominent Hispanic activist who will lead the New York senator's outreach to Hispanic voters.
The reality is that Yzaguirre alienates many American citizens of Hispanic descent (in other words, those qualified to vote) with his so-called La Raza rhetoric, which has been repeatedly labeled racist.
The National Council of La Raza describes itself as the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, but it caters to the radical Chicano movement that says California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas belong to Aztlan.
The takeover plan is referred to as the "reconquista" of the Western U.S. and it features ethnic cleansing of Americans, Europeans, Africans and Asians once the area is taken back and converted to Aztlan.
While this may all sound a bit crazy, this organization is quite powerful (thanks to Hillary's new campaign co-chair) and annually receives millions of dollars in federal grants. Its leaders also managed to get included in congressional hearings regarding immigration. Last year alone, the National Council of La Raza received $15.2 million in federal grants and one senator gave the group an extra $4 million in earmarked American taxpayer dollars.
The organization uses the money to support projects like a Southern California elementary school with a curriculum that specializes in bashing America and promoting the Chicano movement. The school's founder and principal, a Calexico-educated activist named Marcos Aguilar, opposes racial integration and says Mexicans in the U.S. don't want to go to white schools or drink from white water fountains.
formerbeltwaywonk | January 10, 2008, 6:39pm | #
How can one not think of conspiracy theories having just observed an improbably simultaneous media attack on Ron Paul the day of the New Hampshire campaign? A remarkably successful attack that made him plunge from 14% in the polls to an 8% actual vote? After weeks where we heard very little about Paul from the mass media and beltway "libertarian" bloggers? TNR from the left, Fox News and talk radio from the right, and piling on from beltway "libertarians" who made a point of loudly repeating the TNR smears and dumping Ron Paul on the day of the primary. Your eyes did not deceive you, all this happened. It is not the result of a criminal conspiracy, but if one uses "conspiracy" as a metaphor for social networks of vast complexity, there is a strong sense in which conspiracy theories accurately, if metaphorically, explain what happened.
The reality behind the conspiratorial metaphor is the social networking between denizens of the Beltway, who sport a wide variety of political labels but are, relative to the rest of the country, a monoculture. These denizens range from the journalists who report the mass media news to various think tank and university scholars at the Cato Institute, George Mason University, and so on. Vast amounts of federal money, that stuff that is taken out of your paycheck with such automatic ease, flow into the Beltway area. Directly and indirectly, almost every person who lives in or near the Beltway depends on the very income tax that Ron Paul declared he would abolish -- with no replacement!
Many of these paycheck vampires call themselves "libertarians" and inspire us with their libertarian rhetoric to support them with our attention, our blog hits, and our tuition money as well as the tax money that already funds them or their friends. But at the first sign of political incorrectness, all these below-the-Beltway "libertarians" have dumped Ron Paul like yesterday's garbage. Now they can rest easy that they will still be invited to the parties thrown by their lobbyist and government employee and contractor friends, who for a second or two got worried by all those Google searches that Ron Paul might have some influence, resulting in some of them losing their jobs (end the income tax with no replacement?! The guy is obvioiusly a kook, and we don't invite the supporters of kooks to our parties!). Now everybody around the Beltway can go back to partying at the taxpayer's expense. All the money will keep flowing in, hooray!
The lesson millions of young libertarians have now learned from our beltway "libertarians"? Libertarian electioneering is futile. Voting is futile. Democracy is futile. Anybody who actually wants liberty is a kook, as can be proven by their association with kooks. Beltway wonks posing as "libertarians" are happy to write things to inflame your hopes for liberty that they don't really mean. Then they make sure that we elect the politicians their friends want -- the ones that will enslave your future to pay for full social security for Baby Boomers. The ones that will send you off to foreign lands to kill and die. Our Beltway "libertarians" are happy to sell a whole new generation of libertarians down the tubes in order to keep their Beltway friends happy.
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSS
