A little more Ron Paul blogging...

[mizunol]

I can't believe I left out one of the other things that motivated me to make that Ron Paul post.

Check out this out: Ron Paul on Racism. That right there is a link to Paul's "Racism" plank in his platform. When I told Grant the very brief version of why Ron Paul is a racist, I only had the newsletter to go on. And while I don't care that that

Comments

[hokie]

Actually, I don't think Ron Paul is a racist.

That being said, I think his support from the fringe John Birch wing of the Republican Party is more than just coincidental -- he's been working their rounds ever since before he was elected to Congress, and he's not once repudiated his neo-Nazi support (a statement along the lines of "While they have every right to support any candidate they want to, I'd rather it wasn't me because they in no way represent my philosophy" would be enough, really) nor has he returned money denoted to him by Stormfront.

Why does he have to, one may ask? Because one has a moral obligation to not empower this ideology, and by not denouncing them and taking their money, Paul is empowering them and raising their public stature.

As for being claims of libertarianism, you'd think his stances on abortion (voting for the completely inane "partial birth abortion" ban and declaring that he wishes every state would make it illegal) or flag-burning would put the lie to it. The guy's a libertarian like Grover Norquist's a libertarian: both just want to throttle the federal government. Paul, of course, also suffers from the idiocy known as "supporting the gold standard," which is my own personal test as to whether someone is a complete whackjob. He's anti-immigrant: not anti-illegal immigrant, but just anti-immigrant, as he wants to curtail immigration altogether. Paul, of course, also has a healthy dose of isolationism to him.

And this, ultimately, is what's worth discussing about Ron Paul. The guy has no chance ever of significantly playing a role in our national politics, and for that, we should be thankful. But the attraction of seemingly otherwise reasonably progressives and liberals to him should give us all pause. It's patently clear, of course, that ends do not justify means. Paul is the only anti-Iraq candidate on the Republican side, and one might argue one of the only two really anti-Iraq candidates running for the presidency this year (as well as the only one with money). But Paul is not against the war because he feels it was unjustly rushed into and inhumanely executed. Paul is against the war because he's an isolationist who part and parcel believes the far-right canards about certain cabals running our foreign policy. You won't hear him talk any more about the "New World Order," but he used to, and his policies haven't exactly done so much as change since then. And this is troubling: what if someone similar to Paul but who's better able to hide his extremist background comes around? Will liberals flock to him, citing an issue they agree with him on for different reasons? I suspect the answer is yes, and this bothers me deeply.

[hokie]

Ah, I see, you've already hit on most of this. That's what I get for replying to the first post, I suppose, instead of taking the post's subject as a hint that there was a previoust post!