Ron Paul: race-baiting profiteer; should be disqualified from presidential race

Ron Paul's vile newsletters of past decades are becoming a topic for discussion now, and are definitely a cause for concern. Before I get around to that, Phillip Klein has warned why a vote for Ron Paul in Iowa could end up sending the wrong message, and not what some people apparently desperate for better economy think would be sent. Here, the problem in focus is Paul's noxious views on Israel (via Betsy's Page):

...the reality is that on numerous occasions, Paul has crossed the line from merely saying America should stay out of all conflicts, to actively attacking Israel and taking the Palestinians' side -- even when the non-interventionists should theoretically remain silent.

Nearly three years ago, Israel launched a counterattack on Palestinian terrorists in Gaza who had been firing thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. In early January 2009, Paul released a web video in which he charged that Israel was launching a "pre-emptive war," that Palestinians were living in a "concentration camp" and that they merely had "a few small missiles."

He then repeated this claim on Press TV -- the state-owned propaganda channel of Iran's Islamist government. "To me, I look at it like a concentration camp, and people are making homemade bombs," he said of the situation in Gaza, adding sarcastically, "like they're they aggressors?"

Not only did Paul inaccurately portray Israel as the aggressor, and ignore the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorist attacks, but he also played into the global propaganda campaign to delegitimize Israel. Israel's enemies think that Jews have exploited global sympathy for the Holocaust, so they routinely liken Israelis to Nazis with phrases like "concentration camp."

Well, so much for any defense he might mount about being the "only" member of Congress to defend Israel's attack on Iraq's own nuclear development sites in 1981. Even just recently, he's engaged in some most despicable acts. Klein mentions that Erick Erikson of Red State and Dean Clancy of Freedom Works are 2 more names besides Glenn Beck who are risking throwing away their merits by recommending we vote for Paul, and contradicting Benjamin Franklin's argument that those who seek personal liberty for personal safety deserve neither liberty nor safety, and as a result, I'm not going to waste time on them anymore.

Now, here's where you can find some leading examples of Paul's racist newsletters mainly from the late 80s-early 90s, which, as the evidence presented points out, he both wrote and edited. Here's a most lurid sample of his take on blacks, plus a sample scan:

"We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."

“Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions,”

“I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal,”

“we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational.”

See more at the Houston Chronicle. This stuff absolutely make me shudder. He also seems to think that the public isn't concerned about white offenders, or that there's never been any laws that enable juvenile offenders of all backgrounds to be tried as adults. As it so happens, there have been such laws as early as the 1950s.

James Kirchick at the Weekly Standard (via Atlas Shrugs) has more about this, including how he may have made a whole business off of his abominations:

...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.”

This sordid history would not bear repeating but for the fact that the media love to portray Paul as a truth-telling, antiwar Republican standing up to the “hawkish” conservative establishment. Otherwise, the newsletters, and Paul’s continued failure to name their author, would be mentioned in every story about him, and he would be relegated to the fringe where he belongs. But Paul has escaped the sort of media scrutiny that would bury other political figures. A December 15 profile of Paul in the Washington Post, for instance, affectionately described his love of gardening and The Sound of Music and judged that “world events have conspired to make him look increasingly on point”—all without any mention of the newsletter controversy. Though present at nearly every Republican debate, he has yet to be asked about the newsletters. Had Paul’s persona and views changed significantly since 2008, this oversight might be understandable. But he continues to say and do things suggesting that, far from disowning the statements he has claimed “do not represent what I believe or have ever believed,” he still believes them.

I can wager a good guess why the MSM may not be covering his horrific writings, which almost make Stephen King's thrillers seem tame by contrast: no doubt some of them are concealing this in hopes he'll at least score a minor victory in Iowa, which alone could give them the perfect opportunity to attack the conservative movement for being what they've been working so hard to prove they're not - racist. This is exactly why, IMO, Paul should be expelled from the competition altogether, since the GOP can ill-afford the kind of tarnish he could end up giving their image.

As Bryan Preston tells in his assessment of the latest GOP debate, this was Paul's worst performance to date:

Mitt Romney earns a laugh line for mocking President Obama’s “pretty please, Iran, return our stealth drone!” Pounding Obama’s foreign policy comes easy for anyone on the stage but Ron Paul, and Romney does well here. Bachmann follows up by accusing Obama of intentionally attempting to lose the peace our troops have won in Iraq, and then rips into Ron Paul’s ideas on security, earning applause and boos simultaneously. Bachmann forces Paul to admit that he doesn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons. I’m not sure I’ve heard him say that before. He actually seemed to sense that he was losing the argument. And then he questioned why we were flying a drone over Iran at all. Perhaps, to keep an eye on their nuclear program because we can’t trust the UN that Paul keeps referring to? Paul flew his freak flag more brightly than he has in any previous debate, and lost a heated battle of wits and facts to Michele Bachmann. He ended the exchange in a long-winded, rather intemperate, babble about when he was drafted and how we must declare war before taking any military action. This was by far Paul’s worst moment of any debate, any time he has run. And it was one of Bachmann’s best. Paul should experience a slide back down the polls after tonight. A question about his beliefs concerning 9-11 could have sunk Paul for good, but it went unasked.

We have to hope that better members of the GOP will bring up the subject of Paul's newsletters, because the conservative public in particular has the right to know that this terrible man is someone who could very easily blacken the image of the right and cause considerable division that could jeopardize chances needed to unseat Obama. A responsible leadership would see to it that Paul is expelled from the race, since at this point it would only cause further embarrassment. The newsletters should provide all the ammo needed for anyone to make a point about why he's not what his apologists would want people to think he is. Calling for better economy is a positive idea, but politicians shouldn't be judged on that platform alone. Public safety has to take some importance beforehand, and judging from Paul's opposition to the Patriot Act, that's why he can't be trusted on domestic security issues either.