lol. Actually, the only thing discredited was Ron's image. He's lucky most of his supporters are too young or stoned to remember his origins. I'm old enough to remember his supporters in the airport alongside the LaRouchites and Moonies handing out their pamphlets and badgering anyone who disagreed. Not much has changed. I find it odd that someone as dogmatic as you would absolve Paul for the responsibility of those pamphlets released under his signature.
Define it. What, for example, makes Ron Paul possess more integrity than Bachmann or Obama, or the rest of his colleagues in the House? Is it because he's a libertarian, and libertarianism is inherently more ethical compared to other political ideals?
this may come a surprise to you, but there are people in all sub-groups saying stupid things - regardless or political affiliation, race, religion, ect. your problem seems to be that you let these people dictate your beliefs. as for your stormfront claim, that has been discredited. the ny times even had to write a retraction on that. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=3366448&postcount=5 and as for that new republic article, they clearly have an agenda... and lets look at the new republic and what their motives/agenda might be for this hit-piece - they claim to be a liberal magazine, they align themselves with the democratic party and generally support democratic candidates. yet they were pro-iraq war and advocate a very hawkish policy as well as unwavering support for israel - that puts them squarely against ron paul and what he stands for. in the 80's they supported reagans foreign policy including support of terrorist groups like the contras. they strongly supported the gulf war and clintons campaigns. they are war-mongers and paul is not. furthermore, tnr is no stranger to throwing out claims of bigotry - their editor in chief, martin peretz called jimmy carter a "jew hater". an unlike paul, peretz has actually made very bigoted statements. ive read enough of your posts to know that you are very critical of paul and his policy positions so what exactly made you support him in 2008? he is saying the same stuff now that he said in the last election cycle so what was it that appealed to you then? you have literally done a political 180 since the last election cycle, which is kind of odd unless you are still pretty young. everyone evolves, but it is rare to find someone who totally flip-flops in their political philosophy to the degree you have in such a short amount of time. your complaints about paul seem to be based on what others are saying instead of what he is actually saying - to allow external forces to dictate your beliefs to that degree seems very weak-minded. someone in the 90's was xeroxing and handing out copies of some racist rants and putting pauls name in them - he did not know about it, but he has apologized and disavowed them. the rantings in those letters go against pretty much everything paul has advocated for his entire political career and he has never shown anything that would indicate he subscribes to those views. you have had people digging and digging for anything to discredit or destroy him and this is the best they can come up with. paul has a 40 year record in politics so if he was the racist that you think he is wouldnt there be something out there directly attributable to him? he apologized and disavowed them. what more do you want? "black best friend" - what are you talking about? you need to quit hyperbolizing so much - "jews in the federal reserve", "flouride is mind control", ect. its just silly. as for mr. linder, he is the head of austins NAACP and someone who has known paul for over 20 years and says the racism charges are bogus. dont you find it odd that a racist would repeatedly praise mlk and rosa parks and cite them as heroes, vote to make mlk day a national holiday, vote to change mandatory minimum sentencing laws that disproportionately affected blacks and support the right for muslims to build a community center near the wtc?
you democrats play the race card in the exact same way that republican play the patriot card - its meaningless and lame. "playing patty-cake with the fringe racist groups" - that is ridiculous. you support obama right? we can play the guilt by association game w/ him too when it comes to bill ayers and his rev. of over 20 years, jeremiah wright - you want to talk about racists and anti-semites? it was wright who said the "jews in the white house" were keeping him from obama. again, this was obamas pastor for over 20 years and the guy who baptized his children. the notion that obama would not have been aware of this side of the "reverend" is not plausible. and which party had the former klansman in their ranks for over 50 years? furthermore, it was the 'racist' ron paul who supported the right for muslims to build a mosque near 9/11 when many of your democratic heroes were against it. and what about democratic congressman clay, who denied a white congressman who represented a majority black district from joining the black caucus? who are the racists again?
i find it odd for democrats and obama supporters to go around accusing others of being racists. your party had a kkk memeber in its ranks for 50 years and your president went to the church and had his children baptized by someone who has made several racist and anti-semitic comments. as ive said before, if there was anything paul had said or done to indicate he was racist i would not support him, but the fact is there is nothing attributable to him that would indicate he is. he has a 40 year public record and the best yall can do is some xeroxed anonymous newsletter that someone put his name on. looking at the totality of his record, what he has said, written and what he claims to stand for i dont see anything that would indicate he is a racist. some of those articles are ridiculous - the ones about mlk especially. considering pauls public statements regarding the man, i have a really hard time he would have endorsed that, much less written it. if what you think about him is true than that would mean that his entire political career and basically everything he has said and voted for is a fraud and a lie - i just dont see it. even if you dont like the man, you have to admit that he is very outspoken and consistent - if he was such a racist dont you think at some point in his 40 year career in politics there would be some writings or speeches directly attributed to him that would verify that?
no, it is b/c he has been consistent in his policy positions which is more than can be said for bachman or obama, who has flip-flopped on several of his key campaign pledges.
The key issue is his irresponsible decision-making in allowing the pamphlets to be published for so long. It's not like he did not know about them. Whether he wrote them or not. I see the same type of irresponsible decision-making in his half-baked policies, discussed ad nauseum, that would have disastrous consequences if ever implemented. For the record, I do not believe Ron is a racist, but if one's level of "racial tolerance" is a continuum, based on the pamphlet material, I would place him closer to it than not.
I am young, and I have changed drastically in my political beliefs compared to 2008. I'll admit that. Probably living in a state that is very different politically from Texas over the last four years ( Minnesota) will do that. And really, I thought like you. Non-interventionism and libertarianism is great, end the Fed, so on and so on. First off, if it was some random dude whom had nothing to do with Ron Paul...... then why didn't Paul deny he wrote them in 1996? Then, he claims they were taken out of context, not that he didn't write them. As for records of his racism: there's the not voting for the Rosa Parks medal ( you can talk about how it's unconstitutional, but the Founding Fathers didn't have a problem approving one for Washington), there's the frequent associations and endorsements by Nazis and neo-Confederates ( for Pete's sake, he had a Klansmen as one of his Michigan coordinators), there's the fact that he opposed the Civil Rights Act, and so on. I'll go ahead and ask what evidence you would need to believe he is a racist. He's not going to go around screaming "blacks suck" or claim that he actually did write those letters if he wants to be elected dogcatcher after all. .....Obama's one thing, as he has to deal with political realities and all that ( even if Paul was elected, I doubt he would actually be capable of putting in a gold standard). But what exactly has Bachmann ever flip flopped on - she's always been a religious nutcase. I guess she was a Democrat when she was around my age, but that's a ridiculous standard to hold someone to. Not to mention, this is even assuming that flexibility in thinking is even a bad thing. I'd say the Tea Party has done a wonderful job of showing the dangers of dogmatic thinking and blindly clinging to one set of beliefs. As I've said in this forum several times, Rorschach never flip-flopped or compromised on his beliefs. And the thing is, I'm with Rashmon. I actually don't think Paul is a total racist like David Duke. I do think that his repeated association with racist groups and spouting ideals which are popular among them is a sign of incredibly bad judgement, and that's enough of a disqualification. It's that checkmate position with the letters - either he knew about them, which makes him racist scumbag, or he didn't, which means he never bothered to check on someone writing in his name, which just makes him a complete idiot. Stupid or Evil. Both are bad.
Highlighted for emphasis. If Ron Paul compromises that will be the political death of him. The appeal of Ron Paul is that his stance is uncompromising.
UFFDA! As for the rest of your analysis I agree. I don't think Ron Paul is a racist but he has been rather loose with racist rhetoric among his supporters and expounded in his name. I'm willing to give Ron Paul the benefit of the doubt that he didn't pay much attention to the newsletters. While that means he might not be a racist it is a very bad sign for a politician to not control what is done in his name.
I had nothing to do with the following. Someone else wrote it and I'm just passing it along. I truly don't know anything about it. I'm told 7 of the 10 statements I did not make are similar to what Ron Paul has said while three are statements by a writer that I don't know who unknowingly to me, puts stuff out under my name. I think his name might be "rimrocker" or something. Again, I have no knowledge of this. Good thing I'm an honest guy. Oh, and I'm no racist either, as you can clearly see.
This is one of the more bizarre statements I've ever read. Firstly, I dont think Ron Paul has ever said we shouldnt have gone into Afghanistan. But even if he had, it would be far from insanity- in hindsight, would not a strategy of targeted attacks combined with ground level intel gathering and government diplomacy have arguably been more effective? Secondly, the statement "America possesses the right, if not the duty, to reshape the Middle East into something that will benefit us" can only come from someone who has not kept up with the changing state of global affairs. At present, America leverages a position of global primacy, but in every area that primacy is being seriously challenged- militarily, countries continue to pursue advanced weaponry, and this is a trend thats unlikely to change. Economically, a number of countries are finding themselves financially independent of the US, and have seen their respective economies grow significantly over the past decade. Politically, the US is still the strongest player in any room, but even that is starting to change- the recent UNESCO vote in favor of establishing a Palestinian state saw 107 countries vote 'yes' despite the US's overt displeasure to the referendum- included in the 107 were the Russian Federation, China, and France. Only 13 countries voted 'no' alongside the US. Its no longer 1995, and advocating how it is 'our right' to do whatever we want- to whatever end we want- in order to ensure the world benefits us glosses over the impact of such actions. Thirdly, "the duty, to reshape the Middle East into something that will benefit us" overlooks how disastrous regime change has been for the US over the last century. I would strongly recommend reading Stephen Kinzler's book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq which speaks at length on this topic. Finally, Paul has been one of the strongest advocates for "hunting that SOB Bin Laden." His larger issue has been with the way in which the war on Afghanistan has been conducted, and the war on Iraq as a whole: Reading into his statement, he clearly is not saddened to see Bin Laden killed, but is critiquing two areas of which he holds major concerns- one, an aggressive attack into a sovereign nation without working with them, and two, that Bin Laden should have been tried in a court of law, convicted, and executed thereafter. It is, in his opinion, a positive reflection of the rule of law when world criminals are brought to account in that manner. He later cited the Nuremberg trials as an illustration of that fact, and even Libya has avowed to try Gaddafi's killers, with plans in place to organize a trial for Gaddafi's son, Seif al Islam.
I agree with what you're saying. Reducing taxes + cut spending has been GOP dogma for a number of years now. The only difference with Paul is that he's the only candidate in the field- democrat or republican- willing to cut defense funding. The only thing I'll add is that empirical evidence isnt necessarily a negation of the principle at any level. Just because reducing government spending doesnt generate the economy doesnt mean that reduction isnt worthwhile. It's what economists refer to as the broken window theory. The idea is that by breaking a window, you generate economic growth and create jobs- at minimum, it would require people to work at glass factories, individuals who need to carve out that glass to your windows specifications, window transport, and window installation personnel. The fallacy is in the artificial nature of this growth. At some point, you cant keep breaking more windows and have to come to terms that naturally, the number of windows broken occur at a much lower rate. When that realization takes place and windows are no longer forcefully broken, you have a workforce whose skills are outdated and cant translate into areas of real need, and rather than create jobs, it actually cuts many jobs and increases unemployment. I disagree. In fact, he's the only candidate on either side of the aisle that holds the positions he does on foreign policy and civil rights.
Sorry cant edit my posts, so I'll add a comment here. I do realize that what I'm stating is markedly different from Paul's position- he's looking to eliminate many government agencies entirely in favor of the private sector. I disagree with this position, but can understand more balanced positions that favor spending cuts or reductions in certain government agencies.
When asked what we would have done about Afghanistan back in 2008, the man ranted about letters of marquee. Not declaring war. Not your targeted attacks and intel gathering that you mentioned. Besides, I have no idea how such a strategy would have actually succeeded in killing Bin Laden. I actually support withdrawal from Afghanistan. The bones of a single Marine isn't worth that wasteland, and the fact that the Taliban may beat women or Karzai may shoot his people is completely irrelevant to me as long as they don't attack us. The fact that American power has relatively declined doesn't mean retreating. If anything, it means that we need a more active foreign policy ( note that does not necessarily mean war) in order to counter Chinese and European influence. The fact is ALL countries possess this right and duty, most of them just lack the necessary power. I don't claim that China doesn't possess a right to reshape the world into something that'll benefit them. I just think that we have the same right. The LAST thing we should be dealing if American power is declining is to retreat. We could do that when we were an emerging world power like in the Gilded Age. But not anymore. Wrong. The guy has openly stated that he would not have ordered the Bin Laden raid because of his principles. Try Bin Laden? Under whose jurisdiction? Not to mention, Nuremberg? Really? That trial was bull**** and an insult to law. It would been far more fitting to just shoot them than make up the farce we did. Not to mention it's interesting to see Ron Paul being so approving of international law. As for Professor Kinzer? I took a quick look at the guy, and he commits possibly the classical mistake of Americans when they look at foreign policy, though it's possibly a difference between values between me and him. Kinzer and others seem to think that the ideal world is just one with a bunch of democracies, and everything will work out fine. That's not what I think. I think the ideal world is one with American hegemony. The form of governments necessary to maintain that hegemony would ideally be democracies, but we must deal with reality and sometimes deal with minority governments. Those more balanced positions? That's the rest of the GOP.
I would suggest reading Kinzer's books- a 'quick look' is not only a disservice to Kinzer, but hardly a way to make judgments about people. It appears you did a quick search and figured out all you needed to know about him. If hope you dont employ the same process in formulating political judgments. As for your opinion on the Nuremberg Trials, to use your own wording, it's "completely bat**** nuts"
Kinzer may be an intelligent man. Heck, he's a professor, he probably is. But you're not going to convince me by just telling me "Hey, read this book and get back to me." It's a common tactic for espousing pretty much any viewpoint. "Hey, if you watch this Youtube video/read this book/watch this movie, you'll understand the truth." If you have an argument to make, make it. Don't tell me to read some book that'll convince me of your argument. Nuremberg was victor's justice just made to look pretty and legal - as some Allied generals admitted, if they had lost, they probably would have been strung for various war crimes the Allies committed. I don't have a problem with victor's justice - if we had shot the Nazis, that's what they get. I do have a problem when you try to dress it up as something it's not. And I definitely am highly suspicious about international law, something which I would think Paul would be too. Bin Laden would have been the same, and besides he shot back in the raid. You do that to a cop, you will get shot, and no one will be crying about how you didn't get a trial.
he didnt "allow" them - he said that he was unaware of them and based on his record i dont see any reason to think he is lying. you support barack obama.
thats cool - like i said, everyone evolves. im 36 and have always been independent, but tended to favor democrats. there was a time i even thought clinton would go down as a great president...however, as i get older i get more and more disgusted w/ the republican-democrat carousel. im sick of they hypocrisy on both sides. basically, id rather be a paul-tard than a status quo-tard. and not to badger you on this, but i am genuinely curious what drew you to support paul back in 2008? you said you even went to the delegate convention, which is more than ive ever done and im a huge supporter. im confused how someone w/ that level of dedication can turn into such an opponent. i get that you are young and can drastically change your opinions, but you have to admit that its odd for someone to change as much as you have done in such a short period of time. you are young - there is still hope for you to regain some common sense! non-interventionism is great - i think we should treat others as we would like to be treated. i realize that someone who says "America possesses the right, if not the duty, to reshape the Middle East into something that will benefit us" can never understand that concept, but i think it is important. personally, i find your statement there to be immoral and unamerican and im glad i support a candidate who doesnt think like that. i believe he issued an apology and condemnation when they were brought to his attention. and he didnt claim they were taken out of context. he flat out denied he wrote or ever advocated such things...and based on his 40 year public record i have no reason to think he is lying. he didnt vote for one for the pope or mother theresa either...does that mean he hates catholics? and the medals were supposed to be reserved for politicians which is why washington got it and paul felt that the others should not. and pauls problem w/ it was that we shouldnt be spending taxpayer dollars on things like this. so you know what he offered? $100 out of his own pocket to pay for the medal. he challenged all the other congressmen to do the same and nobody did. do you think all the other congressmen who refused to cough up money out of their own pockets were racists? 'It's easier to be generous with other people's money.' - Ron Paul how is one supposed to stop people from endorsing them. clinton got endorsements from lots of unsavory characters as well. bush got money from dyncorp, who was caught in a child sex-slavery ring. and again, if you want to play the guilt-by-association game w/ can do that with lots of others. and ill point out again that the democrats had a former klansman in their ranks for over 50 years. do you have a legitimate link for that? his opposition to the civil rights act was based on the fact that it only served to foster racial division. i dont necessarily agree as i believe that it was necessary in the 60's, but at this point in time if we want to be a society w/ true equal rights for everyone we can probably get rid of it. pauls position is based always on treating people the same and not putting americans into different sub-groups...to me its the opposite of racism. but if he was such a racist you would think that in 40 years of public service you could find more than a xeroxed anonymously written rant. there would be some speeches or public statements out there directly attributable to him. and the notion that ron paul would be some 'secret' racist is ludicrous. if he was a 'secret' racist he wouldnt be going around making statements praising mlk and rosa parks, voting to reduce mandatory drug laws which disproportionally effected blacks or defending the right for muslims to build their mosque near ground zero (where were obama and the democrats on that one again?). her overall attitude toward the federal government and the office of the president. like teabaggers in general, when bush was president we were not allowed to criticize him or the government - to do so was the pinnacle of unpatriotism. i dont remember her being such a champion of fiscal responsibility or limited government when bush was president, but when obama comes in then she changes. you said you were a romney supporter, right? how can you support someone who acts this way towards black people? some call it pandering, but i say its racist - he thinks all black people talk like that? ive never seen ron paul talk down to black people like this. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EXGMi7a53jA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
