Montana
06-15-2007, 03:20 AM
Hi there. After I watched the New Hampshire debate I got interested in Ron Paul as a candidate and started doing some research. I discovered that there was a newsletter that he supposedly authored that contained some racist text and that people were using it against him. Apparently Dr. Paul is now claiming that he actually wasn't the one who wrote it. I was inclined to believe him, considering the consistency of his voting record with his beliefs, but it still made me upset that either a candidate that I had thought so highly of could have written such things, or if not that he might be damaged by the reputation hit if it was something that he really didn't write.
So I decided to see if I could figure out whether he was telling the truth. First I found a website that does text analysis: (http://textalyser.net) Then I took some of his speeches and fed it to the analyser, as well as the racist text that he supposedly wrote. I thought those here might be interested in the results. These are the texts I used. They were just the first three speeches I found on his congressional website that were longer than the original document.
1:
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
February 15, 2006
The End of Dollar Hegemony http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm
2.
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
April 5, 2006
Iran: The Next Neocon Target
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr040506.htm
3.
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
April 25, 2006
What the Price of Gold is Telling Us
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr042506.htm
This is the racist text (it's the leftmost column below):
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/g/ftp.py?people/g/gannon.dan/1992/gannon.0793
This is a speech delivered by Senator Robert Byrd in 2003 (it is the rightmost column below, included for comparison):
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0319-04.htm
? Paul Paul Paul Byrd
Total word count : 2075 2770 3442 2525 411
Complexity factor(Lexical Density):56.8% 44.2% 44.4% 47.6% 74.7%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : 6.8 10.5 10.3 9.9 8.2
Average Syllables per Word : 1.62 1.78 1.78 1.73 1.68
Average sentence length (words) : 12.93 17.96 18.13 18.08 14.15
Readability (Alternative) beta: 57 37.9 38 42.1 50.7
I didn't include the stats that depended heavily on the length of the text. You can go run the documents through yourself if you want to see them. If you notice, in the three center columns from Dr. Paul's speeches, all of the numbers for each row are within 10% of one another, whereas most of the numbers for the racist text are substantially different. Obviously this type of analysis can't be 100% conclusive, and I'm certainly no expert on it, but it looks to me like it was written by a different hand.
So I decided to see if I could figure out whether he was telling the truth. First I found a website that does text analysis: (http://textalyser.net) Then I took some of his speeches and fed it to the analyser, as well as the racist text that he supposedly wrote. I thought those here might be interested in the results. These are the texts I used. They were just the first three speeches I found on his congressional website that were longer than the original document.
1:
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
February 15, 2006
The End of Dollar Hegemony http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm
2.
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
April 5, 2006
Iran: The Next Neocon Target
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr040506.htm
3.
HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
April 25, 2006
What the Price of Gold is Telling Us
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr042506.htm
This is the racist text (it's the leftmost column below):
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/g/ftp.py?people/g/gannon.dan/1992/gannon.0793
This is a speech delivered by Senator Robert Byrd in 2003 (it is the rightmost column below, included for comparison):
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0319-04.htm
? Paul Paul Paul Byrd
Total word count : 2075 2770 3442 2525 411
Complexity factor(Lexical Density):56.8% 44.2% 44.4% 47.6% 74.7%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : 6.8 10.5 10.3 9.9 8.2
Average Syllables per Word : 1.62 1.78 1.78 1.73 1.68
Average sentence length (words) : 12.93 17.96 18.13 18.08 14.15
Readability (Alternative) beta: 57 37.9 38 42.1 50.7
I didn't include the stats that depended heavily on the length of the text. You can go run the documents through yourself if you want to see them. If you notice, in the three center columns from Dr. Paul's speeches, all of the numbers for each row are within 10% of one another, whereas most of the numbers for the racist text are substantially different. Obviously this type of analysis can't be 100% conclusive, and I'm certainly no expert on it, but it looks to me like it was written by a different hand.