Ron Paul: Guilt by association

[T_i_B]

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dan_kennedy/2008/01/guilt_by_association.html

Paul is justly celebrated for his outspoken devotion to personal liberty and blunt talk about a federal government that is increasingly seen as oppressive and out of touch. Over the years, though, Paul has also demonstrated either (take your pick) a weird affinity for, or obliviousness to, neo-Confederates, homophobes, anti-Semites and others who've been attracted to his iconoclastic views.

Paul's proximity to such views is rarely broached by the mainstream media. Last week, though, the New Republic magazine gave the issue a thorough airing. The piece, by James Kirchick, noted that during the 1980s and 1990s Paul was involved in publishing several newsletters under such names as Ron Paul's Freedom Report and the Ron Paul Survival Report that expressed opinions his young, idealistic Facebook supporters would no doubt find shocking.

To cite just two of many, many examples, a Paul newsletter had this to say in 1990 about the creation of a federal holiday honouring the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr: "What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day." And Aids was once described as "a politically protected disease thanks to payola and the influence of the homosexual lobby".

If Paul does run as an independent, what few votes he gets are likely to come from antiwar activists disaffected by the equivocations of the Democratic nominee. At the very least, those folks need to know precisely for whom they are voting.

[Mythsaje]

1. Paul stands for the freedom and liberty of white males with a bit of change

in their pockets. He doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone else.

More Libertarian nonsense.

[T_i_B]

2. Trouble is, his supporters do have a tendency...

...to bore the pants off everyone else on message boards. DU may have a few problems but at least that problem isn't too bad here compared to the Guardian's Comment is Free boards for instance.

[Mythsaje]

3. I explored Libertarianism for a while

and realized how far gone those people really are.

I ended up here not because I didn't know anything else, but because I'd looked at everything else and realized how fucking stupid it was.

[T_i_B]

4. I've always disliked libertarianism

I just find it ultra-selfish. Politics to me should be about the whole of society, not just getting your rocks off at other people's expense.

Add to that the rigid ideological thinking of many Libertarians and it becomes a real turn-off.

[Mythsaje]

5. They're deluded.

I've heard that many refuse to take unemployment, for example. You'll find a LOT of Libertarians living on the fringes of society, doing contract work like delivering newspapers so they can avoid paying taxes or being noticed by the government for anything.

They somehow think that corporations are more naturally beneficient than government, which makes no sense to me.

I'm left-libertarian--little "L." I disagree completely with their economic ideology, and think that the government has a role in protecting the little people from those who have more political or social power for whatever reason.

However, I'm generally anti-authoritarian, regardless of the ideology that authority espouses.