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talkpoliticsI know a few people who have been touched with Ron Paul Fever, and it seems like new examples crop up all the time. So I finally posted this index of information to my personal blog.
I get the appeal. He vigorously opposes American military adventurism and the military-industrial complex. He has pointed out how the financial industry has perversely benefitted from the financial crisis they created. He speaks in defense of civil liberties and has fought against attacks on them like the PATRIOT Act. He calls the War On Some Drugs the madness that it is. And often he says this stuff well. When we cannot even reliably expect Democrats to step up on these subjects, Rep. Paul's rhetoric can be refreshing, even thrilling.
But if you dig into him, it becomes clear that Representative Ron Paul is an evil crackpot.
He stands against bad government policies because he wants to dismantle practically the entire Federal government, which makes him against just about any good government policies you can think of, too. Including, for example, the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And Social Security and Medicare. And the Environmental Protection Agency.
Many conclude from this that Rep. Paul comes from a radical libertarian political philosophy. You have probably met folks from this school before; because Heinlein made the libertarian utopia of the lunar colony in his novel The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress feel so plausible while you're reading it, they think that a stateless anarchist utopia actually is plausible, et cetera. I think that kind of libertarianism doesn't hold any water, but I can at least respect its radical grounding in personal liberty, and its bullheaded commitment to philosophical integrity is at least intellectually honest.
The argument goes that Rep. Paul's opposition to the Civil Rights Act reflects his libertarian conviction that, morally wrong as segregated lunch counters may be, they are the price we should accept for a government with a seamless commitment to the important rights of private property and free association. A government empowered to meddle in who a restaurant will serve has the capacity for all kinds of other mischief more destructive to our important liberties. Such libertarians will usually argue that the free market will naturally put an end to such a restaurant as the public, repelled by the odor of racism, will refuse to patronize it. I find that unpersuasive, and call this school of libertarianism a wrongheaded philosophy in part because it ends up opposed to the obvious good of the Civil Rights Act.
That doesn't yet give us Representative Paul as an evil crackpot, but the reading of him as a libertarian is just plain wrong. Ron Paul will tell you that his devotion to sharply limited government comes of being a “strict constitutionalist”, and he frequently references Constitutional limits on Federal power. But this “strict” reading of the Constitution has a strange flavor. It contradicts constitutional scholarship and legal precedent, which upholds the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act, Social Security, et cetera. He sees no separation of church and state in the Constitution. And he does want the government doing more in one area: stopping abortion, in service of which he has introduced a bill defining legal personhood as beginning at conception and has run a bizarre anti-choice propaganda television commercial for his campaign in which he alludes to his “faith.” What kind of “strict constitutionalist” and “libertarian” is that?
Let's add some more ingredients. Representative Paul opposes the United Nations, because he's worried that it will produce a One World Government that will lead a atheist socialist revolution that will come take your guns. Ron Paul is a gold bug who wants to abolish both the Federal Reserve Bank and the Federal income tax, and return to the gold standard, a form of crackpot economics that should sound familiar.
If you know to recognize them, the signs are clear that Ron Paul is, at best, a John Bircher, the school of crackpot American conservatism which called Dwight Eisenhower a communist agent and William F. Buckley purged from the Republican party for being too reactionary even for him. (I have video of him addressing the John Birch Society as an honored guest a few years ago.)
Which brings us to the evil crackpottery. James Kirchick at The New Republic has tracked down some of Ron Paul's old newsletters.
Evil crackpot.
If you want more:
I get the appeal. He vigorously opposes American military adventurism and the military-industrial complex. He has pointed out how the financial industry has perversely benefitted from the financial crisis they created. He speaks in defense of civil liberties and has fought against attacks on them like the PATRIOT Act. He calls the War On Some Drugs the madness that it is. And often he says this stuff well. When we cannot even reliably expect Democrats to step up on these subjects, Rep. Paul's rhetoric can be refreshing, even thrilling.
But if you dig into him, it becomes clear that Representative Ron Paul is an evil crackpot.
He stands against bad government policies because he wants to dismantle practically the entire Federal government, which makes him against just about any good government policies you can think of, too. Including, for example, the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And Social Security and Medicare. And the Environmental Protection Agency.
Many conclude from this that Rep. Paul comes from a radical libertarian political philosophy. You have probably met folks from this school before; because Heinlein made the libertarian utopia of the lunar colony in his novel The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress feel so plausible while you're reading it, they think that a stateless anarchist utopia actually is plausible, et cetera. I think that kind of libertarianism doesn't hold any water, but I can at least respect its radical grounding in personal liberty, and its bullheaded commitment to philosophical integrity is at least intellectually honest.
The argument goes that Rep. Paul's opposition to the Civil Rights Act reflects his libertarian conviction that, morally wrong as segregated lunch counters may be, they are the price we should accept for a government with a seamless commitment to the important rights of private property and free association. A government empowered to meddle in who a restaurant will serve has the capacity for all kinds of other mischief more destructive to our important liberties. Such libertarians will usually argue that the free market will naturally put an end to such a restaurant as the public, repelled by the odor of racism, will refuse to patronize it. I find that unpersuasive, and call this school of libertarianism a wrongheaded philosophy in part because it ends up opposed to the obvious good of the Civil Rights Act.
That doesn't yet give us Representative Paul as an evil crackpot, but the reading of him as a libertarian is just plain wrong. Ron Paul will tell you that his devotion to sharply limited government comes of being a “strict constitutionalist”, and he frequently references Constitutional limits on Federal power. But this “strict” reading of the Constitution has a strange flavor. It contradicts constitutional scholarship and legal precedent, which upholds the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act, Social Security, et cetera. He sees no separation of church and state in the Constitution. And he does want the government doing more in one area: stopping abortion, in service of which he has introduced a bill defining legal personhood as beginning at conception and has run a bizarre anti-choice propaganda television commercial for his campaign in which he alludes to his “faith.” What kind of “strict constitutionalist” and “libertarian” is that?
Let's add some more ingredients. Representative Paul opposes the United Nations, because he's worried that it will produce a One World Government that will lead a atheist socialist revolution that will come take your guns. Ron Paul is a gold bug who wants to abolish both the Federal Reserve Bank and the Federal income tax, and return to the gold standard, a form of crackpot economics that should sound familiar.
If you know to recognize them, the signs are clear that Ron Paul is, at best, a John Bircher, the school of crackpot American conservatism which called Dwight Eisenhower a communist agent and William F. Buckley purged from the Republican party for being too reactionary even for him. (I have video of him addressing the John Birch Society as an honored guest a few years ago.)
Which brings us to the evil crackpottery. James Kirchick at The New Republic has tracked down some of Ron Paul's old newsletters.
What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays(A few samples from the newsletters; the flavor is unmistakable.)
Evil crackpot.
If you want more:
- Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic writes at length about the newsletters, the reaction to them, and why Ron Paul should be held accountable for them.
- James Kirchick's long story on Ron Paul in The New Republic from early 2008 gets referenced by many of the articles which came later, so in addition to being good in its own right, it's essential reading if you have an interest in the meta-story of how the news media is covering Ron Paul.
- Orcinus is one of my favorite blogs on the web, delivering journalism and analysis about the crazy far right in the US and its complex relationship with more conventional conservatism and the Republican party. It has some great stuff on Ron Paul, including an overview of Kirchick's article, an index of Paul's voting record in the House of Representatives, his detailed examination of Rep. Paul's grounding in scary, evil rightwing crazies' ideology and the implications of his obvious appeal to those folks.
- Living national treasure Ta-Nehsi Coates weighs in, and underlines how defenses of Ron Paul connect to the history of racism in American politics.
- Reason Magazine — who are real libertarians — has an investigation into how the newsletters came to be, and a damning timeline of Paul's comments about them.
- At Addicting Info, Summer Ludwig has a quick 10 Reasons Not To Vote For Ron Paul and Justin “Filthy Liberal Scum“ Rosario lays out the racism angle in Is Ron Paul A White Supremacist? Absolutely!
- Talking Points Memo has a story about Paul's Iowa campaign actively courting Christian theocrats who want “Biblical law” including the death penalty for homosexuals.
- “Former African Dictator Mobutu Sese Seko” followed up his Vice article Ron Paul Is A Racist Leprechaun with numerous scans of Paul's old newsletters and a damning review of their contents at his personal blog, where he also has replies to common pro-Paul arguments.
- Respectful Insolence has a long post providing links to troubling information about Ron Paul, including a lot about his alliance with quack medicine.
- Alternet's Adele M. Stan has 5 Reasons Progressives Should Treat Ron Paul with Extreme Caution, including a close relationship with scary Christian theocrats.
- Phenry has a four part Daily Kos diary hitting a range of highlights:
- Salon has been covering Ron Paul and the implications of his ideas pretty well.
- Digby calls Ron Paul's anti-Federal pro-State philosophy “antebellum libertarianism”, in reference to the Civil War.
- A damning “defense” of Ron Paul from Eric Dondero, a former congressional staffer of his.
- If you really want to dig deep, Ron Paul Exposed has a mountain of resources and anti-Paul rants, but I cannot vouch for the signal-to-noise ratio.
