Zaphod for President

Skeeter Sanders recently brought an article to my attention. It is entitled Racist Rantings in Old Newsletters Aren’t the Only Skeletons in Ron Paul’s Closet. I suggest taking a few moments to read it, and then returning to read my response below.

First and foremost: I find it offensive when bloggers delete opinions and commentary that they disagree with. I would like to believe that we Americans, those who love Dr. Paul, and those who hate him, all understand the value and importance of a free country. I believe that free speech is the most essential ingredient of a free state. Therefore, not only do I accept Skeeter’s right to publish his article, I have just given it front-page status here on my blog.

Some may think that I am only feeding the fire, and encouraging people like Skeeter to continue slandering Ron Paul. I disagree. Having read his article, I believe Skeeter is genuine in his assessment. Therefore, deleting his comment will not serve to change his opinion, rather, it will only serve to confirm the idea that I am somehow afraid of what he has to say.

From Skeeter’s article:

The New Republic magazine and CNN have uncovered a series of newsletters published in Paul’s name in the late 1980s and early 1990s that contain numerous racially-charged articles — including one that says order was restored to Los Angeles after the 1992 riots when blacks went “to pick up their welfare checks.”

Dr. Paul’s response:

Here is where I can agree with Skeeter:

Ron Paul was irresponsible to allow such nonsense to be published in his name.

However, I simply do not agree with the assessment that Ron Paul is a racist. I base this on the policy of Dr. Paul:

1. Dr. Paul is one of the only candidates demanding an end to the drug war.

2. The drug war is one of the most racist institutions in America today; black people constitute less than 15% of the US population, yet at the end of 2004, 45.1% of people in prison for drug violations were black.

3. If Ron Paul truly wanted to cause harm to black Americans, ending the drug war would be way down on his list of priorities.

4. Ron Paul was recently quoted as saying: “I attack two wars that Blacks are suffering from” [referring to the Iraq war and the drug war] “I would pardon all blacks, all whites, everybody that was convicted of non violent drug crimes.”

The fact of the matter is this: the policies of Ron Paul are extremely beneficial to black Americans, far more beneficial than any candidate advocating a continuation of war and drug prohibition- two policies which have affected black Americans disproportionately for the past hundred years (if not longer).

Back to Skeeter’s article. In addition to attacking blacks, the infamous newsletters were also extremely critical of the Israel lobby.

Now, get ready for a bombshell. Technically speaking, I myself am a Jew. My pappy was a Jew. His pappy was a Jew. Both of my grandpappys served in the European theatre in World War II, and my mother’s father was personally responsible for gathering evidence later used in the Nuremberg Trials.

To make matters worse, Lysander Spooner, my co-author on this blog, is also a Jew. If anything, this blog is disproportionately pro-Jew. However, I myself, my pappy, and Spooner, are all fierce critics of the Israel foreign lobby.

Wrap your mind around this: I can be pro-Jew, and anti-Israel, without holding any contradictory position. Likewise, I might be anti-50 cent, and pro-black. I might think Barbara Streisand is a no-talent hack without harboring self-hatred, or a secret desire to be forced into an oven.

Consider the opposite: in order to be cleared of any racist accusations, I must love and favor all people of all races at all times. Baloney! For example: when Michael Richards recently discovered the “N word”, I was rather embarrassed by him. My skin remained the same shade of pasty-white throughout the incident, however, this factoid had little bearing on my opinion of a racist Kramer.

Racism is a form of groupthink gone mad. This is the exact sort of phenomenon that the Paulian Movement is fighting against. For example, I think it is wrong to occupy brown people of Iraq, wrong to lock-up black people for smoking weed, and wrong to borrow money from the red Chinese to finance both. Now, the critical point: the colors, races and creeds of those involved are IRRELEVANT to these positions. I would ALSO think it wrong to bomb the red Chinese while locking up brown people for non-violent drug crimes while borrowing money from the blacks to finance it. This is not about race in the slightest- it is about bad policy- no matter which way you might try to “color the issue”.

I am strongly offended by the policy of the Israel lobby. You can read more of these positons here. To give the foreign policy of Israel a “free pass”, simply because they celebrate Yom Kippur with me, would be extremely prejudicial, and an act of overt racism. To conclude my section on alleged anti-Israel bigotry, I will use a simple cartoon, and then move along.

The final accusation made in Skeeter’s article is that, by accepting a confirmed $500 donation from a white supremacist, Ron Paul is revealing his true colors.

I am torn between a few different responses to this incident.

I’ll start with Ron Paul’s own response (skip ahead to 03:20):

Ron Paul makes three solid points:

1. The money was donated to support Dr. Ron Paul’s message, not the message of white supremacy.

2. If returned to the white supremacist, that money will go to further his cause. In the hands of Ron Paul, it will be used to further our cause. Would you rather it be spent on a few more copies of the Prototcols of the Elders of Zion? Give me a break!

3. We raised over $20 million this quarter. $500, although not irrelevant, is not enough to purchase any sort of influence.

I am tempted to link to the confirmed Communists donating to Hillary Clinton, or to the rogues gallery of lobbyists donating to Barrack Obama, but I won’t waste my time. The remarkable feat of the Ron Paul money bombs stems from who gives the money (we the people), not the specific amounts raised.

I am going to take this argument to the extreme, having already explained my opinion of racism ad nauseum. Does not a white supremacist have a constitutional right to spout hateful, misinformed things, so long as they do not turn such free speech into acts of violence? Does not Howard Stern have a constitutional right to discuss farts? Did not Malcom X have a constitutional right to advocate armed defense in the face of tyranny?

This, friends, is what the revolution is all about. I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend, to my death, your right to say it. No person has the right to cause violence in the furtherance of their belief; be it the carpet bombing of third-world nations, or dragging a gay or black man behind a truck. However, all is welcome in the marketplace of ideas. To censor an idea is to give it undue credibility. Racists, like cockroaches, refuse to face the light, preferring to skitter away into the dark resources of “forbidden media”. And left there, in the dark cracks of society, they will fester and breed untold new generations.

I say: pull away the cupboard from the wall, and let them face the light of scrutiny. Allow their message to be screamed from every rooftop, broadcast on every news program. And let us, as freethinkers, once again confirm our rejection of these ideals- based on rational discourse, not misguided passions. Only then can the colony collapse. Only then will we no longer fear the controversy lurking in the darkness.

I do not agree with everything Dr. Paul has ever said, nor do I agree with every vote he has cast. I believe that, in order to win, our movement will slowly gravitate towards moderate implementations of radical transformation, and furthermore, it may well take us the next four years simply to come to terms with that paradox.

However, in the here and now, I refuse to be a cockroach. I refuse to hide in the comfort of my echo chamber, where every illogical blurb will be confirmed by the sheer intellectual laziness of groupthink. I hope the same is true of Mr. Skeeter Sanders also.

I welcome Mr. Sanders to challenge me on any policy of the Paulian Movement. As I have demonstrated here, I will concede the facts, even when they do not bode well for our dear Dr. Paul. Shine all the light upon me you wish- I welcome the attention, and need a tan.

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