Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The Secret of the Paul Newsletters

Reason's Hit & Run blog tip-toes up to naming the "staffers" who wrote Ron Paul's newsletters for him. But of course it's no mystery, is it? And despite the Paul's campaign's to present the association as an antique lapse, the association went on for a very long time - and indeed continues to this day.

Here's what some Reason commenters have to say:

Is it just me, or did these newsletters run for over a freaking decade? That isn't a "lapse."

These things basically leave us with three choices:

1. Ron Paul is a closet bigot/conspiracy nutjob

2. Ron Paul is affected by a particular strain of moral bankruptcy and has no problem keeping close company and playing nice with bigots/conspiracy nutjobs as long as they keep the money, votes and activism coming

3. Ron Paul didn't actually know the vile stuff being published in his name for over a decade despite approving the newsletters and cashing the checks, proving him a complete f——-g moron unfit to run a dairy queen, let alone a country

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The man lent his name to some pretty virulent s—t for a very long time. I don't care if he didn't write it, his name is on it. Figuring out that you should pay attention to stuff your name is on is a simple concept that anyone with two brain cells to rub together figured out the first time they did group work in elementary school. These newsletters went out for a very, very long time. So when the sainted Doctor says he didn't know what was being said, I call pure, unadulterated b——-t. Everyone else in libertarian circles apparently knew about this stuff. His ideological/intellectual contemporaries certainly did.

And there's the rub. If he knew this stuff was going out with his name on it, he's off the table for me. I don't care if he vigorously repudiates the stupid shit (which he hasn't bothered to as of yet). Either he agreed at the time and got his head right sometime in the mid nineties ("ancient history"), or he never did and he's a unprincipled little twerp.

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This is not from a newsletter, but a letter to supporters sent out under the letterhead of 'Congressman Ron Paul' and signed by hand (probably photocopied).

I have unmasked the plot for world government, world money, and world central banking. Planned exchange controls to hold you hostage…while the dollar drops down a hole…

I revealed the Red debt bomb set to explode in your bank account…The real, financial reasons Bush invaded Panama. The nightmare of a ‘cashless society’ (watch out for it, if they get away with the New Money)…

I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or not threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS (my training as a physician helps me see through this one.)

The Bohemian Grove – perverted, pagan playground of the powerful Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr New Money. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica. And the Soviet-style ‘smartcard’ the Justice Department has in mind for you.

There are eight pages of this stuff...

Doesn't it rather suggest that, if Paul has some loonies in his ranks, they are there because he asked them to join?

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The overwhelming impression I'm getting from the Paul fans here and elsewhere is more or less, "even if he does believe these things, it's not that much of a big deal," either because they like his policy positions or are more or less sympathetic to the newsletters' views. This is the kind of stuff that boots libertarianism back out of the mainstream and covering your ears and calling troll on everyone who isn't in love with Dr Ron won't help.

01/09 09:22 PM