A simple character test
By Thoreau
Let’s say that you learn that a racist douchebag has been publishing junk under your name, abusing whatever trust you placed in him. What would you do?
In some forums the Ron Paul supporters are saying that we shouldn’t expect him to roll a head now, or do something slick, or prostrate himself before some figure of the left. I concur. Those sorts of actions would merely indicate that he’s sorry he got caught. I’m not interested in that. I take it for granted that he is sorry this came out.
I just want to know what he did back when he learned about the stuff being published under his name. If he published a retraction and explanation, and cut ties with the people who did it, I’m fine. I’ll jump back on the bandwagon. Hell, I’ll send more cash and do some volunteer work.
Here’s my answer to the character test: I’d have fun. You wouldn’t need an investigative reporter to find out what I did about it. You wouldn’t have to parse evasive answers in an interview on CNN. All you’d have to do is come to this blog and look at the photos of what I did. I’d be giving a big thumbs up to the camera in most of them.
Comment by Barry —
January 10, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
“I just want to know what he did back when he learned about the stuff being published under his name. If he published a retraction and explanation, and cut ties with the people who did it, I’m fine. I’ll jump back on the bandwagon. Hell, I’ll send more cash and do some volunteer work.”
That’s what gets me – how could he not notice (or be told of) nasty sh*t in his newsletter?
The obvious explanation is that it wasn’t something that his readers would have objected to, or something deliberate.
Comment by matthew hogan —
January 10, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
I want to know when Ron issues his public apology and checks into rehab.
Comment by Bill Woolsey —
January 10, 2008 @ 10:49 pm
Suppose you found out about the racist material five years after it was published. (Yes, you find out about it when it your opponent brings it up. Surprise!)
The person responsible apologizes and admits that it was a mistake. He insists that he supports individual rights for everyone. He continues to be committed to promoting libertarianism.
Suppose he explains that the actual writer was trying to implement the strategy then being developed by the “great” Murray Rothbard. Rothbard has recently died. But some years ago, it was decided to tone this down. This particular propaganda line was just not the best way to recreate the “old right.”
So, tell me again how happy you would be to denounce this person?
I think it would be heartbreaking. Very sad.
Comment by Russell L. Carter —
January 10, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
Thoreau, Jim, Mona:
Speaking from outside the community I’m not understanding why yall as a whole are so invested in this. Republicans are shot through with racist assholes. Democrats used to be, to the very marrow in their bones. This is the deal: no ideology is pure. This is why some of us come off as so patronizing; sometimes yall exude this aura of living in this pure distilled deionized water that to some of the rest of us looked just like the fish piss we have always all been swimming in.
Paul’s fracked. Let’s Move On.
Yes I enjoyed typing that too much.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 10, 2008 @ 11:51 pm
This is the deal: no ideology is pure.
Agreed.
Perfection is impossible. But racism is one of the uglier things in America’s history, and it’s something that we need to Move On past (to borrow your capitalization preferences). There will always be errors and injustices, but repeating the errors of ugly and well-known chapters of history is particularly unacceptable.
Comment by Russell L. Carter —
January 11, 2008 @ 12:04 am
“There will always be errors and injustices, but repeating the errors of ugly and well-known chapters of history is particularly unacceptable.”
Isn’t that the language of totalitarian leftism?
Just askin’! Put a big smiley here ->.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 11, 2008 @ 12:08 am
I wasn’t aware of that.
Comment by Mona —
January 11, 2008 @ 12:36 am
If Ron Paul did nothing else as president other than order the DoJ and DEA to step down enforcement of drug laws as much as Paul could without actually failing to fulfill his obligation to enforce the laws of the land, he’d do more for American black males than any person currently could.
Comment by Russell L. Carter —
January 11, 2008 @ 12:41 am
Um, and here is where it gets strange to an outsider, isn’t that the whole point of the newsletters? To make you as a bonafide libertarian[1] aware of that? Otherwise, what would the point, ah, be?
None of this is new and I’ve been watching all kinds of wacky fringe stuff for 25 years for exactly the opposite reason that David Neiwert has. For entertainment. Until the last half decade or so. Then I discovered a while back that he was and is right, and I was wrong. I was stupid. This isn’t entertainment.
[1] Note that I’m aware that the well goes deep here, Virginia Postrel does not come off looking well, nor do some others. But if you like creepy weird stuff, this stuff was all known a long time ago.
Comment by Thoreau —
January 11, 2008 @ 2:04 am
Wait, as a libertarian I’m supposed to read racist newsletters so I can be aware of whatever the radical left is saying? I don’t get it.
Comment by ajay —
January 11, 2008 @ 5:33 am
8: but how likely is he to do such a thing, given his opinions about black people? There’s an argument taking place about whether racism should trump libertarianism with regard to Paul’s supporters. The argument should be “which trumps which with regard to Paul himself? Will he abandon his racist principles because they’re not libertarian, or vice versa?”
Comment by Just a Quick Question —
January 11, 2008 @ 8:24 am
Wis the lesser of two evils for libertarians: a racist who wants to reduce the size of government or an enlightened statist?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
January 11, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
I just pretty much give up on the whole matter. Paul and his campaign have left too much inadequately explained, and due to that, I really can’t be satisfied with the simple claim that Ron Paul vehemently disagrees with this sort of thing and never meant to let any of this pandering go out under his name. It seems increasingly plausible that he was well aware of what was going out and that he personally wrote some portion of the race-baiting and/or gay-baiting.
And, you know, I can’t support a guy who cheerfully panders to racists and homophobes, even the whiny-old-white-guys-bitching-about-
minorities brand of racism. Yeah, Team Blue and Team Red do their own appeals to bigotry, and maybe I’m just being the imperfect enemy-of-the-good that makes libertarians even less effective than our tiny numbers would suggest. However, every brand of libertarian thought tells us that power is dangerous – and that power gets misused. I don’t want to give someone power who feels beholden to bigots (to the point of endangering his campaign to protect one), and I definitely don’t want to give a secret bigot power.
What, he won’t use power in a bigoted way? I’m to believe that because he says he’s libertarian, just like he says he’s not racist, just like the newsletters promoted a bigoted vision that was supposedly his?
Even noting that Paul has no possibility of becoming president, and even being sure that this story will hardly affect his impact, I just can’t think of voting for him at this point. I have to vote for someone I’d be willing to see in the White House. Without a damn fine and damn convincing explanation that I haven’t seen yet, I don’t think I want to see him there.
Comment by wellbasically —
January 12, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
RP’s immigration ads were awfully nasty, and that’s from today, not ten years ago. I think his instinct is to be a really conservative Republican, while he also lacks the energy to police the wilder happenings in his campaign.
In both cases, the immigrant ads and the racist newsletters, he could so easily have used his policy to diagnose the problem. Mexicans have a currency that is constantly inflated. Poor people suffer most from US inflation.