The End of the Ron Paul “Movement”
The revelation that Ron Paul, or someone under his name, published racist pamphlets seems to have resulted in the death of the Ron Paul Movement.
Revelation of newsletters published under Ron Paul’s name containing racist comments and bizarre conspiracy theories and Paul’s own implausible responses that he couldn’t have possibly known what was for years being published under his name by people he approved have finally broken the back of the “movement” that trolled the blogosphere to hijack and spam every political thread in the name of Ron Paul. Contrary to what Captain Ed noted a few days ago, Paul supporters have not completely stopped their campaign, but their numbers are abruptly way down and now even Andrew Sullivan appears to be throwing Paul away.
More interesting in the ensuring recriminations, however, is the fact that even many of Paul’s critics may have long overlooked the critical weakness in Paul’s and his supporters’ claims to be the vanguard of a new small-l libertarian “movement” — that Paul’s “states’ rights” focus is anathema to any reasonable conception of individual liberty anyway. Paul is, in fact, a statist with rather authoritarian leanings — he just prefers that government coercion and infringements on individual liberties originate with the state governments whenever possible instead of the federal government. Big difference. Or not.
When combined with Paul’s rigid and coercive positions on abortion and immigration as well as his continual and willful association with openly racist groups like Stormfront (actual Stormfront endorsements here), it is increasingly clear that the authoritarian and even racist underpinnings of the Ron Paul “movement” should have been visible all along. The novelty of an anti-war “Republican” who mouthed some of the politically correct (among libertarians) positions about “hard money” and the drug war was enough to divert many eyes from the weird conspiracy-mongering about a “NAFTA superhighway” and the faintly lingering stench of Jim Crow.
Eventually, the ability of Paul’s supporters to continually attribute all of the many mounting elements of the case against Ron Paul as being the inevitable result of the swirling conspiracies that ranged from the Federal Reserve to the Council on Foreign Relations and back waned as more and more information came out about Paul’s seedy associations and sketchy dissembling as well as his supporters’ frequent outbursts of bizarre and frightening behavior. But now the mask is off the Paul “movement” and many of its earlier supporters who were merely naive are wandering away mumbling to themselves about their own foolhardiness. And good riddance. The only questions remaining are how soon Paul will take up his rightful position alongside Lyndon LaRouche at the lunatic fringe of American politics whether Paul’s supporters will pay off their bets.
admin: personal attack = ban
admin: ban
Apparently they are hard up for website content. Paul has defended himself against this in the media numerous times. There’s no need to keep posting this.
ROFLMAO.
admin: easiest ban yet
admin: accusing authors of being bought = ban
Hard up for news I see, this story is old as hell. Look for something else wrong with him. Any of the "front runners" addressing anything domestically and globally on the scale as ron paul? We have real problems in the U.S. right now. We have to start looking at the future of our children and their children….. instead of thinking about "right now, me me me…" or there just may not be a future for generations to come….
The media blackout is not a conspiracy theory, it’s a fact. Wether you like Ron Paul or not, everybody should fight against a mainstream-media that influences an election in such a biased way.
Here are some examples.
Let’s get back to the issues!!! PLEASE!!! Ron Paul is clearly not a racist, and all of his supporters know it simply because it doesn’t go along with anything he believes in and has ever said. Besides, we are not behind Ron Paul, we are behind the IDEAS! Think about it, have you ever heard such radical views that make so much sense? I only put radical in italic because I can’t see what’s so radical about following the constitution. And in reference to the article: please- Ron Paul believes in protecting individual liberties at state levels too. How can you protect freedom if you are protecting liberties EVERYWHERE in the US? The main point though is that we are broke. We can’t live off of borrowing money from other countries forever. We need to do something now to prevent our future generations great economic turmoil!!! Do most of you know how the federal reserve works?? To be honest, I didn’t… until I saw these videos:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE
Even you if aren’t for Ron Paul, please watch just to know what we are truly concerned with. It is always important to study the opposing argument! Feel free to post videos that we, Ron Paul supporters, should watch. I definitely would.
The guy writing this doesn’t deserve to be given the importance that people have given him. He simply knows that striking at something that people care about will give him attention.
It’s sad, there isn’t a thing that any of us can do to protect us from our own passions. We can either let things slide, whereupon we are taken advantage of, or we can address the issue with all due concern and evidence our reason bestows upon us, which is the substance these parasites require to grow fat and powerful.
I take but small solace in the likelihood that once the ones that use reason and natural rights for the good of all are silenced, the ranting and vain epithets like the one before us will be like so many impotent clouds; gray, dull, and forgotten amid the endlessly bleak horizon.
No matter how anyone thinks of Paul, the huge support you see on the Internet is not showing up in the voters box. The poor Paul showing in the voters box actually parallels the poor showing poll numbers you see away from the Internet. The Ron Paul juggernaut campaign to this point has been more mirage than reality.
The first person to ever run who has a voting record to back up everything he says he wants to do and the media along with his rivals bash him…..that doesn’t seem weird at all. (Not)
The people who are writing about Dr. Paul were looking/hoping for something like this.
A person named Eric, working for him at the time, said that there was no way that he was a racist. He said that he worked very close to Dr. Paul and had never heard him talk like that. We guess what! This Eric guy turned against him after 9-11 because he thought we should be blowing everyone away who we think might one day down the road consider trying to blow a few of us up.
At one of the debates, Dr. Paul said that we should stop the war in Iraq and the very next morning Eric started a smear campaign on Dr. Paul while announcing that he was going to run against Dr. Paul for his seat in TX. You can look into it yourself, but I will warn you this guy has like 5 differnt names. I am not saying that he wrote the letters or gave James the tip about the letters, but he did know about them. He worked on them himself.
It was very strange, the timing of the newsletters coming out. Then the media doesn’t even dig around to try to find a sound bite or video catching him in the act. They always do that.
Go look it up, and please, think about it.
Well, I made it to about comment 50 without skipping, and comment 70 skipping several. From there on out I limited myself to the comments with abundant bold and CAPITALIZED WORDS for the entertainment value.
Admit it Jason, you’re enjoying this.
Wow, we Obama supporters are often accused of following the man and not the ideas (or of not actually knowing the ideas) but compared to the Paulites, even the more rabid Obama supporters seem like catatonic sloths. Of course all politicians have their rabid, fringe, unreasonable and unfriendly supporters, but they are usually the exception to the rule. Here the contrary seems to be the case; while I’ve spoken to supporters of Ron Paul who are clearly informed and civil, they are almost entirely drowned out by the screetching of the cultist "How DARE you, you neocon sheeple!?" crowd.
thescoundrel—
you still trust the voting results after all the court hearings and voter fraud that diebold is suspected of?
Look at the lead that Clinton took over Obama!
The funny thing is, I watched the results come in. Rudy was ahead of Paul by about 100 votes when they showed the first numbers. The numbers stayed pretty steady, unless Paul got the number that would put him on top of Rudy and wham……….Rudy would get the numbers that would keep him on top. I looked at the numbers in each town and at some point Paul should have been winning.
Plus we all know there were atleast 2 places where Paul’s votes were not even included. If the people had not been watching he would not have gotten those counted. How many more could there be, and why was it only Paul who didn’t have votes reported?
There’s been no death. The Ron Paul movement continues, this from a former large L libertarian. So, we learned Ron Paul hasn’t been a saint. I suppose the other candidates are saints? Ron Paul has a ten term record in Congress to prove his positions are not a fraud or in anyway racist or anti-semitic.
Snore… it goes to show that our media has become a gossip circle… this story was mas circulated a week ago.
Ok, I admit it, Lynx.
Actually, I admitted it some time ago when I posted during the New Hampshire primary that it was fun to watch the meltdown that was, in retrospect, inevitable from a “movement” that appears to be dominated by conspiracy theorists and other denizens of angry crankdom.
Although also annoying, the behavior of Paulistas on this thread has proven my points over and over and over and that IS enjoyable. The constant accusations that anyone who criticizes the Great Man must have been ordered to write the piece by shadowy "interests" highlights their conspiratorial orientation and complete inability to tolerate any disagreement (authoritarianism). In fact, if you scroll up, the conspiracy theory seems to be their first and last impulse to explain away nearly EVERY piece of disagreeable information — its use is not occasional, it is commonplace. That proves that the tin-foil-hat crowd is not just a few unwelcome hangers-on here — it seems to be the dominant part of the whole “movement”. Other Paulista comments have highlighted the very racism and antisemitism that they seek to deny in the same breath. Still others have featured threats of physical violence, including death threats against all "traitors" who would dare question the Great Man. (There have been three of those so far among the many bans that have been necessary due to the rather “unique” character of the Ron Paul “movement”. Believe it or not (and I have little doubt which the Paulistas will choose), only those who have name-called, claimed corruption, or issued threats have been banned — the large number of bans above is a demonstration of the true nature of what we are dealing with in the Ron Paul “movement”.)
Cult of personality? Definitely proven true. Ron Paul himself may be a very nice guy (I’ve been told that he is by people more believable than the foaming commenters who think they are defending him), but it has become clear that the Ron Paul “movement” (what remains of it) is not nice nor in any genuine way democratic, tolerant, or philosophical. It is not based on ideas, but rather hero-worship attached to a whole slate of long-standing political pathologies including racism and conspiracy-mongering.
Basically, the madder they get about being called out on their extremism and hate, the more likely Paulistas seem to be to actually prove the charges true.
What, really, would cause someone to stay behind a politician that adamantely refuses to walk as far away from racist, anti-Semitic supporters as they can possibly get except a little sympathy?
The views that Paul expresses on foreign policy aren’t new. They’ve been around for quite a while here and nearly every single time they are, they’re accompanied by a little dash of anti-Semitism and some good, old-fashioned racism. If you scratch an isolationist, you’ll find both lurking not very far from the surface.
On another subject, I still haven’t found a Paulite who can reasonably explain to me why it’s not hypocrisy for Paul to have brought home 400 million dollars or so worth of pork last year. He says it’s a "tax refund" but that explanation only makes me laugh because it’s so blatantly political. So how about it, guys? Why isn’t your guy an outright hypocrite for sending my tax money home to shrimp farmers. Please, show me the Constitutional section on shrimp farming.
More and more experts are saying things that prove Ron Paul is RIGHT on the economy. These smear tactics will not stop us. I will stay with Dr Paul until he decides to end it. My country is at stake!
I only want to say that this supposed "news" was broken before. Moreover, the New York Times made this story back on July 22, 2007. What I find interesting is that this was also sitting on his Wiki page since 2005. What is even more interesting is that suddenly the news media and everyone’s brother can suddenly find this "news" as apparently they have nothing else to throw. If this really was "news" that was so important to the voting people, I guess it wasn’t important enough for the people of Iowa and Wyoming who voted previously. I find it hard pressed that not ONE person in the media new of this, oh wait, the New York Times already did. But apparently it wasn’t big news at the time, so what changed? I’ll leave that question to you.
Cult of per-son-al-ity….
The symptoms:
1) Repetition of a person’s name instead of talking about ideas.
2) Ceding control over one’s decisions over to the “leader”.
3) A firm belief that any negative information about the “leader” is only the long-refuted artifact of shadowy conspiracies that are out to get him.
WARNING: If “Dr Paul” starts talking about spaceships, comets, or Kool-aid, RUN AWAY!!!
P.S. For those that might be unaware, I might point out that just like the on-air therapist “Dr. Laura” actually has a PhD in English Literature rather than any degree relevant to being a “Dr.” in her field of work, “Dr. Paul” has an M.D. and not a PhD in any field relevant to economics or any other the other fields where his supporters fraudulently use the title “Dr.” to try to burnish his credentials. To his credit, I have never seen Ron Paul himself try to misrepresent his credentials in this way, but his supporters try it a LOT.
admin: try again without the vulgar reference. Or don’t
Alas, the foolery of circumstantial evidence continues.
The ivory tower of false intellect is re-enforced out of arrogance.
Little do they realize that their child like abilities of reason will doom their children to slaves. If only they had to struggle to gain what they have, it would not be so easily relinquished.
The idea of "if you say/hear it enough, it must be true" is the folly of their logic.
Have sorrow for your children for they are the ones that will reap what you sow. The America that will be handed them will not resemble what it is today.
Fools will destroy themselves when given the chance. How unfortunate that others must suffer their ignorance.
I Vote For Virtue; I Vote For Ron Paul.
Jason,
What’s with the Dr. stuff? Huh? I’ll give you the oldest joke in the book:
Q: "What do you call the last in his class at dental school?"
A: "Dr."
I understand your statement as refferring to doctorate degrees not being relavant credentials to a Presidential run, but I disagree entirely. A person’s occupation prior to their potential run seems awfully important, whether lawyer, lifelong politician, etc. I wouldn’t go as far as some Paulites and say he has a better view of abortion issues because of his past OBGYN experiences, but neither would I say Edwards knows the constitution any better with his tort law settlements. Can’t we call Dr.’s, Dr.’s?
I’ll try not to use the name or title of the person that this thread is surrounding in my closing (too much anyway…):
Quit poking the fire and get down to some substantial criticisms of Paul’s platform, if you have some. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel to find the radicals in any candidates back pocket.
I support Paul because he is the only candidate I have seen stand up to the Republican Party’s foolish continuation commitment of the Iraq war. I support aforementioned candidate because the war is causing economic difficulties domestically. These are the messages that make sense to me and I think the majority of the "revolution’s" base rational supporters.
Jason,
Paul has never misrepresented his degree as you say, but this does remind me of something related. One of the newspapers had an article comparing the views of all the candidates, and in it they had the candidates name their advisers in the pertinent areas. The other candidates had recognized authorities in various areas advising them. Paul had no such authorities.
To Paul and his supporters you don’t need people with modern academic degrees when your ideas are limited to 19th century economic theories. Unfortunately, while there is still some value to classical liberal economic theories (largely from a philosophical perspective) you can’t use this to make policy on all contemporary issues.
With regards to economics, note that when an Objectivist such as Alan Greenspan wound up in a position of authority, he hardly stuck rigidly to such doctrine.
Brad, your comment loses a lot without the benefit of a decent Sound-Track. I think Howard Shore could do it about right…it’d have lots of violins.
Funny, for belonging to a group of people who claim to revere the Constitution, you seem to think the republic is quite a fragile thing…so fragile that it could be destroyed by not voting for your favorite candidate.
Gawd….cue the Whitney Houston music.
admin: name-calling and lying about what other people said = ban
Teresa, is there a possibility of voter fraud? Of course there is always a chance for voter fraud. But in Ron Pauls case the amount of fraud necessary to make his campaign anything other than an image his followers have created out of allegiance and disbelief is not likely. The facts are there are nearly always accusations of fraud in every voting period. The odds are that a certain amount of the fraud is genuine but most of it is campaigns grasping for rationalizations.
You will never see an end to this movement. We are not going away we are growing day by day. I find you to be a bit foolish to make such a statement. Here is why, Ron Paul is not the movement the Constitution is the movement. Even you can not come up with trash on the Constitution. I love Ron Paul but he is just the spokesman and the start of something much big then you or me it is the start of a R3vo_]ution baby! Back to the Constitution. We have only begun to fight !
You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality…
Although I like most of Ron Paul’s ideas, I thought getting rid of the FDA was a bit extreme. Today, we learned the FDA will approve selling meat and milk from cloned farm animals without listing whether the animals are cloned. I’m starting to think getting rid of the FDA isn’t a bad idea after all.
Like others have already said, I don’t think a gentleman and a President from the NAACP would say Ron Paul wasn’t a racist unless he knew deep in his heart, Ron Paul gives everyone equal rights, that what he stands for…..
‘NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist’
Ron Chsuid,
just to touch on things, the 19th century really wasn’t a libertarian century at all. in fact i would say classical economics isn’t even libertarian, libertarianism is much more rigid. but the 19th century moved away from classical economics, especially in America, into whats historically known as ‘neo-mercantilism’. American economic policy was dominated by Whig politics and Henry Clay’s school of thought (American System), which continued through Lincoln, a strong supporter of Clay. its typically characterized by protective tariffs and government involvement in building infrastructure and supporting the arts. It wasn’t a complete turnaround from classical economics, as say, Adam Smith himself was open (surprise) to a lot of uses of tariffs for protective purposes. But theorists in the mid 19th century promoted a more involved nation building approach than thinkers in classical economics did.
admin: off-topic attempt to change the subject removed