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Skeeter Sanders Speaks Again
An update to this article, with a response-to-a-response. Text in italics comes from Skeeter, text in bold is my response.
It is highly irresponsible of you to suggest that I am calling Ron Paul a racist. I did no such thing, and I deeply resent anyone putting words in my mouth that I did not say.
Please accept a sincere apology. I misunderstood the intent of your article.
Having said that, I will say that Ron Paul was more than irresponsible for this highly offensive garbage to be published in his name — he was was either incredibly negligent or complicit.
Those newsletters were published during the 12 years between the end of Paul’s first stint in Congress in 1985 and the beginning of his present tenure in 1997.
You’re going to have a very difficult time convincing me that Dr. Paul had no control over what was published in his newsletter during that period.
I agree: Ron Paul was was either incredibly negligent or complicit.
Moreover, why has Dr. Paul not publicly denounced the racist screeds in his newsletter in the more than ten years since he returned to Congress?
He has publicly denounced these racist screeds; in print, and in the television interviews posted in my prior article.
Why did he take no action against whomever was responsible for those rants’ publication?
What action is to be taken? Ron Paul made a serious mistake by allowing this to be published in his name in the first place. Any action taken now would be too little, too late.
It was HIS newsletter, published in HIS name. No self-respecting publisher is going to knowingly allow material that he or she finds highly offensive to appear in his or her publication.
That same rule can apply to Internet blogs. If someone hacked my blog site and posted scurrilous material on it, I would not hesitate to shut my site down, remove the offensive material and post a forceful denunciation of that garbage — and whomever was responsible for posting it.
And I would do it IMMEDIATELY. I would not wait a full decade or more to do it.
I could not be more disappointed in these newsletters. Ron Paul dropped the ball, no doubt about it.
As for Dr. Paul’s reasons for accepting Don Black’s $500 donation to his campaign, they make about as much sense as accepting $500 from a drug dealer so that the dealer can’t use it to buy more drugs to sell (To do so can get you prosecuted as an accessory to a crime).
There is a critical difference- it is currently illegal to earn money selling drugs; being a narrow-minded bigot is perfectly constitutional.
No one who truly opposes racism would accept donations from a known racist, no matter how strapped for cash he might be. It’s a matter of principle.
It is a matter of principle: the constitution demands some rather extreme freedoms. These freedoms are more important than the personal comforts of a polite society.
Dr. Paul should have done the principled thing and refused to accept Ron Black’s donation. He did not do so.
Ron Black has a constitutional right to believe in white supremacy; to reject his donation would be contrary to the key principles of Ron Paul.
If his campaign accepted the donation behind Dr. Paul’s back, he should have done the principled thing and returned it once it became public knowledge and his reputation would have remained intact. He did not do so.
In fact, he REFUSED to do either.
Again: I do not agree with the opinions of Ron Black. But- does he not have a constitutional right here? Is this not the freedom of speech?
You mentioned that you’re Jewish. If YOU were the candidate, would YOU accept a campaign donation from a known neo-Nazi? Of course not. Would Joe Lieberman had done so during his campaign for re-election to the Senate? Of course not. Would Barack Obama accept a campaign contribution from a known white supremacist? Of course not.
You are making assumptions. I cannot speak for Barrack Obama, but I myself WOULD accept a donation from a known neo-nazi. And for precisely the reasons I’ve already explained, and for the reason I have given you the spotlight on my own blog although I disagree with you. The freedom of speech is the most essential component to a free state. I may not agree with what you, or a neo-nazi, or Ron Black has to say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.
The bottom line is, Ron Paul has, at the very least, committed a terrible error in judgment by allowing his campaign to be supported so openly by people whose ideology is precisely what America fought against during the Second World War and during the civil rights struggles afterward — at the cost of many lives.
At the very worst, Ron Paul has allowed himself to be associated with the most odious, most contemptible elements in modern American politics.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his immortal “I Have a Dream” speech, said that he dreamed for the day when his four children would grow up in a world where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Part of being judged by the content of one’s character includes being judged by the company one keeps. And right now, Ron Paul is keeping some very unsavory company.
I am not black, and so, I will never understand the struggle for equality that blacks have endured. As a mutt, as a combination of several races, I find the very concept of racism to be inherently absurd. I dream of a day in which racism has gone extinct, and faded from the common vernacular once and for all.
In the meantime, it is my sad duty to inform you that America’s most vile racists still have the constitutional guarantee of free speech, and the right to spout whatever ignorance they wish.
It would seem to me that the far more relevant question is this: is Ron Paul a racist? In my opinion, based on his policy, and his public responses to these charges, Ron Paul is clearly not a racist, nor would his proposed policies be detrimental to American blacks.
No, Ron Paul is not a racist, but judging from the quality of these newsletters, he can be quite incompetent and outright insensitive at times. My only hope is that voters decide on policy, not personality. Otherwise, we are doomed, racist or not.
Hungry for more?
It’s been a VERY long time since I last had an exchange of ideas with a true Jeffersonian democrat — whose principles are the very foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union, which, although I am not a member, I strongly support.
With freedom of speech and expression comes RESPONSIBILITY of speech and expression — especially in the public sphere. You say that racism and bigotry is constitutionally protected. And indeed it is. But there is NO constitutional right to use that racism or bigotry to deny or suppress the constitutional rights of others.
A bigot has a constitutional right to express his or her bigoted views about anyone he or she despises, but has NO constitutional right to make life miserable for those whom the bigot despises — whether through direct action or through the power of the state.
Likewise, I have no constitutional right to silence the views of a racist or bigot, but I have every constitutional right to counter them by voicing my opposing views.
Had Ron Paul refused to accept avowed white supremacist Don Black’s $500 campaign contribution, he would have sent a clear and unmistakable message to Black that he found Black’s racist views so repugnant that he could not accept his contribution in good conscience and as a matter of principle.
But by accepting Black’s contribution, Ron Paul — however unwittingly — ENABLED AND GAVE CREDENCE to Black’s racist viewpoints. And in the process, he inevitably brought upon himself questions by many about his own views on race — questions that leave him vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy at best, given his public statements against racism.
And nobody likes a hypocrite.
Can you see where I’m coming from now?