Paul on CNN
Radley Balko | January 11, 2008, 2:29pm
Paul's appearance with Wolf Blitzer didn't do it for me.
I haven't been in the libertarian movement long (I'm 32, and I really only became a full-fledged movement libertarian at 25, when I started working for Cato). But reading the long-time activist's descriptions of those newsletters and how they were written, edited, and distributed, when Paul says he had no idea who wrote them, and that he rarely read them—well, I simply don't believe him. Nor do I think that would be a viable excuse even if it were true.
I thought his appearance was overly defensive, lacked any sort of contrition, and found it wholly unconvincing.
Take Paul's discussion of the drug war's impact on minorities. Yes, it was spot-on. But I've been watching this campaign fairly closely, and I believe that's the most time to date that Paul has spent talking about the drug war. I've actually been surprised at how little he has discussed it. His position on the drug war is one of the main reasons why I was encouraged by his candidacy. This campaign could have represented the first time ever (that I know of) that a GOP candidate challenged his rivals to defend the failure and moral corruption of drug prohibition in a nationally-televised debate. It hasn't happened. That his longest discussion of the drug war to date had to come only after he was confronted about the newsletters, and in the context of defending himself from accusations of racism, is unfortunate. And perhaps telling.
Here's the other thing: Paul talks in the Blitzer interview about how the drug war has disproportionately sent black people to prison. He's right. Black people use drugs in proportions only slightly higher than their share of the general population. But the proportion of blacks in prison for drugs crimes is substantially higher. They are far more likely to get arrested for drug crimes, far more likely to be convicted, and even when facing similar charges, tend to receive longer sentences than whites.
A big reason why is the latent sentiment at every level of the criminal justice system—from cops to prosecutors to jurors—that black people are inherently more prone to criminality than white people. It's sort of the opposite of "group rights." It's "group wrongs"—or punishing black people on a individual basis for perceived transgressions by black people as a group. It's also a form of collectivist thinking—the antithesis of libertarianism.
I have no idea if Paul is a racist. I suspect that he isn't, at least today. But he's certainly had no problem benefiting from the support of people who are. It's more than a little disingenuous for him to now defend himself by invoking what the criminal justice system has done to the black community when for fifteen years a newsletter bearing his name, and the profits from which went into his bank account, celebrated and encouraged the black-people-are-savage-criminals lie in particularly vile and perverse ways.
The newsletter defended the Rodney King beating, for God's sake, on the bullshit argument that King was part of a criminal class of people. The implication is that some people deserve substandard treatment under the rule of law because of the color of their skin. There's nothing remotely libertarian about that.
Whether he was active or passive in the newsletters doesn't matter. Paul perpetuated that way of thinking for more than a decade in a newsletter he published. He did it during the 1980s and 1990s, the very period over which the drug laws exacerbated the white-black disparity in America's prisons. He can't now use the "blacks are treated poorly by our criminal justice system" defense to distance himself from those very newsletters.
Perhaps it's too much for us to expect Paul to turn over the names of the paleo types who wrote those screeds (if it's true that he had no hand in writing him himself—which I'm having a harder and harder time believing), to apologize that they ever went out under his name, and to disavow and repudiate the beliefs of the paleolibertarian supporters who have propped him up for most of his career, some of whom he still calls friends.
But if he can't, it's also too much to ask libertarians who find those views abhorrent to continue to support him.
I have defended Paul on this site and on my own site. I'm sad to say I'm becoming more and more embarassed at having done so.
hale | January 11, 2008, 3:26pm | #
Look, I feel pretty strongly about this issue. I know that everybody else who has been turning up for these 300 comment threads feels pretty strongly about it too - well, except Edward, who just has an insatiable craving for attention from the internet. So understand that I'm not saying this isn't an important debate to be having but -
- brace yourselves -
This is not an important debate to be having. Not really.
The argument, as far as I can tell, is between people who won't vote for a guy who won't win because of his racist affiliations, and people who want to vote for a guy who won't win because of his racist affiliations. We all know he won't win. Even without this racist stuff coming up, there's no way he was going to get more than 13% of the primary votes in any state. Is that defeatist? Maybe. It's also realistic.
So, what was really exciting about the Paul candidacy was the hope that with the insane funding he was getting, he'd be able to crack the public consciousness, get out the good word about libertarianism, you know? Evangelize. Persuade. Cajole. We live in a country where people hate Congress, hate the president, mostly don't vote, don't trust the two parties, increasingly take a dim view of politicians' ideas for moving forward. Part of the appeal of Ron Paul's candidacy was the idea that he was going to get out there and claim some of those disenfranchised, bring 'em into the fold. These newcomers wouldn't have been cosmo, they wouldn't have been paleo. A lot of them would've just been plain old political independents, the sort of fickle people who are with you when your candidate looks like a secular saint and back to not voting the moment he loses their fascination.
That's why this racism shit is a big deal. It's also why it isn't that big a deal.
Yeah, if
The New Republic went on a Wynand-esque campaign against Ron Paul - which you know they're itching to, the neoliberal bastards - a lot of people would scratch their heads, go "oh well" and wander back to their respective indifferences.
It isn't like this would tar the libertarian movement, though, because these people don't even know there
is a libertarian movement, or if they do, they think people like Pat Buchanan or Markos Moulitasas Zuniga have something to do with it. The wider fate of libertarianism isn't really at stake here.
Yes, Cato never really got behind a big proponent of smaller government - that's a bit weird, but whatever. And yes, Reason are covering their asses. You know, I don't blame them. I'm not so coldly pragmatic that I am willing to vote for a person who smells of racism, and if I were a writer for a major publication who'd spent most of the year backing one, that burden-of-conscience would be even harder to carry. What can I say? Racism is a big deal to me. It may not have much to do with libertarianism, but to me it's a personal, moral issue.
However, if y'all want to go vote for Ron Paul anyway, by all means vote your conscience. That's all I'm gonna do, so it's all I'd expect of y'all.
Legate Damar | January 11, 2008, 4:06pm | #
This just in: Voting causes people to select best of imperfect options!
Nobody cares about my opinion, but this is the internet, so you're getting it anyway.
Radley's off base by implying that Paul wrote these. I've seen WAY too much chatter from high-level (current and former) Paulites to believe that these were from the Doctor's hand.
But, I've been supremely disappointed to see that he hasn't named names and hasn't addressed this more directly. It suggests that he'd be a little too loyal to his inner circle to be the president that I at one point hoped he might be (if he stood a chance.)
That said, whenever you vote (as compared to abstaining), you necessarily pick the least imperfect person for each position because no one is perfect. And after seeing what my other options are, I'm still voting for Paul without hesitation. The other strategic choices are that bad.
Can you vote for a non-strategic, 0% candidate (say, yourself) and have a clear conscience? Probably in that you think you've chosen the best person, but again, you're not perfect either. Voting is, by its nature, a measure of how far from perfection you are willing to wander in order to achieve a strategic end. Think any of those 2000 Naderites wish they were a bit more forgiving of Gorebot's faults?
Can you not vote? Yes, but that's not a solution either, no matter what anyone around here says. You can fill the city council of Chicago with people who all got 1 vote each (from themselves) but guess what: They still run the city (and the budget and the police force) no matter how they got there.
So, while I am deeply disappointed in Dr. Paul's handling of this situation, I see no other legitimate alternative than to vote for him.
charlie | January 11, 2008, 4:13pm | #
Let me get this straight:
John McCain can all asians "gooks", but that's okay because he's a war hero. He can argue against trading with Arab countries "because they only want to trade burkas" and that's perfectly acceptable.
Fred Thompson can talk about sending Iranian military members to the virgins in heaven they supposedly seek -- confusing the Shiite religion with the Wahhabist sect that makes up Al Qaeda, but again, that's okay because he's merely being bigoted toward muslims.
Rudy Giuliani can run ads warning us of the threat of swarthy foreigners, and can employ people who openly talk about Rudy being the best candidate to "take on the muslims" (and say that there's "no such thing" as a good muslim).
Mike Huckabee can give the fucking Sunday sermon at John Hagee's church -- the same guy whose support of Israel is premised on the fact that when the apocalypse comes, all the Jews there will be either killed or converted to Christianity -- and that's perfectly okay.
But if a few admittedly horrible, bigoted statements end up in a few 20 year old newsletters that bear Ron Paul's name -- despite the fact that he credibly denies having written them and having shared the sentiments expressed in them -- why, that's beyond the pale for the likes of Virginia Postrel.
I too am disappointed in the content of the newsletters, but I think it's revealing that in the age of YouTube, no one has ever produced a clip of Ron Paul saying anything remotely racist. In fact, I've never heard someone even claim that Ron Paul is a racist -- not even Jamie Kirchick would go so far as to say that Ron Paul has ever said anything racist.
I also find it revealing that, again, Virgina Postrel and many of the Reason writers condemning Paul could no find the time to condemn any of the litany of anti-muslim bigotry that passes for discourse in the modern GOP.
It's very telling, if you ask me.
GPS | January 11, 2008, 4:39pm | #
Long time lurker, infrequent poster here...
I agree with a lot of what's been said around here. While it's difficult to say without knowing the man personally, I'm confortable in believing that Paul is not a racist (now that isn't to say he may not bristle if his daughter - if he has one - married a black man, but who knows). His use of the term "the blacks" is a little dated and not very PC nowadays, but I'm guessing the percentage of white males aged 70+ who are up on modern PC lingo is probably on the small side.
That said, his handling of the newsletters, especially then and somewhat now, is a downer. It shows a lack of organization oversight (it's a pubicly-distributed and politically-charged newsletter with your name across the top... how could you not be more in tuned with who's got their hands in it?) and brings into question the type of crowd he'll allow into his inner circle and write under his sponsorship, even if he doesn't agree with their ideology, per se.
While he still needs to shake some of the old school social conservatism, IMO, he's done a lot to bring the ideals of small government, the evils of the WoD and the virtues of "play nice" with other nations to listening ears.
My hope is that this will help energize others (perhaps within the GOP?) with similar viewpoints in subsequent elections, where we'll always have a "Ron Paul" on the national stage, though privately hopefully with more of a youthful Obama-like charisma.
Moreover, I don't think there needs to be the polar extremes of Love Paul or Hate Paul. I like Paul and support him (though not as fervently as others do) in getting his message out there, while recognizing some aspects that will never completely click with me.
Roach | January 11, 2008, 4:41pm | #
Read the history: black urban activists in the 80s, sick of the "crack epidemic" in their neighborhoods, fought for tougher sentences. If I may quote Reason Magazine, http://www.reason.com/news/show/36648.html, "Still, it’s worth remembering that black politicians and community leaders were among the loudest voices demanding tough action to suppress the crack trade in the 1980s. The response included a bizarre system of federal penalties that treats one gram of crack the same as 100 grams of cocaine powder, even though these are different forms of the same drug. This disparate treatment of smokable and snortable cocaine (which many states, not including Texas, imitated) imposes harsh sentences on low-level crack dealers, who are overwhelmingly black."
I'll concede this difference leads to more blacks in prison. I also think it's unfair and unwise; low level dealers and users I believe can and should be rehabilitated and treated respectively.
But that doesn't make this dumb law racist, any more than the SAT Test or the NBA Draft are "institutionally racist" for the disparate impacts each imposes on black and whites respectively.
When blacks do something less often but go to jail more often, undoubtedly the situation in the Jim Crow South, that's a disparate impact to be concerned about. But since the NCVS (a survey of victims) and the UCR (a study of convictions) reveal no significant disparities between the races in violent and property crimes, I see no reason to think there's much of a big difference in drug crimes either. Can anyone think of why there's no significant arrest/sentencing/conviction and offending in the one case but not the other?
By this I mean that if 3/10 whites and 4/10 blacks use crack, and each racial cohort makes up 50% each of a given city's population, and if the cops arrest 30 whites and 40 blacks for smoking crack, this would not be an example of invidious racism. An unwise law perhaps, but not a racist one.
Why?
Because I can substitute any other crime up there for the same numbers--a real crime everyone agrees on like robbery--and no one would think that's a racist outcome. This is indeed the case for robbery and every other violent crime. You can't just pick and choose how you apply a supposed standard like disparate impact and be persuasive, and that's what Radley does above.
JD | January 11, 2008, 4:49pm | #
R C Dean said: "We have learned there was practically nothing left of Iraqi society after Saddam's generation in power."
Who did you learn that from? Some thinktank Neocon with a butt to cover?
Try hearing the words of Iraqis, not Neocons:
http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2008/01/straight-talk.html
"You are the dictators, you are the tyrants, you are the terrorists...
You are the ones who ruined this country, who pillaged it, who raped and killed its people and destroyed its history...
You are the ones who divided it into sects and ethnicities, collaborating with the most fascistic elements inside of it, like the chauvinists, Zionists, Kurds and the sectarian, backward Shiites.
You have given us a Shi'ite Iranian theocracy, and if the Iraqi national Resistance finally does away with these Persian turbaned scum from Qum, Nejaf and Kerbala, we will be left with an another theocracy “Sunni” flavored.
I thought you were against Fundamentalism, are you not? How come your fucking occupation encouraged both kinds?
Don’t tell me, I know already.
You are the ones who created Al-Qaeda and you are the ones who fed this other fungus called political Shi’ism in its most deviant form called Khomeinism.
You are indeed the real Terrorists. You are indeed the blood vampires. You are the Al-Qaedas of this world.
You say, we were oppressed and repressed under a ”totalitarian regime”. Ha!
And what are you doing you motherfuckers. Are you not oppressing and repressing us?
Did you know that anyone, and I mean anyone who dares criticize your favorite puppet Al-Maliki (from the Iranian Al-Dawa party) and the other Kurdish pimp called Talabani, the so-called President of Iraq - I shit on such presidency by the way - disappears in dungeons?
Did you know that people are abducted from their homes on bogus charges and are imprisoned and tortured if they dare speak out against the filthy rapists/thugs/corrupt militias you have installed in power. The militias bearing the name of the king driller who ethnically cleansed the whole of Baghdad and goes by the name of Muqtada al-Sadr?"
Roach | January 11, 2008, 5:12pm | #
Ayn, you ask, "You still haven't answered why it's relevant in modern discourse to point out that certain races may or may not commit certain crimes at certain times."
I point these things out for several reasons.
One, disparities in imprisonment and arrest and sentencing are sometimes used as evidence of vast amounts of underground, invidious racism. I think this is charge is corrosive to social solidarity between whites and blacks, is not true, and these disparities are instead explained by greater rates of minority criminality.
Second, I am concerned about crime in general. If one group--whether men, poor people, or blacks--is committing a lot more crime than otherwise similar groups, it calls for study to see why it's happening and how it can be stopped for the good of society as a whole, and for the good of that group ultimately.
Finally, I am concerned about this because this disparity and explosion of violent crime has been a phenomenon of certain aspects of black society that are now more and more prominent in white society, particularly illegitimacy. If there is some connection of these things--and I believe there is--it's worthwhile for whties to reocgnize antisocial elements among black Americans are to some extent caused by social conditions that can be prevented through a variety of means.
PS Here, as I said after you asked this question earlier, I began to discuss this to show that Radley was not speaking rigorously or sensibly about the crack-power disparity, insofar as he would not worry about similar disparities with crimes almost all of us are agreed upon.
Fluffy | January 11, 2008, 6:03pm | #
not subsidizing illegitimacy through welfare,
Hey, fine. Good idea.
social ostracism of the kind these purists above are now exercising against Ron Paul,
But if I'm not subsidizing it, why should I give a shit? There's no need to socially ostracize if I don't have to pay the bills. I don't socially ostracize Bill Bennett because he's a degenerate gambler, because it ain't my money he's losing.
some shaming of black leaders that use incindiary rhetoric about a prison-industrial-complex
There is a prison-industrial complex and incendiary rhetoric about it is appropriate.
as if blacks don't commit a lot more crime,
This doesn't really matter to the morality of a prison-industrial complex. Let's take a crack at drug legalization for 20 years and then get back to me with new crime statistics.
public schools,
Better public schools? Different public schools? Get rid of the public schools? I don't know what you mean here.
moral leadership by black celebrities,
Again, once I'm not paying, I don't care who provides moral leadership.
BTW, the notion that black celebrities bear some sort of responsibility for other African-Americans, and must "lead" them, is itself a racist and collectivist notion. Lots of white people are fuckups. You know how much moral leadership I, a white person, need to provide them? Zip. So why does a black celebrity get different rules than me?
some greater sympathy for police in the use of racial profiling in order to control a much more dangerous group,
If we got rid of the drug war, the entire issue of racial profiling would change.
If an APB goes out that two black males in a white car just shot three people, it's perfectly OK for the police to stop all white cars carrying two or more black males. So I don't need to be more "sympathetic" to the police in the case of their response to actual crimes. The reason racial profiling is an issue is because police deliberately stop cars driven by blacks because they assume they can trump up some reason to search the car for drug contraband and score an easy arrest to add to their quota. Get rid of the drug war, and the "Driving While Black" problem will disappear 95% overnight.
deregulation of various businesses in urban areas,
It's always nice to throw in a little Jack Kemp to provide a fig leaf for anti-black feelings. Nice work.
anonymous coward | January 11, 2008, 6:07pm | #
You all should stop believing fairy tales about races' supposed equality.
The
average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is 70. The average IQ of Asians is 105. The average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is 115.
Likely due to mixing with other races, the average IQ of African Americans is 85. In places in the Caribbean where less such mixing has occured, the average IQ is still 70.
Decades of affirmative action and attempts to reduce the Black educational and achievement lag have not been able to reduce the chasm. This is even though Asians, who were also disadvantaged when they first came to the US, are prospering without any government help whatsoever.
All evidence points to that there is an essential difference in the various races' intellectual capacities,
and it is genetic.
I am in favor of equal treatment for members of all races. I am in favor of no discrimination on the basis of color alone. There are black people who are intelligent and capable, and there are white people who are inept.
But it should be possible to recognize publicly that
there are differences between races without having to endure the intellectual
equivalent of
stoning for that.
Ron Paul is denouncing racism because he doesn't want his candidacy to be over just as soon as if he failed to do that. But he doesn't publicly humiliate the authors of those words, or denounce the white supremacists who support him, because deep down he feels that their sentiments are justified.
In private, I think Ron Paul is probably a racist: not a man who thinks that blacks should be oppressed, but one who knows that not everyone is genetically equal.
If he is, he's right to be. You should be, too. The alternative is being ignorant.
Kevin Houston | January 11, 2008, 6:20pm | #
Please, please, please is it too much to ask that people actually read each piece before jumping to the conclusion that it's all racist tripe. It's not.
Before you hang Dr. Paul, shouldn't you look at each piece yourself instead of taking TNR's word for it?
Here are the first two:
Let's look at the "kind words for David Duke" .pdf that TNR is promulgating.
--------Begin Quote----
The Duke’s Victory
David Duke received 44% of the vote in the Senate primary race in Louisiana, 60% of the white vote and 9% of the black vote!. This totaled 100,000 more votes than the current governor when he won.
Duke lost the election, but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment. If the official Republican hadn’t been ordered to drop out, he might have won. Certainly there would have been a run-off.
Duke’s platform called for tax cuts, no quotas, no affirmative action, no welfare, and no busing. “Tonight, we concede the election”, he said. “But we will never concede our fight for equal rights for all Americans.”
To many voters, this seems like just plain good sense. Duke carried baggage from his past, but the voters were willing to overlook that. and if he had been afforded the forgiveness an ex-communist gets, he might have won.
Liberals like Richard Cohen of the Washington Post say he got so many votes because Louisianians were rascists and ignorant. Baloney.
David Broder, also of the Post and equally liberal, writing on an entirely different subject , had it right: “No one wants to talk about [race] publicly, but if you ask any campaign consulltant of pollster privately, you can confirm the sad reality that a great many working-class and middle-class white Americans are far less hostile to the rich and their tax breaks than they are to the poor and minorities with their welfare and affirmative action programs.”
Liberals are notoriously blind to the sociological effects of their own programs. David Duke was hurt by his past. How many more Dukes are there waiting in the wings without such a taint.
------End Quote--------
Can someone please point to any support for David Duke's racism? The part where the author (whoever he is) said it seemed like common sense was attributed to the voters of Louisianna, not the author himself and was refering to the platform of tax cuts, and spending reductions.
Here's the "He called Dr. King a plagarist and a gay pedophile"
It's a report of the FBI file's allegations of misconduct and the MSM's charges of plagarism.
You can argue that unsubstantiated charges like this should not have been printed, and I (and it seems even Ron Paul) will agree with you but it's not racism on the author's part, even if it is libelous.
-----Begin Quote--------
“Dr.” King
So now even the establishment press admits that Martin Luther King plagiarized his PhD dissertation, his academic articles, his speeches, and his sermons.
He was also a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.
King, the FBI files show, was not only a world-class adulterer, he also seduced underage girls and boys. The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy revealed before his death that King had made a pass at him many years before.
And we are supposed to honor this “Christian minister” and lying socialist satyr with a holiday that puts him on a par with George Washington?
Congratulations to Arizona! Who could doubt that the result would be exactly the same if the other 49 states could also vote on a holiday for this affirmtive-action saint?
---------End Quote-------
Dr. King is not being shown in a poor light for his race, or ethnicity, but for the content of his character. This poor light is not reflected upon the civil rights movement, nor upon the idea that everyone is equal, but upon the effort to make MLK day a national holiday.
I have not been throuugh the rest, but I bet the majority of them will similarly turn out to be completely overblown.
Not only is the horse dead, it stinks to high heaven!
Lew Rockwell, Come Out and Try to Be a Man.... | January 13, 2008, 11:25am | #
Dear Lew,
You have now had three opportunities –1996, 2001, and 2008 — to prove that you are a friend of Ron Paul and freedom, and you have failed to do so each time.
This week, for the third time, the puerile, racist, and completely un-Pauline comments that all informed people say you have caused to appear in Ron’s newsletters over the course of several years have become an issue in his campaign. This time the stakes are even higher than before. He is seeking nationwide office, the Republican nomination for President, and his campaign is attracting millions of supporters, not tens of thousands.
Three times you have failed to come forward and admit responsibility for and complicity in the scandals. You have allowed Ron to twist slowly in the wind. Because of your silence, Ron has been forced to issue repeated statements of denial, to answer repeated questions in multiple interviews, and to be embarrassed on national television. Your callous disregard for both Ron and his millions of supporters is unconscionable.
If you were Dr. Paul’s friend, or a friend of freedom, as you pretend to be, by now you would have stepped forward, assumed responsibility for those asinine and harmful comments, resigned from any connection to Ron or his campaign, and relieved Ron of the burden of having to repeatedly deny the charges of racism. But you have not done so, and so the scandal continues to detract from Ron’s message.
You know as well as I do that Ron does not have a racist bone in his body, yet those racist remarks went out under his name, not yours. Pretty clever. But now it’s time to man up, Lew. Admit your role, and exonerate Ron. You should have done it years ago.
John Robbins, Ph.D.
Chief of Staff
Dr. Ron Paul, 1981-1985
http://godshammer.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/open-letter-to-lew-rockwell/
R. Hartman | January 15, 2008, 3:45am | #
charlie - January 11, 2008, 4:13pm
Exactly, my man! Spot on!
This is old stuff, has come up and been dismissed before, but not to the greater public. The MSM had tried to ignore, silence and even stifle RP, because his message is consistent and inconvenient to statists.
Despite all efforts, he manages record fundraisers, and attracts unwelcome attention. So they do what they do best: start a smear campaign. Does the timing mean anything to anyone here? And the fact that the MSM suddenly DO report on the smears?
Nobody so far has bothered to take the newsletters in context of statistical evidence. Some of the 'unpleasant facts' might even be true. I don't have facts on the Rodney king case; I was appalled by it back then. But I only know about it what the MSM wrote.
If today I write or say that Muslims are intolerant and that Islam is not a religion but a totalitarian political doctrine, wanting to suppress the people of the world, the MSM will report me as a racist, fascist and hate mongerer. And where's the truth in that? The Dutch faction of the Islamitic Party, Hizb ut-Tahrir, has stated, in writing: "We do not agree with freedom of speech, for we denounce democracy" and "What you need is a heavy bomb-attack".
But RP never even bothered to go down that lane, to assert the amount of truth ar lie in those newsletters. Why not? Because it's irrelevant. They're old and on the surface they're damaging. They may really be damaging on closer scrutiny, but they also might not.
In any case, RP has stated he does not agree with their content, he was not aware of them at the time they were issued and he has taken moral responsibility for the oversight of not verifying what was written in his name.
He was a medical doctor back then, with the libertarian movement as a side activity. It was small, and at the time, nobody could have envisaged that one day those old newsletters would be used in the running up to Presidential elections. It just would not have seemed important enough. A simple mistake, that turns out to be a little dumb.
The fact that Radley Balko takes up on this and claims he's now irrevocably disappointed in RP shows he is not a libertarian, but instead a small minded jerk who probably feels he never ever made a mistake in his entire life, so his holiness can look down on anybody else who has, serving the statists while he's at it. Or is the term 'libertarian' being hijacked again by statists, big government supporters, like the term 'liberal' before it?
While I have issues with some of RP's positions, I would definitely vote for him if I could (I'm not an American citizen). He is by far the best candidate for anyone who would like to see the size of state reduced, taxes reduced, government spending reduced, national debt reduced, individual freedom and responsibility restored and basically turn America into the direction of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights again.
Stop the government from interfering with everybody's private life, restore the individual responsibility that goes with individual freedom, end the political correctness that has its roots in the Frankfort School. Vote for Ron Paul. It's not going to shake the earth. There a big task ahead, and 4 years is not a very long time to even start to accomplish it.
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