It’s probably all stored as Kruggerands in his mattress, to guard against the Amero conversion (via SLT at OTB):
Yet a subsequent report by Reason found that Ron Paul & Associates, the defunct company that published the newsletters and which counted Paul and his wife as officers, reported an income of nearly $1 million in 1993 alone. If this figure is reliable, Paul must have earned multiple millions of dollars over the two decades plus of the newsletters’ existence. It is incredible that he had less than an active interest in what was being printed as part of a subscription newsletter enterprise that earned him and his family millions of dollars. Ed Crane, the president of the Cato Institute, said Paul told him that “his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for the Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, anti-Semitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto.”
Both ED Kain and he-who-shall-not-be-named have endorsed Paul for President as a protest vote. Since I’m not a serious thinker, I’m free of the weighty obligation to endorse someone in the GOP primary. But for those serious folks, I have a simple question: how could you endorse a guy who published and profited from a newsletter that included AIDS conspiracy theories and called Martin Luther King Day “Hate Whitey Day”?
Emma
Simple. For a large number of those calling themselves libertarians, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. (edited) I sent this off before I could explain, just because I’m half asleep). I notice that a lot of libertarians love the “anti-politically-correct,” that is, “the person who tells the truth no matter what.” It’s a lovely cover.
Calouste
1) It is a report by Reason, the most inappropriately named website in existence.
2) Why it should taken with a grain of salt or two becomes clear in the second sentence when they confuse income with profit. It is possible that Paul made “multiple millions” of his newsletter. One year with an operating income of $1 million is far from enough evidence to draw that conclusion though.
amk
Forget the libtards and rightwingers. He is a natural ft for them. What about those on the “left” like maddow, hayes et. al., who are all now paulites ?
dmsilev
By pretending it never happened, of course.
DPirate
This is how you’ll justify voting for the guy that believes in nothing, I suppose.
Shawn in ShowMe
White privilege is a helluva drug.
Samara Morgan
like i explained, Kain and Paul are both free market fucktards and white christian nativists.
its not a protest vote in Kains case, its an endorsement of Kains core philosophies.
JPL
Everyone is allowed to change their mind.. Unfortunately, those that support Paul haven’t listened to him. He still thinks that the civil rights laws were wrong and he still thinks businesses should have the right to refuse to sell to anyone they choose. That’s the free market according to Paul. I haven’t heard Paul comment on monopolies though and the harm they can do to the free market.
El Cid
Look forward not back
Chris
@Emma:
South Park conservatives, if you will.
Jamie
well, that’s going to leave a mark.
Hill Dweller
I’d call them all shameless crazy people, but they keep beating Dems, which doesn’t say a lot for our party.
Benen had a good post up at his place yesterday talking about Romney’s effortless lies. They are blatant and plentiful, almost pathological, but he has paid no price for it.
Their party is so crazy, it has lowered the media’s bar for credibility. Romney, who is a charlatan if there ever was one, is a ‘moderate’. Rubio and Christie are considered golden boys, despite espousing the same awful policies. Ryan, a complete fraud, is considered a serious person/wonk. That has to change.
mistermix
@Calouste: So I guess if he made thousands instead of millions, that makes it OK?
Joey Maloney
@amk:
[citation needed]
Josie
I seriously doubt that Paul’s racism is a problem for him in the Republican primaries. He may have problems, but that will not be one. Racism and nativism is at the core of their belief system and has been since Nixon and maybe before that. They can dress it up as free market, constitutional rights, etc., but there it is.
mistermix
@Joey Maloney: Yeah, we do need a citation for that.
Plus it’s OK to agree with some of Ron Paul’s positions and appreciate his role in injecting some sanity on war and civil liberties into debates without thinking that the guy should be President.
amk
If it were up to ‘white’ americans, us of a would be an apartheid amurikkka by now. After all, the majority of these shitheads voted for the unstable, angry old man because of his racist, ignorant twit of a veep in 2008.
amk
@Joey Maloney: watch their shows.
DougJ
Amen.
I like what Paul has to say about foreign policy, but no one should be getting behind a candidate who has flirted this openly with such blatant anti-Semitica nd racist filth.
Joey Maloney
@amk: I do. And since they’re both posted on the web, you should have no trouble linking to the video where each of them proclaim their allegiance to Paul. Unless, of course, you’re talking nonsense.
And we all know that’s unpossible on this blog.
Waldo
Even the liberal NY Times makes money off of far-right, arguably racist opinions. Does that make Art Sulzberger a racist?
Chad
Ron Paul supporters are essentially telling me, “I can excuse racism if …” and fill in the blank with their pet cause.
Samara Morgan
@DougJ: Paul is a white christian nativist on immigration and and a balls to the wall freed market fucktard on regulation and civil rights. He is also against government “interference” in healthcare.
Your payoff matrix is fucked up.
We are gettin’ kicked out of Iraq and Astan anyways.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Hill Dweller:
At some point our fellow citizens have to take responsbility for learning about government in order to change it. The poor and destitute, understandably, have their hands full just trying to survive. But that still leaves tens of millions of grown-ass people who choose to remain ignorant and vote against their interests. They have no excuse.
I know people who couldn’t even turn on a computer 10 years who have become Facebook experts in short order. Yet they can’t be bothered to achieve a School House Rock level of understanding when it comes to politics.
dmsilev
@amk: That’s not a citation, that’s an assertion. Point out a specific statement, or set of statements.
Samara Morgan
@mistermix: Paul is not ‘sane’ on civil liberties. Are you nutz?
He wants to build a fence and and strike down the 14th.
maryQ
To be fair to he who shall not be named, he did say he was endorsing Paul for the GOP nomination. And then after calling Obama a coward and a fool for not embracing Bowles-Simpson, goes on to say “that’s why conservatives like me support Obama” or something.
But I do worry that a Paul vote might seem like a reasonable protest, why even a Responsible protest, for liberals who are upset with Obama because he wasn’t able to get everyone a pony like he promised. I honestly don’t understand the logic of this, but I am also not a Serious Person. I can imagine that in the mind of some, Ron Paul would have been able to get the public option included in the ACA and would have passed a larger and more effective stimulus bill. He would have pulled out of Iraq minutes after taking the oath of office, and DOMA would be all over now. And he never would have caved on extending the Bush tax cuts.
Samara Morgan
@mistermix:
and
and
Paul was one of three legislators that voted against Sarbanes/Oxley.
You obviously dont have a clue about Pauls actual positions.
Samara Morgan
@maryQ:
NO.
those people should be minimumly aware of Pauls positions before endorsing him.
Or flirting with him– which all sully is doing. Kain endorses Paul, because they share the same core philosophies.
Davis X. Machina
@maryQ: You left out the legal dope.
JG
Andrew Sullivan has endorsed Ron Paul for the GOP nomination, not for President. He certainly gushes over Paul but he’s made it clear he is still a big Obama supporter in the Presidential election.
El Cid
@amk: Look, I don’t care how stoned people are when they type: there’s simply no sane way to classify Rachel Maddow as a Paultwerp. In fact, people who fail to see her as an Obama and Democrat fan and passionate advocate are just nuts, but since it’s a comfort to many to believe that she’s out to get them, I’m not wasting time in this comments section defending that position.
Warren Terra
@Samara Morgan:
If you quote MaryQ’s satire without the part where she says “in the minds of some”, you’re rather misrepresenting her, even if your intent was to agree with her.
master c
female reproductive rights.
Paul is an idiot who only wants govt in my vag.
maryQ
@Samara Morgan:
Hi Samara-just to be clear, I am not stating that I believe that Ron Paul would be able to do the things that magical-thinking angry liberals fantasize him doing. In fact, I agree that the problem is a general unawareness of Paul’s positions on pretty much everything, other than the Iraq war, is what draws them to him. The out of context clip from my post makes it sound a bit like I am such a magical-thinker.
kay
Ron Paul isn’t opposed the the Civil Rights Act.
It’s much, much bigger than that.
Ron Paul is opposed to the (current) interpretation of the Commerce Clause that makes federal regulation possible.
So is Rand Paul, although he lied about it when Rachel Maddow called him out.
ED Kain is endorsing that, whether he knows it or not.
What do they think states’ rights means?
It’s not just a dog whistle, although it is a dog whistle. It’s a form of government that we rejected. Ron Paul wants to reverse that rejection.
maryQ
@Davis X. Machina: LOL! Indeed. I forgot about that. I was so busy inventing rationale for liberal support of Paul, that I forgot to look at what he actually says!
Joey Maloney
He wants to shrink government until it’s small enough to stuff into your uterus.
Jerzy Russian
@mistermix:
Well put. The notion that you have to absolutely oppose anything anyone from the “other side” is for is what is harming the country right now.
Jerzy Russian
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Sad but true.
kay
Ron Paul believes there is no constitutional basis for any federal intervention in those issues which are not specifically enumerated in the US Constitution.
So. Every liberal or Democratic advance or policy since FDR.
Can he reverse all that?
No.
Is that what he believes?
Yes.
Schlemizel
For a lot of Paul supporters – and given L’il Andys recent praise of the Bell Curve BS you have to wonder if he falls into this group – Paul’s racism is a feature not a bug.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: No one here is endorsing Ron Paul. mistermix, in the OP, indicated that he could not understand why someone would support him even as a protest candidate. Your act of running around pretending that we are Paul-curious but too stupid to know who he really is has become tiresome. Why don’t you explain about the 500 bases again?
RSA
From Ron Paul’s Web site, quoting from his book:
I think many poor and elderly people would have enjoyed living in Ron Paul’s alternate universe, what with free medical care being the norm.
El Cid
@Jerzy Russian: Every time somebody (in real life) says to me they don’t have time to read all the things I do, I ask them if they spend any time on the internet. They all do. From internet poker to sports sites to an absolutely remarkable addiction to Facebook, the answer’s always yes, so I just respond along the lines of ‘well, about everyone spends time doing stuff like that, I just *choose* to spend a bit of time reading up on big issues over other stuff I do online.’
kay
Has anyone ever determined if Andrew Sullivan has a good working grasp of how US law and process works?
Does Sullivan know WHY we had to rely on the commerce clause for basic regulation?
Does he know it was the essential basis of the modern US?
This isn’t a fucking round-table or intellectual excercise.
It’s the practical, working, grounding of the country.
It’s the foundation of the House that FDR Built, and Andrew Sullivan lives in that house.
El Cid
@Schlemizel: Often I think that people (white ones) get a vision of some time period, really a mixmash of time periods, in which things seemed “better”: overidealized or storybook or movie versions of early USA yeoman farmers, late 1890s industrial expansion (railroads! steel! etc!), 1920s / 30s tough-times-but-sticking-together, 1950s semi-Ozzie-Harriet, and just try to deduct what’s changed since the imagined “then’s”. And for many of them who aren’t the basic racists, I think they think you can have 1950s America, even 1950s Southern America, without the formal racism.
This is just an impression, and not my attempt to put forward a sociological model. I’m stitching together lots of little anecdotes or reminiscences or historical imaginings from actual people.
But plenty of people I’ve known (whites, but not just Southern ones) think that America began to turn to shit as soon as the schools were integrated. The nice ones because they think ‘the blacks’ just weren’t civilized enough to be allowed in. They don’t want to be racist; they’d love it if ‘the blacks’ managed to more civilize themselves, and so forth.
El Cid
@Jerzy Russian: Of course, it’s even more fair to note that there really are arguments that exist or can and should be made, and their worth or truthfulness aren’t established entirely from whose mouths they emerged.
For example, when I cheered Ron Paul vehemently dissenting from the ‘let’s all bomb Iran’ party at the latest clowncar debate, calling Bachmann a liar about ‘the UN documents’, it’s not Paul I wished to cheer, as a person, as a politician, as a candidate: it was as an argument or at least a category of argument which needed to be made.
It would have been just as necessary should one of the FOXNOOZ questioners momentarily have become angelically possessed (see that?), or some member of the audience.
As it was, it was from Paul whom the points emerged.
There are arguments which must be made, and made publicly; it’s often unfortunate which vessels release them, but public debate takes place in real time as well as ideal time.
Woodrowfan
So if the Paulites claim that he didn’t actually know what was published under his name in his newsletter out of his office for years on end, does that mean they are claiming he’s incompetent?
Amanda in the South Bay
@DougJ:
Are you talking about Ron Paul or Daniel Larison?
kay
And, Rachel Maddow is no Paulite.
She was the only one of the cable crowd who “got” Rand Paul.
She did a beautiful job.
Sadly, the little weasel lied and backtracked, later, but she knows what the Pauls are saying, and she knows how profound and sweeping it is.
Samara Morgan
@Warren Terra: you cant read.
i agreed with her.
i disagree with MISTER MIX
Paul IS NOT SANE on civil liberties.
El Cid
@Samara Morgan: There’s a fundamental question I think you’re not addressing:
Can a wrong person voice a correct argument?
Do arguments exist outside of who says them?
If a terrible person makes a good argument, can it still be a good argument?
If a necessary good point is made in a discussion by a terrible person, does it invalidate the good point?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: i DISAGREE with this.
his role in injecting some sanity on ….civil liberties into debates.
did mixie say that?
Amanda in the South Bay
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Eh, I’m just trying to be snarky, in pointing out th equivalence of Paul and Larison, Mainstream Progressives Larison Mancrush or something like that.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Deflect, Obfuscate, and Deny, mistermix. Portray Paul as the Last Honest Man and stick your fingers in your ear and go ‘LALALALALA’ whenever someone brings up the Trilateral Commission.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@mistermix: If I could vote for Ron Paul as Drug Czar, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Not entirely sold on him as Civil Liberties Czar, anything else would be a big fat ‘NO’.
Joel
@Waldo: First; it helps if you link your argument for support. But I’m sure you’ll find something, so in that case your answer is, “Yes and no”. I don’t know Art Sulzberger personally, and he doesn’t reveal much about his character before the general public, unlike political candidates like Ron Paul. On the other hand, if he’s publishing racism in his newspaper, then he’s partaking in racism, whether he realizes it or not.
That said, the Times has a tenure-like system where their idiot columnists never lose their job, unless they are as grossly incompetent as Bill Kristol.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@El Cid: All you need is to take a look around here in Cuyahoga County. Forty years or so ago, the middle and working class inner city African-Americans started singing ‘We’re Movin’ On Up’ and headed on over to the southeastern suburbs. The middle and working class whites in those self-same suburbs subsequently fled like the Mongols were rushing for the city gates. Meanwhile, those same suburbs are still pretty nice and safe places to live today. (The effect on the inner city and East Cleveland is another matter, but that’s a discussion for another day.) Here in Parma, within the last decade or so we’ve opened the doors to more minorities and there’s still a lot of fear and resentment over that too.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Whoops, hit enter too soon.
The thing is, we are getting better at accepting each other and I see that every day. We’re not entirely there just yet.
Samara Morgan
@El Cid: where is Paul sane on civil liberties? drugs? SSM?
he is anti-immigrant, anti-womans rights, anti-abortion and anti-commerce clause.
and he certainly supports some racist positions like all libertarians.
as evidenced in the subject of this post.
DanielX
Is this a serious question? I have not noted that either of those two individuals have any issues with the long term presence of Boss Hogg…er, Haley Barbour (to name one example) as a leading member of the Republican party, or for that matter any of the many bigoted assholes that infest the Republic party like maggots on a corpse. And it’s not like they couldn’t be aware of this general Republican view of brown people, or gay people or whoever at some point in, oh, the last three decades. (Welfare moms driving Cadillacs, strapping young bucks, etc.) After that, endorsing Ron Paul doesn’t exactly constitute heavy lifting. You’re really expecting intellectual consistency or concern with a candidate’s moral views at this point, even if Kain or Sully are Republican apostates?
Samara Morgan
@El Cid:
when the “good point” is just cover for fundamental illiberal philosophy, FUCK YEAH!
i think we should call them all illibertarians.
Because that is what they basically are.
Chuck Derperton
@Calouste:
It also points out how they made money (presumably direct mail) off of the addresses they collected from the newsletters.
DanielX
While I’m thinking about it:
Considering the number of people who are enthusiastically greeting the Second Coming of well known prick with ears Newt Gingrich, endorsing well known racist Ron Paul really isn’t much of a stretch.
Samara Morgan
@DanielX: it is NOT a protest vote.
Kain is an illibertarian just like Paul, and Sully is a “reform” conservative, w/e the fuck that is.
kay
El Cid, I don’t have any problem with agreeing with Rand Paul on drug war or Iran or anything else, but shouldn’t we know WHY Paul is opposed to the (federal) “war on drugs”?
Because if he’s opposed because he thinks the federal government doesn’t have a constitutional basis for intervention, if that’s what his opposition is grounded in, then that has huge implications past a policy ( war on drugs) that we disagree with.
I can agree with Paul on Iran, or drugs, but I have to give some weight to WHY he says what he says, and what that means, or I’m pretending these things operate in isolation, and they don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Yes, he said, as you bolded, “some sanity.” He did not say that Paul’s views were entirely sane. For the record, I think the man is an ass and has very little to say on any topic that is worth a listen.
Samara Morgan
@DanielX: zactly.
all the soi disant libertarians i have ever read believe market liberty trumps civil liberty.
Ron Paul is a cafeteria libertarian like Rand Paul– he is anti-abortion and anti-civil rights but pro-SSM and smokin’ blunts legally?
Fuck off, mixie and DougJ.
Waterballoon
My question is, why do left wing critics of Obama gravitate towards Paul, who is essentially Pat Buchanan with better PR, and not a genuine left winger? What ever happened to the Green Party? Why don’t Greenwald, Hamsher etc. talk up the socialist party? If you’re upset with Obama ‘s position on the banks, the wars, and civil liberties, why not promote genuinely left wing voices rather than covering for Paul?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: like Kay said, Paul is hardly operating in a vacuum. you have to understand why he supports gay marriage and recreational drug useage.
his policies are basically incoherent. He supports gay rights but not womans rights? he supports legal recreational drugs but not the fourteenth amendment? he supports business class rights but not civil rights?
its just like Daniel “League of the South” Larison.
They are cafeteria libertarians.
suzanne
@master c:
Bingo. He wants a government so small it can quite literally fit in my cervix.
Fuck him, and all those clowns who think he isn’t just as dangerous as the rest of them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: /Yawn.
Samara Morgan
@kay:
best line on the thread.
kay
I mean, Webb in VA has been a huge advocate for sanity in the sanctions/ sentencing area of crim justice and I don’t see the libertarian punditry promoting him or his “ideas”.
Is that because Webb actually has some way to get there that doesn’t harken back to 1860 and those wonderful days when the only people who had any power were white men?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: well you must at least agree that Kain didnt lodge a “protest” vote. Mixie is purely full of shit there.
and if Paul is “sane” on SSM and legal pot, does that mean he is insane on anti-abortion and civil rights?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: and mixis is saying Paul is “sane” on the subset of civil liberties that includes legal pot and SSM, does that mean Paul is insane on the superset of civil liberties like woman’s rights, civil rights, and the fourteenth amendment?
master c
@suzanne: fyi:my name is Suzanne too!
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: I don’t really care about Kain or his motivations. I know this might come as a shock to you, but many people are not all that interested in him. mistermix was basically calling out Kain and Sully for their foolishness in backing Paul in any way and you want to get in a snit about the word protest? Don’t try to start fights with people when they are more or less agreeing with your position on this issue.
Suffern ACE
Whatever shifts them to the right, is alright. Is alright. If the Dems wanted them back, they’d leave the pot clinics alone.
Allan
For what it’s worth, Ronald Paul’s net worth as of 2010 was between $1,939,039 to $5,213,999.
cokane
Sully endorsed Paul because he is against the War on Drugs and because he wants to trim down the War on Terrorism. Funny how Sully has pulled a total 180 from that second war, which he campaigned so vociferously for?
It was truly disappointing to read his endorsement of Paul. His failure to endorse a candidate who would make a far more capable president, Huntsman, was shocking. I think it just goes to show that for many pundits, like Sullivan, politics is just a game, a sport. It’s more about getting guys who make you feel good about yourself to win campaigns, and less about actual policy results.
kay
I love “Hate Whitey Day” BTW.
Yet another conservative who has been VICTIMIZED by MLK, a man who, you know DIED fighting.
But conservatives are the real victims on MLK Day, and our thoughts should go to THEIR feelings, and their mental illness-level of self absorption.
I don’t know how they bear that day. So brave, they are!
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: So, if I celebrate MLK day, I am self-hating? Fun.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think that the point is that with the one hand Paul giveth, and with the other he taketh away. That isn’t, as mix says, “…injecting some sanity…,” but a zero sum game at best. I’m with Lady Coocoo-Bananas on this point (and on this point alone for the time being).
Samara Morgan
@cokane: wallah, Sully was endorsing Huntsman just before Paul. Did you miss it?
Sully’s signature issue is SSM. Huntsman has begun to tack right on gay rights, and has begun to rattle his saber.
Allan
Ron Paul is not FOR gay marriage. Ron Paul is a state’s rights purist. On that basis, he feels that a state should be free to recognize gay marriage, just as a state should be free to deny marriage licenses to non-Christians, or interracial couples, or redheads. He’s fine with discrimination as long as the people of a state decide they want to discriminate.
You must take any attractive sounding claim that Paulites make about Paul’s positions and dig down to the WHY he feels that way, and think through the inevitable consequences that flow from that position.
If you mention Ron Paul on Twitter, you are swarmed by Paulbots who either croon attractive-sounding pabulum or bully and intimidate you for speaking negatively of their Dear Leader. Here’s a conversation I held the other day with one of them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
m_c’s reading comprehension problems are legendary. As is her bizarre obsession with Kain.
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): As I stated above, I think Paul is an ass. Also, Paul supporters are best avoided at any social gathering. I just got annoyed by m_c’s little game of pretending that we are Paul-curious and need to have her educate us on who he really is.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
ok, so Ron Paull’s newsletter was such a large and unweildly organization that he couldn’t have possibly known what was actually in it, but he is the guy the dreamers think is going to drown government in a bathtub?
cokane
@Samara Morgan: I know. That’s why his official endorsement of Paul was so disappointing. And if SSM was the overriding issue on why he endorsed a candidate who would sabotage our economy as president, then he is a really selfish person.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: no he wasnt calling them out.
he agreed with them in part.
its very dishonest to say Kain is making a “protest” vote when Paul embodies Kain’s core principles.
Morbo
@Samara Morgan: Anyone who thinks he’s “sane” on SSM from a liberal perspective, again, does not know his actual position.
Villago Delenda Est
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
Yes, I know, the intellectual consistency of the man is positively astounding.
The cult of personality around him would make Stalin green with envy.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus:
lol, im not saying that. Im saying any support of Paul, any pretense that he is a “sane”, consistent libertarian is deconstructed by his actual policy positions that are available for anyone to google.
And pretending Kain’s core policy, that economic liberty trumps civil liberty, isn’t wholly embodied by Ron Paul is sophism on mixies part.
;)
Samara Morgan
@Morbo: well…..what exactly does mixie think Paul is “sane” on from the civil liberties category? inquiring minds want to know.
Samara Morgan
@Allan:
Distributed Jesusland™ …. aka Dr. Jim Manzi’s liberty-as-means libertarianism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: We disagree on the interpretation of the post then.
gaz
@Shawn in ShowMe: You just won the internetz
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: same question.
what exactly does mixie think Paul is “sane” on from the civil liberties category? inquiring minds want to know.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Ask him.
gaz
@mistermix: Paul flings poo.
That some of it happens to end up splattering the right things is nothing more than a coincidence. Also, it’s STILL splattered poo.
I’d no sooner support Paul’s “position” than I’d support a schizophrenic’s view on taking their haldol… Even when they get it right sometimes – Crazy is Crazy. End of story.
Suffern ACE
@Samara Morgan: Yeah. It’s kind of like the Gary Johnson supporter landing on Ron Paul after careful consideration of all the available options.
I don’t know how different Paul is from the other candidates. There’s a lot of ya da ya da ya da “end the drug war” going on with Paul. Moreso than with other candidates? That I can’t say.
kay
Allen, that’s why libertarians drive me crazy.
They think Ron Paul is new.
We already tried all of Ron Paul’s ideas. We’ve been over this whole “marriage is state law” thing, and then we had to go to federal court.
We’ve been over the whole “birth control is illegal in Connecticut” thing, too.
Ron Paul’s philosophy did not work.
We tried states’ rights. HUGE failure. They want to try it again?
Why? How many times do we have to try this?
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus:
that is probably true.
and also…i suspect mixie is back to his old game of trying to direct some page clicks to his homie Erik “Beyond Unions” Kain.
Kain quit his day job, didja know?
Samara Morgan
@kay:
that is why they should be called illibertarians. They only support localized liberty and that always beomes localized mob rule.
gaz
Did I pass through some kind of wormhole to an alternate dimension on this thread?
Samara is clearly the voice of reason here.
This is too surreal for me.
Kay too.
Mistermix – you are acting the fool
gaz
@suzanne:
LOL. That sentence is stuffed full of WIN.
gaz
@El Cid:
In my neck of the woods, we have entire communities that exist solely because of this “white flight”
Bellevue, WA – for example. It would be nothing but trees and racoons if it wasn’t for all that blackety blackness in the seattle schools.
Even nearly half a century later – bellevue is not a nice place to visit.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re bored again, I see. If I send you some extra commas, will that help?
Alison
@El Cid:
Yeah, and what they fail or refuse to realize is that it wasn’t the civil rights movement, integration, women’s rights, etc that made the country shitty. It was the privileged whites’ *reaction* to it that did. Their desperation to impede or destroy any progress toward a better society – indeed, their revulsion at the very idea that a “better society” necessarily includes expanded social justice and rights – is what will always prevent this society from ever being better, or even good in a broad sense.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Packer game is on now, so I am okay.
Allan
@kay: In Ron Paul’s America, crossing the border into another state flings you into an entire different society with its own rules. Your state could decide to require that everyone paint their cars purple. The state next door could outlaw purple cars.
It’s a great Free Market opportunity for car rental agencies to open branches at all border crossings, but otherwise it’s a pain the ass.
catclub
@master c: small government indeed.
Nellcote
Who’s this Kain? And why should I care?
Samara Morgan
@mistermix: the only place Ron Paul actually differs from boilerplate libertarian dogma is foreign policy.
The standard libertarian policy is still localized mob rule, but the mob is all of America. That is why libertarians privilege liberty-for-americans over liberty-for-non-americans.
But even here Paul is returning to antique isolationism and not actually recognizing the civil liberties of non-americans.
El Cid
@Samara Morgan: Clearly you’re unwilling to answer the question.
I didn’t ask you about Ron Paul. My question was person-independent.
Can a terrible person make a good (logical, sound) argument?
Yes or no.
El Cid
@kay: Of course, when the subject is Ron Paul, you would want to know all of those things. I’d prefer Ron Paul not be anywhere near political power, although there are rightists with more detrimental effect, in my opinion.
Samara Morgan
@El Cid: Can a terrible person make a good (logical, sound) argument?
hmmm…i guess i would say no, because of the biological basis of behavior. That “good” argument is likely (high probability) only a reacharound, endorsed for the purpose of persuasion…..like Daniel “League of the South” Larison’s arguments.
Samara Morgan
@El Cid: perhaps you could give meh an example.
:)
oldswede
A most important datum to keep in focus is August 30,
1935. This is Ron Paul’s birthday. He is now 77 years old. Reagan
was 69 when he became our oldest President and we all know how badly that ended.
oldswede
Emma
@gaz: Yeah. Me too. When Samara Morgan is actually right about something or someone… I think I foresee large quantities of vodka in my future.
Samara Morgan
@Emma: vodka is the best alliance guild in WoW.
Are you going to play WoW now?
El Cid
@Samara Morgan: Well, 2 + 2 equaling 4 as a statement, for example.
You should think about this.
You should be able to evaluate evidence and arguments, as best as you can, for yourself.
If you leave it entirely up to the identity and biography of the arguer, then, frankly, you’re helpless. We all are.
What if two people of equally admirable biography make different arguments? We would be left unable to tell. Also, what happens when people we like or respect change their mind, and start making terrible arguments? How would we know, if not for the argument itself?
What I think you can take comfort in is that the ability to make one or two or more good strong arguments doesn’t control whether or not you support a person’s overall ideology, or political future, or whatever.
Karen
Convenient “leftists” like Hamsher and Greenwald see that Paul is anti-war and see that as yet another reason why Ron Paul is the second coming of the great white hope they’ve been waiting for: someone who can inspire the same passionate loyalty and energy that Obama can, only he’s white, anti war, pro states rights which means not anti-gay marriage (but not pro-gay marriage either), not anti-pot (but not pro-pot either). And he’s not Obama.
But Ron Paul would have let the Holocaust continue because he believes it’s not the country’s problem.
Let me explain that. He’s not anti-war because he’s a pacifist. He’s anti foreign war and believes that the US should not get involved in foreign wars. He wouldn’t have gotten us involved in WW II, which some people here wouldn’t see as a bad thing. But he wouldn’t have let the ships with the Jewish refugees come to the US (like FDR wouldn’t). And the death of Jews and other non-Aryans would be the right of someone like Hitler to commit those crimes because they didn’t involve the US directly.
And in case you feel I’m throwing the Holocaust around, it goes for any other genocidal madman. Ron Paul would just allow it to happen.
That also means that if states took away the right for black people and women to vote, Ron Paul would just let that happen too.
It’s interesting how people can seize upon views someone has without seeing the whole picture…
mike
Wait so do you think Obama isn’t racist? Or is it OK to hate white people?
BruinKid
@Chad: Yep. I’ve had them tell me they can excuse his anti-evolution, pro-life, anti-science, climate change denying views because he’s TEH AWESOME!!!!1!!!ELEVEN!!! on civil liberties.
A while back, there was that viral video of almost every single Miss USA contestant not believing in science. This Ron Paul fan I know (who is a college graduate) posted that link on Facebook and laughed at how stupid they were. I commented with a quote about denying evolution, and we all had a good laugh. I didn’t tell him the quote was from Ron Paul. :-)
I later told him, and his response was to shrug it off and say, “Yeah, but he’s old.” That’s it. That was his way to brush it off.
Samara Morgan
@El Cid: i would just like an example of an actual individual praticing that. I do not believe in your thought experiment.
I think it is impossible.
Consider for example, Erik “Beyond Unions” Kain.
Humans are goal directed. Kain was perfectly willing to say things here that violated his actual core philosophies in return for a payoff.
But Paul’s newsletter is indefensible in its blatant racism.
So Kain takes refuge in the idea that Obama is WORSE than Paul.
Kain is also pretending Paul is an anti-war candidate– Paul is an isolationist candidate, not an anti-war candidate.
Like Karen points out above, Paul would have felt the Shoah was none of Americas bidness. But belief systems are homogeneous in homo sapiens and have to be coherent. Kain wants to believe that Paul is anti-war, so he rationalizes that.
So i do not think your hypothetical case can exist. Because of the homogeneity of belief. Its like a debate class in high school where someone has to take the opposing side….an intellectual exercise in lying. ;)
Samara Morgan
ummm……WTF is a neoconservative?
did i miss something here?