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| The Freedomnista Movement

Is the Horse Dead?

by Kevin D. Rollins

In response to Radley Balko's post today at reason about being increasingly ashamed of having defended Ron Paul in the past, one commenter suggested the issue of the racist newsletters had passed already:

Sheesh...the horse is dead already.

Should we all just "Move On"?

Well, I get emails all day long from friends (and many people I've never met) trumpeting Ron Paul's successes and exhorting me to do something for Ron Paul. Indeed, in October, Walter Block even suggested that supporting Ron Paul is the litmus test of whether a person is a libertarian:

Ron is a one-man band of publicity for liberty. I am appalled that (your Institute) takes the stance on him that it does. In my view, Ron is a sort of litmus test for libertarianism.

But, if Ron Paul will be associated with hate-mongering, does a lover of liberty want to pass this test?
As Balko writes:

Perhaps it's too much for us to expect Paul to turn over the names of the paleo types who wrote those screeds...But if he can't, it's also too much to ask libertarians who find those views abhorrent to continue to support him.

The way Ron Paul can show that he does not support bigotry is to stop covering for those who wrote the newsletter. Ron Paul supporters who either brush over this matter or aid in the stonewalling are not convincing us to just drop it and jump back on the bandwagon.

/KDR

« Mob Mentality in the Ron Paul Revolution? | Main | Racist Words vs. Racist Deeds »

Comments

The Atlantic's smear campaign crashed head-on into the extreme right-wing's efforts to deny Paul's existence.

Yesterday The Economist (which is promoting McCain) put up a tracking chart that simply deleted Paul's numbers. A couple of days before that, David Frum at the AEI / National Post (Canada) argued for Guiliani by trashing all the other GOP competitors, but without bringing up Paul at all.

In fact The Atlantic is providing Paul with badly needed oxygen at this point.

# posted at by John M

Kevin,

What if he truly doesn't know? Apparently, you simply don't want to believe him when he says he doesn't know.

So, yeah, throw your vote behind a CFR big government globalist simply because you chose not to believe him when he says "I DON'T KNOW WHO WROTE THIS."

You libertarians sure do love to stab each other in the back. What a fickle bunch.

Are you really SURPRISED that someone would try to take down Ron Paul? Did you really just expect big government to give up so easily?

Anyway, it's all BS. This site has been bashing Ron Paul since the very beginning.

Good luck with your worthless back-stabbing liberal big government-loving party.

# posted at by James A.

I'm ashamed that I long ago identified myself as a small-l libertarian, now.

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

Bunch of piss-ant quasi-intellectuals trying to outsmart each other, always end up advancing the cause of collectivism. May your chains rest heavy upon you.

# posted at by John Danforth

Please, please, please is it too much to ask that people actually read each piece before jumping to the conclusion that it's all racist tripe. It's not.

Before you hang Dr. Paul, shouldn't you look at each piece yourself instead of taking TNR's word for it?

Here are the first two:

Let's look at the "kind words for David Duke" .pdf that TNR is promulgating.

--------Begin Quote----
The Duke’s Victory
David Duke received 44% of the vote in the Senate primary race in Louisiana, 60% of the white vote and 9% of the black vote!. This totaled 100,000 more votes than the current governor when he won.

Duke lost the election, but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment. If the official Republican hadn’t been ordered to drop out, he might have won. Certainly there would have been a run-off.

Duke’s platform called for tax cuts, no quotas, no affirmative action, no welfare, and no busing. “Tonight, we concede the election”, he said. “But we will never concede our fight for equal rights for all Americans.”

To many voters, this seems like just plain good sense. Duke carried baggage from his past, but the voters were willing to overlook that. and if he had been afforded the forgiveness an ex-communist gets, he might have won.

Liberals like Richard Cohen of the Washington Post say he got so many votes because Louisianians were rascists and ignorant. Baloney.

David Broder, also of the Post and equally liberal, writing on an entirely different subject , had it right: “No one wants to talk about [race] publicly, but if you ask any campaign consulltant of pollster privately, you can confirm the sad reality that a great many working-class and middle-class white Americans are far less hostile to the rich and their tax breaks than they are to the poor and minorities with their welfare and affirmative action programs.”

Liberals are notoriously blind to the sociological effects of their own programs. David Duke was hurt by his past. How many more Dukes are there waiting in the wings without such a taint.

------End Quote--------

Can someone please point to any support for David Duke's racism? The part where the author (whoever he is) said it seemed like common sense was attributed to the voters of Louisianna, not the author himself and was refering to the platform of tax cuts, and spending reductions.

Here's the "He called Dr. King a plagarist and a gay pedophile"

It's a report of the FBI file's allegations of misconduct and the MSM's charges of plagarism.

You can argue that unsubstantiated charges like this should not have been printed, and I (and it seems even Ron Paul) will agree with you but it's not racism on the author's part, even if it is libelous.

-----Begin Quote--------
“Dr.” King
So now even the establishment press admits that Martin Luther King plagiarized his PhD dissertation, his academic articles, his speeches, and his sermons.

He was also a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration.

King, the FBI files show, was not only a world-class adulterer, he also seduced underage girls and boys. The Rev. Ralph David Abernathy revealed before his death that King had made a pass at him many years before.

And we are supposed to honor this “Christian minister” and lying socialist satyr with a holiday that puts him on a par with George Washington?

Congratulations to Arizona! Who could doubt that the result would be exactly the same if the other 49 states could also vote on a holiday for this affirmtive-action saint?

---------End Quote-------

Dr. King is not being shown in a poor light for his race, or ethnicity, but for the content of his character. This poor light is not reflected upon the civil rights movement, nor upon the idea that everyone is equal, but upon the effort to make MLK day a national holiday.

I have not been throuugh the rest, but I bet the majority of them will similarly turn out to be completely overblown.

Not only is the horse dead, it stinks to high heaven!

# posted at by Kevin Houston

Apparently Kevin D. Rollins has a PRETTY BIG axe to grind with Ron Paul and his supporters. Even if it means erasing any credibility this site had before him. All I can say is that I am embarrased for you and those who feel you speak for them. It must be nice to be so insulated from reality, I proud to say that I can't in good conscience understand you views OR your vitriol. Peace be unto you my friend. I hope one day you will come back to reason and escape this need to abandon all integrity in the name of personal intellectual importance.

# posted at by rw3

My personal opinion is that the author from NR had help finding the newsletters. I think the whole stupid thing is about a pi$$ing contest between CATO and the Paleo Libertarians

# posted at by Anonymous

My personal opinion is that the author from NR had help finding the newsletters. I think the whole stupid thing is about a pi$$ing contest between CATO and the Paleo Libertarians

# posted at by leanne