RON PAUL AND RACISM

I can totally understand those who find the racist articles published in newsletters with Ron Paul’s name on them too much and cannot support him for that reason.  This is certainly the closest thing to a scandal he has ever faced in his political career.

They are vile to be sure and even if one accepts Paul explanation that he did not write them, that they were ghostwritten  (which I do as the “voice” in those newsletters is very different from Paul’s voice), then he has at best showed managerial incompetence at something he was in charge of for 15 years or more.

But I also feel that if he was a racist than his views would have come out somewhere else but they have not.  You can search his whole career going back 40+ years and you will not find any incident of racist speech by Dr. Paul.  His views on civil rights are consistent with his libertarian views overall and while I respectfully disagree with them as I do feel there is a place for the federal government in civil rights enforcement, I think the consistency of his views on a whole host of matters makes this not stand out as an instance of racism as opposed to if it was the only issue where he advocated such a federal hand’s off approach.

I myself still support him for the simple reason that many of his positions are the opposite of an increasingly xenophobic, racist, and homophobic Republican party and an increasingly corporate, disengaged, and disorganized Democratic party.  Paul’s position on drug legalization would remedy the situation of a disproportionate amount of African American men in prison.  Ditto his position against the death penalty and how that would affect African Americans.

Ron Paul has never vilified Muslims nor used the language of the Evangelical Christian in this new form of political crusade.  In fact, he has even asked voters to put themselves in the shoes of Muslims in countries attacked by the US.  This is something a very good International Relations professor whose course I had in college did and it is the key for the US to fit into a global society.

Ron Paul never talks about how gay people ruin traditional marriage and on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno the other night he basically indicated that states have the right to legalize whatever voluntary association they want.

I contrast all these details with a president who swears fidelity to human rights and much of the things I just described that Ron Paul has endorsed.  However, this humane “democratic” president has done the exact opposite of what he said he would do especially in the foreign policy arena.

So I say trust somebody’s actions not what they are supposed to have said.  Look at their history- consistency is not the hobgoblin of small minds but rather a definer of the iron in somebody’s soul, the consistency of his character. 

Here’s a quote from Paul himself….

Rosa Parks is one of my heroes. Martin Luther King is a hero. Because they practiced the libertarian principle of civil disobedience, non-violence. Libertarians are incapable of being racist because racism is a collectivist idea, you see people in groups. A civil libertarian sees everyone as an important individual, it’s not the color of their skin that is important like Martin Luther King said. What is important is the character of the individual. You know what is really interesting though? And this could be behind it. Because I as a Republican candidate, probably am getting the most number of black voters and black supporters.