…it’s almost wreck-on-the-highway fascinating to watch his Ron Paul fixation play out.*
[Blogger’s note: I’m posting in even greater haste than usual, as the holidays impose (enable) family time…(yippee, actually). So apologies in advance for typos, grotesquely elongated sentences, convoluted language, and flabbiness or outright outrages of thought. In other words, as always, what follows is worth precisely what you’re paying for it. Chappy Cholidays, all.]
Here’s the latest from today’s blogorrhea:
You need to take all of this into consideration, when assessing a candidate. It seems clear to me that Paul has associated with people with some vile views, and profited from it. At best, that is reckless negligence. At worst, it is a blind eye to real ugliness. Neither interpretation flatters Paul.
So, according to Sullivan, “at worst” Paul is guilty of a “blind eye to real ugliness.” Uh, no. At worst, he advocates the oppression of millions of Americans, and the absolute priority of the right of the dominant group to continue to do so in the name of “liberty.”
Against that, you have to weigh his character as it has revealed itself over three presidential campaigns, his opponents (whose extremism and bigotry do not need to be ferreted out),
No. You have to weigh his character over the course of his entire career. I understand why Andrew wants to narrow our focus here, given his determination to defend his political crush on such a catastrophic object, but to most of us it comes as no shock that one might behave and speak differently when addressing a national audience, especially one composed of those touching naifs, boys and men who never made it past their Heinlein phases, than one does when the cameras are off and the crowd is much more in the “nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat” inner circle.
…and his argument: that domestic liberty requires a drastic re-callibration of our military-industrial complex and an end to the drug war.
And yes, what a lovely thought, and one with which I am in some sympathy. But when weighing candidates, may I make the gentle suggestion that one pay attention not just to the grand music of their message, but the likely outcomes of what they might do when they get into power. And hence bigotry, and an economic outlook we have plenty of hard evidence to suggest will beggar the nation and the world probably should weigh in your thinking too. Sullivan may be too innumerate to grasp the hideous dangers of goldbuggery (though a moment’s pause to recall his hero, Winston Churchill’s entanglement with the gold standard ought to give him some pause).
Or he may simply, again, be so deeply in the hole on his Paul bet that he feels no choice but to double down. In either case, this is a rigged argument, and I’d wager that Sullivan is a dishonest enough writer to know it. The measure of Paul’s candidacy is not whether or not we get to blow dope on his watch; it is whether we will survive the damage and division a Paul administration would leave behind it.
Voting is not some kind of purist abstraction. Every candidate is flawed. The moment and the argument matter. Viewing it all together, I would not have a problem supporting Paul if I were caucusing in Iowa. And I think a victory will help enormously in reorienting the GOP away from its dangerous foreign policy belligerence.
Charitably, you can read this as a tactical argument. Sully would support Paul in Iowa, but (perhaps) not elsewhere, to shock the GOP into its senses. If so, it seems to me that this is surpassingly obtuse, even for a writer who continually argues that actual political actors who call themselves conservatives aren’t really “conservative” because their actions do not conform to Sullivan’s immaculate conceptions. Paul could, and may very well win Iowa. Does anyone with the cognitive abilities of a radish** really think that such a victory will cause the Romney or the not-Romney juggernaut to swerve an iota? And if you read this without thumbing the scale, then you have to ask yourself if “supporting” Paul means assenting to the whole package. And if it does, see above.
As a broader thought: grandiloquent phrases like “the moment and the argument matter” are the shoddy coin of a bad argument. If Paul’s virtues do not outlast the moment, then their value inside it is, to put it most kindly, suspect.
One final thing: libertarianism, because it is about allowing people to do things, is easily conflated with the things it allows people to do. In that sense, it is always vulnerable to being regarded as indifferent to injustice – not because it is inherently indifferent to injustice (although it may often, in practice, be), but because it puts freedom first.
This is the point at which I felt the Harvard Government Department started to investigate the procedure for calling in its degrees. If libertarianism as Sullivan understands it (and here, apparently, subscribes to) regards the right to discriminate against African-Americans as an element of “freedom” that cannot be compromised by any consideration of, say, the freedom of African-Americans to do as they would, then, yes, it will and properly should be conflated with that which it allows people to do. In fact, classical liberalism recognizes the fact of society, which means that there are constraints on an individuals rights that pinch at the point where the exercise of those rights impinges on those of others with whom one rubs shoulders. The parody of liberalism that modern libertarianism enacts fails at exactly this point. Sullivan here enters that parody, by asserting that there are these perfectly isolated and opposed concepts of Freedom and Justice.
Much of the left and a great deal of the right has no interest in putting liberty before justice. But I do not believe that that philosophical position renders one a bigot.
And, Mr. Sullivan, you are, in the particular case you are arguing, wrong. You cannot have liberty without justice. There. I said it.
Bluntly, if you do not have, say, equal treatment before the law, then those sacrificed for others’ liberty invalidate the concept for all involved. I’m going to blog about one of the most eloquent statements I’ve ever heard of this view in a day or two, but I think the basic principle is obvious — and it is grasped by anyone who gets the idea that the exercise of my property rights to dump sewage into my stretch of river does injustice, and is illiberal, by the time it reaches your run of the water. This really isn’t hard.
Enough. Sullivan is not, or has ceased to be, anything like a thinker. This is just reflex, and a child’s approach to argument. Liberty good! Justice inconvenient! It would be merely sad, if this author weren’t so widely read. Over time, however, this kind of nonsense may remedy that unfortunate circumstance.
*Or rather his quite Cheney-esque commitment to never, ever, admitting he might be wrong here.
**With a holiday tip of the hat to that great man, Peter Medawar.
Image: El Greco, Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple, 1570-1576
Amanda in the South Bay
But Ron Paul wants to legalize weed.
Jason
Again: Sullivan’s philosophy boils down to:
Bush fag-baiting: Dealbreaker. I am BETRAYED!
Ron Paul nigger-baiting: Complexity! Nuance! We must take a balanced perspective on these things!
beltane
Sully is just another member of Ron Paul’s stoner-boy fan club. It is amazing that someone this silly enjoys a platform to publicize his “thoughts”, but engaging with him is a waste of time.
Roger Moore
Isn’t that exactly what being indifferent means, not caring about it because something else is more important? By what fucking Humpty Dumpty definition is that not indifference?
Emma
This has been another episode of “Jesus, it’s hard to believe Sullivan is such a self-centered jackass.” Watch this space for upcoming episodes, ad infinitum.
jl
I read the link.
I cannot figure out the passage that started with “One final thing: libertarianism, because it is about allowing people to do things,” and sad to say, TLs commentary did not help.
Anyway, what is the big mystery? Paul was and is basically OK with the racist and anti Semitic garbage, isn’t he?
My understanding is that his only real direct response to it has been to the effect of: Jeez, lay off already, I had to make a buck, so I let it slide.
Not sure where I saw that, but I think it is something he said during the latest episode when he walked off the set.
The implications of that attitude are pretty clear.
I think a certain part of the GOP primary voter base, outside the Paul fanatics, are OK with that attitude (edit: so this racist stuff may not hurt him in the polls immediately). But, from my own experience of non racist and non bigot teabaggers in my family (who do have a few good points about them), it will not be OK with many of them. Either Paul’s attitude will be offensive, or be OK but too blatant to allow continued self denial about one of the favorite political tactics of the reactionaries.
So, what nutcase/cynic/swindler will be the next notRomney?
gnomedad
What does it profit a man if he forsake McMegan and take up Sully?
jl
@Roger Moore: Yes, thanks, that was my reaction to Sullivan’s ramblings.
jacy
Sully has an entire corral of hobby horses and he intends to ride each one into the ground. He’s the worst kind of romantic fanboi, who clutches at something that he thinks make him seem contrarian and cool, but eventually they all end in the long walk-back of shame. You could start an entire chain of mall kiosks to house the pretzels he twists himself into to explain his ill-though-out, poorly-resourced views. I LOLed when he accused TNC of not being able to “see the forest for the trees” re: Ron Paul is a big, fat bigot. The fuck?
Seriously the moratorium on taking anything Sully says seriously and not dismissing it as the ramblings of a starry-eyed 12-year-old with poor social skills is loooong overdue.
Ruckus
@Emma:
I don’t know why it’s so hard to believe Sullivan=self-centered jackass. What is so hard for me to believe is that there is such a large audience for such a self-centered jackass.
BO_Bill
Nature’s justice is stupid people being punished. We can deviate from this Truth from time to time, in an effort to boost our group self-esteem, here is your ribbon Johnnie, but for better or worse it is a recurring theme of Life.
Ron Paul represents those Americans brought to a level of awareness allowing them to comprehend the cause of the modern dollar being worth around 1/300th of what it was in the year 1900. Capacity for awareness is a characteristic of a higher-than-average IQ, and has close parallels with human military prowess in the age of metals and stored energy.
That it is conceivable that Ron Paul could win a universal suffrage vote (that includes females) in Iowa, is stunning.
Redshift
@Roger Moore:
I think Spinal Tap is the best guide to how libertarians are not indifferent to justice:
In other words, they really do care about justice, just not enough to allow any mechanism to ensure it, because that would go against Liberty™.
Ken
Wasn’t this a Futurama episode? The part about “I know some people say Emperor Zlurg will destroy the Earth as he did Pandrix-7, but I like his tax policies so he’s got my vote.”
Villago Delenda Est
This is absolutely the essence of it, but selfish asswipes like Sullivan, totally obsessed with the pursuit of their own pleasures with no thought to any consequences thereof (bearbacking while HIV positive, anyone?) are frankly a bit too blockheaded to get that.
Which is the the main reason why libertarianism is stupid. It fails to recognize that unless all those liberties apply to everyone, the entire concept is a farce. Freedom for the Galtian overlord, coupled with a servile, short and brutal life for the 99% provides one with the makings of assholes like Sully riding tumbrels to their earned and just desserts.
beltane
I was just about to add that Sully has been sounding a lot like BO_Bill lately, and then here comes BO_Bill sounding a lot like Sully. I am sorry that BO_Bill does not get paid for his trolling the way Sully does but as they say, it’s not what you know but who you know.
slag
Gosh. I’m quite surprised that Andrew Sullivan doesn’t recognize latent racism when he sees it. That’s so unlike him!
poco
@gnomedad: FTW!!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@beltane:
I’m a hardcore stoner and I would never consider voting for Paul (or Johnson). I’ve been stoned out of my gourd but weed never got me that fucking stoned.
Sully must be dipping into the PCP-laced stuff. Only an animal tranquilizer would make Paul look good.
trollhattan
@beltane:
FXT
BOB has…different standards.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
You beat me to this. First thing I thought of.
JonF
I don’t get Sully, Weigel or Friedersdorf’s obsession with Paul…to the point where they’re completely willing to destroy their audience and reputation just so that they can bend over backwards to give Paul a blumpkin. Why not support Gary Johnson, who has stronger libertarian beliefs and isn’t a raging asshole like Paul is?
Villago Delenda Est
@JonF:
Johnson has no cult of personality surrounding him as Paul does.
You think these lunkheads would notice that particular aspect of it…slavish authoritarian thinking surrounding someone who claims to be a libertarian…but no, they don’t.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est: Send Sully some Moonie literature, maybe it will ‘take’ and we might get a change of pace.
Edit: or maybe I meant LaRouche, I get them mixed up sometimes. Anyway, the fusion dudes who have the Obama pics with Hitler ‘staches.
Jay
“Does anyone…really think that such a victory will cause the Romney or the not-Romney juggernaut to swerve an iota?”
It may cause a swerve, and I trust it will only help the President. The thought delights me, and everyone else on this thread should be pumped, too.
Follow me. Didn’t Buchanan’s New Hampshire win do something to the GOP in ’92? Wasn’t it about the time of Buchanan’s primary victory that Dan Quayle ran around the country bitching about rap music and “Murphy Brown,” while Bill Clinton set himself up as a far-from-resentful, Oakley-wearing, straight-up cool sax player?
When Paul eventually quits the Republican race, I’m not sure he will get anything he wants from the GOP on the foreign policy front, and if he doesn’t leave the party, perhaps he will insist upon a heavy emphasis on “social issues” as a condition of not sending his supporters to, say, the Constitution Party’s candidate. I mean, imagine if the GOP nominee, whoever it is, has to go into swing states screaming EVEN LOUDER about abortion and immigration? The GOP can kiss Virginia goodbye, again. Obama can win Wisconsin and Ohio simply by reminding people how awful Walker and Kasich are, and off we go.
Finally, Gary Johnson is going to be on the ballot in every state. He’s Paul minus the baggage. This article at TPM even suggests Johnson is doing well enough in his native New Mexico to guarantee that state for the President.
As I see it, the GOP will have to move fast to appease Paul if he wins Iowa, and whether they do or not, the combination of Paul and Johnson will screw up the GOP vote.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
I’ll rarely give CNN any credit for anything, but Gloria Borger asked Paul about that stuff the other day, and I think the worst thing he said was, in reply to her calling a lot of the printed epithets “incendiary,” “Only because you people make it out to be” or something similar.
It’s perfectly conceivable that a crackpot goldbug conspiracy monger like Paul could end up with some really terrible stuff in the newsletter that he didn’t write himself. But to say that anybody asking questions about stuff like “Martin Luther King holiday = Hate Whitey Day” is CREATING a shitstorm where none should rightfully exist is endorsing that rhetoric. Disavowing it, apologizing for it, taking some responsibility for it and showing that you might have some idea why people might get upset about it would at least be an adult thing to do. Might not fool anybody, but it would give a veneer of a civilized human being. But no, no, this is just one more case of the crabs pulling another Galtian genius back down into the bucket. Wingnuts love playing the victim, but this one is really really hard to play that card with in the eyes of anybody that isn’t a bigot. How anybody could see that kind of exchange, and NOT come to the conclusion that Paul is a kooky bigoted old bastard, requires either a similar bigotry or a level of willful blindness that is staggering. We need to give Sully his own fucking verb for this fanboi stuff he pulls.
JonF
@Villago Delenda Est: So true on both accounts. I wonder if all the Paul Blumpkineers are secretly massive Ayn Rand fanboys also.
I didn’t see this brought up, but by Sully’s logic, Libertarianism would allow anti-gay hate crimes and sully would have no right to complain about them.
trollhattan
Also, too, “Free bananas!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igQlbesF0zA&NR=1&feature=endscreen
Warren Terra
@BO_Bill: Oh, noes, the dollar lost 99.7% of its value in 110 years, allegedly. Except, y’know, it didn’t:
For those of you playing at home, that’s a 25-fold reduction in value over 110 years. Bill said 300-fold. Has Bill been using McMegan’s calculator?
And there’s kind of an important point: that’s not even 3% annual inflation. And a little bit of inflation is a good thing. Without a little bit of inflation, people sitting on their capital have no reason to invest it in productive enterprises. When inflation gets too low, you enter into a so-called deflationary spiral – “so-called” deflationary because the point of entry doesn’t require a negative inflation rate.
taylormattd
Listen. It’s really simple. Andrew Sullivan has a racism problem, to put it mildly. The guy is responsible for putting the fucking Bell Curve in TNR, and he is proud of that TO THS DAY. It should be no surprise to see he fluffing a racist piece of shit like Ron Paul.
beltane
@Odie Hugh Manatee: There is a certain breed of stoner (you know who I’m talking about)who tend to fall hard for Ron Raul. They also tend to be single guys with no family attachments to speak of who have not progressed emotionally or intellectually since leaving middle school. Wayne’s World for the fat and middle-aged. I really believe that if Sullivan wasn’t British, no one would pay any mind to what he has to say.
jl
@Comrade Nimrod Humperdink:
” How anybody could see that kind of exchange, and NOT come to the conclusion that Paul is a kooky bigoted old bastard, requires either a similar bigotry or a level of willful blindness that is staggering. We need to give Sully his own fucking verb for this fanboi stuff he pulls. ”
That is exactly it. Paul sees no reason to take responsibility. His reaction is basically, ‘eff it, why are you bothering me about that nonsense. I was running a
scaminvestment newsletter and making bank. I can’t be bothered to know WTF was in it.tequila0341
@Jason: He does love The Bell Curve, after all.
Benjamin Franklin
I recall in Sacha Baron Cohens last film, he got Paul in his hotel room and tried to get ‘jiggy’. Paul nearly stomped him on the way out.
Where does Cohen find the people who don’t have a clue who he is?
jl
@Warren Terra: For goodness, sake don’t paper over our catastrophic decline. 25, 250, 300 percent, what is the difference.
You can’t find a good liver pill these days at any price. It cost me a fortune to get a man to dig out my privy, and no one will repair my coal stove.
Our living standards are destroyed and you sit their quibbling over round off errors.
Cat Lady
It’s pretty clear why he doesn’t allow comments – he can’t handle the truth. He’s a ready shoot aim ninny with thin skin and typical conservative lack of self-awareness – sticking his fingers in his ears so he can’t hear the objections to racism, anti-semitism and anti-feminism, because Ron Paul would let him smoke pot. Fuck him.
Downpuppy
I only have one question : What is that gin-lane debauched toddler doing in the temple?
jl
@Downpuppy: Yo mean in the post pic? I dunno, I have been concentrating on the boobs in mid bounce.
Trentrunner
Everyone should follow RP_Newsletter on Twitter. Someone is tweeting excerpts from the Ron Paul Newsletters.
They are APPALLING. A cesspool of racism, nativism, homophobia, xenophobia. In other words, Today’s Republican Party.
And remember, whatever else Paul says about the Newsletters’ content–whether he wrote or read it or whatever–Ron Paul got PAID for this swill. It was a subscription-based newsletter.
Ron Paul GOT PAID for this shit. PAID.
Emma
@Ruckus: Me either. I think I’ve visited his site about 5 times total, and only because someone else insisted that I MUST see what he had posted. Now I just smile and nod and ignore him and his fanboys.
jl
@Trentrunner:
” Ron Paul GOT PAID for this shit. PAID. ”
Funny thing is, that is Paul’s explanation.
He is a consistent libertarian, I guess.
Edit: maybe we should file the Paul/racism conundrum under ‘different cultures talking past each other’.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@beltane: “There is a certain breed of stoner (you know who I’m talking about)…”
Yup. The ones who still get stoned and haven’t progressed to the point of smoking themselves straight. They sit around getting stoned, laughing at shit they think is stupid, thinking of themselves as the most insightful, witty people in the country.
If you get stoned and everything in your life revolves around that then you need professional help.
They need help, not a political savior.
Downpuppy
@jl: Bouncing boobs you say? That makes more sense than the Katy Perry/Fembot weapons that I was seeing.
stormhit
There’s not a single word in your rambling that indicates you’re even aware it’s a primary only endorsement.
Which is, you know, kind of important.
Trentrunner
Here’s a lovely VERBATIM excerpt from RP’s Newsletter. Wonder what Sully will think of this (bolded because Mac and blogsoftware won’t play nice):
AIDS Dementia
If you heard a certain behavior of yours caused a deadly disease, wouldn’t you immediately cease & desist?
Well, gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense. They have stopped practicing “safe sex.”
The rate of AIDS infection is on the increase again. From the gay point of view, the reasons seem quite sensible.
First, these men don’t really see a reason to live past their fifties.
They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners.
These conditions do not make one’s older years the happiest.
Second, because sex is the center of their lives, they want it to be as pleasurable as possible, which means unprotected sex.
Third, they enjoy the attention & pity that comes with being sick.
Put it all together, and you’ve got another wave of AIDS infections, that you, dear taxpayer, will be asked to pay for.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@jl:
But he’s NOT!
Does he support gay marriage? No- he just says that the Federal government shouldn’t tell the states whether or not they should recognize gay marriage. It’s the same stance he takes on abortion, drugs, the separation of church and state and civil rights. He wouldn’t keep some tyrannical government from treading all over individual rights except for a tyrannical Federal government.
JPL
hello moderators… who is the trentrunner person?
He doesn’t understand that ST. Ronny signed emtala that achieved nothing.
emtala treats emergency care only and allows hospitals to write off a much larger amount than if the insurance company were to pay. Aids has nothing to do with it..
Trentrunner
I’m right here. I can hear you. :)
beltane
There are no words…
JPL
whoops.. apologies to trentrunner since he was quoting Paul.. Can we ban Paul?
jl
@Downpuppy: I try to put a favorable interpretation on things. The woman is walking briskly, she is on the upstep, and her boobs are very clearly in mid bounce. I have studied it closely and that is my judicious conclusion.
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I agree. What I wrote before was snark.
Mnemosyne
@stormhit:
Why is it important? To repeat a metaphor I used yesterday, if your friend announces that he’s going to commit suicide, do you sit down with him to do a cost/benefit analysis of drinking Drano vs. a bullet to the head, or do you get him checked into the hospital as a danger to himself?
Litlebritdifrnt
OT but related to Mistermixes post the other day, one of my husband’s students was shot today, by a fucking moron cleaning a high powered rifle on his front fucking porch. The bullet went through THREE FUCKING PEOPLE killing one and seriously injuring two. ONE FUCKING BULLET. We are reliably informed that Jahmesha came through surgery okay ( fuck Hippa everyone knows everyone down there) they were doing nothing but getting in their car to go to Myrtle Beach. A 16 year old girl is dead, another 16 year old is in critical condition and their aunt is also in critical condition because of ONE FUCKING BULLET. I am gutted. DH doesn’t know what to do. The entire community is in total and utter shock.
http://www.wect.com/story/16385265/two-teenagers-shot-in-chadbourn
Lee
OT:
Perry is done.
From CNN: “Rick Perry won’t appear on Virginia’s primary ballot after submitting petition without enough signatures, officials say.”
wasabi gasp
Sullivan gets set in his ways more than Paul.
JPL
@Litlebritdifrnt: How tragic. It sounds as though a lot of students need lots of hugs. I would think that the person cleaning the gun could be charged with involuntary manslaughter but I don’t know. How can one bullet do so much damage?
mistersnrub
Sullivan today conveniently failed to discuss the odious, General Jack D. Ripperesque direct mail advertisement bearing Paul’s signature and stating that, because he is a physician, he was able to see through the “federal-homosexual cover-up of AIDS.” Instead, Sully can only taunt his critics (“I doubt [soldiers are] backing him because he’s a foul racist.”).
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Re: Goldbuggery, Austrian Economics and Paul the economic saboteur
IMO, there hasn’t been enough discussion about Paul’s no votes on raising the debt ceiling. Had he been in the majority, the dollar would have been weakened, and gold prices would have soared further, making Paul an even wealthier man.
Dee Loralei
@taylormattd: This. That’s all. Sully is blind or indifferent to his own inner racist and misogynist, he can’t see it blatantly in others. I don’t read him for that reason.
Davis X. Machina
@JPL: Expertise and money both spent like water to achieve precisely that end.
We’re not just monkeys, we’re clever monkeys.
Litlebritdifrnt
@JPL:
I would hope that at least he gets charged with that. When we first got the call this afternoon I said to DH “how can one bullet do so much damage” but apparently the rifle was a very high powered one and the bullet went through all three of them, it hit the girl who was killed first, Mesha second and the aunt the third. I cannot understand how morons are allowed to own weapons this powerful.
Cat Lady
@Lee:
He wasn’t going to win anything anyway, but what a fucking moron. All that time and money he’s spent just to show the whole world what a stone cold idiot he really is. He should ask his “advisors” for his money back. Didn’t they leave Newt to go work for him? Heckuva job guys.
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
That is just . . . no words.
Condolences to the families and friends of the woman who was killed, and white light for full recovery and healing to the two who were injured.
Just sickening, maddening, and so so sad.
SiubhanDuinne
@Cat Lady:
I may be misremembering, but isn’t George Fking Will’s wife a Perry advisor?
::chuckle::
Warren Terra
@Lee:
iirc, Newt also just barely managed to scrape together 11,500 signatures for a requirement of 10,000. If Romney decides to scrutinize Newt’s signatures, there’s a fair chance Newt won’t make the ballot in Virginia, either.
Schlemizel
look – l’il andy does not have an intellectually honest bone in his whole head can we please please please please please please please give him the dismissal he so richly deserves?
This is a guy would would gladly join the SA and then be totally stunned on the night of the long knives. He does not think, he knows what is correct and then when his stupidity is pointed out he equivocates, prevaricates, or masturbates but never ever thinks.
He is not worth our time EVER he never was and never will be because he does not actually think about what he writes.
How about a rule for 2012 – no more than 1 l’il andy a month. Its more notice & more clicks than he deserves. I am fucking sick and tired of this asshole and the attention he gets from BJ.
MikeJ
@Cat Lady: One the one hand, in Virginia it is incredibly difficult to get on the ballot. Not only do you need more sigs than other states, that have to come from various counties. It’s not like you can stand outside the Falls Church metro for the afternoon and get it.
That said, I remember the Clark and Dean teams racing to beat each other in ’04, both turning in far, far more than needed (in case of challenges,) both turning in the petitions in early September.
whiskey
yes, at best ron paul’s relationship with racism is the same as george wallace’s, but i don’t get how this criticism is supposed to make any other republican candidate more palatable in comparison
Benjamin Franklin
Please ignore the trolls. They relish negtive attention. If you wish to enable emotional derelicts with a substance abuse issue, then respond. Otherwise, the most efficacious answer; is none at all.
Stan of the Sawgrass
Remember the 2000 campaign, when Joe Klein discovered the compassion and deep faith of the former Gov. from Texas, with his not-in-anger-but in-sorrow empathy for all the lazy welfare parasites? Bush was an unhinged corporate-obsessed winger all along, and any journalist worth his Ameros would have done some kind of due diligence and seen the scam for what it was. Now it’s good ol’ Sully excusing yet another wingbat’s creepy past because of his ‘principles.’
Anya
You know who else is defending Ron Paul? This is who. And here he’s recommending Conor Friedersdor defense of Ron Paul. In another tweet he attacked Jon Chait.
ciaran
I mean why even bother with sully, @ this stage everyone knows that he’s a pretentious fucken tool. I mean that’s the long and
short of it.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
That’s what bullets are designed to do: kill things. I won’t go into the whole rehash of mistermix’s anti-gun thread, but if people could get it into their heads that a gun is specifically designed to kill things with maximum efficiency, they might not be so cavalier about safety.
Mnemosyne
@Anya:
Yep. Because he only cares about civil liberties. He doesn’t give two shits about civil rights. Two different things.
Triassic Sands
Damn, it takes a long time for people to give up on lost causes, whether the lost cause be Paul or Sullivan.
Paul’s economic policies would return us to a previous century, not just in policy, but in GDP.
Fortunately, Sullivan is relatively harmless — as long as you have the good sense to not read anything he writes.
Oh, and as Grinch Scott Walker would say: Blessings of the Season to you all.
Blessings of the Season? WTF?
Suffern ACE
@Anya: GG was one of those guys who were Gary Johnson curious, so that’s not a surprise.
Roger Moore
@jl:
His defense is basically that he can’t do an adequate job of running a medical office and a scam investment newsletter at the same time, so he let one slide. I don’t think “my subordinate was really running things and I couldn’t be bothered to check up on him” is an acceptable excuse for a President, so I don’t think it’s an adequate response from a Presidential candidate. Why anyone should be willing to accept that argument as a reasonable answer from somebody who’s supposed to be responsible for the whole damn executive branch is beyond me.
Jonny Scrum-half
Levenson’s post suggests that if individuals were free to discriminate, as Paul’s philosophy would permit, there wouldn’t be “equal justice under the law.” I don’t follow. The state/law still could be prohibited from discriminating, but private individuals would be permitted to do so.
Jonny Scrum-half
I also think Levenson’s post is internally contradictory. He says that voting for Paul won’t “reorient” the Republican Party (as Sullivan appears to be arguing) because there’s no way Paul will ever win. However, Levenson also insists that a voter needs to consider how Paul’s entire policy platform would affect society if enacted.
In short, I think that it makes perfect sense for a Republican primary voter to vote for Paul in the hope that maybe both parties will get a message that our foreign policy needs to be changed.
RSA
@Triassic Sands:
Or anything that other people write. From what I’ve read of libertarianism as a philosophy, libertarianism is a theory of justice. That is, when Sullivan writes,
implying that he himself puts liberty before justice, it’s a “philosophical position” that’s not really coherent, if Sullivan really thinks of himself as a libertarian. Tom put it more concisely, of course: “You cannot have liberty without justice.”
Anya
@Mnemosyne: What amazes me is he calls it “baggage”. WTF!
@Suffern ACE: Didn’t Gary Johnson say racism ended with the election of the first AA President?
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
I’m old enough to remember 1968. Ron Paul’s fanbase reminds me a lot of the McCarthy-mania from that campaign. Of course, an equal number of single-issue voters could probably be ginned up from the equivalent of the George Wallace crowd to support Paul, too.
Thinking about this, I had a vision of the 1968 Democratic convention where the McCarthy and Wallace fans worked together to disrupt the process. Could we be lucky enough to see that kind of mayhem at the Republican convention next year? (Assuming Ron Paul makes it that far of course.)
Mnemosyne
@Jonny Scrum-half:
If a private individual decided to discriminate by, say, refusing to rent an apartment to a minority, could they be sued? If not, then the law has chosen the side of discrimination by default by deciding that discrimination is not illegal. And once the law chooses sides like that, then the law gets involved in enforcing discrimination as private business owners call the cops to throw out the people they’re trying to discriminate against.
MikeJ
@Anya: Racism is just “baggage” to GG. I wonder what he has to say about:
Suffern ACE
@MikeJ: I’m sure the focus would be on the moderation in that view. It was only gay men with AIDS who he favored subjecting to quarantine, which was different from the position, common, say, with the 700 Club set at the time that all gay men should be put into preventative detention.
Samara Morgan
Look Levenson.
All those guys, Paul, Sully, Weigel, Kain, Friedersdorf, Manzi, Greenwald, Gillispie….they are all libertarians. Classic, text book liberty as means libertarians.
That is what libertarianism IS in America.
Jim Manzi’s essay on the Paradox of libertarianism THAT I HAVE LINKED A HUNDRED TIMES explains this. Liberty as means libertarianism is just localized mob-rule….aka States Rights Federalism.
The system is too “complex” so we have to “experiment”.
Well experimentation in social systems results in anti-miscegenation laws and segregation academies.
And experimentation in economics resulted in the Econopalypse that ate Americas Jobs.
oh jesus fucking christ inna hardcart…..what the hell is the TNT Party?
karen marie
One reason I don’t read Sully is that he makes me laugh so hard I’m afraid I’m going to split my uninsured gut.
SoINeedAName48
ZZZZZZZZZ …
Mark S.
Jesus Christ, can we stop paying attention to this asshole? There is no way this is “at worst.” “At worst,” Paul wrote some of the shit in his newsletters and was fully aware of the crap Rockwell was writing.
If Paul wasn’t writing at least some of them, would he really let his ghostwriter say things like
“My youngest son is starting his fourth year in medical school. He tells me there would be no way to persuade his fellow students of the case for economic liberty.”
“Now that my five children are grown and educated, I’ve listened to the many supporters who’ve urged me to return to office. I can now give up my medical practice, and dedicate every fiber of my being to saving our country.”
He must have been writing at least a few of them. And no politician, not even an idiot like Paul, would give a crackpot like Rockwell carte blanche to write anything they wanted to in his name.
Anya
@MikeJ: I read all of his back and forth with Bob Cesca, so I think he will say that such views were prevalent in the era. Then he’ll throw in how Obama is killing Muslim kids with drones on a daily basis, so there, you cultist apologist for the Dear Leader.
Samara Morgan
Somebody said that Sully just doesnt get the racial divisions in America….look at this epically stupid statement.
Paul is anti-immigrant and a documented racist. The GOP needs minority voters to head off the demographic timer, not the Jame O’Keefe demographic.
Sully is quite mad, i think.
I think he’s tainted with the brit “White Mans Burden”.
Brachiator
Yes. This gets to the essence of things, and deftly demolishes Sully’s convoluted attempt to define bigotry as a virtue.
Sophist(from droid)
In other words, libertarianism is often blamed for the inevitable results of libertarianism, which is totally unfair.
jl
@Brachiator: I don’t have the links but Founders were big on justice, Madison, Hamilton, the whole sick crew, mentioned that along with liberty. But they were not libertarians, therefore deluded and I guess should be ignored when interpreting the Constitution. Perhaps they did not truly understood what they had wrought.
rikyrah
I don’t post much on Ron Paul, mainly because I know how I feel about the man – he’s a racist, and I’m quite clear on that. But, I really enjoyed Melissa Harris-Perry on Rachel Maddow last night discussing Ron Paul. Melissa is never the ‘Happy Negro’ on tv, but watch her in this clip- the chill in her voice as she discusses Paul was a little startling, but her words were as lethal as her tone, IMO.
It was perfection. There was no ‘happiness’ in her voice as she discussed Paul. It was just this side of the tone that a Black person gets when they’re about to tell your ass off. I was stunned to see it on tv.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#45772174
Lee
@rikyrah:
Excellent clip, thanks for sharing.
I like how Melissa Harris-Perry said RP could put this behind him. I really think she gave him pretty good advice on it and she acknowledged how he does give reasoned explanations of his policies. Her advice for RP was very similar to the way Sen Byrd was able to put his Klan days behind him.
Suffern ACE
The advice to militia groups on how to organize doesn’t seem very presidential. Also, it would be a good time to discuss the Trilateral Commission. Also how anti-counterfeiting measures were really about putting electronic tracers into the money.
jim filyaw
any belief that sullivan was a serious thinker evaporated for me a long time ago. now, i check him out infrequently for interesting links i don’t have time to screen or look for. otherwise, his opinion affects me like the weather in timbuktu.
Interrobang
@Litlebritdifrnt: Holy cow, that’s horrible. I hope there’s some kind of good resolution, and maybe that reckless jerk will learn something about gun safety. My condolences to everyone involved…
I’m Canadian, so I really don’t get how a civilian person could even have a weapon like that on a normal neighbourhood street. It’s not the kind of thing you’d use for hunting (unless you’re a psycho who just wants to splatter animals), and it’s a long gun, so not much good in the few rare situations where a handgun might perhaps come in handy. Scary. The idea of people waving guns around worries me. I mean, I was just in Israel about a month ago, and I saw armed soldiers there, but they just had their guns slung over their backs; they weren’t, you know, pointing them at people or anything. I’ve seen scarier shit than that here at home, after 9/11.
Jay
@rikyrah:
“Happy Negro…”
I don’t think I’d be thread – jacking because we’re so far down this one, but could you unpack this term a bit?
I don’t doubt that black intellectuals and pundits are pressured by TV hosts and execs to talk a certain way, but I’d be interested in the extent to which black pundits and intellectuals think this pressure exists today.
Melissa Harris – Perry really is a tough lady, btw. Her smackdown of Joan Walsh was absolutely epic.
rikyrah
@Jay:
Ok, every Black person that appears on Fox is the ‘ Happy Negro’, even if they are on there to ‘supposedly’ provide the left-wing viewpoint.
I WISH the Eugene Robinson that was in print would show up on tv, but he doesn’t.
Joe Madison is NOT a ‘Happy Negro’.
but, Jonathan Capehart certainly is.
Harris-Perry is that rare Black person, who appears on tv, and what she says nearly always has a sharp razor to it, but usually, she can use her voice to blunt the sharpness of what her actual words are saying.
that’s why in that clip about Paul, I was so stunned, because she took that out of her voice, and let her sharp, biting words be felt almost to their near brutalness.
Brachiator
@jl:
If you follow the implications of their arguments, it soon becomes clear that libertarians have little use for the Constitution, or even democracy or the concept of citizenship. Instead, they have a fetish for “liberty” and contracts between private individuals. There is certainly nothing in the Constutution or The Federalist Papers (which considers and rejects arguments against the Constitution) which has much to do with any of the nutty, intellectually inconsistent ramblings of Ron Paul and his supporters.
Egg Berry
But, But, look out this window!
Neo
“Among Republicans and conservatives, there simply aren’t enough people who care whether he’s a racist or not.”
Frankly, I haven’t taken Paul seriously from the beginning, but let’s get a grip on this. This guy has been running for President so long (only Harold Stassen and Pat Paulsen ran more) and only now our esteemed media have bothered to look at this guys record. It’s better than what they did with Obama, but .. please.
Breezeblock
All I got is a “wow”.
Oh, and a “Sully, you are such a dumfuk.”
I mean, really. Why does anyone subject themselves to his brain/bowel movements?
intelligentdasein
And yet, the racist candidate is the only one pointing out the structural racism involved in the drug war, the police state, and the prison industrial complex. The support of Ron Paul among the young and minorities is very real, and it is because the Democratic Party has become utterly corrupt and is in the process of destroying itself. The longer this goes on, the more these people will simply drop out of the system and engage in this impotent acting out. So stop patting yourselves on the back.
AxelFoley
@Anya:
Wow, the fuck is up with gay dudes defending this old codger? I mean, generally when a person is a racist and misogynist, they tend to not like homosexuals, too.
Brachiator
@intelligentdasein:
Among some of the young, true, but Paul’s appeal here is mainly to perpetual adolescents who look at laws as little more than silly parental rules getting in the way of a good time.
I seriously doubt that Paul has much support among people of color.
brewmn
@AxelFoley: I was waiting for someone to bring up GG, who is a huuuuge fan of Paul’s (thanks, anya). GG suppposedly loves Paul because of his stances on the military-industrial complex and civil liberties, stances I share.
But Greenwald’s too much of an idiot to understand that Paul would have about as much success reining in the MIC or our secret wars abroad as Obama had shutting down Guantanamo. Empire America ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Darnell From LA
I don’t get the stilted importance Ron Paul fans place on his weeeeeed position. I mean, hey, here in Los Angeles I could get a medical marijuana card same day and have weed delivered to my house if I wanted to.
Does legal weed trump all other concerns? If so, WTF?
Samara Morgan
one. more. time.
Paul is a libertarian, He is not pro-gay rights– he is pro-States rights.
He is not pro-weed– he wants to let the states make the rules.
He is not anti-war– he is anti-America paying for war.
he is not pro-civil liberties– he is pro-market liberties.
Greenwald, Kain, Weigel, etc. ARE ALL LIBERTARIANS.
All this bulshytt about Paul adding to the conversation is riddikkulous.
The only youth Paul attracts is the James O’Keefe/Young Cons demographic plus skinheads and jr. klannsmen.
Paul is electoral poison for blacks and browns….JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHER GOP CANDIDATES.
Like Silver says (even if no conservative or libertarian will acknowledge it), demographics is destiny.
THE
Samara, my impression of Paul is that he is very much influenced by Austrian economics.
Wasn’t Peter Schiff one of his advisors on a previous (2008) Presidential attempt?
Samara Morgan
this is the SAME conflict America has had since the beginning. States Rights (localized mob-rule) vs the civil rights and civil liberties of ALL american citizens.
this is why neo-confederates and libertarians dont feel moral shame over slavery or not voting for the civil rights act.
this act worked for centuries, because free market economics preserved American citizens as the overclass at the expense of farming the rest of the countries of the globe.
but the times they are a changing.
Social media and technology have changed them. America can’t play the role of Land of the Free and Home of the Brave anymore.
People here hate on Assange and Manning…but if not for them we would still be in Iraq. We were planning on staying long time. We built over five hundred fucking bases and an embassy the size of the vatican.
We are trying to negotiate “permanent” bases with the Karzai government right now.
we should be negotiating with Pak instead.
the libertarian model has failed. it failed when the south lost the civil war.
and the global libertarian model has failed too– it was just global mob-rule for white Americans, and missionariism to spread the wunnerful free market.
but we are still living in Distributed Jesusland right now.
when the demographic timer hits, then we can escape from Distributed Jesusland.
Samara Morgan
@THE: all libertarians embrace the austrian economists IMHO.
btw, everthing you guys told me about Free Market Theory is crapology.
for example…..the freed market will never eat the rich.
Free Market Theory is a faerytale told by the oligarchs to keep the serfs in line.
This is the only worthwhile book i read on economics.
THE
What books have you read on economics?
Did you do what I suggested and read a first year university text?
Samara Morgan
i read this piece of crap. dude, the empirical data is in– the “freed” market does not work. the freed market does not improve the human condition, it only improves the condition of the overclass.
heres something cheery.
Perry, Bachman, Huntsman, Santorum and possibly Gingrich fail to make the ballot.
A contest between Romney and Paul.
THE
Austrian economics is a long way from mainstream economic theory. It has always had a strong appeal among investors, but has been rather ignored by academia.
THE
The main reason I suggested you read a first year textbook is that it would give you a basic literacy in modern economic thought. What you might call the neoclassical consensus.
FWIW, my own view is not really neoclassical. But you need a grounding in it to be able to make sense of the literature. As a starting point anyway.
S. cerevisiae
@Litlebritdifrnt: I would charge him with negligent homicide because anyone who is incredibly stupid enough to attempt to clean a loaded gun has to be responsible for the consequences of their idiocy.
Deepest sympathy to the families affected by this tragedy.
Ella in New Mexico
First: Gary Johnson would suck just as much as any of the other GOP candidates for Prez: he’s just not a total sleaze, religious bigot, grifter or outright fake.
Second: Seeing as I emailed Andrew Sullivan this yesterday:
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle” — George Orwell?????
Yes it is, especially when one has twisted themselves into an intellectual pretzel trying to reverse engineer an impetuous, impulsive and not completely thought out decision.
No more rationalizing. Just stop digging Andrew, and admit that endorsing Ron Paul with as little reflection as you gave it was just plain DUMB.
I am now taking full credit for this:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/12/re-thinking-the-paul-endorsement.html
“Re-Thinking The Paul Endorsement”
Samara Morgan
@Ella in New Mexico:
well, thass fine, as long as mixie gets full credit for Kain switching back to GaJo.
Fresh Horses.
im kiddin. you dont get full credit.
at least a thousand netizens mailed Sully that he was bein’ a total tard on Paul.
i was one one of them.
Samara Morgan
and Fuck You Sully.
retract this you racist asswipe.
The TNT Party Endorsement.
Samara Morgan
@THE: NO I DONT.
just survey the empirical data Mr. Science Man.
all “freed” market economics has accomplished is widening the inequality gap.
Free market theory is TELEOLOGICALLY incapable of improving the human condition.
FMT only improves the human condition of the overclass.
THE
I don’t advocated a “freed” market. i.e. a radically deregulated market.
I think modern economic theory can handle economies with economically active governments.
In fact, say, Keynesianism assumes it. As does Modern Monetary Theory.
Economic theory can even help you to understand some of the trade-offs and why they arise:
Like crony capitalism, regulatory capture etc.
Jnc
I’m wondering when the dumb asses who said Sullivan would never reconsider his endorsement and would just keep digging are going to come back and say “Gee I guess I was wrong”
Ella in New Mexico
@Samara Morgan:
LO-FUCKING0-L!!!
Hey, a girl’s gotta try, right?
Merry Christmas, America! Sully’s got a thin shred of his mind back!!!!