James Kirchick of The New Republic has discovered Rep. Ron Paul’s newsletters:
What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays.
Little Green Footballs rightly notes that Charles Johnson flagged this story months ago, based on excerpts posted at Free Republic.
At Reason magazine’s Hit & Run blog, Jesse Walker publishes Paul’s response and writes that Paul is still dancing around his relationship to that publication. Yet Walker cannot help but… question. the. timing. Just like Ron Paul.
IT’S A CONSPIRACY!!!
Update: Though Paul attempts to dismiss the controversy as “old news” and “rehashed for over a decade,” it is news to the Paul-supporting Excitable Andy. Of course, Sullivan previously claimed that he had no idea that Paul cheerleader Alex Jones was a 9/11 Truther, after he “just aired” another of the bizzare Jones conspiracies. Andy is excitable, but apparently not very curious about his political bedfellows.
Update x2: LGF notes personal details about Paul in one of the most controversial issues of the newsletter.
Well, Paul’s right about one thing. This is old.
The evidence that Paul was a racist jackass conspiracy goof has always been ample and available for any one that wanted it enough. Short exposure to his own self, let alone his goon squad, was tip-off enough to dig for it.
I can’t believe anyone for ten seconds ever thought he was anything but a crank. Except for Andy, of course. I can believe that.
Sorry for the sourness. I always feel bitter when people find out what they should already know.
Ron Paul and his ilk are racist, paranoid kooks?
The deuce, you say!
My world is crumbling around me.
Here’s what Kirchick had to say on Tucker –
“[Paul] speaks in code. He is a transmitter. He’ll say certain things that don’t appear overtly racist, but “these communities” know exactly what he’s talking about.” – Kirchick
Who’s he conspiricay theorist?
Alex Jones.
Now, I’m not one for the “code words” and “dog whistle” theory of discerning intent. But that’s not needed in Ron Paul’s case. Here’s a politician who allowed racist and conspiracy theorist material to be published under his name. He hangs out with folks like Alex Jones. When his supporters act like brownshirts, his reaction is silence.
The only surprise about this is that some people are surprised to hear this about the fucking crackpot.
Andy is excitable, but apparently not very curious about his political bedfellows.
Not as long as long they “hate” the appropriate people.
Here’s another quote from the TNR author (youtube.com/watch?v=Whqtv9D9g-Y) “When someone mentions the Trilaterial Commission in nefarious terms, you know that they’re a little kooky… …The Bilderbergers, that’s a real out there conspiracy theory…” Then, he pretended that BohemianGrove was just a “men’s social club in Northern California”.
This guy is a complete establishment suck-up and apologist. While some of the theories about those groups are indeed out there, pretending they’re just happy friendly social groups is something that no one who isn’t just trying to suck-up should engage in.
I list a few issues with the article itself here.
There exists a very large minority of people who are retarded.
If y’all want to lose a few brain cells, go here and watch some of these videos. The Reptilian Agenda is particularly amusing or bemusing depending on how you look at it.
To quote the Hardly Brothers from South Park, Ron Paul gives me a raging clue. It’s huge. I’m trying not to squirt clue goo.
TLB, put the bong down, son, it is doing you no good.
daley, RTO opted to watch Paul’s appearance on Leno last night. Either Leno is unfailingly nice or really ill informed. He was all, “I don’t get why Fox left you out of the debate last night,that just doesn’t seem fair.” but really, the crazy didn’t come out too much, he’s sneaky that way.
And that whole business about gravity? Also old news.
Sun rises in the east, ditto. Can’t we just move on?
I think Leno’s just glad to get a guest who’ll cross the picket line. Paul probably wasn’t bothered by it because he thinks WGA stands for World Government Alliance.
I don’t know. I saw Leno hand the good doctor a length of rope which the doc then used to hang himself.
Lots of not fair and such–and there’s a point to be made there–and then this:
JAY LENO: Let me ask you something about this terrorist thing, and clear this up, because you hear things secondhand. You said that we were to blame?
RON PAUL: No, no, not really.
Whereupon Congresman Pauls pretzel logeic suceeds in tying a nice noose for himself.
All through the 90’s I spent a lot of time on USENET under a different pseudonym. I debated with a number of the neo-militia types on specific newsgroups and that’s where I first became acquainted with Ron Paul when Jon Roland, a founder of one of the Texas miltias, and perennail candidate for Attorney General on the Libertarian ticket, made me aware of who this guy was. Quite a bit of reverence for him among that crowd.
I also remember a story from 1991 where a Texas Congressman had accused US troops of war crimes during the Gulf War. So yeah, he’s consistent alright….
Consistent that is, until we come to Afghanistan. Somehow, despite 200 years of precedent to the contrary, that the use of military force with out a Congressional declaration of war is illegal by Rep. Paul, and yet, he voted for action in Afghanistan and doesn’t consider it illegal.
I attended gun shows in the Southwest, Maryland and Virginia extensively in the 80’s and early 90’s.
Now I remember “The Survival Report”!
Any kook gun-show table with copies of “The Protocols of Zion” and “The Beast from Jekyl Island” wasn’t complete without handouts from “The Survival Report”!
It’s coming back to me:
Colloidal silver, New World Order, Ron Paul, zionists, race war, CFR and Freemasonry! That was kookism in the 80s!
How the hell did he get this far!?
Are the rightwing kooks of the 80’s now the leftwing kooks since 9/11?!
Hmmm, I must confess I ran the risk of catching a few of those fleas myself in those days, and that name sounds familiar but I’m not sure exactly where I encountered it. Something Constitution(ist)-related, I’m sure.
He took on protective plumage by running for Congress as a Republican. I remember that quite well, because compared to the proud futility of most large-L Libertarians of the day, I thought it rather a wise move.
But I guess, though you can take the crackpot out of the crackpot party, you can’t take the crackpot party out of the crackpot.
The Paulistinians have been spamming every blog that has carried the Ron Paul expose with lots of unintentional hilarity saying that the old new letter quotes are “out of context” “smears” “hitjobs” “discredited” and “what Paul is saying is true”.
I haven’t seen this much frothing since Ross Perot.
RTO, I didn’t know that part about Afghanistan. You mean Ron Paul recognized the need for expediency in war? And I guess he finally read up on the Tripolitan War, in which Jefferson dispatched the USMC to defeat a para-national, Muslim terrorist organization — without congressional approval.
We won. I guess Ron Paul finally found a precedent. The man is like a dull knife in a locked cabinet. Slow to get, and hard to use when you do.
USENET. USENET. Isn’t that a result of the infamous DARPA projects? You’re one of them aren’t you? I have my eye on you, pal. We don’t like you New Worlders around here. ;-)
Oh, come on, people. Doctor Paul isn’t an anti-semite. He’s just against Neo-Cons. In fact, he was against Neo-Cons, before being against Neo-Cons was *not anti-semitic*. Call him a premature-anti-Neo-Con, if you will. Besides… who runs The New Republic? Who writes for it? Jooooooooooooos. Joooooooos, I tell you. It’s just like them to make something up like this. You can’t trust anything the Jooooooooos write, unless they’re a sort of Armadillo-tolerating, cock-slapping not really observant kind of Jooooooo, in which case what they write is generally truthful. Anyhow, just because Doctor Paul, MD, is against Israel, the Israeli lobby, Neo-Cons, Jews, Blacks, gays, rich people, and various foreign policy establishment bodies, doesn’t mean he’s an insane, bigoted, anti-semitic conspiracy theory-mongering nonsense-writing fool…
Oh way a minute. Sorry. Yes it does.
SGT Ted wrote, “Paulistinians” LOLOLOL!!!
I erred when I wrote, “congressional approval.” I should have written “congressional declaration.”
Gray, McGehee, Jeff,
You’re bringing back the Good Times memories for me–debating the OKC Bombing and Waco–the fine points of GEN Partin’s figures and how a search warrant acually works. The Republic of Texas, the Freemen, and Mark from Michigan on 5600 megacycles (the truth is on shortwave).
McGehee–look here: http://www.constitution.org/
SGT Ted–The Congressman is even saying that he didn’t write those newsletter articles.
The one good thing about the rising tide of Obama and now the rising tide of Hillary, is that the media seems to be more focused on Dem=good rather than Rep=bad portion of their advocacy. So, they have strayed from the Huckabee and Paul are the only real conservatives ideas in the MSM. Cool with me.
Jeff, I used a different posting handle back then. I won’t tell you what it was, but if you did a search for Jon Roland and Ron Paul on misc.activism.militia, you might be able to pick me out.
If you follow the reflective stickers on the backs of the interstate roadsigns, tehy’ll lead you to the NWO FEMA concentration camps, or to the campsites in the US National Parks/UN Biospheres where the UN troops that will round up all the gunowners are hiding out.
In the Huckabee threads I wrote about a culture that’s largely opaque to a lot of Americans.
Mike Huckabee is the benign face of that culture. Ron Paul is the other one.
Regards,
Ric
Which probably explains, Ric, why I’m more comfortable discussing my opposition to Paul than my opposition to Huckabee.
They’re both wackadoodles. I’ve decided simply not to take them seriously anymore cause that’s easiest. Ephemera is what they are I think.
Holy crap, so that silver-sippin’ blue-faced guy is probably a Paulnut, huh?
I am choosing to call this phenomenon: Paullution.
RTO, if you’re still here, check the recent comments, as I responded to yours about the MI primary.
I can almost hear the Black Helicopters again.
RTO:
Okay, that would explain the Constitution tag that was associated with Jon in my memory. I also have a lingering impression of him as a relatively okay guy, though I never hung around newsgroups or much cared for debating (as y’all can probably tell).
The problem in dealing with Ron Paul is that it’s his interpretations and prescriptions, especially the latter, that are Not Acceptable. His facts are fully in order.
It is a fact that after half a century of Civil Rights American blacks do not achieve in the same proportion as whites. It is also a fact that one of the major motives behind the “dumbing down” of education is and has been an attempt to reduce the difficulty to the point where blacks and whites do achieve to a similar degree, and that the result might charitably be characterized as “a miserable failure”. It is not acceptable to “solve” that problem by re-enslaving blacks under whatever mealymouthed rubric may be concocted, OK? But it is a problem before us, and Paul is among the few who will discuss it.
The “states’ rights” explanation for the Civil War is simply wrong, a justification created post bellum by people who didn’t want to admit that they (and, later, their ancestors) had been such nasty m*f*rs. Southerners were fighting to preserve slavery, full stop. Nevertheless Paul is correct about the role of Lincoln in changing the United States from a federation of semi-independent republics into a monolith — it was, in fact, what Honest Abe intended; he said so, repeatedly. The blastocyst of the Nanny State is right there in the Gettysburg Address. That does not mean it would be a good idea to return the whole system to the status qui MCCMLX.
That’s just two examples. There are many more. Paul is a nasty asshole who should have his hands amputated if they get close to the levers of power, but a lot of the aversion so many of us feel for him is due to his bringing skeletons out of the musty depths of long-ignored closets and showing us the bludgeon wounds. We’d rather not talk about that stuff, thankyouverymuch. We need to, though.
Regards,
Ric
Ric – I’m not sure I agree with your –
“but a lot of the aversion so many of us feel for him is due to his bringing skeletons out of the musty depths of long-ignored closets and showing us the bludgeon wounds.”
I’m much more in alignment with your following statement:
“The problem in dealing with Ron Paul is that it’s his interpretations and prescriptions, especially the latter, that are Not Acceptable.”
The gold standard, the hermit kingdom foreign policy, eliminating the IRS, among others spell out deeply flawed thinking for a potential leader of this country absent all the conspiracy bullshit and bigotry.
If you believe the House of Representatives should be representatitive of the people, maybe that’s where Dr. Paul should be because a certain percentage of the population is certifiably insane. Personally, I think people like him should be doing the thorazine shuffle womewhere where he can’t do any harm to himself or others.
Ron Paul is just mad cause the world isn’t how he’d like it to be is my sense. I hope I’m not like that when I’m his age.
McGehee, Jon was okay. There were really only a samll number of those guys I didn’t get along witha nd several I liked even if it was impossible to agree with them. My impression was that I found Jon more palatable than he ever found me, but that’s okay.
Ric, It’s his policy position that are based on poor, mistaken or fabricated facts that I have a problem with (the economy for one, foreign policy for another). In fact, he’s been so loud about these issies, I have heard no discussion from him of affirmative action or civil war history–I’ll admit I don’t seek him out for there either.
An example, in one of the debates he was asked about healthcare. I was a little excited and paid special attention–and was thoroughly disappointed. He’s a doctor, and the topic is health care. He SHOULD have somethign intelligent to say. But instead he runs straight to his boneheaded foreign policy. And even if I agreed with him that we have an overseas empire that we spend too much money on (wrong on both counts) the answer leaves me withteh distinct impression that he’s willing to spend all kinds of federal money on healthcare–perhaps even a single payer plan. That wouldn’t be consistent, but he’s not ruled it out to my knowledge.
Interesting of course too that on the candidate ranking site, Ron Paul’s chief weakness is listed as his “passages.”
Interesting of course too that on this candidate ranking site, Ron Paul’s chief weakness is listed as his “passages.”
Double post? If so, whoops sorry.
And, now, we find out why the Stormfront types are in Ron Paul’s corner.
Maybe the Ron Paul blimp should be rechristened as the Ron Paul Zeppelin.
I question the timing of Jesse finally noticing that there’s this nose on his face. Seriously, is there anyone else that’s just finding out about this, that’s got an EEG SNR bigger than 1?
Not saying anything about Jesse’s ability to raise a brainwave signal, just that he’s seriously out of touch.
“You’re bringing back the Good Times memories for me–debating the OKC Bombing and Waco–the fine points of GEN Partin’s figures and how a search warrant acually works. The Republic of Texas, the Freemen, and Mark from Michigan on 5600 megacycles (the truth is on shortwave).”
I was in law school when all that was going on, RTO Trainer, and studying in the library on weekends became very interesting. There were intriguing bumper stickers on vehicles in the lot and some unusual folk doing research in the library.
Of course this is all about timing, but thats how good reporters work – to peak interest. The actual impact of this is yet to be seen and will be judged by the online reaction. I mean will online polls still be crazily for Paul and will sites like fittobepres.com get ridiculous amounts of paulbots on it.
The Rondenburg!
One small correction. The LEADERS of the southern states brought about secession in order to maintain slavery. The motivations of the officers and men that fought for the Confederacy were more complex. Some fought for slavery, some fought because they believed in the rights of the states to secede, some fought because they though it was the right thing to defend their homes from the Union “invaders”, or a mix of all of the above.
You’re certainly correct to say that the Civil War (War of Northern Agression/War Between the States/ etc.) marked a huge shift in the balance of power from the States to the Federal level. I think this was probably somewhat inevitible, in the same way that Shay’s Rebellion helped bring about the rebalancing of power from the states to the Federal level and the end of the Articles of Confederation.
What do you think the chances are of getting JHoward to put up a post defending his man?
I make fun of the blue guy too, but perhaps someone here would like to explain why being worried about the CFR is “kookism”. Alternatively, perhaps someone would like to join the author of the TNR piece in – literally – referring to BohemianGrove as nothing more than a “men’s social club”.
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