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View Full Version : Cato's David Boaz article (2008) on Ron Paul---curious on everyones take




RichieLibertarian
12-17-2010, 10:02 AM
I had some liberal on another page cite this article claiming "see, even the libertarians have distanced themselves from RP..blah blah blah"

then he went on to ramble on about the gold standard "Have you ever studied how the GS actually works? Because that kind of market would be a nightmare.The price of gold/silver has huge fluctuations. Much more so than fiat currency. Also when you're dealing with international transactions, you would have to negotiate the price of gold/silver with other countries. This would lead to big transaction costs.The #1 reason people think that the GS is "good" is because they are under the impression that the GS helps curb inflation. My question is: What inflation? The CB has maintained rock-steady inflation rates for a good long while. In this regard, the Fed has had a huge success.I think you need to study how a CB actually works tbh.The RP supporters seem to think that the Fed is just one big money printing machine that prints out money.That is just not the case. It's primary reason for existing in the US is to control inflation. It does this by influencing nominal interest rates."

just curious how some of you would respond to this......
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/ron-pauls-ugly-newsletters/

"For the past few months most libertarians have been pleased to see Ron Paul achieving unexpected success with his presidential campaign’s message of ending the Iraq war, abolishing the federal income tax, establishing sound money, and restoring the Constitution. Sure, some of us didn’t like his talk about closing the borders and his conspiratorial view of a North-South highway. But the main themes of his campaign, the ones that generated the multi-million-dollar online fundraising spectaculars and the youthful “Ron Paul Revolution,” were classic libertarian issues. It was particularly gratifying to see a presidential candidate tie the antiwar position to a belief in a strictly limited federal government.

And so it’s understandable that over the past few months a lot of people have been asking why writers at the Cato Institute seemed to display a lack of interest in or enthusiasm for the Paul campaign. Well, now you know. We had never seen the newsletters that have recently come to light, and I for one was surprised at just how vile they turned out to be. But we knew the company Ron Paul had been keeping, and we feared that they would have tied him to some reprehensible ideas far from the principles we hold.

Ron Paul says he didn’t write these newsletters, and I take him at his word. They don’t sound like him. In my infrequent personal encounters and in his public appearances, I’ve never heard him say anything racist or homophobic (halting and uncomfortable on gay issues, like a lot of 72-year-old conservatives, but not hateful). But he selected the people who did write those things, and he put his name on the otherwise unsigned newsletters, and he raised campaign funds from the mailing list that those newsletters created. And he would have us believe that things that “do not represent what I believe or have ever believed” appeared in his newsletter for years and years without his knowledge. Assuming Ron Paul in fact did not write those letters, people close to him did. His associates conceived, wrote, edited, and mailed those words. His closest associates over many years know who created those publications. If they truly admire Ron Paul, if they think he is being unfairly tarnished with words he did not write, they should come forward, take responsibility for their words, and explain how they kept Ron Paul in the dark for years about the words that appeared every month in newsletters with “Ron Paul” in the title.

Paul says he didn’t write the letters, that he denounces the words that appeared in them, that he was unaware for decades of what 100,000 people were receiving every month from him. That’s an odd claim on which to run for president: I didn’t know what my closest associates were doing over my signature, so give me responsibility for the federal government.

But of course Ron Paul isn’t running for president. He’s not going to be president, he’s not going to be the Republican nominee for president, and he never hoped to be. He got into the race to advance ideas—the ideas of peace, constitutional government, and freedom. Succeeding beyond his wildest dreams, he became the most visible so-called “libertarian” in America. And now he and his associates have slimed the noble cause of liberty and limited government.


Mutterings about the past mistakes of the New Republic or the ideological agenda of author James Kirchick are beside the point. Maybe Bob Woodward didn’t like Quakers; the corruption he uncovered in the Nixon administration was still a fact, and that’s all that mattered. Ron Paul’s most visible defenders have denounced Kirchick as a “pimply-faced youth”—so much for their previous enthusiasm about all the young people sleeping on floors for the Paul campaign—and a neoconservative. But they have not denied the facts he reported. Those words appeared in newsletters under his name. And, notably, they have not dared to defend or even quote the actual words that Kirchick reported. Even those who vociferously defend Ron Paul and viciously denounce Kirchick, perhaps even those who wrote the words originally, are apparently unwilling to quote and defend the actual words that appeared over Ron Paul’s signature.

Those words are not libertarian words. Maybe they reflect “paleoconservative” ideas, though they’re not the language of Burke or even Kirk. But libertarianism is a philosophy of individualism, tolerance, and liberty. As Ayn Rand wrote, “Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.” Making sweeping, bigoted claims about all blacks, all homosexuals, or any other group is indeed a crudely primitive collectivism.

Libertarians should make it clear that the people who wrote those things are not our comrades, not part of our movement, not part of the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Robert Nozick. Shame on them"

gls
12-17-2010, 10:11 AM
CATO has nothing to do with libertarianism. It is a Koch-funded, beltway establishment corporatist "think tank". They don't like Ron Paul because of his opposition to global empire and the Federal Reserve that enables it.

cswake
12-17-2010, 10:19 AM
Don't speak in such a broad brush, CATO is a group of individuals who hold different opinions on the issues:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11709


It has been nearly a decade since President George W. Bush chose arrogance over humility as the basis of American foreign policy. The intervening years have not been good for the United States or the Republican Party. As the GOP seeks to take back the White House it needs to conduct a serious foreign policy debate. Republicans should start by listening to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

Matt Collins
12-17-2010, 10:24 AM
David reads RPF ha ha ha. I know this because he's remarked on some of my comments around here. I think he is also for Gary Johnson in the next election, but you would have to ask him that.

Churchill2004
12-17-2010, 10:35 AM
CATO has nothing to do with libertarianism. It is a Koch-funded, beltway establishment corporatist "think tank". They don't like Ron Paul because of his opposition to global empire and the Federal Reserve that enables it.

Nice way to completely prove the point Boaz was making.

I'm a libertarian who's been a reader of Cato, Reason, Ron Paul, and even Lew Rockwell for years now. Many of the criticisms of the Cato and Reason orbit, and of the Koch brothers, have been accurate over the years (though the hysterical conspiracy-mongering is less helpful), but the simple fact is they were right about this, and whatever the worst you can say about them they've never done anything as reprehensible as peddling bigotry and ignorance under the banner of liberty.

Ron Paul was wrong to allow that vile crap to be sent out under his name, and Lew Rockwell is a coward and a sophist for refusing to publicly explain why he wrote those things and why he thought rhetoric such as he wrote under Paul's name was anything but abhorrent and unacceptable. I don't care that Lew is Ron's longtime friend, how he has comported himself in the whole newsletter fiasco (and more broadly the type of nasty personal rhetoric he still engages in and encourages) is not something that should be ignored or defended because you happen to agree with him about monetary policy.

I still like and support Ron Paul. I think the explanation Reason offered- that this was part of Lew's and Murrary Rothbard's misguided attempts to appeal primarily to "paleoconservatives" towards the end of the latter's life- was probably accurate, and it's quite obvious that Paul himself isn't as hateful as the words Rockwell wrote under his name. But it's the mark of intellectual honesty to be able to look at a leader who I've supported and admired and admit unflinchingly that he was wrong, both in the original newsletters and how he's handled questions about them. Ron Paul has done good work. Lew Rockwell, for all his flaws, has even done good work. (So have the Koch brothers for that matter) But their obstinateness and childishness on this issue has cost them and cost the cause of liberty.

The threat of the newsletter controversy being revisited is among the heaviest concerns that Paul must weigh as he considers running for President again- remember it was largely the newsletters that killed his momentum in 2008. If you seriously want Ron Paul to do well and advance in the national discourse, and more importantly if you want the ideas of liberty to do the same, then you must have a more adult reaction to the newsletters than ignoring the issue and attacking the motives of the messengers. A good place to start would be a public apology and explanation from the true author of those newsletters.

Or you can just dismiss me as another Koch-funded neocon plant who hates freedom because I don't unquestioningly follow the every word of Lew Rockwell. Funny, for all his ranting about the Kochtopus, he's got a thinner skin and less tolerance for discussion and criticism than any of the Koch-funded/led organizations have ever shown.

cswake
12-17-2010, 10:56 AM
Ron Paul was wrong to allow that vile crap to be sent out under his name, and Lew Rockwell is a coward and a sophist for refusing to publicly explain why he wrote those things and why he thought rhetoric such as he wrote under Paul's name was anything but abhorrent and unacceptable. I don't care that Lew is Ron's longtime friend, how he has comported himself in the whole newsletter fiasco (and more broadly the type of nasty personal rhetoric he still engages in and encourages) is not something that should be ignored or defended because you happen to agree with him about monetary policy.Well said. Rockwell, if he truly is the one who wrote those, needs to come out and claim ownership of those writings prior to Paul's campaign.

gls
12-17-2010, 11:19 AM
I don't care about a few non-politically correct excerpts from obscure, twenty-year-old newsletters. I care about stopping and reversing the growth of government. CATO, since 1977, has undeniably failed in that regard. They are nothing more than the establishment's response to marginalizing the libertarian threat.

Churchill2004
12-17-2010, 11:30 AM
I don't care about a few non-politically correct excerpts from obscure, twenty-year-old newsletters. I care about stopping and reversing the growth of government. CATO, since 1977, has undeniably failed in that regard. They are nothing more than the establishment's response to marginalizing the libertarian threat.

http://btr.michaelkwan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/stubborn.jpg

http://blog.cleanenergy.org/files/2009/09/ostrich-head.jpg

http://www.tfhp.org/images/tinfoil-hat.jpg

Pericles
12-17-2010, 11:36 AM
Success envy. The well funded think tanks that permeate Washington seem to be convinced that any good idea has to originate there and be properly vetted by those who are experts in such things.

This beast doesn't care about them or any need to "sell" the ideas into the political mainstream.

In summary, we are trying to get rid of people like that, and all such corrupting influences on government.

sailingaway
12-17-2010, 11:41 AM
He makes it sound like the PURPOSE and primary substance of the newsletters was racist whereas I understand they ran over 10 years and those trying to find racist statements were only able to find a handful of statements over the entire 10 years, and given volunteers staffed the letter on a come and go basis, and there was an independent, paid editorial staff, I don't see a true responsibility of Ron for the statements. It seems like a newsletter version of internet bulletin boards, with similar pitfalls regarding the occasional stray commenter. They aren't 'white supremecist' newsletters, and were never intended to be.

He has taken 'moral responsibility' but to keep bringing up something everyone knows he never said, after a further 12 years or so in Congress and mega library of youtube showing he has never been the slightest bit racist is more than 'reaching', it is desperate.

I honestly think you all are reacting too defensively to this. The base has seen every candidate they like called racist, and their own ideas called racist over the last campaign and Ron simply got it first, because he showcased those ideas first. I've seen non-Ron Paul supporting conservatives actually hit back with the 'oh, 'racist', huh, everything's racist with you guys....' It is a label cheap to use, and with someone who has the high profile on youtube and in literature that Ron does, not being able to come up with a single clip or policy that he ever proposed that was racist makes it fall pretty flat, to me.

I'll go further. I didn't come into the 2008 election as a Ron Paul supporter. I had never heard of him. I just loathed McCain, and frankly planned to vote for Romney, in California, but became concerned about his flip flopping and was open to other ideas. I heard about Ron on the internet, and also heard about the newsletters and was troubled by them. I looked into them. I found that he didn't edit them, that volunteers were involved and read the actual language of the handful of statements over the 10 years and realized they were distasteful, but nothing like Ron in any particular. I found the interview of the NAACP district chief in his district saying he had worked with Ron closely on a number of issues important to the black community because Ron was very sympathetic, and that Ron was not racist. I saw many were saying he was racist because he didn't believe in amnesty, and agreed with his position on that (re subsidies causing damage here and incentive there), so I discounted that entirely.

This really isn't much of a charge, and we give it more credence than it deserves. I think we need a page somewhere of links where people can satisfy themselves as to that, but mostly need a two sentence disposition of the issue.
-

edit:

I actually wish more people would look into this on their own. It was while looking into this, trying to find the 'worst' about RP so I could be sure he was no worse than every other politician, that I saw slur after slur pop like soap bubbles under the slightest research, and determined he was something really special -- a politician with integrity.

Schiff_FTW
12-17-2010, 11:48 AM
http://btr.michaelkwan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/stubborn.jpg

http://blog.cleanenergy.org/files/2009/09/ostrich-head.jpg

http://www.tfhp.org/images/tinfoil-hat.jpg

Yeah, you're right...if it wasn't for CATO's amazing successes in the past 30+ years we might have a Federal government that doesn't recognize any limits to its own power. Thank God that didn't happen. It couldn't be that they are just a bunch of establishment hacks constantly promoted by the corporate media to present a "reasonable" (big government) "libertarian" viewpoint. After all, billionaire oil-magnates would never use the levers of government to their own ends, lol...

Elwar
12-17-2010, 11:58 AM
CATO is a sellout organization.

Them and Reason dropped the ball in 2008.

cswake
12-17-2010, 12:22 PM
Yeah, you're right...if it wasn't for CATO's amazing successes in the past 30+ years we might have a Federal government that doesn't recognize any limits to its own power.Ron Paul has been saying the same thing for 30 years, with no "success" until recently on nearly anything. Is he a failure and establishment sellout? The failure of the Constitutional movement is not necessarily due to lack of effort or bad intentions, but more due to the failure of the public wanting to listen and understand.

As Paul says, policy changes come from educating and shifting the public's sentiment. To this end, both Reason and CATO have created 30 years of material to argue our positions, something that will aid in the movement going forward.

Churchill2004
12-17-2010, 12:22 PM
Yeah, you're right...if it wasn't for CATO's amazing successes in the past 30+ years we might have a Federal government that doesn't recognize any limits to its own power. Thank God that didn't happen. It couldn't be that they are just a bunch of establishment hacks constantly promoted by the corporate media to present a "reasonable" (big government) "libertarian" viewpoint. After all, billionaire oil-magnates would never use the levers of government to their own ends, lol...


Funny, I was just arguing with someone on another forum using exactly this line of thinking to argue Ron Paul doesn't deserve credit for being anti-war. After all, he didn't single-handedly lead the anti-war movement to a successful prevention of invading Iraq, so he's a failure and a sell-out.

Fact is Cato had, prior to 2007, done a hell of a lot more than Ron Paul for the libertarian movement. And they are still the lodestar for anyone who actually wants to try to mesh libertarian ideas with actual policy implementation. If you want to go the more radical route, good for you. We need radicals and moderates, abolitionists and gradualists, ideologues and pragmatists. A movement that tries to be only one side of this coin will go nowhere.

Perhaps more fundamentally, people just aren't as malicious as you make them out to be. Disagree with Cato, the Kochs, Reason, etc. all you want, but attacking their sincerity and motives is the kind of base degradation of intelligent discourse that Ron Paul himself has condemned and declined to participate in. There are plenty of rich people and big corporations more directly tied to the levers of power than the Koch brothers could ever hope to achieve by having Cato publicize drug raids gone bad and the follies of rent control.

Churchill2004
12-17-2010, 12:24 PM
CATO is a sellout organization.

Them and Reason dropped the ball in 2008.

Because clearly they should have staked their reputation and intellectual honesty on defending the bigoted decades-old rantings of Lew Rockwell. That would have been the "principled" thing to do.

Elwar
12-17-2010, 01:06 PM
Because clearly they should have staked their reputation and intellectual honesty on defending the bigoted decades-old rantings of Lew Rockwell. That would have been the "principled" thing to do.

No, they just ignored Paul while touting Fred Thompson.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/is-fred-thompson-a-small-government-conservative/

But, given the fact that McCain, Romney, and Giuliani are clearly big-government conservatives (http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441337), Thompson has an opportunity to seize the small-government mantle.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8701

Federalism "is a tool to promote freedom" as Thompson puts it. So for the supposed heirs to Ronald Reagan who are running for president, let's hear more about expanding our freedom by cutting the federal government down to constitutional size.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8696

With his long awaited entry into the presidential campaign, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson says that he will base his campaign on the "first principles" of "individual freedom and limited government." If he follows through, he will have an opportunity to position himself as the only small-government conservative in the race.

http://www.cato.org/view_ddispatch.php?viewdate=20071029#1

Does Fred Thompson, then, offer an alternative for small-government conservatives? While he is not quite the second coming of Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, a look at his record shows that he has generally supported limited government."

Fred Thompson lovefest as "the only small government candidate"...disgusting.

Churchill2004
12-17-2010, 01:33 PM
Suprise, Cato, which does not focus on electoral politics, is bad at electoral politics. Just like Lew Rockwell, who does not focus on coalition-building, is bad at coalition-building. Reason, which does not focus on economic theory, is bad at economic theory. Ron Paul, who does not focus on state-level policies, is bad at state-level policy.

The only lesson to learn here is we should all respect the division of labor within the movement. Cato should gets its nose out of electoral politics and Rockwell should stay the hell away from movement strategy.

Elwar
12-17-2010, 01:36 PM
Cato should gets its nose out of electoral politics and Rockwell should stay the hell away from movement strategy.

A little late for that one...

Fortunately they stopped sending me any mailers asking for money when I sent their donation slip back to them with the word SELLOUTS across it.

Did they get that fancy new Washington office before or after Rupert Murdoch was a board member?