Blogger Ann Althouse takes Republican Candidate Rep. Ron Paul to task for some of his extremist right-wing views. Speaking with Stephen Kaus on bloggingheads tv, she brings up a number of salient points that should be pondered while considering his position on a number of issues. She writes, "I feel like the people who are so enamored with those states' rights positions and that libertarian position... Coming from the South... an older person... who grew up in the segregated South... How do I know he's not a racist? ... I find it offensive, the positions he's taking, but maybe it's the pretty face that you put on the position that is, if not really racist, just insensitive about race?"James Kirchick takes a look at the bigoted past of Ron Paul in The New Republic. He cites a Ron Paul newsletter article about the Los Angeles riots in 1992:
"Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with "'civil rights,' quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda." It also denounced "the media" for believing that "America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks."
Read the entire Ann Althouse post here.
View the Ron Paul discussion on bloggingheads.tv here.
plez sez: i never paid much attention to ron paul until the iowa caucus and had never heard him speak until the republican debate on saturday night. he came off as quiet, scholarly, and even a bit aloof (i thought he was pissed off because no one really wanted him on the program). i was pretty cool with him as he voiced opposition to the war in iraq and the need for more fiscal responsibility when making decisions.
when you pull back the covers and look at what nastiness is crawling in his white sheets, i am appalled. as soon as i start hearing talk about "states' rights," my ears perk up! if you recall, "states' rights" were the justification for segregation and jim crow laws in the South until the mid-1960's. ron paul finds fault with the civil rights act of 1964 and thinks abraham lincoln was wrong for leading the country into civil war to end slavery... um, i don't think i need to know much more about this dude.
but it gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective), he not only sleeps in those white sheets, but he wears them, as well: there are articles published under his name that denigrate Martin Luther King, Jr., praise kkk imperial wizard david duke, bashes gays, and decries any type of federal spending or intervention when it comes to civil rights.
the plezWorld list of "do not vote" candidates just got longer: mitt romney, john mccain, hillary clinton, and now ron paul. do i need to add anyone else to the list?
I gotta make a comment on this whole States Rights issue.
ReplyDeleteAbraham Lincoln did not enter into war with the Southern States to end slavery. It was not his primary motivation. I don't believe that most of the 'white' north really had any idealistic view of a liberated south. Prior to the term 'Civil War', the the war between the states was referred to as the 'War for States Rights'. The reasoning for the war was whether or not individual states could set their own policies and guidelines or whether the Federal government would. Obviously, the victor gets to right the history books, Lincoln is coined the Great Emancipator (only emancipating the slaves 4 years into the war), and the war was deemed the 'Civil War'.
As for Ron Paul....he is the gad-fly candidate of the election. He appeals to the extremes, but alienates too many in the middle. His goal is to influence policy, not to win the election.
It still gnaws at me, that before Lincoln and the 'Civil War' there was no Federal Income tax. Lincoln started it to fund the war....and it has been with us for almost 120 years.
Lotus07,
ReplyDeleteI think that most of us have a good idea why the Civil War was fought. Lincoln is not blacks folks idol. As some of you revisionist so aptly like to think, and thinking you are saying something when you try to debunk Lincoln.
States rights meant the same thing in the early nineteenth century as it did in the 60's during the twentieth century. If the Federal government could ban the importation of slaves and it was necessary for the new states to apply for state hood: why wouldn't the Fed's have a say about slavery. The Southern state's statehood was not in jeopardy and they still had their right to own slaves, only their ability to sell and buy slaves from the new territories were in jeopardy. Each state's secession document mentions slavery, here is an example of Georgia's. This is in the first paragraph.
A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact. But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation.
Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas Secession Documents
If they were so damned independent, why was the Confederacy formed immediately after.
You should not fight wars without raising taxes. We will be paying for Iraq well into the 24th century. Doesn't 9 trillion dollars mean anything to you now?
My focus is more on the concept of revisionist history. The Civil War was a turning point in US History where the United States turned from being a loose confederation of independent states with a minimal Federal mandate to one in which the Federal government became the overseer of the states.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't something that is stressed in history classes these days. They tend to focus on the slavery concept which at the time was only one part of a much large geo-political upheaval.
Whether we are better off as a result is up for debate. We would have never had the civil rights movement move forward without the Federal Government's support, but at the same time I don't think would have had expansionist empire building without it either.
It concerns me how much the world is changing and how slow the Federal Government is to react to it.
lotus07,
ReplyDeletefrom the lens of Black people, the biggest issue concerning the whole states' rights debate is about slavery and institutional racism that was established after the civil war.
the reason for Black folk support of the strong Federal Government stems from the fact that in the southern states that passed all of those jim crow laws, their only relief came from the federal government... the civil rights movement was only advanced with support of the federal government (in the 1960's - 100 years AFTER the end of slavery)... and the after effects of institutional racism existed for decades more (with remnants of it still in place to this day)!
one can cite the levying of taxes and other "geo-political" issues that were raised by the states of the conferacy in the 1850's, but the underlying fact remains that their biggest fear was the loss of free labor (via slavery) that had sustained their economy for over 150 years!