“Paul’s supporters say they appreciate the Texas congressman’s bleak stump speech, noting that he’s been proven right on the issues before and insisting that they welcome the refreshing candor of his Cassandra-like message. … The dark tone adopted by Paul represents a dramatic departure from the traditional presidential campaign speech,” complains POLITICO. “[I]t’s dusk in [Paul’s] America, not morning. His rhetoric is also distinctly different from what his rivals are saying, even as they criticize President Barack Obama’s stewardship. Where they see waste, fraud and ineptitude in federal government and Congress, Paul sees lying, scheming and conspiracy.”
“When you count the way they did during the Depression … unemployment is probably closer to 20 percent. That’s why there’s a disconnect. People feel worse than the government tells you you’re supposed to feel,” Paul said. “The unemployment rate is much bigger, the inflation rate is much worse.”
“That’s the harsh reality of it. It is a grim situation,” said Chris Fleming of Manchester, who attended a Nashua event last week. “The whole media blackout plays a role; they don’t like having that message put out. Why would we want to walk around like horses with blinders on?”
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“Remember that no matter their brand of political prostitution (Republican or Democrat), media talking heads are props to the politicos; they mirror the political class, reflecting and reinforcing the opinions—and the reality—among the elites they serve. More often than not, the chattering classes are as privileged and protected as their masters. These ‘Demopublican Monopolists’ sense that as long as they sustain their respective constituencies, they will retain their perches and their sizable salaries.
But things are a changing. The country is changing. These B-rate minds are paddling as hard as they can to save sinecure. Even if it means not facing reality. The statist men and women of the media are up the creek without a paddle. More than anything they fear losing their status.
“Terrible,” “tricky” and “a phony”: Who was the incorrigible racist who thus described Martin Luther King Jr.? Was it the unknown author of the politically improper newsletters published under Rep. Ron Paul’s name during the 1980s and 1990s?
Not quite.
Those were the words of the nation’s most engaging first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.
Audio recordings of Mrs. Kennedy’s historic 1964 conversations on life with John F. Kennedy were released in September of 2011. Conducted with the late historian Arthur Schlesinger—and delivered in her hallmark dulcet lilt and exquisite diction—the exchanges reveal Jackie as a dazzling conversationalist, and a forceful, thoughtful persona.
This Jacky O held a low opinion of MLK, the man America has since deified, and was unafraid to say as much.
There were many reasons not racist for which to dislike MLK, not least of them was the man’s dalliance with communists. “His associations with communists” is why Jacky’s husband, hero of Chris Matthews’ latest book, ordered the wiretaps on King.
Mrs. Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy—recounts Patrick J. Buchanan in his towering “Suicide of a Superpower”—“saw to it that the FBI carried out the order.” Among his other endearing qualities, the not-so enchanting Martin Luther King had “declared that the Goldwater campaign bore ‘dangerous signs of Hitlerism.”
Indisputably, MLK set the tone for “assailing America as irredeemably racist” forever after. Other brothers have built on MLK’s work to sculpt careers as professional race hustlers.
Faithful to this legacy, the media monolith has been fulminating over the reference in the Ron Paul newsletters to …” MORE in “Ron Paul: Stand Tall For Middle America.”
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UPDATE I: IN THIS COLUMN I was trying hard to show how everyone, Paul too, twists into pretzels in order to blame … white, liberal politicians for the problems in the black community. It’s the explanation du jour: Democrats corrupted the black community. The Democrats ate my homework. Nothing, not even hags like Pelosi, can explain away the facts in my column.
But bad habits die hard. Our Myron writes:
There are 500,000 blacks in federal prison for non-violent drug offenses that would be free if that “racist” [Ron Paul] had his way! And there would likely be less “real crime” (against people and property) without the idiotically distorted economy created by the War on Drugs and anti-business regulations.
I oppose the war on drugs, always have. But unlike the libertine perspective that I believe Myron echoes, I have no delusions about the drug dealer. He is NOT a productive member of society, who has been corrupted by politicians. He is unlikely to become a productive member of society once drugs are legalized. If anything, the dealer is more likely a low-life looking for a way to make a living that involves no graft.
Our hoodlum will go in search of other sources of easy, no-graft cash. Upward mobility for the drug dealers is the next most lucrative contraband that will yield maximum profit with minimum effort.
UPDATE II: As an addiction expert explained to me, many cocaine or heroine recreational users work, are productive, and manage to keep their use under control. It is no one’s business what they do in private, so long as they perform the jobs for which they are hired and do not aggress against others.
I have distinguished the user from the dealer; and the recreational user from the addict. Naturally, none of these people should be arrested, except for property or other crimes perpetrated (for instance, if a used needle was tossed in a park, and someone was stuck and became ill; nab the user for harm done). However, don’t expect a good “career” outcome, post legalization, for the career dealer in the hood. Pimping and stealing will likely be his next “career” options. It is one thing to be pro-legalization on the grounds that an individual owns his body. It is quite another to fantasize about human nature. Were I Paul, I would follow up wishy-washy exhortation to legalize drugs with promises to enforce the law against property crimes and other spillover effects that may accompany the loss of an easy buck.
The corollary of my latest column is that only the obsequious lick-spittle toadies among us libertarians are going to use this mainstream argument to launch a witch hunt against other libertarians. The “Lite” variety of libertarian will relish the ideologically confused in-fighting, for he is indistinguishable from the Left in may ways.
UPDATE IV: Via LRC.COM. Robin Williams’ quips are not “racist”; in the context, they were realistic:
UPDATE V (Dec. 31): RAPE IN NORWAY IS AN IMPORTED AFFAIR.
UPDATE VI: DJ: What the Norwegian officer says is not unreasonable; you don’t want individuals to be stigmatized. At the same time, you’d like these Norwegian girls to be forewarned by their elders to watch out for themselves. You would never find American law-enforcement officers making such an honest admission. Should you, do send it along … before the officer is fired. Europe is way ahead of the US in exposing the unhappy cult of multiculturalism.
As of this writing, Rep. Ron Paul—the ultimate outsider and quintessential anti-establishment presidential candidate—is the favorite to win the Iowa caucuses, scheduled to take place on January 3, 2012.
Polls such as Insider Advantage and Public Policy Polling place Paul in the lead, at 23 and 24 percent respectively, to Mitt Romney’s 20 percent and Newt Gingrich’s 14 percent. From ignoring Congressman Paul, the Republican Party establishment and mainstream media have moved to strategizing on how to discount his lead, and likely win, in Iowa.
Especially exercised is the Republican Party of Iowa. Its functionaries seem willing to delegitimize Iowa poll results—and the importance of the Iowa caucuses as harbingers of things to come in the national convention—if these don’t fall in line with the Party line. Apparently, caucus-goers who dare to “reward” candidates “who are unrepresentative of the broader party” deserve to be discredited.
Against this backdrop, I was interviewed, on December 15, by the Russia Today (RT) television network, a broadcaster that does not abide herd behavior. Topics covered: The rise of Ron Paul, his rivals, and the Representative’s chances of parlaying his accomplishments in Iowa (to be repeated, we hope, in the Granite State and South Carolina) into a national win.
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UPDATE ((Dec. 23): STAND UP FOR MIDDLE AMERICA. In reply to Jeff’s comment, here: You are right about Pat Buchanan’s mind. The man is brilliant. However, as for your recommendation to Ron Paul; it is mainstream and wrong. Utterly wrong. Paul should do the exact opposite of what you advocate. He should stand up for middle America. White America is not racist. That is pure propaganda. If anything, America is dangerously stupid about the reality of demographic differences on the ground.
You need to read my book, especially the section about the “Pathos of the Puritan.” (Look Inside the book.) Your argument is of the Left but has been adopted by the so-called Right. This waffle about low expectations is also the in-vogue leftist argument, conjured by the “Right” so as to both come across as politically palatable, and make excuses for 1) the militant anti-white sentiments blacks have adopted voluntarily, albeit with the encouragement of race huckster Democratic leaders. 2) Give credence to the leftist explanation for underachievement in this racial cohort: racism. All you have to do is expect more, and racial differences on the achievement variable will disappear. Hardly. Enough of this dangerous utopian day-dreaming.
Should Paul quit the obsequious apologetics and stand up for Americans—he would succeed mightily in galvanizing mainstream Republicans, heartland America. They are still a majority, if a waning one. The idiot Republicans will never win over the Left in this country with which most minorities identify. The GOP’s libertarian faction needs to veer Right and stand up for its base.
Granted, it is fashionable among the feminist Republican media bimbos and their beaus to castigate the GOP for being the party of Anglo-American males. Where’s the shame in that? That’s an acquired Mark of Cain; acquired through PC brainwashing. Who founded this country? The ancestors of this much-maligned majority. Were they so bad? Be a man. Stand up for America.
If Ron Paul proves unable to reject the racism accusations and stand up for an America that is defended as good and non-racist—he will be political toast.
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL of the Wall Street Journal claimed, in “Why Ron Paul Can’t Win,” that “conservative Republicans” cannot accept Paul’s philosophy as it “fundamentally denies American exceptionalism and refuses to allow for decisive action to protect the U.S. homeland.”
Is STRASSEL equating American exceptionalism with the kind of non-defensive militarism America currently practices? It would appear so.
This writer’s position on said “exceptionalism”: “the United States, by virtue of its origins and ideals,” was unique. But most Americans know nothing of the ideas that animated their country’s founding. In fact, they are more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical liberal philosophy of the founders, and hence wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive state and the fulfillment of their own needs and desires through war and welfare.
“[T]ravel to any foreign country,” Oates wrote in the Atlantic Monthly in November 2007, “and the consensus is: The American idea has become a cruel joke, a blustery and bellicose bodybuilder luridly bulked up on steroids…deranged and myopic, dangerous.”
[SNIP]
I thought Paul was strong on Jay Leno, but should probably not have cozied-up to the Left in the way he did. More on that later:
UPDATE: About Bachmann, Paul Said, “she doesn’t like Muslims, she hates them, she wants to go get ‘em.'” “In reference to Rick Santorum, Paul said he can’t stop talking about ‘gay people and Muslims.'” (ABC)
Leave aside whether these statements are true or not: Paul has taken a classic Chris-Matthews kind of ad hominem swipe against Michele Bachmann: she hates Muslims. Santorum hates gays and Muslims. Siding with the Left by adopting its arguments may be situationally advantageous, but it is wrong, and will backfire on a Republican candidate in the long run. This tactic, even if it was a not-so-funny joke, damages Ron Paul’s effectiveness from the vantage point of conservative libertarians who think that liberty cannot be reduced to the non-aggression axiom and has a cultural and civilizational dimension.
Paul is wrong to imply, reductively, that Islamic terrorism in general and September 11 in particular are the sole consequences of American foreign policy. Libertarians cannot persist in such unidirectional formulations. Our adventurous foreign policy is a necessary precondition for Muslim aggression but it is far from a sufficient one.
