The Ron Paul Unraveling
Ron Paul
| January 11, 2008
| Tim
"The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts." - Ron Paul
Ed Morrissey has been following the Ron Paul unraveling, and comments on Reason magazine's promotion of Paul (apparently, he's on their cover right now) as well as their current attempts to learn from that stance.
By now, it's pretty clear to many that Ron Paul will say pretty much whatever he thinks will get him out of a bind. To be blunt: that he's more than willing to lie to make himself look good. Last night on CNN, Ron Paul was saying he never wrote the words attributed to him, and yea, had never even read them. (So he'd be the kind of president who wouldn't read his own speeches, I assume.)
But back in 1996, Ron Paul was claiming ownership and defending what he'd written:
So what exactly did Paul and his campaign say about these and more egregious statements during his contentious 1996 campaign for Congress, when Democrat Lefty Morris made the newsletters a constant issue? Besides complaining that the quotes were taken "out of context" and proof of his opponent's "race-baiting," Paul and his campaign defended and took full ownership of the comments.... Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns.
You can read it all here -- back in '96, in the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle Paul defends at length some of the controversial passages in his newsletters, referring to their specific content (which he now claims to not to have known) and speaks as though he wrote and owns them.
Back in 1996, it was possible to claim he was taken out of context. In 2008, it's apparently also possible to claim someone else wrote them. Either defense might have worked alone (at least with among his fans), but together, they reveal a twisty little mind, willing to boldly say things he himself knows aren't true. Even his defenders are apparently left speechless.
(On the other hand, he might simply have a stunningly bad case of amnesia. We've seen that before, and apparently that particular disability doesn't disqualify. Maybe we could have a Paul/Clinton ticket (Clinton could run for VP): We'll say anything our supporters want us to!)
I supposed after all the screams about how Ron Paul is great because he tells the Bold Unvarnished Truth, his supporters could now take a few cues from Clinton's defenders: "What's so bad about lying? When our guy lies, nobody dies! Hey everbody sleeps around a bit... (or expects an impending "race war"...) it just shows he's a regular guy!"
Ha-ha! Good blurb!
Thanks for the links to the Dallas Morning News, and Houston Chronicle. I was wondering when that would show up, finally.
I really enjoyed the contradictions in his little interview last night. "Libertarians can't be racist because they don't think in collectivist terms." Followed by "black... black... black... black... black... black voters... blacks in prison... blacks and drugs... black blackity black black black..."
... and the cited newsletter passages were "white"-this, "white"-that, blah, blah, blah.
Michael, you have a good point. I had the same thought when I watched Ron Paul -- that he was saying "black" an awful lot for someone who just denounced group labels. But, in his defense, Ron Paul was trying to expose policies he opposes (war on drugs, unfair prosecution, military of minorities) for what they are. It is in the exposition of those policies that he used the term black. In stating his own ideals, on the other hand, he used proper names like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Mohandas Gandhi.
Ron Paul seems to have a lot of politician amnesia. I have to also agree that he seems to be doing a lot of saying what ever brings in the votes. Some of his supporters might take the time to notice that he makes some of the most racist remarks against racism I've ever heard. Maybe people will finally stop funding his insanity.
The way he says, repeatedly, "the blacks" and "the minorities" strikes one as just a bit off. Maybe it's just a generational thing. But it's certainly not consistent with his insistence as libertarian, he's incapable of lumping people into groups.
It's not a generational thing. It's a principle thing. Dr. Paul refuses to call them African Americans because they're not Africans. They're simply Americans. So rather than use the term that liberal America has determined "OK" to call black people, he chooses to call them what they call themselves.
Black people refer to themselves as "black."
Isn't it ridiculous that the people in this conversation thread are sitting here all aghast that a white man would dare call a black man "black?"
Also, with regards to his supporters stopping "funding the insanity," you might be interested in seeing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DggGZqYebrQ
Agreed. The term "black" is the approriate term. As far as his use of the word, it was the most appropriate language to quickly describe to the viewers the scope of the issue he was discussing.
Saying, "he seems to be doing a lot of saying what ever brings in the votes" is an overstatement. Stack his moderated views next to any other candidate and his "issue" becomes a rounding error.
My issue with him using the word "black" has nothing to do with what I actually think is racist. It has to do with him "helping" his black supporters by changing changing drug laws to get them out of jail. To me this implies that somehow all blacks are on drugs and in jail. Not to mention his misquotes how many black people are in jail in this country. It is significantly less than 68%. To me he has done a great disservice to blacks in this country by implying that.
It's amazingly instructive (as to how not to run a campaign!) to read the comments of Ron Paul's supporters.
Here's a bunch of straight white gentiles lecturing African Americans, gays, and Jews about which labels are "most proper" for them.
These folks are killing the credibility of libertarianism and driving sane libertarians to start describing themselves as "sane non-Ron Paul libertarians."
Talk about tone-deaf idiocy!
Michelle,
I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse or if you simply misunderstood.... 68% of the prison population is black was the point, not that 68% of blacks are in prison. No disservice has been done to blacks, so you can stop worrying.
As for 'helping' his black supporters by getting them out of jail - that is ludicrous. You can't vote if you're in prison, so by definition it won't be his supporters who would be helped out of jail.
By all means, folks - in your quest for the big white whale, don't let the truth and sound reason get in your way.
Micah,
This is unfortunately going to be short because it's time for my son to eat. This is not so thorough and documented as I would have liked but I felt your post deserved a reply.
I am keenly aware that the prison population can't vote. 68% is still an exaggerated statistic. Ron Paul does not say anything about wanting to change drug sentencing laws to help Hispanics, Whites, Asians, or any other group besides blacks. A true Libertarian would have referred to everyone convicted of a drug related offense instead of specifically pointing out the black population. I do find that a disservice to the black community who are definitely not the only drug offenders in our society. As to changing the laws being ludicrous, Ron Paul said it, I didn't make it up.
Ron Paul looks like a sound a reasonable person on the surface. It's when you start looking deeper you find out things are not as they appear.
It's amazingly instructive (as to how not to run a campaign!) to read the comments of Ron Paul's supporters.
Here's a bunch of straight white gentiles lecturing African Americans, gays, and Jews about which labels are "most proper" for them.
But they're not collectivist in any way — nope, they're libertarian so they can't think in collectivist terms. </sarc>
These folks are killing the credibility of libertarianism and driving sane libertarians to start describing themselves as "sane non-Ron Paul libertarians."
Honestly, at this point libertarianism is killing the credibility of libertarianism. I've typically identified as libertarian for years now, but I'm realizing that my stances have been changing as I look at the effects of places that have more libertarian social policies. (Gambling, prostitution, drugs.) Try going to Reno, NV sometime, and ask the locals about life there. It's, eh, instructive.
I think a more succinct way to state my views would be anti-statist, or anti-statolatrist, since it seems we've entered a world of statolatry, where people are looking for the government to replace God.
The current problem with von Mises' definition of statolatry is that it was nationalistic, and the rhetoric we get from the left is much more global in scale. It's not so much the traditional nation-state as it is inter(nation)state government.
Oh, and to finally get rid of the "SO MANY BLACKS ARE IN JAIL!!" garbage: here is the official report of the DoJ.
Blacks make up 37.5% of the prison population. Yes, it's out of proportion with the proportion of the general population of 12.1%.
Also, do debunk another trumped up number, 2% of our population is not in jail. The incarceration rate is on the order of .5%. The number of people on probation is closer to 1.3% – *gasp* not probation!
I know many people will be disappointed that this country isn't quite like Nazi Germany yet, but the numbers elsewhere seem to be completely trumped up.
It's not a generational thing. It's a principle thing. Dr. Paul refuses to call them African Americans because they're not Africans...
I don't have any problem with that. (To the contrary, I know a number of black who say "blacks" is the term they prefer for the exact same reasons.) My point was about the "THE", which sounds kind of odd, as if he held that group at a distance.
"The blacks are concerned that..."
"Blacks are concerned that..."
As I said, it may be a generational thing. It just strikes me as though he's talking about some odd or foreign group of people of whom he has no ongoing experience.
I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse or if you simply misunderstood.... 68% of the prison population is black...
To add to Mike's rebuttals above, here are two (1, 2) places to look for such statistics, which give % of blacks in prison as 4.7% and 10.4% respectively, and generally agree with Mike's citation of under 40% of prison populations being black.
The point here is that Ron Paul actually said 67% of blacks were in jail -- not the converse. It may seem like a technicality, but it's a bit like saying 66% of straight white men are child molesters, when you really meant that 1% or fewer are, but comprise about 66% of the offenses.
And even if he was simply uninformed, or an incredibly incautious speaker (you can see someone making that mistake in passing, but not in prepared remarks on national TV!) his numbers are still way off. "Dr. Paul" seems strangely drawn to the least charitable interpretation of the least charitable statistics.
Again, consider the other example: there is simply NO WAY one can confidently assert that 95% of the black males in DC are "criminal or semi-criminal", unless you're being technical in in a way which means that 99% of the population are also criminal (given that we speed, jaywalk, etc.) -- and even then the question would be why he's using that technique for one group, yet not another.
I also want to be clear to stress that there's nothing wrong with pointing out this or that community IS having problems, as Bill Cosby or Juan Williams have been doing regarding the black community. But the question is one of tone and apparent intention.
Conservatives, for example, point to government welfare programs and lack of two-parent families (for which we blame the liberal ideology which came into vogue in the 60s and early 70s), gansta culture (for which we hold Hollywood and consumers accountable), etc. We may be wrong, but the intent is to try to somehow reverse these trends.
But main answer Ron Paul is giving is simply to make the symptoms and causes of these problems (drug use, for example) legal. That's not a magic bullet which will solve or even alleviate these problems (to the contrary, actually) -- it's just a way of making the problem appear to go away by making harmful behavior legal (and, as a correlary, even more prevalent). I don't know why the black community, or any community for that matter, would want to attack an inherently harmful behavior within its ranks primarily or only by legalizing it.
And the point above about prison populations not being voters misses two implications:
(a) You certainly can appeal to voters who are engaged in criminal behavior (or benefit from it) but who aren't yet in prison (that was precisely what Ron Paul was saying when he asserted that 95% of the free black men walking around in DC should really be in jail).
And, looking at the other half of the implication: (b) by so saying, you're actually saying that drug users should have MORE political influence -- because you're saying drug use shouldn't disqualify you from holding office or voting. Drug users should be free to shape society while addicted to crack, coke, or meth. (Think they'll vote for big government and more welfare, or small government, you libertarians?)
Even if we argued that the "drug war" needs to end, I'd still argue for at least SOME penalty (even public drunkenness isn't legal now, although alcohol is) and possible suspension of voting. Do we really want "addicts" and the newly-legalized multi-billion-dollar "pusher" industry to become major political power blocs?
Answer me, you supporters of Ron Paul.
I've been watching this column all day, waiting to see something. However, I think I've found the ultimate Ron Paul repellent — it's a combination of reason, facts and reality.
After being frustrated that "Doc W" would apparently do anything but engage the arguments at hand, I felt comforted that I'm not the only one having this experience when stumbled upon a Captain Ed posting in which he observed...
Almost like clockwork, any time a blogger posts anything remotely critical about Ron Paul, it attracts hundreds of comments, most of them refusing to deal with the substance of the criticism.
I'm obscure, so I don't see the flood he sees, but that's been precisely my impression. I wonder what, precisely, it is about Ron Paul which attracts such people.
Of course, I've been asking that about the left too. But it's harder to see in RP's case, since leftism is usually composed obvious-but-wrong stuff (higher taxes produce more gov't income, higher minimum wage will make low-paid workers earn more).
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Ha-ha! Good blurb!
Thanks for the links to the Dallas Morning News, and Houston Chronicle. I was wondering when that would show up, finally.
I really enjoyed the contradictions in his little interview last night. "Libertarians can't be racist because they don't think in collectivist terms." Followed by "black... black... black... black... black... black voters... blacks in prison... blacks and drugs... black blackity black black black..."
Posted by: Michael Zappe on January 11, 2008 10:42 AM