Now that he's no longer a politician and just running a think tank, he's not as concerned with distancing himself from his more controversial roots. I'd be curious how Ron Paul fans feel about this. Concern? Unfair attacks? Either could be the case - I don't really know about the details of these people. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/...-ties-reemerge-at-new-institute.php?ref=fpblg Ron Paul’s Extreme Ties Re-emerge At New Institute While Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) makes an earnest effort to discover why African Americans won’t vote for states right conservatives, his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), is doing his very best to answer the question in his new role outside of Congress. Paul, who retired this year from the House, is running a new think tank aimed at supporting his “non-interventionist” foreign policy and libertarian domestic politics. But rather than a new chapter for the longtime representative, The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity looks more like a return to the old extremist ties he tried to shake off in recent years as his movement gained a more mainstream following. As Jamie Kirchick reports in The Daily Beast, his group’s advisory board includes incendiary columnist Lew Rockwell, who has been identified in news reports as the most likely author of a series of racist, homophobic and conspiracy-laden newsletters Paul published in the ’80s and ’90s. Despite being marketed with his endorsement and sometimes presented under his name, Paul denied any knowledge of their content in his recent presidential runs. But Rockwell’s re-emergence into Paul’s inner circle suggests he hasn’t put the past behind him. Other board members profiled by Kirchick include John Laughland, who made defending Slobodan Milosevic from ethnic cleansing charges a personal cause, and economics professor Walter Block, who argued on Rockwell’s website that the country would be better off if the Confederate states had successfully cut ties with the “monster Lincoln.” This is not far from Paul’s own comments — in a 2007 Meet The Press appearance he said that the “iron-fisted” Lincoln should never have fought the “senseless Civil War.” Rand Paul, who has presented himself as more mainstream on foreign policy than his father, has not attached himself to the think tank and did not speak at its launch this month. But his father’s career continues to make Paul’s professed naivete as to the roots of conservatives’ minority outreach problem all the more puzzling.
The interesting thing is that if he completely quits now, the cult of revisionist martyrdom would try to ressurrect his name with the same zombie spell they casted on Reagan and Thatcher. They'll still do it in 4-5 years when Rand runs for higher office on his quasi-poser-libertarian "lineage", but only because they still assume the internet forgets as fast as people who live in meatspace.
I've known about Ron since the days he and his nutjobs harassed people in the airport alongside the Hare Krishna kids handing out incense. Some folks have been bamboozled. Never fooled me.
Has Ron Paul not ever been controversial? This is the guy who left the political party of ideas and principal for big-money and big-business, bought and sold mouthpiece of the Koch brothers. Yet, at the same time he poses as a man of principal.
The real issue here for The Daily Beast is that this institute will promote peace. That's why they're upset. Ron never severed ties with these guys. He's had them speak at his rallies and has spoken many times at Mises Institute events. This article is just trying to get people in a tizzy, and it seems to be working. As for Lew and Block, they both have massive amounts of literature if you want to know what they're about. Walter Block is economics chair at Loyola New Orleans; he isn't some random dude with a blog spouting nonsense. He's as "academician" as it gets. Really nothing to see here. If you really want to read about something that is shameful to libertarians, check out "Robert Wenzel" who apparently isn't even a real person but has developed quite the following.
