White nationalists believe that the Federal Reserve is part of a Jewish conspiracy, which explains Ron Paul’s obsession with that topic.

I’m not sure how you missed it. Nearly every time there is impropriety between the police and the accused he defaults to the accused being in the right. (Note that this is not the same as assuming innocence until proven guilty, as in a case of impropriety being the accusation, that would mean assuming innocence on the part of the officer as well).

Now, I don’t mean to be overly critical of taking that position. I take a similar position myself, simply because of the nature of who the police are, what they represent, and the amount of abuse that is common today. My point is not that he should change this default view – it’s that he should be more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to other people as well, including Ron.

Freerider,
Thank you for your rather eloquent response. It was well said.

Radley, it has been fun, but I am checking out…

Look. Paul’s newsletter built a national support base for his first House run in part by explicitly courting the racist fringe. And in 2007, in his presidential run, Paul refused to make a strong repudiation of the endorsement he was receiving from the racist fringe. One has to at least ask if the reason we haven’t seen such a repudiation has much less to do with libertarian ideals and much more to do with not wanting to alienate a known support base.

With all due respect, I think the problem that Balko is pointing out here is that Paul, in the final analysis, is a politician.

Amazing how any hope this country had just went right out the window. I don’t think this country is worth saving anymore since anyone serious enough to make their voice counted can be so easily swayed by this bullshit. I thought the people who frequent these boards had more sense.

I guess I was wrong. Enjoy the rest of the election season. We deserve every second of it.

It will also enable us to tell who the racists really are, so that the rest of us can also dissociate ourselves from them.

As for the local NAACP chapter head’s testimony that Paul’s not racist, that may very well be true, but the fact that his testimony was given on the radio talk show of a conspiranoid 9/11 Denier like Alex Jones is hardly reassuring. What next, Flat-Earthers testifying that Paul’s not a phrenologist?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2008/011308_not_racist.htm

Before you dismiss the web site, here is the headline and first paragraph.

NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist
Linder says Paul being smeared because he is a threat to the establishment
Sunday, January 13, 2008

Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, who has known Ron Paul for 20 years, unequivocally dismissed charges that the Congressman was a racist in light of recent smear attempts, and said the reason for him being attacked was that he was a threat to the establishment.

From Ostrowski on Lew Rockwell’s blog…

While beltway libertarians are busy reading old newsletters, George Bush is foisting internal passports on us, McCain is promising 100 more years in Iraq, and Hillary just gave a quick outline of her agenda as our presumptive next president: federal power to cure global warming, which is of course a totalitarian power since everything from breathing to having babies in their view is related to global warming; universal pre-k; and socialized medicine. She will give us–and there will no Republican Congress to stop her–a consolidated state controlling everything.

But keep dredging up old newsletters boys and girls

I am disapointed in Dr Paul’s response although I don’t know what would have been acceptable. It would seem with the lack of direction of volunteers that he really doesn’t care what happens under his name and that is odd to me. Perhaps it is his love of freedom and total inability to tell someone what he thinks they should do.

However Dr Paul has done more for FREEDOM regardless of label than Reason, its staff, CATO and the Libertarian party have ever done. I’m not knocking these but he has used a seat in the United States House to profess freedom and stand up for it often alone for 20 years. Can you imagine how lonely that must feel at times? To know you are right but be called a “crank?” He has basically retired from his profession to do all of this. Why he even took a turn as the Libertarian presidential candidate. He doesn’t pull punches. He constantly and most importanly respectfully presents the case for liberty.

For libertarians to write him off so quickly while waiting for that perfect candidate to come along is unbelievable.

For Libertarians to worry “their” movement is sullied by 20 year old comments and not by a consistant hostility to religion, pro abortion until the last moment and hey perhaps after, presenting the most radical lifestyles as normal, and going beyond drug tolerance to almost insisting on their use to join the club, well now that is PRICELESS.

I do think there is a fear of winning, not that Dr Paul had a great chance but it seems like the fair weather supporters want to make certain he doesn’t.

Ron Paul has a few credits coming his way for basically a lifetime of work. I can’t think of anyone who would withstand this method of judgement.

Respectfully
Joe

http://www.karendecoster.com/blog/archives/002714.html

As for the newsletters, if i had to bet, put me down for “Paul knew about the newsletters all along, they were targeted at a good ol’ boy segment of his base as a good way to give a sidelong (at the time anyhow) nod and a wink to an icky (but reliable) segment of his voter base”

US politics and tender sensibilities do not mix.

Paul went along for the ride for the same reason Tom Cruise doesn’t like psychiatrists.

I have to ask what realistic difference there is between what Paul was running with that newsletter and what, say Radley, is running with this blog (or more accurately other blogs that have multiple writers, i.e. lewrockwell, CATO, etc.)? Aren’t both of them basically forums for people to speak their minds? Are we to hold Radley responsible for what we write in the comments section? Granted, if there was something Radley found particularly nasty, he might delete it. That’s his choice. But to what degree are we going to condemn Paul for not doing the same thing Radley, or maybe we, might do? Neither choice makes either of them less libertarian. I also think the one thing Paul has done quite well in his responses is come out strongly against the more absurd content, the particularly nasty stuff so to speak. It’s his “I didn’t know what was going on…” comments that I take issue with because it speaks to his management style (and possibly other issues). I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea that he himself is not a racist.

Tom

I think this post is grossly unfair for several reasons. One, you accuse Ron Paul of perpetuating the environment that allowed some of the worst anti-drug laws to come into effect because of some admittedly ignorant, bigoted things that were published in a newsletter bearing his name. Yet you completely ignore the fact that the worst laws were passed following Len Bias’ death in 1986 — Ron Paul ran an explicitly anti-drug war campaign as the Libertarian Party’s nominee in 1988 (and he took a lot of flack for it too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHB2I83_N_k). This fact wasn’t lost on his Democratic opponents in the 90s either, who ran ads saying that scary old Ron Paul wanted to LEGALIZE DRUGS!

Secondly, Ron Paul has — repeatedly — attacked the war on drugs as both a member of Congress and, yes, as a candidate for president in 2008. At rallies across the country and at the PBS debate on minority issues he has railed against the harmful effects of the war on drugs and its disproportionate effect on minorities. Other observers didn’t miss this (see Pete Guither’s “Drug War Rant” at Salon: http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2007/09/28.html). Please point me to any other candidate besides Paul and Dennis Kucinich (who I take you won’t be endorsing anytime soon) who has dared to even question aspects of the war on drugs? To say that Ron Paul only speaks out against the drug war when he is being accused of racism is not only untrue, but it’s underhanded and beneath you. Perusing your blog I see precious little about the war in Iraq — would it be fair of me to say that you endorse the neoconservative position? Or that you just don’t care about foreigners unless someone is challenging your libertarian credentials, for instance? (short answer: probably not…. but say, why is there so little about the single most important issue of this campaign?)

And finally, you say Paul was “overly defensive” and “lacked contrition” in his appearance on CNN. Let me ask you: if you appeared on national television immediately following a three minute segment entitled, “Racist Writings,” and preemptively saying that your response to the allegations was “not enough,” would you not be defensive yourself? I too am disappointed by the content of the newsletters but I believe Paul has apologized for them and repeatedly disavowed their content already.

As another poster said, when Libertarian Jesus shows up let me know. Until then, maybe you shouldn’t throw the only visible candidate critiquing the war on drugs and our unjust “justice” system to the wolves.

Not that it’ll change my mind: I won’t vote for Guliani, not because of his choice of clothing, but because I believe him to be a fascist at heart and an advocate of more and more federal government power.

For the same reason, I won’t hold any potential differing racial attitudes against Ron Paul, because I believe the odds are good that he’ll maintain the ideological course laid out by his in-office voting record regardless of what else may or may not be rattling around in his brain.

The way the story is constructed reminds me a lot of Media Matters. They gloss over the evidence and write a story about how horrible it is. But if if you actually read the transcripts on MM or the pamphlets from Paul, it’s far form black and white. I still think Paul is nuts, but at least he doesn’t wear magic underwear or make his dog ride on the roof of the car or take police escorts to visit his upstate whores.

Excellent post, Radley. Kudos on taking an honest second look based on the evidence and your new understanding of the man, and his evasions.

It’s becoming of you.

I’ll add one thing… I have libertarian tendencies, although not so much as many here, more than most in either my country’s Conservative Party or your Republican Party.

By denouncing the liar and quite possibly bigot Ron Paul, you did more to bring me to your way of thinking than anything else you could have done. It’s now possible to take a look at some of his ideas without being so disgusted I turn my head away at the sight of the man. I no longer take Ron Paul seriously enough to bother doing so.

To clarify so there is absolutely no doubt, a commentator [at Reason] above quoting me said:

way to go, Chris.. do you “know [sic: original spelling error mine] longer take Ron Paul seriously,” or what?!

I no longer take Ron Paul seriously as a political threat… I had long considered him a dangerous crank and probably anti-semite and white supremacist (or at least present day beneficiary of the financial and ‘moral’ support of white supremacists).

I am glad this man is being discredited before our eyes. As someone who supports many libertarian ideas, I’d like to see a libertarian movement lead by more decent people.

How ’bout it, Radley? What you doing in 15 years?