Different Day, Same Shit.

Unfortunately, yours truly cannot be arsed to create a blog post about the boring hilarious antics of Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. So I'll point you to others who have done just that. Yay you.

Field Negro - CNN Laughfest.
Angry Black Lady Chronicles - Shit! I Have to Tidy Up the Place for Yet Another GOP Herp-Derpbate! – Now with Bonus Chirpstory!
Molly Ball @ The Atlantic - That Was Not the GOP Debate Rick Santorum Needed
The Political Carnival - Video- CNN Debate: GOP Candidates Attack Leniency With Contraceptives And ‘Legalizing Infanticide’

Ron Paul's interests in removing federal oversight from a number of arenas happens to dovetail neatly into what many progressives want, and the end of the War on Drugs happens to be one of them. The problem comes when Paul supporters expect black Americans to join the R[evol]ution in lockstep solely for one major benefit of the end of the War on Drugs: the possible end of mass black American incarceration for minor drug-related offenses. But that is not guaranteed to happen without addressing the underlying cause of mass incarcerations (hint: it doesn't involve drugs).

What's with the assumption that ending the drug war will somehow put an end to the excessive policing of people of color? Ending the drug war will not magically make the police go away. Sure it might reduce their presence for a while, but they'll find a way to get back under some other pretense. It doesn't reduce the root cause of the problem: racism.

The above comes from commentator Throcky at We Are Respectable Negros, who hit on a very big flaw in the "Paulbot" argument for unwavering black American support. Until the specter of racism in law enforcement and justice system policies are addressed, and until the socioeconomic issues that drive local, state and federal governments to engage in a soft genocide of blacks, the situation will never be resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Ending the War on Drugs won't end the War on Blacks.

At this point, I have to wonder if the people supporting Ron Paul are just backing him in hopes of one day being able to smoke a joint or hit acid without being bothered by law enforcement.

Meanwhile, the rest of Chauncey DeVega's post on Ron Paul and the black-and-white thinking many seem to have when it comes to racism offers plenty of eye-opening points. For instance, DeVega gives a great example of why binary thinking does not lend itself well when it comes to people's thoughts and opinions. Yes, Ron Paul is progressive on many issues, including the aforementioned War on Drugs, the War on Afghanistan and many other foreign/social policies, but his strident disdain for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, his former ties to unsavory white supremacist figures and the allowance of his name to be used on a series of racially bigoted newsletters for decades points to a man who is not unlike DeVega's example, Hinton Rowan Helper. Helper may have been firmly against slavery, but he was a staunch supporter of the notions that blacks were simply inferior to whites. A product of his time, perhaps, but his recorded views are so strident as to make others wonder if his beliefs are indeed genuine, down to his very core.

As DeVega points out, a man can be right in many respects and wrong in others. No binary thinking here. Ron Paul could be a man who thinks little of blacks, yet happens to support a few policies that would at least temporarily ease their circumstances. Discussing this with a fellow white who happens to be ultra-sensitive to the prospect of, for the lack of a better phrase, being made to lose his feeling of "whiteness":

Primarily, the bar for what constitutes racism has been set so high that even the most obvious examples of racial animus have to be couched in careful terms lest an "innocent" white person be branded a bigot.

Branding someone a bigot is one of the highest forms of social insult to be suffered by most whites. Therefore, in discussions of ethnic relations involving white and black Americans, blacks have to tread lightly, lest they slight their white brethren's notions of "whiteness" by making them feel as though they are criminally culpable in black suffering, when they believe themselves to be above such.

Politics isn't acting. You "publish" things under your own name, be it in a newsletter or just with the poorly chosen words that fly out of your mouth, time to time, and you make a statement to the world: "I stand by this."

That comes from commentator Abstentus. Ron Paul's supporters are unwilling to admit that by allowing his name to remain on an racially inflammatory newsletter, he was effectively endorsing the content found therein. If he did not want to be associated with said content, he would have had his name removed from the newsletters post haste and drafted a sternly worded retraction that further explained his disdain for and distance from the newsletter, the staff and the content therein.

Instead, his supporters play head games in hopes of tricking those who are slow on the draw to join the Ron Paul R[evol]ution. If Ron Paul was genuinely for black Americans, he wouldn't have any need for his supporters to run game on black Americans who weren't watching closely.

I thought I wouldn't have to blog about Glenn Greenwald again, but Greenwald has a way of staying within the Man's peripheral vision. Just take a look at this Chirpstory, where Tim Wise goes toe-to-toe with Greenwald and Be Scofield: EDIT: Said Chirpstory can be found here.

Feeling a bit dizzy? Discombobulated, perhaps? Ok, let's break this down.

Due to President Obama's expanding use of drones in fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, Glenn Greenwald and the like have likened Obama to George Bush when it comes to foreign policy. Since President Obama has yet to end the War on Terror, full stop, he continues to come under criticism from Greenwald, et al. Be Scofield wondered if President Obama would continue to allow drone strikes if the largely Muslim victims, many who are involved as collateral damage in the pursuit of Muslim extremists and terrorists, were black Americans, instead. Yes, even purported liberal voices can pull the Race Card now and again, for their own purposes. Now that you have the discussion framing, let's get down to the meat of the discussion.

Adrian Charles countered with an essay by Tim Wise on how the policies of Ron Paul, that wily underdog savior of all that is progressive in the world, happen to line up with those of well-known white supremacist David Duke. I covered several aspects of Paul's deficiencies in regards to ethnic relations and how many progressives still managed to fall headlong in love with the guy. And this is where the wheels on the logic bus just sort of fall off here.

Ok, so it's been established that President Obama's foreign policy is racist, as it, according to Greenwald and Scofield, targets Muslims, who are often considered "people of color." Scofield wants ardent Obama supporters to imagine those Muslim victims as black Americans and then ask themselves if they would still support Pres. Obama. Ergo, Pres. Obama is racist and so are you, if you support him.

Meanwhile, Ron Paul wants to end the War on Terror, automatically making him a good guy to many. Assuming this is true, he would also end the drone strikes. Ergo, he is not a racist, since it seems he's looking out for the best interests of people of color by putting an end to their massacre. Unfortunately, if you've read up on the company Paul kept and his views, many of which happen to align with those of notable bigots and racists, then you'd see that the man is, despite many of his policies aligning with those that progressives crave, is a racist. Except that he isn't, by Greenwald and Scofield's standards.

@bescofield: @timjacobwise @ggreenwald Obama has eliminated the civil rights of more people of color than Paul has i.e. killing them.

It's well known that Ron Paul vehemently disagrees with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and wishes to do away with it, thereby stripping many of the protections that black Americans have taken for granted for decades on end. If something like this actually happens, it will have a detrimental effect on the treatment of black Americans and their ability to effect political change through the very mechanisms that have been used to great effect for centuries, one that would last for a very long time. But no, this isn't racist. Neither is associating one self with racists. For Scofield, it's the bodies of "people of color" overseas that matter, since it feeds into the "Obama=Racist" and "Obama=Bush" memes.

@bescofield: @timjacobwise @ggreenwald Obama doesn't believe in hierarchy of the races, but he kills more people of color than Duke + Paul together.

"Hierarchy of the races." That's how Scofield explains the policies and opinions of Duke, Black, Paul and any other bigoted individual who believes in white supremacy. Considering the struggles, trials and tribulations that black Americans have gone through just to be considered equal under the law, this is just downright insulting. And yet Scofield and Greenwald expect black Americans to que up behind Ron Paul because he happens to represent the best "Anti-Obama" that these guys could come up with (Hillary Clinton is the "Anti-Obama" of the Villager/Firebagger set). Just because some aspects of the man's policies happen to line up with those of progressive liberals. Duke, et al. are nothing to worry about since they only believe in the "hierarchy of the races." No, there's not much wrong with whites believing they are mentally, physically and socially superior to blacks.

At any rate, that's not terribly important to Scofield. Instead, it's the bodies overseas that matter. 243 targeted attacks via drones since 2009, netting 2264 casualties, most of those representing collateral damage, in the pursuit of extremists and terrorists. For a number of reasons, President Obama cannot end this cold turkey, just as he could not end the War in Iraq cold turkey - that had to be drawn down with a well thought-out plan that helped the U.S. effectively "save face" without causing any political or foreign policy backlash. The drone attacks will end in the same way. After all, Pres. Obama's push for more drones served to prevent further U.S. soldier casualties in Afghanistan. Between nameless, faceless bodies in rubble and U.S. servicemen offloaded from C-130s in flag-draped caskets, which one would serve to further wreck the Obama Administration and give Republicans more ammo with which to end his term in office?

Actually, many progressives would prefer the latter, since it would do just that, as many believe Pres. Obama is long past the point of redemption as far as progressive politics are involved. Some want to believe that being pelted by rocks supplied by progressives and thrown by Republicans would cause him to "wake up" and start doing the bidding of Greenwald and the Village crowd, for once. Seeing a black (or bi-racial, if one wants to get all picky about it) president pragmatically navigate his way through treacherous political waters while remaining unscathed does absolutely nothing for them. And this is not coming from an "Obot" or "Obama groupie" - this comes from someone who recognizes pragmatism as a means of survival for what it is - it's not weakness, "being like Bush" or 11-dimensional chess - it's being smart enough to realize that going Magic Negro™ or Hillary Clinton in regards to foreign and domestic policy will guarantee a single-term presidency.

To wit, "Obama (black/bi-racial guy) = Racist" and "Ron Paul (white guy with dubious ties) = Not Racist." This sort of mindfucking in order to get the responses you want is a specialty of Greenwald and Scofield, apparently, and it sucks in plenty of people who don't know better. It's all headgaming at its finest.

"The Blacks" isn't used much in modern vernacular, except by 70 to 80+ year-old people who grew up with that kind of talk. This isn't about being hypersensitive or making a big deal out of nothing, as many are sure to remark, but this right here raised the hairs on my neck in a sort of "Your NegroSense™ is tingling" kind of way. Hard to explain, but my suspicions were thrown into high gear behind this particular phrase.

"The Blacks" implies an out-of-touch view of black Americans as being "those people" or worse still, "those things," as though they don't warrant any more of your time than necessary, if at all. If you could really care less about those people, despite expressing a need for them to lend you support when you most need it, there ya go. "The Blacks."

As much as people claim Ron Paul supports black Americans, the mounting evidence suggests otherwise. Anyone who genuinely supports black Americans would take great pains not to piss them off by being associated with white supremacists or crankish newsletters dripping with race bait. If you support black America, your image has to reflect it. Only the most self-loathing of black conservatives or those who've just gone completely around the bend would stand behind a guy who thinks the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a bad idea.

As I said in my very first blog post, it's better to have your own stuff, because you never know when you'll end up being shown the door at other venues, especially if you happen to be a contributing blogger whose views suddenly clash with the status quo or offend the site administrator or founder. Those who ran afoul of famous firebagger Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake learned that the hard way. Fellow blogger Redeye parted ways with Left in Alabama after a number of disagreements among former fellow bloggers there.

Which brings me to this bit of fallout from the epic Greenwaldian clusterfuck that has most of the blogosphere in stitches:

In case you’re not up to speed, long story short, I had a Twitter discussion with Marcy Wheeler about the NDAA; a Greenwald supporter quipped that if I saw Obama raping a nun on live TV, I would defend him for it; another supporter quipped that I would fantasize about playing the role of the raped nun; and Greenwald piled on. When asked to account for the clumsy rape metaphor, Greenwald doubled down, claiming that it wasn’t a metaphor, and that he actually believed that I and other Obama supporters would defend Obama if we were to see him raping a nun.

In what world is such a comment appropriate? It was a vile thing to say, and it is a vile thing to defend. Moreover, the stalwartness and cluelessness with which people, including John Cole, defended that statement is disappointing.

To be clear: I neither asked nor expected John to defend me. I can and do defend myself. But I was surprised and stunned that he stridently defended Greenwald when he could have, and should have, said nothing. Even worse, he managed to cast Greenwald as a victim. Stunning.

Both Greenwald’s comments and the comments offered in defense are incontrovertibly offensive to women, offensive to rape survivors, and are inexcusable. Does that mean I think Greenwald is pro-rape? Of course not. But using rape as a metaphor or leveraging it to score political points is tone-deaf, at best, and malicious at worst.

The above is from contributor "Angry Black Lady," who sadly will be leaving Balloon Juice behind this bullshit. She has her own blog with a stellar cast of contributors, so her departure from the blog won't be a devastating event. But her departure in of itself is rather disturbing, for reasons I'll go into later on.

This isn't the first time she's had a major disagreement with John Cole, recovering conservative and founder of Balloon Juice. Both came to blows when it came to the NDAA. But I was led to believe that it was more or less "no harm, no foul" in the end, just two bloggers voicing fiercely strong opinions on a subject, particularly one with a potential to cause ill will among bloggers and commentators.

This time, the whole affair became patently ridiculous. At the heart of it all was this Chirpstory, in which Twitter user @DrDawg made an unfortunate comment about ABL's supposed willingness to defend Pres. Obama no matter what he did, with Glenn Greenwald effectively co-signing the comment:



These two tweets helped set off a firestorm of indignation and criticism from other users, something that Greenwald quickly proved himself as being incapable of handling further into the storyline. Somewhere in there, John Cole affected a stance that attempted to criticize people for essentially making a bigger deal of this than he thought should have been made:


If you want to make the point that 1)people are wrongly attributing this quip to Greenwald, and 2)lambasting Greenwald for this quip is a waste of energy, this is the wrong way to go about it. The above made Cole look less like an impartial observer wishing to set the record straight and more like someone who attempted to pick the most indirect way of defending Greenwald possible.

Many people didn't see things the way Cole and others saw them, as seen below: (HT to @dvnix)


As a result, the blog split into two camps, one that defended Greenwald and others on the so-called Professional Left while castigating ABL and others for defending Pres. Obama, and others who were genuinely outraged by what seemed to be a free pass given to Greenwald, et al. "Unquestioning Obama defenders" was the overarching meme for those posts, directed at those who disagreed with Greenwald's Chicken Little bullshit and those who attempted to explain Obama's position on NDAA.

Ever since that post on the NDAA and whether or not indefinite detention existed for American citizens (answer: it doesn't), I've always had this feeling that half of the blog's commentator pool wanted to castigate and upbraid the "uppity" ABL for expressing opinions that ran contrary to what they wanted to believe at the time. Perhaps that vibe was always there, but from that point on, it grew into epic proportions. The commentators at Balloon Juice are known for copious amounts of snark, but a growing number of people became prone to getting downright nasty when it came to certain issues.

Between that, the growing lovefest with civil libertarianism and the attendant boy-crush on Next American Hero™ Ron Paul, I figured ABL's departure would come sooner or later. It's hard NOT to interject "race" into this subject, especially given how this country is literally soaked to the bone with racial antagonism, but I couldn't help but get the vibe that some wanted to dress down and/or chase away ABL for not conforming to the views expressed by an obviously superior white Progressive Liberal, whose views were to be automatically respected and questioned. Remember (this goes out to those who don't do reading comprehension well), this isn't a sweeping indictment on the behavior of the people on the blog, just a somewhat disturbing observation of a few commentators.

What disturbs me the most is a growing number of self-proclaimed liberals and progressives cosigning with a man who not only stood with white supremacist figures, but also has a mountain of evidence that outs him as being less than comfortable with minorities, no matter how much he and his supporters claim to have their best interests at heart. It's a bit unnerving to read the newsletters about his pathological fear of blacks and gays, only to be goaded into supporting Ron Paul because his stance on drugs happens to coincide with the welfare of the black community by coincidence. But that's the sort of thing his supporters want to drive home. Blacks and Latinos are supposed to climb aboard the Straight Talk Ron Paul Express, no questions asked, for a few trinkets crafted purely by coincidence.

I suspect there's a deeper game afoot, one that involves using the ever-present levels of poutrage and indignation over Pres. Obama's failures to deliver the ideal presidential experience progressive liberals wanted to kneecap the president's chances at re-election, by driving an deep and permanent wedge between progressive liberals who are for Obama and progressive liberals who are fed up with the guy. Convince the dissatisfied side to not vote (or vote for Ron Paul) as a way to strike back at an "ineffective" Obama, and you'll have the recipe for the GOP slotting in their preferred candidate come Nov. 2012 with relative ease. And having President Romney in office come 2013 doesn't bother many Professional Lefties one bit, as these guys are the least affected economically by conservative policy -- in fact, their bank accounts rely on having conservatives in power for PLs to complete the self-effacing perpetual underdog routine, something that's hard to do when "your guys" are in power. A guy like Greenwald is the perfect trojan horse for knocking lesser minds off balance while sowing the seeds for a Democrat wash, and a conservative victory.

ABL will be fine. There's no doubt about that. But I worry about the increasingly hostile atmosphere back at Balloon Juice and how it will shape future political values and opinions.

I was about to post a bunch of links that made for interesting reading and call it a day. Until I read the following comment on Joy-Ann Reid's enlightening experience with a Ron Paulite (or Pauloid):

A Ron Paul presidency means that tens of thousands of African American men will be returning to their families, communities and churches. They can begin working and re-building their lives. That is revolutionary! That is precisely what will happen when Ron Paul ends the Drug War, pardons non-violent drug offenders, and returns narcotics policy back to the states.

A Ron Paul presidency means that the bombs and drone missiles will stop dropping on Arabs, Africans, and Asians.

A Ron Paul presidency means that the Federal government will no longer threaten the interests of gays who want to pursue marriage in their respective states. No Republican or Democrat (not even Obama) is promising these things; they neutralize the “Ron Paul is a racist” charge, and they expose Obama (and the GOP) for the damage they have allowed the War on Drugs to do to African American communities.

There's something about the above comment that just draws in people who want to have hope. They want to believe that there's someone out there who can just wipe the slate clean and put right to what went wrong, just like that. People want the failed War on Drugs to come to an end. They want to see the hundreds of thousands of people who've been locked up behind it (for relatively minor non-violent drug-related offenses) come home, especially the black Americans whom the War on Drugs has disproportionally affected. We all want to see our troops out of harm's way and an end put to the bombs, the drones and the missiles. We want to see an end put to hassling same-sex couples that want to get married. So it's no wonder people are so willing to throw their weight behind a guy who's been played up as being the ultimate alternative, the guy who seems most likely and most willing to get all of these things done, and more. It's the way most people saw Pres. Obama, at least until it became apparent that the executive position in the Oval Office does not operate by unilateral fiat, no matter how much George "Dubya" Bush attempted to make it so.

And there lies the problem. The moment Ron Paul steps into the Oval Office as President is the moment he comes to realize that there are a labyrinth of channels and legislative checks to go through just to get anything done. This includes 435 representatives, 100 senators, 9 Supreme Court justices, dozens of cabinet members, a massive number of government agencies, 50 state governors and last but not least, plenty of American voters who may or may not take umbrage at Paul's attempts to change policies. Oh, and there's Paul's own supporters to deal with. He won't be able to please all of his supporters all the time, no matter how much he tries. It's what Pres. Obama is going through - many of his supporters are pissed that he can't please them all of the time, and they're ready to take their electoral frustrations out on him.

But let's get back to outlining the reasons why the above comment is thoroughly rooted in pie-in-the-sky idealism (no matter how good it sounds):

1. Ending the War on Drugs may be popular for some, but for others, the failed attempts at prohibition and enforcement have been a profitable boon to many. Federal agencies such as the DEA and ATF, state agencies and local sheriff's departments have benefited from the media coverage and valuable proceeds that drug and drug-related seizures bring. It also expands their budgets and selection of nice equipment and vehicles. Anyone attempting to bring all of that to a halt will face the wraith of many throughout the law enforcement community, as well as that of the sector lobbyists. Ron Paul may even get tarred and feathered as being "soft on crime."
2. Ron Paul might be able to steer the ship of foreign policy somewhat, but not to the degree that his supporters expect. America might be able to reduce its involvement in foreign entanglements to a degree, but it won't be anything big. Paul might be a bit reluctant to knock over the overseas chess board and say "Game Over," especially with neo-conservative interests and their friends in the defense industry to consider.
3. I didn't quite understand this third point. Saying that the feds "will no longer threaten the interests of gays who want to pursue marriage in their respective states" implies that such decisions will fall solely on the states. And if you haven't noticed, there are plenty of states that are looking to put a stop to same-sex marriages. Gays have a better chance of enjoying their full civil rights as partners under a federal umbrella than they would taking their chances on individual states. If Ron Paul pursues the "let's leave this shit to the states" theme as President, lots of people will find their civil rights under question (or nonexistent) if they happen to live in the wrong state.

It's interesting to see Glen Greenwald equate the actions of Pres. Obama in regards to foreign policy and the War on Terror with that of former dunce-in-chief George W. Bush. Apparently, Pres. Obama forgot that he was supposed to repudiate the entire concept of the War on Terror - in other words, he was supposed to take what Bush started and kick the entire mess in the trash can, damned what the rest of Congress, the military, his advisers and most Americans thought. At the very least, he was supposed to play the Professional Left-mandated role of soft touch when it came to terrorism, as evinced by Greenwald's lament of how he should have merely arrested Osama bin Laden as opposed to simply disposing of him. I think Greenwald, like many others in that particular circle, are simply too damned uncomfortable with how Pres. Obama's taken a much harder line on terrorists. In fact, they're very uncomfortable with how Pres. Obama is running things so far.

A lot of people were disappointed that Barack Obama was not their Magic Negro™. And since he didn't revert decades of damage caused by conservative policies within a year of his being in office, these same people are now out for blood, doing whatever they can do dissuade others from supporting and voting for him the next go around, even at the cost of having another conservative as president, who will most likely continue the damaging policies that these people were against and wanted to fix in the first place. To them and to Greenwald, that's far preferable to another four years of what they see as a "phony."

Barack Obama was supposed to be their anti-Bush in every single way. But his governing style was far too pragmatic for the Professional Left and emoprogs to tolerate. As a result, he's considered no better than Bush. Greenwald and company are operating on a nine-year-old's logic.

Meanwhile, Greenwald and others are praising Ron Paul as a champion (of sorts) of civil liberties. As other bloggers have pointed out, his opposition to "warmongering" makes him a pretty good shoe-in for "good guy" within the PL and emoprog circles. It's too bad that these people can't, for the life of them, see how Ron Paul's stances are merely for his own ideological convenience:

But the nature of his anti-war stance is fundamentally different from that of liberal opposition to any given war. The tipoff is in his opposition to foreign aid, and his anti-United Nations position: he's anti-war because the rest of the world just isn't worth it. His is not the pacifism of the anti-war movement but the nativist isolationism of the America-Firsters; Paul is "to the left of Obama" the way Lindbergh was to the left of Roosevelt. (That may be true in a fairly literal sense, although I wouldn't trust anything from Big Government without further corroboration.)

Similarly, Paul's positions on civil liberties issues aren't actually about civil liberties as we understand them; they're about his opposition to Federal authority. (An opposition that is somewhat conditional, it should be noted.) For example, in talking about the death penalty, he makes clear that he opposes it only at the Federal level. His opposition to the PATRIOT Act, the War on Drugs, and domestic surveillance come from the same root as his opposition to the Civil Rights Act. He has no real objection to states violating the rights of their citizens; it's only a problem if the Feds do it.

The assumption underlying this is that people are freer when states (as opposed to the Federal government) have more power. Now, it may seem obvious to some of us that the distinction between one arbitrary administrative unit and another isn't exactly a human rights issue, but let's just consider for a moment: does state or local control actually translate to more liberty?

In short? Ron Paul only cares about civil liberties when it brings him to the goal of eliminating federal interference in most aspects of governance. He could care less about what the individual states do. After all, that's his thing. How does that effect liberals on the Ron Paul bus? Well, lets just say that the individual states are a hell of a lot more conservative than guys like Greenwald give them credit for. See Alabama's HB 56 and Arizona's SB 1070? Most states, left to their own devices, are prone to stripping out and reducing civil liberties. No more same-sex marriages, abortions, Planned Parenthood or civil protections for homosexuals and transsexuals. No more protections against racial discrimination, either. But Greenwald and others can't see this forest bereft of actual civil liberties for the anti-war trees.

How far does the selective omission of Ron Paul's policies go in regards to support from Greenwald, et al.?

Remember, Greenwald says Citizens United is good for civil liberties. But what he means by those two words is very different from what most of us have in mind when we say them. The president has been consistently supportive of voting rights, for example, but that is elided from the Greenwald definition of “civil liberties;” he also elides the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Fair Sentencing Act, the overturn of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the president’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the US Commission on Civil Rights, etcetera.

Contrast that to Greenwald’s treatment of Ron Paul’s record. In his op-ed, Greenwald makes no mention of the congressman’s racist newsletters, his public stance on the Civil Rights Act, his attempt to strip Iranian students of federal financial aid, his evident homophobia, his numerous assaults on abortion rights, his desire to repeal the “Motor Voter” Act, his attacks on the 14th Amendment, etcetera. I regard his stance on the gold standard as a repeal of economic rights — one that William Jennings Bryan would abhor as a cross of gold.

In Greenwald’s story, not one of the issues in those previous two ‘graffs — not even the fight over voter ID bills that would disenfranchise millions of African Americans — count as civil liberties issues, but the supposed right of an American citizen to be free from harm while directing harm to other Americans does.

That doesn't matter. Ron Paul's anti-war stance and overall appearance as the "anti-Obama" and liberalism's "last pure hope" is all guys like Greenwald need to get on board and start waving "RP" pom-poms in front of a packed crowd.

With Ron Paul fairing well in the Iowa polls and America's falling out of love with thrice-married adulterer, child labor promoter and all around political scumbag Newt Gingrich, two things are going on throughout the Blogsphere and Twitterland: the unmasking of Ron Paul as a racist and a homophobe, and the passionate defense of Ron Paul to the contrary.


This man, like many others, believes that the accusations leveled at Paul are nothing but baseless mudslinging and organized slander by people on the left and right who are invested in Paul's failure as a GOP or possibly independent candidate. There's a nugget of truth in that. Remember the baseless alarmism and manufactured outrage over the provisions within the NDAA, provisions that were removed at the behest of the president, with others not affecting American citizens or giving the government any new powers to indefinitely detain terrorist combatants? Those accusations were largely to discredit President Obama and put a dent in his reelection chances, by turning people off from voting for Pres. Obama or by forcing a primary with a candidate deemed ideologically purer.

Ron Paul supporters see these accusations as a way for opponents to discredit Paul's policies and make him too toxic for ordinary Americans to readily support him. That's one side of the coin.

The other side lies in a growing mountain of evidence that shows Ron Paul to be not necessarily racist, but a person who is willing to use racists and their views to springboard his own political career. Some of his views are a result of his staunch constitutionalism, which implores him to stick to the strictest definition of the U.S. Constitution as possible, while others may stem from the sheer naivete that many libertarians seem to exhibit at certain points. Let's start with why Paul couldn't support a resolution to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.

One of the purposes of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was to prevent businesses from discriminating against those of different ethnicities, nationalities and religions, using the Commerce Clause as a means of enforcement. This apparently rankles those who believe in the purest form of property rights, which could be summed up as "It's my property and I can do whatever the hell I want with it," but I digress. My issue is with the belief that the natural course of the free markets, sans any intervention from the federal government, would have allowed the entire problem of segregated businesses to essentially solve itself, as customer support for such establishments would ideally fade as segregation continued to be demonized in the media. Somehow, I doubt that would happen.

Insight into the mind of one Ron Paul supporter.

Even with the pressure put upon businesses in light of publicity regarding segregation, I doubt that any business would have risked losing its biggest and most loyal customer base (white Americans) in order to cater to what was then considered a niche group (most people of color). There had to have been either a legislative or a financial penalty that was severe enough to change the behavior of these businesses. Even with black Americans withholding their dollars from segregated businesses, there was still little to no impetus to dispense with segregation. Without legislative intervention, we would most likely have segregated businesses, although most multinational conglomerates would have dispensed with those policies in order to prevent bad publicity from affecting their bottom line. A small cafe in rural Alabama with a fiercely loyal customer base would have no such problems. In short, you would still see pockets of segregation as prejudiced business owners exercised their property rights as defined in the above. As I mentioned in the comments of this Chirpstory convo, black Americans searching for a "safe" place to eat or sleep (if they could find one at all) had their own Twitter app in paperback book form - the Negro Motorist Green Book.

To the point, the entire concept of property rights, in this light, is used as a dog whistle for those who want to exercise what they see as their right to keep certain "undesirables" or the "urban element" out of their establishments. and individuals who see themselves as being "enlightened," like @allenbrauer, can't see or don't want to see the forest for the trees. Apparently, Ron Paul seems fit to pimp them all for the ballots.

Courtesy of Associated Press and the Atlanta Time Machine.

You know who was also a staunch supporter of property rights in this vein? Lester Maddox. The above features him and his son exercising their rights as property owners to refuse service to anyone they want, going so far as to run off and threaten to beat a black man who he wouldn't serve.

The greatest allure to the Ron Paul campaign is his support of a federal government that allows states to effectively govern themselves without heavy federal influence. The Civil Rights Act, along with countless other bills and amendments, is considered "heavy federal influence." For anyone who wants to see what Ron Paul's ideal world would be like, see Alabama and Arizona's proactive implementation of stringent immigration enforcement when the federal guidelines were deemed insufficient. Better still, see the United States under the Articles of Confederation.




See this picture? That's Ron Paul posing in a photo op with Don Black, founder of Stormfront.org. The guy on the far right is his son, Derrick Black. I've spoken time and again about people being defined by the company they keep. One supporter told me Paul wasn't in control of who he had photo ops with, which I find to be a fresh, piping hot plate of good ol' fashioned bullshit. When you're a famous political figure, 1)you must exercise control of who you associate yourself with, and 2)you have control of who you associate yourself with, if not by yourself, then via your press handlers.

And did I mention that Black made a $500 donation to Paul, who kept it as opposed to returning it once the donation became big news? Of course one could say that the donation did not equal Paul's endorsement of Black's views, but only Black's financial endorsement of Paul's, but any politician worth his or her campaign fund wouldn't dare be associated with the likes of Stormfront or Don Black, even if the donation was for something other than anything explicitly racial causes.

And then there's the newsletters.

Throughout the late-1970s until the mid-to-late-1990s, there were a series of newsletters that were apparently created on Ron Paul's behalf, known as the Ron Paul Political Report. "Et tu, Mr. Destructo?" has several scanned samples of these newsletters posted for your viewing pleasure. I read a few of these and came to the conclusion that if Ron Paul did not genuinely believe in what was written here, that these newsletters were being used as juicy bait for bigots to latch onto the Ron Paul campaign, at which they wind up becoming mere stepping stones to his greater political success.

The main defense utilized by Ron Paul supporters is that the words in the newsletters were taken out of context and misconstrued as racist, particularly by those who were assumed to be looking for something to call "racist." That defense doesn't quite rest with me. And if Paul genuinely had no idea about the content being produced, especially on a newsletter with his name on it, that speaks to either a horrific lack of editorial control and oversight, or Paul figured he could get away with this content by, for lack of better words, playing dumb:

The newsletters also had a number of other phrases that — taken out of context — would appear racist or outside of the political mainstream. For example, the newsletters contained a couple of critical statements about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Paul denied writing or even reading the above lines before they were brought to his attention, claiming he had focused upon his medical practice and study of monetary issues during the time period. "They were never my words," he said in 2001, though he acknowledged, "I had some moral responsibility for them."

...but the newsletter controversy only demonstrates that Paul exercised poor management over employees' statements in a relatively minor part of his career (he focused upon his medical practice during this time period), a managerial mistake he hasn't repeated in the 15 years since he returned to Congress. It's a genuine negative for Paul, but it's a small negative. No one in Washington is willing to call Paul a racist, and few have questioned his honesty on the newsletter issue (though Time's Klein did).

At least until today. In this political climate, with the GOP Establishment still bent on having Mitt Romney as their preferred candidate for the presidency, this "small negative" is now being welded as a gigantic cudgel which the GOP hopes the mainstream media will use to bash the living daylights out of the Ron Paul campaign. Just as Newton Leroy's infidelity and bombastic wordsmithing eventually sunk his campaign among voters, and just as Herm's womanizing skeletons conveniently popped out of the closet when he was 35 minutes into his 15 minutes of fame.

The is the nugget and the nugatory fact of the Ron Paul experience: everything inspirational and aspirational about the Ron Paul candidacy is as nakedly fungible as every word above. When he was not in office, for $49.95, you could buy his book about how to be scared shitless about government and invest in the same gold mines he already had shares in. Now that he's in government and angling for a higher position, you are even more compelled to stave off categorical economic collapse by investing even more than $49.95 in his campaign. And if his campaign goes nowhere, try googling something other than "RON PAUL" and whether candidates can pocket donations.

Still, on any map of moral behavior, this is a man who merits no one's esteem. To return to a comment above, he either believes these paranoiac, divisive, racial and sexually malicious things and wrote them himself, or he recognized the cynical political value in trading in them, or he was so stupid that not a word above was written by him, yet it carried his name anyway.

It's amazing how someone can be a pimp and a prostitute at the same time. In the end, it all comes down to finding votes wherever you can, since your unorthodox platform and political views disqualify you from being seen as a "serious" mainstream candidate...

I have a feeling I understand why Ron Paul gets so much support from the young and dumb progressive crowd. Ron Paul represents the alternative from the mainstream, a guy who seems to have all the answers, but can't act upon them because the mainstream keeps shutting him out, every single time. A perpetual underdog, of sorts. As long as he loses in a "almost there but not quite" way, he wins financially and in popularity. His fan base continues to swell with the ranks of those who are drawn to lovable losers who have the right stuff, but little to no chance in hell of winning.

On the small chance that Ron Paul somehow manages to win the presidency, these folks are going to be as disappointed as they were when they ushered Barack Obama, a guy who many people thought had no chance, until made the unthinkable thinkable - the perpetual underdog crowd loved him until it became apparent that he could not radically change the face of government in under 90 days. Ron Paul will have to play the same games of 11-dimension chess in front of an obstinate and actively hostile crowd (possibly less so thanks to the lack of color-arousal, but that's beside the point..) that is personally vested in maintaining status quo and increased political hegemony. In short, Ron Paul won't be able to put that pony under your pillow.

The names of the game in the federal government?

• Compromise
• Constant horsetrading
• Patience
• Horrifically slow progress