Pardon me while I scoff in this alliance’s general direction
So, this happened over the weekend:
Ron Paul, Ralph Nader agree on ‘progressive-libertarian alliance’
In this corner, a libertarian, tea party hero who ran several campaigns as a candidate for US president on the Republican ticket. And in that corner, a progressive icon of the left who also ran several campaigns for the US presidency but on the Green Party ticket.One might think the two men, seemingly ideologically opposed to one another, would rather argue than help one another.
However, on Wednesday’s broadcast of Freedom Watch on the Fox Business channel, Judge Napolitano sat down for an amiable interview with Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Ralph Nader to discuss a progressive-libertarian alliance in the 112th session of respective chambers in Congress.
Nader, who has recently called this coalition “the most exciting new political dynamic” in the US today, explained that it works well because both groups stand against corporatists who believe government should be run in the interests of corporations.
Given Paul’s bigoted statements about blacks, Jews, and gays —
The Freedom Report’s online archives only go back to 1999, but I was curious to see older editions of Paul’s newsletters, in part because of a controversy dating to 1996, when Charles “Lefty” Morris, a Democrat running against Paul for a House seat, released excerpts stating that “opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions,” that “if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,” and that black representative Barbara Jordan is “the archetypical half-educated victimologist” whose “race and sex protect her from criticism.” At the time, Paul’s campaign said that Morris had quoted the newsletter out of context. Later, in 2001, Paul would claim that someone else had written the controversial passages. (Few of the newsletters contain actual bylines.) Caldwell, writing in the Times Magazine last year, said he found Paul’s explanation believable, “since the style diverges widely from his own.”
Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.
But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul’s name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him–and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing–but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.
and despite his efforts to walk-back those statements —
“When you bring this question up, you’re really saying, ‘You’re a racist’ or ‘Are you a racist?’ And the answer is, ‘No, I’m not a racist,'” he said.
Paul said he had never even read the articles with the racist comments.
“I do repudiate everything that is written along those lines,” he said, adding he wanted to “make sure everybody knew where I stood on this position because it’s obviously wrong.”
I’m not buying it. If it’s your damn newsletter, you take responsibility for what’s in it. I’m supposed to believe you don’t know who wrote those articles and that you never read or approved them?
Libertarian, please.
Something is going on out there in Politiland. Am I the only one whose spidey sense is tingling?
[via Raw Story]
[cross-posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
Warren Terra
And Ralph Nader continues his quest to micturate all over his legacy as a champion of good, honest, life-saving government regulation. Because nothing says “libertarian” more than every damn thing Ralph Nader accomplished in the 70s.
I suppose the real mystery here is why Paul is bothering to suck up to this thoroughly discredited windbag. Even the most credulous of believers in the need for quixotic third-party campaigns must have gotten the message when Ralph refused to turn his list of supporters over to the Green party.
Martin
I sense firebaggers swooning…
BGinCHI
This is like chocolate and peanut butter, but with dogshit and puke.
RossInDetroit
*facepalm*
Not Ralph again. There are no second acts in American lives. The curtain should have stayed down on his career while it was still something to admire.
Tim I
Good catch, ABL. Too many on the left have been fooled by Ron Paul’s soft-spoken, folksy manner.
He is a vile menace to our society, with a uber right-wing agenda.
Mattminus
I have an idea, how about ABL does one post where she tells us who’s not racist. It’ll probably save her some typing.
These guys are both asshats, but given Nader’s total irrelevance, whats the point of digging up old news on Paul.
Zifnab
@Warren Terra:
At least in my state, the Green Party has regularly been used as a tool of the GOP to split the Democrat vote. Yeah, I know that probably doesn’t bother Ralph Nader a bit, but even he probably doesn’t want to see his list of supporters get fed to the right wing spam engine of madness.
Nader’s obsession with the Presidency completely wrecked him. He should have found a nice big city he was popular in and run for mayor. Or, if he was feeling really brash, Governor. That would have done the Green Party far more good than his ill-fated Presidential run. Any idiot can run for President. It takes actual political talent to win a seat even at the local level.
Ruckus
I don’t think it matters if he wrote them or hasn’t even read them.
The newsletters have his name on them.
Did he publish them? Yes.
Did he deny or disclaim the content when published? No.
Then he is responsible for the content.
His views on other things have seemingly not changed so I doubt that the racist views have changed. If they have then good for him. But then he should own the newsletters and explain that he has and why he has changed his views.
Sko Hayes
What is that guy smoking?
“Progressive Icon of the Left”?
He’s a progressive icon like Joe Lieberman is a progressive icon.
AAA Bonds
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
blogbytom
Ron Paul is a certifiable Crazy Person. Other than the fact that many of them smoke pot, I will never understand how so many (perhaps four) of my friends were briefly thinking he was the Knight in Shining Armor of the 2008 campaign. I mean, let’s go back to the gold standard! It’d be fun! And let’s disenfranchise black people while we’re at it! Cause, you know, if FREEDOM and LIBERTY call for it, THEN FREEDOM AND LIBERTY MUST BE SERVED!
Ralph Nader is Ralph Nader. In other words, Ralph Nader is someone who even Noam Chomsky couldn’t bring himself to endorse in 2000. Gah.
+3
Sko Hayes
@Tim I:
I feel the exact same way about Mike Huckabee.
AAA Bonds
Ralph Nader, who put his entire life into co-creating the modern regulatory state, licks slime from the forehead of Ron Paul, whose entire life mission is to destroy it.
soonergrunt
@RossInDetroit: in the 70’s?
sistermoon
Which one is the progressive?
FYI – Cenk Uyger is currently stinking up the airwaves. MSNBC is going to regret this.
scav
Did the guy use himself as his own crash dummy to test autos?
BGinCHI
They also remind me of the Wonder Twins, but here they just have the power to turn American prosperity into shit.
gnomedad
Ralph Nader gave us 8 years of George W. Bush. Because there’s no difference between the parties.
Lolis
I think on a few narrow issues libertarians and progressives could work together, but to form a group seems just silly. What are the objectives of this group? How will it turn out better than England’s Liberal Party and the conservative one?
blogbytom
@Mattminus: Hey, uh, dude. PSST. Did you read the article ABL linked to? Cause, uh, there isn’t much wiggle room before you’re forced to conclude that Ron Paul is a lunatic racist nutjob crazy psychopathic asshole. You know? Not to put too fine a point on it.
jacy
@Sko Hayes:
Me too. Huckabee gives me a serious case of the whim-whams. He ever let’s that aw shucks mask slip, people are going to run in horror.
AAA Bonds
I interviewed Harry Browne once on a college station during 2000. He was immensely pleasant compared to the Pauls or anyone representing the Tea Party today, but I still found his beliefs rigid, irrational, and appalling. They were the sort of ideals that I might have vocally endorsed after finishing required reading in a freshman english class.
Warren Terra
@RossInDetroit:
The persistent misuse of this cliche is a pet peeve of mine. I read a great essay about this once, which I couldn’t find last time I looked, but when F. Scott Fitzgerald said this he was referring to a traditional three-act dramatic structure. Literature isn’t my strong suit, but it basically was something like this: in Act One, the characters are introduced and the conflict is established; in Act Two there’s a lot of hard work, things become more complicated and the heroes face setbacks; and in Act Three the heroes triumph and take a bow. I could easily be wrong about the contents of the three acts, but Fitzgerald’s point was that the middle act was often missing in American public lives – a completely different point from the way the quote is always used, to mean that there are no second chances.
AAA Bonds
@Lolis:
I just don’t know if American politics exists in such a way that these “groups” can work “together”. They’re better off becoming individual supporters of single-issue PACs.
Mattminus
@blogbytom:
No one is disputing that. It’s very well trod ground, and, as such, is not very interesting.
Better blogging plz.
fuzed
Ah, but the racism is what makes ’em serious people. Likely to attract ‘serious’ votes.
Heh
Who would thunk Ralph burnt out completely, and now is a political zombie.
AAA Bonds
Remember when Matt Taibbi was speaking pleasantly about Ron Paul? That was infuriating. At least he’s obviously changed his mind completely. I follow the Ames-Taibbi line, as the lit majors say.
Alesis
I think the perennial attempts to find some sort of “common ground” between progressives and libertarians (and other forms of conservatism for that matter) is an unfortunate result of liberals endemic tendency towards skepticism. So distrustful are many of us towards any form of philosophical certainty that there is always an impulse to seek “reasonable conservatism” in order to be less judgmental.
The fact is that conservatism in general and libertarianism in particular are in theory antithetical to some bedrock values of liberals and progressives and in practice typically harmful to the general population.
In other words they’re wrong and it’s okay to admit it.
I’m not one to bash “firebaggers” (I think a lot of the ire against the “Professional Left” is a results of the DFHs being right more often than many find comfortable) but the stupidest thing Jane Hamsher ever suggested was “common ground” with Grove Norquist.
With very few exceptions Conservatives and Libertarians are outright hostile to the idea of equality of opportunity. They believe in natural aristocracy, this is the very antithesis of progressivism.
CaliCat
Well, well, well…what do we have here? Yep, this match made in hell explains everything.
J.W. Hamner
While I think there is some merit to the “liberaltarian” thing that people like Yglesias subscribe to, Ron Paul endorses the kind of libertarianism that thinks the 19th century was a Golden Age of Freedom… and I feel kind of silly even bothering to point out that this is pretty much the opposite of progressive politics, but here we are.
Violet
Ralph Nader is not an elected official. I don’t think this “progressive-libertarian alliance” is going very far if they can’t find an actual member of Congress to represent the progressive side. Ralph Nader is just a wannabe windbag hoping someone gives him a microphone. And lookee there. Fox did. Surprise surprise. They even called him a representative of the progressive side. Big shocker.
@jacy: Huckabee is getting fat. He looks a lot more like the scary televangelist hucksters on TV than the aw shucks guy from 2008. He’s going to have to lose the weight if he wants to run for President again.
AnonGuest
The Democrats had their chance after running the table in the ’08 election but blew it because they thought they had won the ‘K Street’ lottery.
They could have tasked the DOJ with investigating Lobbyist corruption.
They could have tasked the SEC with investigating Wall Street corruption.
They could have used Congress to investigate the hedgemonic corporate influence of government and media.
They could have kept K Street on the defensive; which would have made it even easier to do all the things they wound up doing…. and more.
Thet could have passed a meaningful climate bill
They could have passed real election & campaign finance reform.
Instead the Democrats ‘went along, to get along’ with The Owners.
And K Street went on the offensive.
So instead, we got Citizens United.
Instead we’ve got record Corporate profits and 10% unemployment.
Instead we’re left scrambeling to stop Social Security from being gutted to pay for bailouts and tax cuts for the rich.
Instead, K Street won the government.
Fuck the Democrats.
Oh well. Back to square one.
tkogrumpy
I have to disagree. I admire and respect both these men.What you see and what you hear is always what you get with both of these politicians.Do I agree with every position they have ever taken? No,but I can be reasonably confident that a position they articulate is a position they actually hold. What other politician can you say that about. During the presidential debates the only person on stage who actually said what he believed in terms that were themselves believable, was Ron Paul. The only one stating the obvious, the only one not pandering to some all encompassing voter demographic. Why would it be so surprising that two pols with divergent backgrounds would get together for common cause.
Gwangung
@Mattminus: You seem to think American voters have memories. The more reminders for this asshat the better.
AAA Bonds
There is no goddamn room for “libertarianism” in liberalism.
Libertarianism, in the American sense, is a form of fascist ideology.
Angry Black Lady
@Mattminus: John Cole isn’t racist.
I’m sorry that your brain can’t seem to draw a conclusion or even formulate a hypothesis regarding the alliances being formed between “progressives” and libertarians (Hamsher/Norquist and now Nader/Paul), alliances that I find to be, at a minimum, troubling given the PRIMARY HIM drumbeat.
scroll by, jackass if you can’t handle any critical thinking.
and fuck you, also, too for preaching at me from your perch of privilege.
ETA: No one is disputing that? Really? What with all the Ron Paul lovers out there who don’t know about his “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout those letters” shenanigans?
Please.
Elvis Elvisberg
I dunno. In theory, the idea of a libertarian/Green alliance that prioritizes fighting against empire and torture and whatnot could make some sense.
But ugh, these people. Paul’s a racist crank, and Nader is like the colonel in Bridge on the River Kwai, doing everything he can to build a bridge to assist the Japanese (here, GOP) war effort.
Both have some appeal to politics-obsessed twentysomething white nerds, so maybe they’ll get a resolution passed by a few city councils.
AAA Bonds
@Mattminus:
You can’t be serious. Every single story about Paul – either Paul – should mention how arm-in-arm Ron Paul is with racists.
tkogrumpy
@blogbytom: Have you ever had an original thought, or do you just respond to stimuli?
Mnemosyne
@tkogrumpy:
So you are reasonably confident that Ron Paul is a racist but you’re still comfortable supporting him?
Maude
@Angry Black Lady:
You are being a bit mild tonight. Are you feeling okay?
Glad to see you posting.
AAA Bonds
You ever read about those little groups in Germany that the Nazis scrabbled together underneath themselves as they rose to power? Groups that had been kicking around for years, some of them since before World War One? Their paleo-conservatives, the ruralists, the Pan-German League, all those folks? The weird quasi-patriots with radical beliefs about somehow achieving an idyllic past through a political revolution?
That’s who the Libertarians remind me of. Waiting for Hitler.
Mutt Like Me
This is funny. A Template for Every Awful Facebook Discussion You’ve Ever Witnessed.
freelancer
@Maude:
With one swoop, methinks.
Angry Black Lady
@Maude: i’ve got something in the hopper, so i’m just throwing up interesting tidbits as i find them and saving the Great Rant for later. :D
Captain C
On the other hand, this could be one of the best reality shows ever (provided no one gets hurt in the process).
If your name’s on the letter head, you wrote it, and mean it, whether or not either or both are true IRL. Either that, or you’re selling the newsletter with the intent of making people think they are getting Ron Paul-approved content when in fact it wasn’t, which kind of makes it consumer fraud in spirit, if not in letter. Puts a new spin on why Dr. Paul seems to be in favor of cutting consumer protections.
Angry Black Lady
@Mutt Like Me: that is FANTASTIC.
Angry Black Lady
@AAA Bonds: is that better or worse than waiting for godot?
joel
Reminds me of Ian Hislop’s characterization of the current ConLib coalition in the UK:
“I like the idea of this coalition neutralizing the loonies on both sides”
Tom Hilton
IIRC, Nader has made comments (about Obama, I think) along the lines of the one ABL caught at FDL the other day (and I think you know what I mean). He’s another classic skin-deep ‘progressive’ who thinks his ‘progressivism’ should insulate him from any expectation that he show any human sensitivity.
This alliance: not that strange, is all I’m saying.
Joel
Ah yes, the famous dushbag-douchebag alliance of 2011.
aimai
@Warren Terra:
Thank you so much for that Warren Terra! I read the damned book so long ago I didn’t remember the context of that line and its always bugged the hell out of me because its so clearly not true that in America there are no second chances. Also, can I say that I disagree that personality is a series of unbroken successful gestures? That line I think I remember correctly.
aimai
Allan
Napolitano’s a 9/11 Truther.
AAA Bonds
@Angry Black Lady:
Worse?
Tom Hilton
@Tom Hilton: Yup, here’s clip of Nader calling Obama an ‘Uncle Tom’.
RossInDetroit
@Warren Terra:
Thanks, Warren. My Fitzgerald is weak. I meant to say that there are no comebacks on the Left. The Right just keeps throwing their chosen guy out there until the voters accept him. Or that’s what they used to do. The Dems and the Left seemed to give everyone one chance and if they fail, well it’s someone else’s turn to try.
I remember the ’70s, when Ralph was relevant. If you had told me when he was fighting the Big 3 over auto safety that some day in a presidential election he would be the spoiler who allowed an idiot from the Right to swipe the Presidency I’d have checked you for a high fever. I can’t forgive him for that and now he’s compounding the offense. How desperate must this guy be for attention to be palling around with Mr. Small Government himself.
I really don’t care about Paul. He’s an idiot but he’s not my problem. Ralph, on the other hand, I have a major beef with.
Tom Hilton
@Mattminus:
Nader will become genuinely irrelevant when we finally finish fixing all the catastrophic damage done to this country by the guy he helped elect. Which is probably around 2060, if we’re lucky.
tkogrumpy
@Mnemosyne: No,I am not reasonably confident Paul is a racist, and no I do not support him. I don’t agree with him, but I do respect him for his candor as well as his willingness to always remark about it when the emperor has no clothes.
freelancer
@Allan:
Andrew, no Janet. Dammit.
lovable liberal
Ralph has bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Or else he’s just a vain, self-centered, narcissistic asshole.
freelancer
@freelancer:
noT. NOT. NOT! FYWP.
Maude
@freelancer:
I corrected that in edit. See it? I can’t spell.
How you?
Turgid Jacobian
Man. That is one *wrinkly* alliance.
scav
@freelancer: help. I just assumed it was a part I’d forgotten in Rocky Horror.
freelancer
@Maude:
I can spell but can’t edit. Plus, your typo made for a decent pun on my part.
JWL
Nader could have demanded the Interior Department as payoff for endorsing Gore in 2000 (for himself, or a nominee), but the dumb SOB refused to play ball. He could’ve been a contender, and made the Greens a power. Instead, he took counsel of his perverted ambitions, and condemned the the party to a wilderness.
Maude
@Angry Black Lady:
You had me uneasy for a moment.
I stare people down on the bus and elsewhere when they make unkind remarks about their fellow man. They can be ignorant at home and not try to spread their racist BS in public like a flu virus.
JPL
@JWL: Yup!!
J.W. Hamner
@AAA Bonds:
I don’t really know what you are talking about with the fascism claim, but I think there are things like zoning which mainly seem to facilitate rent seeking and are where I prefer a deregulatory stance. This is a perfectly progressive view point AFAICT.
Maude
@freelancer:
I can’t do either. And I didn’t mean to step on your pun.
Oh, I made a funny.
rob!
This is great! Now we can ignore two crazy old men at the same time, but for one low price!
tkogrumpy
@Turgid Jacobian: This is true, I don’t notice, because I’m their age.
AAA Bonds
@RossInDetroit:
Nader is almost completely irrelevant.
Paul most certainly does matter to you.
The monster he created is now a United States Senator.
Dennis SGMM
What a relief to hear all of these voices blaming Nader for Gore’s loss. I thought that part of the reason that Gore lost was that he was a lackluster campaigner who turned down th help of Bill Clinton. That would be the same Bill Clinton who left office with a 68% approval rating.
I don’t like Nader at all and I don’t much like Clinton (Either of them) but, to blame Gore’s loss solely on Nader seems a bit revisionist to me.
Angry Black Lady
@Tom Hilton: nice catch. i forgot about that.
AAA Bonds
@J.W. Hamner:
That’s your example of liberaltarianism? That a libertarian might agree with you on deregulating something?
Jeff Fecke
@AAA Bonds:
Amen. And the apple don’t fall far from the tree. Where do you think Rand learned to oppose the Civil Rights Act?
Angry Black Lady
@Maude: i’m a little worn out from last week and i didn’t get enough sleep last night. i need a good night’s sleep to work up a righteous anger. don’t worry. i got this. :D
geg6
@tkogrumpy:
Yeah, unless the emperor is himself and his racist propaganda. Then he’s not so eager to be up front and honest, is he?
Pete Guither
I assume, by reading this post, that the alliance between the two is to form recommendations regarding policy on issues of race. That seems like an odd choice for people whose common ground is likely to be more in the area of anti-war or civil liberties.
Unless, perhaps, you’re actually less interested in policy than personality?
Jeff Fecke
@Dennis SGMM:
Oh, there is surely plenty of blame to go around over 2000 — starting with five SCOTUS justices — but Ralph deserves his healthy share. Dime’s worth of difference my arse.
J.W. Hamner
@AAA Bonds:
Yes it is. I think maybe you need to lay out your hatred a little more explicitly because I have no idea where you are coming from. Progressive taxation + social safety net + deregulation of rent seeking industries is perfectly progressive… but it’s also libertarian. We’re not talking about the gold standard or refusing to tax rich people, so I’m not sure where the hostility comes from.
Mnemosyne
@Dennis SGMM:
I think people would be a lot less annoyed with Nader retrospectively if he would at least drop the “Republicrat” schtick. I mean, does he really, honestly think that Gore would have ignored the warnings about a terrorist attack on 9/11? Or bogged us down in an endless war in Iraq? Or withheld emergency aid to New Orleans after Katrina?
But, no, to this day he still insists that Bush and Gore are the same, which is why so many progressives just want to kick him in the shins.
tkogrumpy
@geg6: And this surprises you? I have the same failing when it comes to self reflection. I think you’ll find it’s the norm.
AAA Bonds
@Jeff Fecke:
The full shame of liberals who tried to run interference during Paul for that has yet to be felt. People were falling over themselves to avoid calling him out as a racist – for saying that Woolworth’s should still be able to call the cops when black people sit down at the lunch counter.
Are we really unwilling to believe what “libertarian” actually describes in America? Is it just so outside of what we want to believe Americans are like that we refuse to believe it exists?
AAA Bonds
@J.W. Hamner:
Because you’re not describing the same libertarianism as me. You’re describing a rarefied version of an ideology that I have no doubt is debated heavily among a handful of people; I’m talking about libertarianism, the movement.
Not that I think there’s really less incidence of personal, conscious racism at the level you’re describing.
General Stuck
Nobody is who they say they are in this asylum. I might have a fake name, but by god, I can spot a meeting of self adorned fools a mile off. Maybe they can shrink each other to the size of Norquist’s bathtub. We could raffle off tickets to the event and buy Jane some license plates.
MikeJ
At least Nadir and Paul feel the same way about unions.
Angry Black Lady
@Pete Guither: this might be the dumbest comment i’ve read in a while.
tkogrumpy
@General Stuck: Heh, could you expand on that a little please?
Mnemosyne
@tkogrumpy:
Among his many other bizarro beliefs, Paul thinks we should go back to the gold standard (aka a “hard money policy”), even though there’s literally not enough gold in the world to support our economy. He is, quite frankly, a crank who gained a small amount of credibility because he was the only Republican to point out that Iraq was a disaster.
Ted Kaczynski had some insightful things to say about industrial society in his manifesto, but that doesn’t mean we should respect him for it.
WereBear
@gnomedad: I still hold that grudge.
Nellcote
@Tom Hilton:
Nader in the Rocky Mountain News:
scav
@MikeJ: They also agree that they’ve not had enough air time recently.
jl
They make a cute pair of cranky old coots, I’ll give them that much. Maybe they can spin this into a TV show, or a movie, with hilarious sequels!
General Stuck
@Dennis SGMM:
There are a lot of reasons, any one of which could have pushed Gore over the finish line with 600 or so more votes. Including the screwed up ballot in Broward Co, that caused several thousand old folks to vote for Buchanan instead of Gore. But the fact remains if Nader hadn’t run, Gore wins easily, notwithstanding any other reason. Balloon Bag that dumbass.
RossInDetroit
@AAA Bonds:
So’s Hitler, being dead and all, but the evil that he did still affects us. Nader may be toothless now but many of us have a perfectly legit grudge.
As for the Pauls, I don’t take Rand seriously. I expect him to collapse under the weight of his own ego any minute. YMMV, of course.
General Stuck
@tkogrumpy:
I thought it was pretty goddamn expansive as written. What part of self adorned fools don’t you understand?
AAA Bonds
Here’s what Libertarianism really is: it’s where the Birchers hang out, and the Kluxers hang out, and the birthers and the truthers and the militiamen. It’s where the trailer park skinheads and the shut-in anti-Semites find common cause, in a newsletter with Ron Paul’s name on the masthead.
It is fostered by a group of very rich people, themselves Republicans, and while I doubt it delivers votes, it does serve as an endless source of trial balloons to be floated in easily accessed fringe areas of discourse like the Fox Nation aggregator, or talk radio.
One in one hundred of these work out, but those that do impeach Bill Clinton, or send a lunatic to the Tides Foundation with a .308 rifle.
If you want to find common cause with these people on weed or whatever, be my guest, but realize that all of them have their own strong opinions on the subject, and on you, and may believe that states should be able to ban weed, or that weed is holy, or that weed is Satanic, and all of these, and more, are legitimate viewpoints in their Wackytown.
Same thing on taxation, wars, wherever you want to go with it.
Personally, I try to steer clear of them.
Tom Hilton
@Dennis SGMM: Nader actively campaigned in battleground states after saying he would do so only in states where it wouldn’t make a difference. (He also said (in a Rolling Stone interview) he would rather have Bush win.)
No, he isn’t solely responsible…but if he hadn’t run, or at the very least hadn’t campaigned in Florida, it wouldn’t have been close enough to steal.
And by the way: I have a whole lot more respect (and that isn’t very much) for Republicans who voted for Bush than for [ironicairquotes]progressives[/ironicairquotes] who voted for Nader, because the former were at least advancing their agenda, while the latter were actively underming everything they claimed to believe in.
Mnemosyne
@J.W. Hamner:
Progressive taxation and a social safety net are libertarian?
You might want to have a chat with the guys at Reason, or maybe contact the Libertarian Party, because they seem to think differently. Your vision of libertarianism seems to be decidedly in the minority, to say the least.
Tom Hilton
@Nellcote: Yeah…I quit at the first one I found, but I figured there were probably others.
Chad N Freude
@Warren Terra: You might be thinking of this.
tkogrumpy
@Mnemosyne: Your quiet right, He is seen as a crank. This is a feature of every politician who doesn’t water down his message to appeal to everyman.I just find the “damn the torpedoes,full speed ahead” style entertaining.
Dennis SGMM
@General Stuck:
You’re a froggy little guy, aren’t you? On every politics blog there’s always some jerk who feel that he or she is the keeper of the sacred flame and they are always over-reacting jerks – just like you.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Pete Guither: It seems to me that people who hold the Civil Rights Act in disdain can be discussed in terms of policy and racism AT THE SAME TIME. But white guys may disagree.
Citizen_X
Oh, great. Because the George Bush and Ralph Nader Alliance worked out so well.
And Paul had the sheer balls to say that about Barbara fucking Jordan?* Fuck that shit. Jordan was a giant, and Paul is not worthy of kissing her feet. Jordan did more to defend the Constitution during the Watergate hearings than Paul and all the Teabaggers will do in a thousand lifetimes. And Mattminus (sorry to continue the piling on, but…), that particular bit from his past racist diatribes was indeed news to me.
*His newsletter, his name; his responsibility, despite whatever song and dance he did about it later.
General Stuck
@Dennis SGMM:
You are the dumbass that offers nothing but non stop droll cynicism and nit picky pedantry to make itself feel superior. I just got tired of it is all. Piss off watb.
edit = and take your soulmate Uncle Clarence with you. Maybe have yourselves a mutual reach around balloonbag session.
AAA Bonds
@RossInDetroit:
Nader’s real influence on the country faded even before 2000, and while his decency certainly sloughed off of him like a skin at that point, whining about him is beyond pointless for liberals.
Paul is old guard, but represents a real and present threat to American stability and democracy in the ideas he and his son endorse. They are ideas that gird a philosophy of right-wing political violence that more and more people have attempted to put into practice since Bush left office.
Pete Guither
@Barb (formerly Gex):
Of course, they can. I was just waiting for the discussion of policy.
Quite frankly, I’m not sure who I’m supposed to turn to these days if I’m anti-war.
Captain C
@Mnemosyne:
People who can’t tell the difference between a social technology and a chemical element probably should not be commenting about currency and economics in public, at least not while purporting to have better ideas than everyone else on the subject. They can, of course, but then shouldn’t be surprised at the erudite and entertaining ridicule which may follow.
Mnemosyne
@tkogrumpy:
Insisting that the US go back to keeping enough gold on hand to back up its currency isn’t a message that’s just over people’s heads. It’s crankery. It’s taking a crazy idea and insisting that you can force reality to conform to your insanity.
A crazy guy doesn’t become magically sane because he joins in with other people in pointing out the emperor has no clothes before he goes back to muttering about how evolution is a lie and the Holocaust never happened.
General Stuck
Paul is a polite fascist, but fascist he is. And Nader is so in love with the sound of his own voice, I expect him to record it and blast it into space with his cryogenically preserved corpse with the hope some other world will appreciate his greatness more than the ignorant peons here on planet earth. Maybe Paul can hitch a ride, and take his psycho son with him.
AAA Bonds
Returning to the gold standard would certainly benefit one group of people greatly – those who have taken an Economics 101 course and are capable of quickly learning things like how to handle commodities to ‘get theirs’. As liberals are far more likely to have any college education, and far more likely to get their news from collaborative online communities, I can guess how things might turn out.
tkogrumpy
I don’t dispute anything you say. Let my try it another way.I grow grains.When I harvest them I must separate the kernel from the chaff.This is the way it is. there is no kernel without the chaff. Should I throw away the crop because it is full of chaff?
Otto, Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Mattminus:
Sorry, wrong. Racism in America isn’t going to die off on its own. It should have died unsung years ago, but it clings to life, and it’s everybody’s job to shine the light on it. It thrives in the dark, so anytime anybody drags it out into the open, the better off we’ll all be.
And just in general, what the fuck do we have to do to get rid of Ralph Nader? Why can’t he just slink off to wallow in his own bitterness by himself and leave the rest of us alone for once? For Christ’s sake, Ralph, we’re thoroughly sick of your fucking things up. Just go away.
AAA Bonds
@tkogrumpy:
Explain your metaphor. What is the kernel? What is this refined product that we’re supposed to mill a bunch of racists to get, in real terms?
J.W. Hamner
@Mnemosyne:
Look, I disdain the libertarians at Reason as much as the next guy… and I’m totally not cool with people disparaging my libertarian bashing cred… but there is no particular reason their ideology proscribes income redistribution nor social safety nets. I agree we don’t meet people in the wild who think like this very often, but in the rare instances it happens I don’t see a reason why such a collaboration should be condemned.
MikeJ
@AAA Bonds:
No, you’re not supposed to point out that they’re racists. If you don’t just swallow the husks, well you’re the real the racist man….
AAA Bonds
@J.W. Hamner: There’s very few of those people, they’re not in positions of power – hell, some of them are probably in academia – and combined they have an approaching-zero impact on anything. “Collaborating” with them would be like “collaborating” with every one-legged Muslim in the Justin Bieber fan club.
The first thing they have no control over is the vast majority of people in America who call themselves “libertarians”.
Ija
@Pete Guither:
Of course, talking about race is talking about personality. Because it’s such a trivial issue after all, right? Surely not up there with war and children and cute puppies dying and all.
Karmakin
Remember Nader was kind of a big deal in 2000. He’s not anymore, but it was. It’s not so much that he ran…if he ran a positive, issues-focused ideas campaign, it both would have gotten the Green party further AND Gore would have won easily.
I strongly believe that most elections are won/lost as a result of memes. In 2000, the meme was that both candidates are basically the same (Remember that in terms of tone, Bush veered strongly to the left during the campaign with his ‘Compassionate Conservatism’), so you have a personal decision betweeen the fake politician and the good ol’ boy. Needless to say, the ‘both sides are the same’ shtick reinforces those claims (as well as depressing turnout)
General Stuck
No, you are not. And it’s the reason this post set me off with those two meeting of minds, or egos, or whatever. There are just too many prima donnas running around, more interested in there own self image, or own nutty pol designs. Nader sucking up to this slimeball is an epitome of it. Boutique pol bullshit with either fully insane ideas, or fully unworkable ones in this particular country. You change shit a little at a time and not with wacky ideological theory, or pie in the sky rantings of corporations are just evil. They are, but they are also intertwined within the core fabric of this country. We need less preaching, and more unitedness, imho. On the left side of things, to repair each brick, one by one by one. The only way it will work without blowing everything up in one fell swoop.
sermon over
liberal
@J.W. Hamner:
Wait—taking steps to make housing cheaper and more available is a progressive stance? Who woulda thought?
Mnemosyne
@J.W. Hamner:
Ron Paul thinks that income tax should be illegal. I’m not really sure what in there is making you think you could collaborate with him on a progressive taxation system.
Thomas Beck
Under the Jeremiah Wright rules, Rand Paul is 100% responsible for everything printed in his newsletter. Except, of course, IOKIYAR.
Jay
It’s worth remembering that Jamie Kirchick wrote the Paul article for TNR. That name is mud around here.
I agree with anyone who says Paul should take heat for those newsletters, but I’m sure the Peretz-lapdog Kirchick doesn’t care about Rep. Paul’s views on homosexuality, race, religion &c. Little Jamie was just SO pissed that the likes of Sullivan and Greenwald wrote approvingly of Paul’s opposition to torture and the gutting of Habeas that Kirchick (who supports torture and indefinite detention, but can’t bring himself to say so) had to bury them and the congressman.
Let’s just keep that straight.
AAA Bonds
The number one reason that an alliance with libertarians is silly is that while their threat as “lone wolf” endorsers of violence and fringe ideas is palpable, their power as a group only matters as part of the organized right-wing, whether it’s the Republicans now or something more sinister in the future.
Unless liberals are looking for some folks to shoot up churches or blow up parades – or need individual votes in a pot referendum – time and money spent appealing to fringe white-wingers is far better spent mobilizing the center and left.
Jeff Fecke
@AAA Bonds:
I went through a libertarian phase. Part of what knocked me out of it was that I was honest, and couldn’t see how Jim Crow could have been undone by the free market alone. Because it couldn’t have been. If you are able to argue it would have been doable, you’re lying to yourself and to others.
AAA Bonds
@Jeff Fecke:
Agreed. That’s how Paul got into trouble. If you’re a libertarian, unless you are speaking among friends, the best defense you can raise amounts to: it wouldn’t really be all THAT bad if America was still segregated, would it?
Mnemosyne
@Jay:
Not that I agree with Kirchick on much of anything, but it’s a bit unfair to claim that a gay journalist doesn’t really care about Paul’s stances on homosexuality.
tkogrumpy
@AAA Bonds: Please, we are all [email protected]General Stuck: Thanks!
Chris
@Lolis:
I can think of two. Abortion, and gay marriage. And Ron Paul is not in favor of legalizing either.
Quaker in a Basement
The world’s largest collection of cracked pottery ever!
AAA Bonds
There is not a single day I do not sit and silently fume about the utter indignity of it all – that I cannot start a restaurant with a strict “No Chinese” policy, enforced by city police or merely my own army of thugs.
The injustice is too much to bear. It eats me alive. It is undoubtedly the source of much, perhaps most, suffering in this country.
I am a libertarian.
AAA Bonds
@tkogrumpy:
You’re using “racist” to mean a lot of things. Personally, I probably have some racist behaviors that I haven’t corrected. I don’t know so much about putting my name on pamphlets describing the worldwide Jewish conspiracy, though. Ron Paul, he knows a bit about that, he could tell you some stories.
Gadnynj
so much win.
tkogrumpy
@AAA Bonds: O.K I concede. Just demonize, dismiss destroy your political other and forget that he has a vote in the congress, a vote you might need some day to pass important legislation.
J.W. Hamner
@Mnemosyne:
I think if you look at my earlier comments… specifically the first one.. you’ll see I place Ron Paul in the “crazy libertarians who love the 19th century and who we want nothing to do with” group… I have merely been presenting the idea that collaboration with non insane libertarians is plausible, albeit unlikely.
Woodrowfan
@Mutt Like Me:
thanks, that is really funny!
Chris
@Alesis:
I agree. At least it’s true in my case. Took a long time of searching before finally getting it into my head that there are no “reasonable conservatives,” at least not in any way that matters politically.
There are individual conservatives who’re reasonable, but there isn’t any one faction that’s more reasonable than the other and that we could therefore reach out to (Religious Right? Big Business? Libertarians? Neocons? Teabaggers?)
And the dialogue between those “reasonable” individuals and the rest of the party seems to go something like this;
Reasonable Conservative: “Gee, I really think you might want to do it this way.”
Rest Of The Party: “If I did it that way, I’D BE BETRAYING JESUS AND GEORGE WASHINGTON, WOULDN’T I, YOU LIBERAL COMMIE MUSLIM-LOVING POLITICALLY CORRECT RINO?”
Reasonable Conservative: “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Carry on.”
tkogrumpy
@Chris: I love this.
Warren Terra
@Chad N Freude:
Thanks for the link. I don’t think it’s the same essay I’m thinking of – I think my exposure was to a similar argument made more emphatically and with more explanation of the three-act dramatic structure – but it’s the right sort of thing.
Mnemosyne
@J.W. Hamner:
Ah, okay. With the way that last part was worded, it sounded like you were saying that Ron Paul was one of the fabled reasonable libertarians and not that you were still in search of the elusive creature.
In theory one could find a non-batshit insane libertarian who’d actually read The Road to Serfdom all the way through to get to the parts where Hayek talks about the necessity of social insurance, but Ron Paul definitely ain’t it.
alwhite
@Warren Terra:
You got it close enough. This is a pet peeve of mine too and its misuse seems to reinforce the original intent.
gwangung
@tkogrumpy:
For those of us who are non-white, I’m not sure there’s much difference between Paul and a demon.
alwhite
@tkogrumpy:
So back in ’99 when Nader said he wanted Boy Blunder to win, was this one of those “what you see is what you get” moments you love about him? And when Paul sleeps with the white supremacists, is that one of those moments?
See, I think they lie about a lot of things & the truth only sneaks out when people are not paying attention.
Mr Stagger Lee
Whose head will explode more, Neal Boortz or Mike Malloy?
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
There are worse things you could say about a politician, for certain. But his opposition to the Iraq war fits into his opposition to pretty much any engagement outside of the U.S. He’s the kind of person who’d have stuck his fingers in his ears and hummed loudly in the name of isolation right up until the Pearl Harbor attack.
Lancelot Link
@Jay:
the Peretz-lapdog Kirchick
Actually, he was acting more as a Giuliani stooge at the time, wasn’t he?
Ailuridae
@BGinCHI:
Oh my that made my day
Bob Loblaw
It surprises me that over a hundred comments in, people are less likely to consider a union based on mutual antipathy for the Fed and militarism, and instead are jumping on a racist, anti-progressive conspiracy to destroy us all…
Hamsher got another name drop though, so the streak’s still alive. So yay for that, I guess.
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
You mean people actually looked at past history and the things that these two men have actually said? How dare they!
Rathskeller
What seals it for me with Ron Paul has been the support of the White Power movement, which was obvious in the 2008 primaries. I assume it is some kind of back channel connection, but whatever it is, they are obviously are comfortable with him.
I obviously had no idea what would happen when we finally elected a black president. That conservatives and liberals alike would be more comfortable afterwards in showing their racism — and that there’d be no consequences for it — was not something I would ever have guessed as a natural result. I guess is this is why Allen is back in the VA-SEN race.
AxelFoley
@tkogrumpy:
Well, I guess that says alot about you, having respect for these two assholes.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
“(It’s) a bit unfair to claim that a gay journalist doesn’t really care about Paul’s stances on homosexuality.”
Here is Kirchick on the homophobic GOP power-brokers Newt Gingrich and John Hagee, both of whom dwarf Paul’s reach:
“J Street seems to spend almost all of its resources bashing supporters of Israel…J Street prefers to churn out countless blog posts, press releases and op-eds denouncing the people who it believes are the real impediments to peace: stalwart defenders of Israel like Pastor John Hagee, Senator Joe Lieberman and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.”
There is a sizeable gay population in Israel. Newt Gingrich and John Hagee, at least, do not serve that population well by stifling the rights of American gays and declining to speak up for sexual minorities across the world (Uganda, anyone?). At its best, Israel is supposed to be a refuge for the oppressed, so to be homophobic is to be anti-Israel, just as it does not help the cause of sexual minorities to oppose the existence of Israel.
Ash Can
@Thomas Beck:
Amended to bring it more in line with the actual Jeremiah Wright rules.
Sputnik
@Tom Hilton: I was just about to say the same thing. I appreciate what Ralph Nader has accomplished in the past and I thought it wasn’t particularly fair how he was blamed for Gore’s loss, but I will not forgive his racist comments towards Obama. They were completely unnecessary (although I don’t know of an occasion when racist language would be necessary). He may be a progressive hero, but that doesn’t give him a free pass.
policomic
@gnomedad: Yes, and it doesn’t matter who appoints Supreme Court justices, as we have seen.
kay
Ralph Nader was a great lawyer.
That he doesn’t realize enacting a liberal agenda is next to impossible with the libertarian view of the commerce clause astounds me.
This just ain’t gonna work. Not on civil rights, not on pollution regs or worker protections, not nowhere.
Xenocrates
Nader is making a bid to climb out of the pit of obscurity into which he has fallen. I pray to the FSM that he will not be successful.
kay
@Sputnik:
The comments are archaic. They’re from another era. Nader will do well with Ron Paul, who also lives completely in some mythical bygone fantasy-time.
It’s sad, because Nader was a good lawyer and advocate. He should have stuck to what he’s good at.