{"id":6477,"date":"2011-12-10T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-10T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/10\/dont-believe-ron-paul\/"},"modified":"2011-12-10T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-10T08:01:00","slug":"dont-believe-ron-paul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/10\/dont-believe-ron-paul\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Believe Ron Paul!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Only because the rest of the GOP field of Presidential candidates is so terrible, there is actually a possibility that Ron Paul might win the Iowa Caucuses, as he has concentrated almost all his efforts there.  Ron Paul has never mattered, and in all probability, never will.  But just in case, it\u2019s important that you understand that Paul is not the person he presents himself to be, as this excellent article by Tim Murphy clearly demonstrates.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"10RonPaul\"…Paul might just win Iowa. As Red State founder Erick Erickson points out [wing-nuts delinked], he’s worked the state harder than almost anyone else and honed his message to appeal to corn belt conservatives (the raw milk line is a winner). But that doesn\u2019t make him a serious contender. As Politico\u2019s Maggie Haberman<\/a> and others have pointed out, Paul’s candidacy has a clear ceiling. Until his opponents start talking about the following issues, you’ll know Paul isn’t a serious threat:<\/p>\n

The newsletters<\/font>: Since 1978, Paul published and sold a newsletter (known alternatively as Ron Paul’s Political Report, Ron Paul’s Survival Report, and Ron Paul’s Freedom Report) to tens of thousands of libertarians scattered across the country. Especially in the beginning, it played into the concerns of a certain kind of conservative white guy<\/strong>. As the New Republic reported<\/a>, the newsletters suggest Paul is "not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing\u2014but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics<\/strong>." Some excerpts:<\/p>\n

"[Although] we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational<\/strong>. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."<\/p>\n

"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the ‘criminal justice system,’ I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal<\/strong>."<\/p>\n

"[B]lack males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary, and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."<\/p>\n

Paul defended the newsletters’ racist content when it was first brought up by his opponent in a 1996 congressional race\u2014standing by, for instance, charges that Democratic Rep. Barbara Jordan, the state’s first black congresswoman, was granted favorable treatment because of her race. His statements were "academic, tongue-in-cheek," he said of the newsletters, and were not meant to be taken at face value.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until five years later that Paul offered an alibi, claiming that the newsletters had been ghostwritten<\/strong>. As he told Texas Monthly’s S.C. Gwynne<\/a>, "They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them\u2026I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn’t come from me directly<\/strong>, but they [campaign aides] said that’s too confusing. ‘It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.’"<\/p>\n

It’s a confusing alibi, to say the least: Why would Paul’s campaign prefer he take credit for racist comments he didn’t write? Even if he never wrote the newsletters, he had no qualms profiting off of their contents for decades. The fact that none of his presidential opponents since then have raised the newsletters as an issue is a sign they simply don’t take him seriously<\/strong>…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Mother Jones<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now, this is just the section in Murphy\u2019s article that deals with Paul\u2019s racism.  In addition Murphy exposes Paul on civil rights, scorched earth policies, conspiracy theories, and women’s rights.  I strongly urge you to click through for the rest of it.<\/font><\/p>\n

If I had a ghost writer for this blog, and if he wrote overtly racist statements here, I would be screaming about it from day one, disavowing it and firing the ghost writer.  It certainly would not take five years!  That\u2019s why I do not believe Paul.  Furthermore, if I had a ghost writer, I\u2019d say so.  I would not deceive people into thinking that they were getting my writing when they were not.  What makes this even worse is that my writing is free, but Paul charged for his newsletters and defrauded every customer, if he had a ghost writer. Either way, Paul is a liar.<\/font><\/p>\n

Far too many people are attracted to Paul because he opposes war and favors decriminalization of drugs.  While I tend to agree with him there, whatever positives those policies give him are thoroughly outweighed by the horrors of everything else he represents.  Don\u2019t believe Ron Paul!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Only because the rest of the GOP field of Presidential candidates is so terrible, there is actually a possibility that Ron Paul might win the Iowa Caucuses, as he has concentrated almost all his efforts there.  Ron Paul has never mattered, and in all probability, never will.  But just in case, it\u2019s important that you […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}