Good Ron Paul Article by Glenn Greenwald

[LinearChaos]

Glenn Greenwald made a great blog entry today regarding Ron Paul and the money bomb. He blog is very widely read and his books are best sellers and highly rated. He also praises Paul's constitutional positions and appears to be getting a lot of flack from it. GG practiced constitutional law so I knew it would only be a matter of time before he published something positive regarding Ron Paul.

He makes sure to note that he is not endorsing Paul, but he is praising him and shooting down all the "X big govt program is good for poor people" arguments by referring to Paul's constitutional position and from what I read from it, stating that perceived value is irrelevant, regardless of whether or not a program is good or bad for society, when making a constitutional argument. Something being perceived as "good" doesn't mean it is automatically constitutional. GG also dismisses the argument that people make re: lumping Paul with his more radical supporters.

Salon is pretty "liberal" so there are a lot of negative comments, and there are a couple of people who are regulars and dislike Paul a LOT (they are the ones spreading the "racist" stuff) but there are also Paul supporters that lurk on the site and are commenting. A lot of people complaining about Paul being racist/sexist/prolife, you name it. Glenn Greenwald's blog gets more reads/comments than anyone else on the site though. Even though he seems to cater to his lefty followers, he is pretty much the main reason for going there.

Link (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/06/paul/)

Comments (http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/06/paul/view/?show=all)

[thegearbox]

Great article!

[maxmerkel]

really great !

[maxmerkel]

i have to repeat myself this article is ubergreat and not too far from an endorsement :eek:

show it to anyone who is still a disbeliever

[LinearChaos]

The comments are pretty amusing.

It is mostly people calling Paul a racist, like he is part of a supremacist conspiracy. GG pretty much shut down their arguments regarding the perceived value of programs and how it is irrelevant when making a constitutional argument, so they've got nothing but the usual ghostwritten newsletter crap.

[bdillahu]

Yes, definitely worth a read - it's nice to see a well reasoned article discussing somebodies viewpoints. Even if he doesn't agree with things, he listens and understands and presents his views.

Very nice.

[thegearbox]

Yes, read the comments. There are a lot of very smart people on there.

[thegearbox]

This is an interesting comment...

"William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!"

[mconder]

On one of his follow up comments he says, "I have heard from some Paul supporters today that he has modified his abortion position and now more or less shares the view expressed by Thompson." This is absolutely untrue. RP was the first presidential candidate this cycle to suggest that abortion should be left to the states. It was only later that I heard this position echoed by Thompson and Mitt and we know Mitt hasn't held this position for any length of time.