The other Ron Paul
I have a theory that a good number of Ron Paul supporters — particularly many of his college-aged followers — don’t really know anything substantive about him or his policies. Anecdotally, I’ve confronted a couple of people who claim to support him by listing some of his most outlandish beliefs, and in every instance except one the person had no idea what I was talking about. He wants to end the federal income tax? He’s pro life? He doesn’t believe in evolution? The list goes on. Paul is just a fad, similar to trucker hats, aviator sun glasses and Paris Hilton skirts.
Anyway, apparently Ron Paul has published a newsletter for decades, and at one point he claimed that it had as many as 100,000 readers. James Kirchick, a journalist with The New Republic combed through piles of old issues of these newsletters and found some shocking beliefs even more outlandish than the ones listed above.
Hi,
I was directed here by your link on facebook. I have to say that listening to Ron Paul and seeing his “Revolution” across the internet, it is easy for one to be swayed by him and ignore his policies. However, I have researched a great number of these matters (including the egregiously biased behaviour of the mainstream media) and I have to say that you have said nothing to contradict my opinion that Ron Paul is a thoughtful, principled, sincere, qualified man, and one who appears to be an authority on complex matters of economy and foreign policy, unlike other politicians (both Republican and Democrat) who convey a sense of ignorance by avoiding specifics.
You made mention of the journalist James Kirchick and his recent article about the “outlandish beliefs” Dr. Paul propogated through his newsletter. Though you don’t list any specifics, the recent controversy surrounded certain racist comments made in this newsletter from the late ’80s to the mid ’90s. This is perfectly true; however, you imply that Dr. Paul himself was the author of these articles and neglect to mention that they were in fact written by ghost writers, writing on behalf of Ron Paul. Dr. Paul has admitted that these publications went unsupervised and accepts “moral blame” for allowing material to be passed under his name without proper scrutiny. This occured during the years in which Ron Paul retired from congress to resume his medical practice, and a careful study of his newsletter before this period and since reveals an entirely different style and tone, devoid of any racist views, either explicit or implicit.
Furthermore, you imply that the journalist James Kirchick had uncovered a revelation, when in fact, the issue of this newsletter and the racist remarks within have been dealt with many times in the past and have been strongly denied by Ron Paul. Dr. Paul has been elected to congress ten consecutive times, such was his ability to convince the people of Texas that the story was untrue. However, you may want to conclude from this Ron Paul’s power of manipulation.
I recently watched an MSNBC video where James Kirchick was interviewed by Carlson Tucker. When asked if he had ever read or seen Ron Paul say anything racist, Kirchick admitted that he hadn’t. The interviewer justly seemed confused by his answer. Here is a link to that video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EURO1djA_jA
You mentioned three of Dr. Paul’s beliefs; he’s pro life, he wants to abolish the federal income tax, and he doesn’t believe in evolution. First of all, I am neither for nor against abortion, i.e. I would rather there was no abortion, but I have softened over the years to accept that it is not for me to decide the fate of an independent woman with whom I am not personally connected. So, I disagree with Dr. Paul for the most part. However, I can totally respect and understand his position, being that he is an obstetrician and has delievered around 4,000 babies. What you fail to report is that Dr. Paul does not believe in Big Government, but that it is for the individual state to decide whether or not to ratify abortion, and not the business of the federal government. As a constitutionalist, he believes this because “all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the Constitution remains with state legislatures”.
Dr. Paul does indeed want to abolish the Federal Reserve and the IRS. He has served on the House Financial Services Committee and can therefore speak about the economy with greater authority than most politicians. He believes that the income tax laws have been incorrectly interpreted, where “income” refers to “gains” made by companies and businesses. The wage/salary of the individual worker is not a gain, but rather a fair exchange of the worker’s time and effort for money, i.e. the worker gains nothing; whereas a company gains profit and should therefore pay tax on that profit. I have studied this issue extensively, and I am enamored by Dr. Paul’s honest and refreshing opinions, unlike most politicians who choose to ignore the very real signs that the country is heading towards recession and possibly bankruptcy. It may seem strange at first that anyone would wish to abolish the Federal Reserve, but this stems from the complacency which we were born with, that the country could not function without it; even though the country flourished without it until 1913 when the Federal Reserve was established and the income tax laws were passed. I hope this has been somewhat interesting or informative, but I urge you to do some of your own research on this topic.
Finally, you mentioned that Ron Paul does not believe in evolution. I had never heard this mentioned before; however I have just found a video of Dr. Paul speaking on this matter and confirming what you said. I don’t agree with him at all since I believe in evolution myself. However, it’s an interesting point to make that I have done next to no research on the evidence of evolution, and in fact, I can say that I know more about Dr. Paul’s arguments than I do about Darwin’s! I would imagine that the majority of people who unquestioningly believe in evolution have accepted the opinions of scientists without examining the evidence first hand. Ron Paul believes in the separation of church and state and does not discuss religion in his campaign unless explicitly asked (see video). As he said himself, “if [evolution] were the only issue, … I wouldn’t be running for public office.” I tend to agree with him. His peaceful non-interventionist (NOT isolationist) foreign policy, his economic reforms, his outspoken ANTI-racist stance, and his belief in a country of liberated individuals vastly outweighs a disbelief in a THEORY.
Thank you very much if you’ve reached the end of this post. I look forward to reading your blog in the future and would be interested if your research helps you to see that Ron Paul is not an extreme voice, but one that is speaking to a large and increasing number of like-minded people.