Ron Paul Roundup (1-12-08)

[RSDavis]

http://laceylibertarian.us/wp-images/rPaulRev.jpg

Ron Paul Roundup (1-12-08)
by RS Davis (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=194780914&blogID=346814699&Mytoken=96C60420-03BB-4535-B47499C7D90424E71953906)


Hello Freedomphiles! I want to talk more about those newsletters today. There are some other stories that I could post, but I am going to leave those until Monday because I have some things to get off my chest.

I've been going back and forth about these in my head. From my years of following Ron Paul, the things said in these newsletters definitely seem out of character with what Paul says. So, I don't believe he wrote them.

But the story doesn't stop there, because whether he wrote them or not, they appeared - over the course of several years - in various newsletters bearing his name. I reported before that he has taken responsibility for them, but new things have come to light, thanks to the fine folks at Reason magazine.

This is the most damning evidence, in my opinion, because it shows that Ron Paul hasn't always said he didn't write them. What's more, it shows that he actually defended them. Reason's Matt Welch gives the chronology (http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124339.html):

The first time I can find reporting on the controversy is in the May 22, 1996 Dallas Morning News:

Dr. Ron Paul, a Republican congressional candidate from Texas, wrote in his political newsletter in 1992 that 95 percent of the black men in Washington, D.C., are "semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

He also wrote that black teenagers can be "unbelievably fleet of foot." [...]

Dr. Paul, who is running in Texas' 14th Congressional District, defended his writings in an interview Tuesday. He said they were being taken out of context.

"It's typical political demagoguery," he said. "If people are interested in my character ... come and talk to my neighbors." [...]

According to a Dallas Morning News review of documents circulating among Texas Democrats, Dr. Paul wrote in a 1992 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be."

Dr. Paul, who served in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said Tuesday that he has produced the newsletter since 1985 and distributes it to an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 subscribers. A phone call to the newsletter's toll-free number was answered by his campaign staff. [...]

Dr. Paul denied suggestions that he was a racist and said he was not evoking stereotypes when he wrote the columns. He said they should be read and quoted in their entirety to avoid misrepresentation. [...]

"If someone challenges your character and takes the interpretation of the NAACP as proof of a man's character, what kind of a world do you live in?" Dr. Paul asked.

In the interview, he did not deny he made the statement about the swiftness of black men.

"If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them," Dr. Paul said.

He also said the comment about black men in the nation's capital was made while writing about a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia.

Citing statistics from the study, Dr. Paul then concluded in his column: "Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

"These aren't my figures," Dr. Paul said Tuesday. "That is the assumption you can gather from" the report.

May 23, 1996, Houston Chronicle:

Paul, a Republican obstetrician from Surfside, said Wednesday he opposes racism and that his written commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." [...]

Paul also wrote that although "we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational.

Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."

A campaign spokesman for Paul said statements about the fear of black males mirror pronouncements by black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has decried the spread of urban crime.

Paul continues to write the newsletter for an undisclosed number of subscribers, the spokesman said.

Writing in the same 1992 edition, Paul expressed the popular idea that government should lower the age at which accused juvenile criminals can be prosecuted as adults.

He added, "We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such."

Paul also asserted that "complex embezzling" is conducted exclusively by non-blacks.

"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote.

May 23, 1996, Austin American-Statesman:

"Dr. Paul is being quoted out of context," [Paul spokesman Michael] Sullivan said. "It's like picking up War and Peace and reading the fourth paragraph on Page 481 and thinking you can understand what's going on." [...]

Also in 1992, Paul wrote, "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions."

Sullivan said Paul does not consider people who disagree with him to be sensible. And most blacks, Sullivan said, do not share Paul's views. The issue is political philosophy, not race, Sullivan said.

"Polls show that only about 5 percent of people with dark-colored skin support the free market, a laissez faire economy, an end to welfare and to affirmative action," Sullivan said. [...]

"You have to understand what he is writing. Democrats in Texas are trying to stir things up by using half-quotes to impugn his character," Sullivan said. "His writings are intellectual. He assumes people will do their own research, get their own statistics, think for themselves and make informed judgments."

May 26, 1996 Washington Post:

Paul, an obstetrician from Surfside, Tex., denied he is a racist and charged Austin lawyer Charles "Lefty" Morris, his Democratic opponent, with taking his 1992 writings out of context.

"Instead of talking about the issues, our opponent has chosen to lie and try to deceive the people of the 14th District," said Paul spokesman Michael Sullivan, who added that the excerpts were written during the Los Angeles riots when "Jesse Jackson was making the same comments."

"Ron knows our society and our nation has done some horrible things to the black community, which has pushed a majority of young black men in some areas, in Washington, D.C., for example, into criminal activities," Sullivan said.

July 25, 1996, Houston Chronicle:

Democratic congressional candidate Lefty Morris on Wednesday produced a newsletter in which his Republican opponent, Ron Paul, called the late Barbara Jordan a "fraud" and an "empress without clothes." [...]

Paul said he was expressing his "clear philosophical difference" with Jordan. [...]

Paul, a Surfside physician and former congressman, said he was contrasting Jordan's political views with his own.

"The causes she so strongly advocated were for more and more government, more and more regulations and more and more taxes," Paul said.

"My cause has been almost exactly the opposite, and I believe her positions to have been fundamentally wrong," the Republican said. ""I've fought for less and less intrusive government, fewer regulations and lower taxes."

Paul said Morris was trying to "reduce the campaign to name-calling and race-baiting" so as to avoid more relevant issues, such as economic growth, taxes and spending, crime and welfare reform.

July 25, 1996, Dallas Morning News:

Dr. Paul, who faces Mr. Morris in the 14th District race for the U.S. House, dismissed the criticism as "name-calling and race-baiting." [...]

In a written statement, Dr. Paul said, "Repeated attempts by my liberal opponent to reduce the campaign to name-calling and race-baiting is just more of the same old garbage we expect from his camp and will not deter me from continuing to address the real issues."

Dr. Paul said his opinions about Ms. Jordan, who died earlier this year, "represented our clear philosophical difference."

July 29, 1996, Roll Call:

In a statement, Paul said he had "labored to conduct a campaign based upon the issues that are vital to our nation" and charged Morris with "repeated attempts...to reduce the campaign to name calling and race-baiting."

He called Morris's request that he release all back issues of the newsletter "not only impractical, but...equivalent to asking him to provide documents for every lawsuit he has been involved in during his lengthy legal career."

Of his statements about Jordan, Paul said that "such opinions represented our clear philosophical difference. The causes she so strongly advocated were for more government, more and more regulations, and more and more taxes. My cause has been almost exactly the opposite, and I believe her positions to have been fundamentally wrong: I've fought for less and less intrusive government, fewer regulations, and lower taxes."

Aug. 13, 1996, Houston Chronicle:

He once called former President Bush a bum and he's taken aim at Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, California Gov. Pete Wilson, House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and, yes, GOP vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp.

Over the course of 1992 and 1993, the GOP nominee in the 14th Congressional District has called Kemp a "malicious jerk," and a "welfare statist" who had secretly increased the nation's public housing budget while serving as secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He also charged in one newsletter that Kemp had "made a pass at a female reporter young enough to be his daughter."

Sept. 26, 1996, Austin American-Statesman:

"Fortunately, several types of accounts are tough for the IRS to investigate," Paul wrote. "For instance, it's still legal to open a bank account without revealing your Social Security number."

He also offered to help readers get a foreign passport.

"Peru recently announced that it will sell its citizenship to foreigners for $25,000," Paul wrote. "... People concerned about survival are naturally interested in a second citizenship and passport. If you're interested, drop me a note and include your telephone number, and I'll get you some interesting information." [...]

Paul, a Surfside obstetrician, former member of Congress and 1988 Libertarian Party nominee for president, said Morris quotes material out of context. Paul also said his advice was appropriate at the time it was published.

Sept. 30, 1996, San Antonio Express-News:

Paul, a Surfside obstetrician, former congressman and the 1988 Libertarian presidential candidate, counterclaimed that Morris is name-calling to avoid discussing the issues like taxes and abortion.

Repeated requests by telephone and by fax to interview Paul for this article were denied.

Paul's spokesman Michael Quinn Sullivan said the candidate does not want to "rehash" old issues. [...]

Paul has said he opposes racism and accused Morris of reducing the campaign to "name-calling and race-baiting."

Oct. 11, 1996, Houston Chronicle:

Paul, who earlier this week said he still wrote the newsletter for subscribers, was unavailable for comment Thursday. But his spokesman, Michael Quinn Sullivan, accused Morris of "gutter-level politics."

Sullivan said it was "silly" to try to make a political issue of something written in an "abstract" sense. [...]

In his April 15, 1992, newsletter, Paul wrote about a person who had a beef with the IRS and "fired bombs through mortars" one night at an IRS building in California. Some federal property was damaged, but no one was injured, and the defendant was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

"Unfortunately (the defendant's) war against the IRS was not nearly as successful as Harry's War," wrote Paul, who wants to abolish the federal tax-collection agency. "Harry's War" was a movie about a fictional individual's battle against the IRS.

Sullivan said Morris "would rather sling mud at Ron Paul than talk about the issues or discuss how his own campaign is being almost completely financed by two liberal special interest groups: the trial lawyers and big labor."

Oct. 11, 1996, Austin American-Statesman:

Paul's aide, Eric Rittberg, said -- as a Jew -- he was "outraged and insulted by the senseless, anti-Semitic statements Mr. Morris is making."

"Lefty is taking statements out of context," Sullivan said. "When you are not looking at things in context, you can make anyone look horrible."

So, some of that is pretty bad, with Paul outright defending the positions in those papers, but we come again to the 2001 article (http://www.texasmonthly.com/2001-10-01/feature7-2.php) in Texas Monthly (thanks Welch for finding it online!), which was years after this brouhaha:

What made the statements in the publication even more puzzling was that, in four terms as a U.S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this.

When I ask him why, he pauses for a moment, then says, "I could never say this in the campaign, but those words weren't really written by me. It wasn't my language at all. Other people help me with my newsletter as I travel around. I think the one on Barbara Jordan was the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady." Paul says that item ended up there because "we wanted to do something on affirmative action, and it ended up in the newsletter and became personalized. I never personalize anything."

His reasons for keeping this a secret are harder to understand: "They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them ... I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn't come from me directly, but they [campaign aides] said that's too confusing. 'It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.'" It is a measure of his stubbornness, determination, and ultimately his contrarian nature that, until this surprising volte-face in our interview, he had never shared this secret. It seems, in retrospect, that it would have been far, far easier to have told the truth at the time.

Yes, it would have. I am trying to put myself in Dr Paul's place, here. If someone went back and found a bunch of racist stuff in The Freedom Files that I didn't write (I write every word, by the way), would I defend them?

I can't imagine doing so. When faced with the option of either admitting they weren't my words or defending racist statements, I'd have to admit they weren't my words.

So what variable could be added that would make me choose the defending route. Well, there is first the fact that they were written by people he knew, who worked with him, were presumably his friends. Perhaps he wanted to defend them?

But if my friends were writing racist things in The Freedom Files, would I want to defend them or have them as my friends? Assuming that I had left it all to them and had not been paying attention, when I found out later of their content, I would feel that I had been betrayed - and severely.

After all, wasn't it Ron Paul who said, "I have shortcomings, but the message has no shortcomings." If the message in 1996 was that black people are all criminals, I have to wonder - did the message have shortcomings then?

So, why would he protect the writer? He has never betrayed in his actions or words that he harbors a secret bigotry. The answer, perhaps, lies in not the what, the why, or the how, but the who.

As The Economist wrote (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/01/the_rockwell_files.cfm):

Mr Paul is probably not himself a racist, and many of the sentiments he expresses in his CNN interview are admirable. It is equally plausible that the hateful items published in his newsletter, so different in style from the congressman's own speech and writing, are not his handiwork. But his protestations of ignorance, both about what was being disseminated on his behalf and who was responsible, are much harder to credit.

The theory that libertarian insiders seem to believe is that it was Lew Rockwell who wrote those pieces. I don't know if that is true or not, but that would be as heartbreaking for me as if Paul had written them himself - if only for the damage it would do to the reputation of Austrian economics and the decidedly non-racist Ludwig von Mises. Lew denies (http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/01/10/who-wrote-ron-paul-s-newsletters.aspx) the allegation:

When I asked him who was in charge of the editing and publishing of the newsletters, Rockwell got cryptic. "The person who was in charge is now long gone ... He left in unfortunate circumstances." Ultimately, however, Rockwell says his role was "just to bring the money in."

Yeah, everyone was involved, but no one was responsible. I tend to believe it is Lew Rockwell. Lew does a lot for Ron Paul - publishing an account every time the doctor even farts on the House floor. He has been his most ardent and steadfast supporter over the years.

To turn his back on Lew would be to lose a lot of support. But if Lew really did write those, Dr Paul should have done it years ago.

The hardest thing to believe in all of this is that Ron Paul had no idea. It was a very small operation, manned by friends and associates. And no one noticed or told Ron Paul when someone wrote horrible stuff like this? None of them were offended when they read it? What kind of people does Ron Paul hang out with? Are they all so different from him?

Wikman Netizen has a theory (http://wirkman.net/wordpress/?p=202) about this:

Paleolibertarianism 1.0 was a last gasp effort to try class hatred after the miserable showing of Ron Paul's 1988 presidential effort.

I believe that Rothbard and Rockwell were very, very wrong in pushing this agenda. They had historical excuses, sure. But they placed too much emphasis on their experience with Taft Republicanism, a movement that long ago died, and probably cannot be revived. And they thought, incredibly, that heaping abuse onto black welfare-and-drug addicts and hippie weirdos would somehow translate into state hatred. Fat chance.

I think Rockwell has repented to some degree. Surely Mises.org and the Mises Institute have done some good work, especially bringing old books back into print.

So, I don't know why this happened or who knew when, but it certainly obvious to me that they must've known more than they are letting on, and they must have at least been complicit in their silence. They certainly are complicit in their silence on it today. As my hero Radley Balko says (http://www.reason.com/blog/show/124340.html):

Whether he was active or passive in the newsletters doesn't matter. Paul perpetuated that way of thinking for more than a decade in a newsletter he published. He did it during the 1980s and 1990s, the very period over which the drug laws exacerbated the white-black disparity in America's prisons. He can't now use the "blacks are treated poorly by our criminal justice system" defense to distance himself from those very newsletters.

Perhaps it's too much for us to expect Paul to turn over the names of the paleo types who wrote those screeds (if it's true that he had no hand in writing him himself—which I'm having a harder and harder time believing), to apologize that they ever went out under his name, and to disavow and repudiate the beliefs of the paleolibertarian supporters who have propped him up for most of his career, some of whom he still calls friends.

It's the truth. Ron Paul needs to be honest about this. He needs to say exactly what happened, how much he knew, and what he did about it when he found out. If it was "Paleo-Libertarianism 1.0," own up, take responsibility, and apologize. I would be willing to forgive if repentance is true. Neither he nor Rockwell seem to be pushing this kind of agenda anymore, either way.

I posted a poll over at RonPaulForums.com, where this blog is reprinted, asking what Ron Paul supporters thought of the issue. Here are the results:

View Poll Results: What do you think about the racist comments?

Ron wrote them and is lying 0 0%

Ron knew about them but did nothing 3 6.00%

Ron had no idea and should have paid closer attention 39 78.00%

I don't even know WHAT to think 8 16.00%

I hate to say it, but I think the 3 who said he knew and did nothing may have been right. I still plan on voting for Ron Paul, but my examination of this issue has led me to believe, as Freedomphile Area Penguin so eruditely put it, "The fact that he equivocated so, and claimed he didn't know who wrote them leads me to believe he was more aware than he let on, and that he "sold out" to keep the channel of support and funds open. In other words, he's way more like a politician than I thought he was."

Indeed, Penguin. Indeed.

This process has also made me realize a few things about myself and The Freedom Files. For one, I will always know what is being put in here, and will never let someone push their own offensive agenda in my name.

Second, I am done with pushing candidates. My strength has always been in the areas of policy, economics, and civil liberties. That's where I need to stay - pushing freedom, not politicians. Once this election season is over, I am hanging up my campaigning hat.

As Sheldon Richmon of The Foundation for Economic Education says (http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=1809):

Let's face it, politics is a superficial activity in which (most) candidates try to create a mood by pushing buttons expected to stimulate positive responses in significant constituencies. If one button doesn't have the intended effect, you push another and keep pushing until you have assembled a winning coalition. That's all you need to know about electoral politics. It explains the staged events, the self-serving declarations about the passion to "serve," and the hubristic claims to the mantle of leadership.

Have a good weekend, Freedomphiles, and I'll see you on Monday with a fresh Roundup.

http://www.brendangates.com/forumlogo.jpg

[ambiguousscion]

Come clean about what? He made his statement already

[dseisner]

Even after that guy said a million times, it was taken out of context, you're still saying he knew, he knew. Ok, maybe Lew Rockwell did write those things and maybe Dr. Paul knew somewhat about it...they were still taken out of context.

This campaign is different than every campaign you've ever been involved with, and you know it. You're just frustrated that Ron Paul isn't as perfect as you thought he was. Well guess what, he's human. And a damn good one. Maybe you should ignore your brain for once and check your gut...is it saying to you, Ron Paul is a racist? I know what it says to me.

[cottontai1]

he should have owned up to those writings the minute there was a problem (not saying he wrote them, but come on - do you think that with such an extensive family and long-time supporting friends NO ONE brought it up to him?).... gimme a break!
i love RS - he does a great job of being fair with the facts. i thought that is what we all wanted! no deceit and the ideal of honesty.....

even though i think what RP let happened sux, constitutionally he still embodies what i feel and,

i still plan on voting RP.

nice work on this bulletin RS - it is true that no man is perfect.

still a heartbreaker,
nettie

[superlou]

I'm with you RS. This is a huge letdown for me as well. It seems as if Paul's achilles heel is allowing his followers to push their agenda with his name. Not sure if he'll be able to push past this one. I can't see a clean break.

Oh and thanks for the great bulletin. I'll keep following as long as there is traction.

[tomaO2]

You knew about the newsletters but it's not until it makes a big media splash that it bothers you? How can you say "probably didn't write it"? There are questions that come up from this but the question of if he wrote it is such a non starter.

The MESSAGE is the message of the constitution. Not the message of racism. I find it insulting that you try and mix the two seperate things. Racism can be described as a personal failing. So is loyalty to friends that don't deserve it (this, is obviously Dr. Paul's biggest failing. Which should give pause all the people that keep telling others to trust that Ron Paul has a great reason for keeping his campaign staff even though they don't seem to be doing all that well in the eyes of many supporters here). Your religion is also another thing that should not matter.

With the constitution dictating your political decicions, personal beliefs don't matter anyway. That means even if Dr. Paul WAS a racist he can still follow the message. Racists like the message because it preserves their freedom of speech and even the more abhorrent of beliefs still deserve to be brought into the light of day. As is said here many times your not supporting the man but the message which is nothing more or less then the constitution and Ron Paul is the ONLY man that has the kind of track record that you can be sure will support it. That's why your supporting him. It takes flawed men to make a perfect constitution and it takes flawed men to support it. Don't confuse what you think of a man personally for how well you think he can do his job. It is impossible to push freedom without making sure the polititions will help you.

PS. What I would really like to know is why he would want to have racist things on his newsletter if he knew about it when he knows how that sort of thing could hurt him. Try answering that. In his many years in the public eye you cannot even catch the slightest whiff of improper behavior but somehow his instincts fail him on his newsletter? No. It makes no sense. He couldn't have known. To understand how he couldn't have known or how his friends or family could not have known is the question that really needs to be answered with more detail.

[noiseordinance]

If there was one single thing to ruin RP's campaign, the racism bit is it. On Friday, tuning into a couple radio stations for a brief moment during the day, I heard Ron Paul racist remarks in the morning, and once again in the evening on a completely different show.

Pardon the profanity but this is fucking killing me.

Honestly, I don't believe RP is a racist, but even if he was, I couldn't give a shit. It's constitutional to be a racist. It's constitutional to be a satanist. It's constitutional to stare lustfully at farm animals.

The sad thing is that if this shit does ruin RP, any future attempts at following a candidate that supports a true constitutional form of conservative government will be coined as "followers of that racist Ron Paul."

Absolutely killing me. I pray it doesn't get to the point where I have to remove my bumper stickers.

Sorry to be a downer, this just breaks my heart. Does anyone see a way for RP to get out of this?

[Jeremiah]

Dear RS,

I appreciate your efforts to give everyone an update every day on how the campaign is coming along and I applaud your efforts to bring this issue of Dr. Paul's alleged racism to a head. Today's work is especially worthwhile since it has brought out further information that has not yet been disclosed.

I have posted several comments on this issue both on your Daily Roundup and in other places on the forum. Anyone who wishes to look into these can do so. They will see the development of my own thought on this subject which has helped me to better understand the message of freedom.

It is my hope that we can come to an understanding of the truth in all of this and therefore how we can respond to the smears and allegations of racism in Dr. Paul's newsletters.

I have read at least one article, on the LA Riots, and have read several excerpts, not just quotes, from other articles. I accept Dr. Paul's assertion that he wrote some of the material and that others wrote the balance of it. Everything I have read I would categorize as anti-racist not racist and consistent with Dr. Paul's message of unalienable individual rights to be protected by the government under the Constitution as opposed to Group or Civil Rights granted by the goverment.

Dr. Paul is categorically opposed to collectivism which at its root is racism. It is the essential nature of the ideology. It is designed to divide society into controllable segments and to engender resentment amongst them, by granting privileges to one segment or another at the expense of other segments, in order to facilitate their control by the ruling elite. The present mindsphere of much of Western society is conditioned by this ideology. Even those who see themselves as "libertarian", embracing the principles of unalienable individual rights, have grown up and been educated in schools and universities that are impregnated with the collectivist ideology and presuppositions and so they themselves have been mentally and emotionally conditioned to accept them as true.

This is why so many of the supporters of Dr. Paul, like you yourself RS, are disoriented by the current attacks on him, believing as they do that the articles quoted are indeed "racist" and in so believing they justify his enemies who are in fact the true racists. They then find it difficult to mount a strong defence against them, because they find themselves half believing the allegations and hoping that there is some reasonable explanation for them.

It has probably not yet occurred to Dr. Paul himself that these attacks are in fact "projections" of the mental condition of his attackers, because this mindsphere is alien to him. He was educated in a time before this ideology had taken root in American society. He has a strong Christian faith and an intellectual foundation in true libertarian economics and philosophy. Yes, these attacks are "hit pieces" designed to destroy him, and the quotes used are distorted to conform to the prejudice of the attacker, but the truth is that these writers also believe what they are saying. Their minds have been thoroughly possessed by the collectivist racist ideology. It is indeed they who are the racists and many of the newsletter articles quoted by them as damaging to Dr. Paul are in fact articulate expositions of this truth, that it is the collectivists who are the true racists. The articles in Dr. Paul's newsletters are anti-racist, they are not simply not racist but anti-racist, dealing as they do with the malign effects of government welfare programmes and affirmative action. They are all perfectly consistent with Dr. Paul's philosophy and they should also be understood as such by his supporters. This will entail for some a very painful awakening to their own condition. But it will be worth the effort because they will begin then to taste the true meaning of freedom.


Collective Rights = Racism, Individual Rights = Anti-Racism

Now for the good news. If we can obtain copies of these articles with sound provenance then we can use them to win over the Christian evangelical community because they will agree with everything said in them. True Christians are just as opposed to collectivism and affirmative action as Dr. Paul. Remember Ronald Reagan's opposition to Communism? These attacks may turn out to be the best news for the campaign we have yet had.

[spudea]

A normal politician would have sold his friend to the wolves in a heartbeat.

[RSDavis]

Come clean about what? He made his statement already

He needs to be honest. His answer is unbelievable because I know he isn't that stupid.

- R

[RSDavis]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][COLOR="Indigo"]You knew about the newsletters but it's not until it makes a big media splash that it bothers you?

It was really learning that he defended the comments at one point, and that they were written over the course of a decade that did it for me.

- R

[Crickett]

Many of the above comments were taken out of context. They were WRITTEN and refuted later in the aricle. I see several of those comments in the above. I can say "ALL Paul supporters are KOOKS. But I do not believe that"..
Then you can quote me that I said All Paul supporters are kooks. Sheesh

[tomaO2]

That's not fair. Ron Paul made it clear that it was the campaign's choice. Not his own. He got bad advice. Obviously, you think Ron Paul should not have listened but it's much easier to say that when you don't have a dozen highly (or whatever number) placed people all telling you to do the opposite. Again, this shows that he can have bad judgment in the people he listens to in regards to politics.

Tucker said that he's so hands off that he couldn't even tell his staff to turn on the heat or not. He probably wanted to disavow everything but was unsure about it. This area appears to have much more gray to him rather then relying on the constitution. He's got a totally different personality then you and was in a far different situation. He probably have felt severe guilt as well for what happened... I don't know everything but your going a bit far with your statements of disillusionment.

It also said in the articles that he made a pass at a reporter half his age. He doesn't even let himself be alone the same room with a woman without another person unless it's his wife or family. There is some biased reading in here.

You also didn't retract your slur that somehow Ron Paul's message may include racism. He wants to do away with the death penalty because it is applied overly much to blacks. He voted for a bill that would celebrate MLK. He has his failings but when it comes to the constitution he is absolutely unwavering because it's the ground that is most solid under his feet. Politics has NOTHING to do with how he votes or how wants to runs things as president. Racism and "the message" are two seperate things and I would like you to acknowledge it.

[parke]

I dont give a rats butt either way. Its obvious by his writing that we KNOW he has written that he doesnt have a racist way of thinking.

[iQuotient]

Imagine the power of someone who has been given the position (by our participation) and power that you have... to turn away from the campaign. If this is your version of freedom of speech, then take my response as mine. You have crossed over by spinning such a negative poll. "come clean implies he is dirty, only dirty and wholly dirty."
maybe you are the other ghost author they are talking about... how far back to you go with Lew?

[randolphfuller]

I believe a full, through , detailed explanation of this entire episode by Dr. Paul himself is the only way out of it. The people who did write the newsletters should be identified nad thier present relationshiop to the campaign described. Having know Murray Rothbard I suspect he may have had some hand in all this. At that time he was deeply disillusioned with the Libertarian Party and thought there might be some way back through the swamps of racism and homophobia. Rememeber when he was at Columbia University he favored Strom Thurmond in 1948 , who was running on an openly white supremacist platform and campaign. Despite his Jewish birth, Murray was definitely somewhat a racist as far as blacks were concerned anda homophobe.

[pepperpete1]

Jerimiah has it right and said it very eloquently. I feel he may have added that the opposition is r-e-a-c-h-i-n-g for any dirt they can spin into a flaw in Ron Paul. Cripes they have to go back that far and continue to use this dis-info because THEY CAN'T FIND ANYTHING ELSE THEY CAN SPIN. They will do anything to smother the voice in the wilderness. Dr. Paul has, I am betting ,served black, hispanic, and other minority patients for free. I doubt a racist would.

Forget about it. Ignore them like they are trying to ignore him. When they can not refute his message they turn to scorn and ridicule, or like this, manipulation of the facts.

Ron Paul's character, ethics, and honesty I am sure are driving them nuts. That is why they have to resort to these tactics.

[randolphfuller]

We need an immediate, thorugh, detailed, and complete explanation from Ron Paul himself. Having known Murray Rothbard I feel he may have had a hand in all this. If this is really an attempt bythe Cato nstitute or Reason magazine to get Lew Rockwell, why? What could t possibly accomplish?

[Dude!]

This was all about selling newsletters by appealing to a group of nut jobs that would get fired up and spend a lot of money to subscribe it.

[Jeremiah]

This was all about selling newsletters by appealing to a group of nut jobs that would get fired up and spend a lot of money to subscribe it.

Nut jobs? Have you actually read the newsletters yourself? Before you begin to throw ad hominem word bombs at innocent bystanders perhaps you should read my previous post and the article on the LA Riots from which many of the quotes are taken. All you are doing at present is agreeing in your heart with Dr. Paul's enemies. This is precisely the reaction they wanted to create. If we can simply gather the evidence, the newsletter articles themselves, and THINK about what they say in the context of their period and the true freedom philosophy you will realise they are actually Anti-Racist, not simply Not Racist, but Anti-Racist.

[Jeremiah]

It was really learning that he defended the comments at one point, and that they were written over the course of a decade that did it for me.

- R


But why should he not defend the comments? They were taken out of context and the articles themselves were Anti-Racist, not simply Non Racist, but Anti-Racist. You have apparently not yet read my post in this thread where I deal with this issue.

Perhaps Dr. Paul grew tired of trying to demonstrate this point to even his libertarian supporters and decided that the best thing to do was to simply accept moral responsibility for the articles and let people figure it out for themselves. My own view is that he should make another effort to show that the articles are Anti-Racist, opposing as they do the malign effects of the collectivist racist ideology which all libertarians are supposed to oppose.

However, given the fact that so many of his supporters have been emotionally and cognitively conditioned by collectivist ideological propaganda, it is indeed an uphill struggle and he can be forgiven for leaving that to another day. After all if this is the only thing his enemies have on him, and I am disposed to believe it is, then eventually people at large will realise that, even if it were true, it is a small thing when weighed in the balance of his character, his life experience in the freedom movement and the fact that he is eminently qualified, spiritually, intellectually, philosopically, emotionally and morally for the office of President. Then, when they come to the realisation that it is in fact not true, their support will be unmovable. He is just so far ahead of his competitors in both parties for the office it is hardly worthy of being called a race. e.g. All one has to do is read the transcript of the South Carolina debate, stripped of all emotional content as it is, to see that the other Republicans are economically and philosophically illiterate. They are mere marionettes of their professional handlers, a condition that Dr. Paul has thus far been able to avoid, in spite of the urgings of many of his supporters.

[Xenophage]

On the issue of Blacks as criminals, its true. Not because Blacks are BAD, because the criminal laws on the books are so outrageous, and THAT is the message. Its hard NOT to be a criminal when everything is illegal!

[Xenophage]

Your poll question is also loaded. You're implying, in the poll question itself, that there is something to come clean about.

[Jeremiah]

Jerimiah has it right and said it very eloquently. I feel he may have added that the opposition is r-e-a-c-h-i-n-g for any dirt they can spin into a flaw in Ron Paul. Cripes they have to go back that far and continue to use this dis-info because THEY CAN'T FIND ANYTHING ELSE THEY CAN SPIN. They will do anything to smother the voice in the wilderness. Dr. Paul has, I am betting ,served black, hispanic, and other minority patients for free. I doubt a racist would.

Forget about it. Ignore them like they are trying to ignore him. When they can not refute his message they turn to scorn and ridicule, or like this, manipulation of the facts.

Ron Paul's character, ethics, and honesty I am sure are driving them nuts. That is why they have to resort to these tactics.

Thanks PP1. You appear to be the only one to have read my post. I agree with you that they are really stretching to find anything to use to discredit Dr. Paul. The New Republic writer, James Kirchik, is apparently a young Yale student. He must be cannon fodder in case this blows up in their faces.

We must not forget that the people pushing these attacks keep track of EVERY little detail their "enemies" ever write or say or do that might be used against them. These newsletter articles are evidently all they can find to use against Dr. Paul, and even they have to be distorted and misrepresented in order to be effective for their malevolent purposes. We must try to keep informing Dr. Paul's supporters of the flimsy, ephemeral nature of these attacks. They are only made more substantial when Dr. Paul's supporters agree with the attackers that the articles in question are racist, WHEN IN TRUTH THEY ARE ANTI-RACIST. If this simple fact can be digested and fully understood then these attacks can become a launching pad for a counter-attack of exceptional persuasive power.

[billyjoeallen]

People, it's really freekin simple. We are about 5% of the voters. We have to pick our battles and we can't be to damn picky who our allies are here,

Which is a bigger collectivist threat to America: Racism or Statism?

Libertarians would say they are both bad, but Statism is worse. Therefore we have to align with the Pat Buchannon types and whoever else we can.

We don't have the luxury of being picky who our allies are. Give Dr. Paul credit for being an astute politcal strategist.

[VoluntaryMan]

It may just be a matter of timing. If the story is starved for new information, it must die. That doesn't mean that the impression that he keeps questionable company, or that he might be sympathetic to their views will just die along with the story, though. Eventually, if he is to win, this will all come out. At what point, I don't know. Perhaps HQ believes that his primary run can survive this. Maybe they're just waiting until after ST, when there's some breathing space. The thing to understand is this: if he reveals the authors/editor (assuming he knows who they are), they will become the story. They will be interviewed. Who knows what other nonsense they might say. Once the identiities are revealed, the story will become impossible to manage. This is the proverbial rock and a hard place. Stonewalling may seem unwise, but an untimely outing may be even less wise.

[RSDavis]

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][COLOR="Indigo"]That's not fair. Ron Paul made it clear that it was the campaign's choice. Not his own. He got bad advice. Obviously, you think Ron Paul should not have listened but it's much easier to say that when you don't have a dozen highly (or whatever number) placed people all telling you to do the opposite. Again, this shows that he can have bad judgment in the people he listens to in regards to politics.

This was his name. This was going out as a message that he endorsed. If he didn't want to endorse racism, he shouldn't have. Your argument makes him sound weak-willed, which I definitely do not believe to be true.


It also said in the articles that he made a pass at a reporter half his age. He doesn't even let himself be alone the same room with a woman without another person unless it's his wife or family. There is some biased reading in here.

I don't think that was Ron Paul. I think that was someone else RP was talking about.


You also didn't retract your slur that somehow Ron Paul's message may include racism.

In 1996, it did. He may not have wanted it to, but it did.

- Rick

[RSDavis]

Imagine the power of someone who has been given the position (by our participation) and power that you have... to turn away from the campaign. If this is your version of freedom of speech, then take my response as mine. You have crossed over by spinning such a negative poll. "come clean implies he is dirty, only dirty and wholly dirty."
maybe you are the other ghost author they are talking about... how far back to you go with Lew?

Are you talking to me?

[RSDavis]

[FONT="Arial"][SIZE="3"]But why should he not defend the comments? They were taken out of context and the articles themselves were Anti-Racist, not simply Non Racist, but Anti-Racist. You have apparently not yet read my post in this thread where I deal with this issue.

Perhaps Dr. Paul grew tired of trying to demonstrate this point to even his libertarian supporters and decided that the best thing to do was to simply accept moral responsibility for the articles and let people figure it out for themselves. My own view is that he should make another effort to show that the articles are Anti-Racist, opposing as they do the malign effects of the collectivist racist ideology which all libertarians are supposed to oppose.

I don't see how you can rationalize some of those quotes into being anti-racist. But since he now says he doesn't think like that and never wrote them in the first place, I would think Ron Paul doesn't find them anti-racist.


However, given the fact that so many of his supporters have been emotionally and cognitively conditioned by collectivist ideological propaganda, it is indeed an uphill struggle and he can be forgiven for leaving that to another day. After all if this is the only thing his enemies have on him, and I am disposed to believe it is, then eventually people at large will realise that, even if it were true, it is a small thing when weighed in the balance of his character, his life experience in the freedom movement and the fact that he is eminently qualified, spiritually, intellectually, philosopically, emotionally and morally for the office of President. Then, when they come to the realisation that it is in fact not true, their support will be unmovable. He is just so far ahead of his competitors in both parties for the office it is hardly worthy of being called a race. e.g. All one has to do is read the transcript of the South Carolina debate, stripped of all emotional content as it is, to see that the other Republicans are economically and philosophically illiterate. They are mere marionettes of their professional handlers, a condition that Dr. Paul has thus far been able to avoid, in spite of the urgings of many of his supporters.

I wouldn't blame the reaction to these newsletter a result of collectivism. I see the newsletters themselves painting with a broad brush and not accepting the individual.

- Rick

[Jeremiah]

Which is a bigger collectivist threat to America: Racism or Statism?


The answer to your question is simple. Both, since they are both integral parts of the same ideological system. As I said in a previous post:

"Dr. Paul is categorically opposed to collectivism (statism) which at its root is racism. It is the essential nature of the ideology. It is designed to divide society into controllable segments and to engender resentment amongst them, by granting privileges to one segment or another at the expense of other segments, in order to facilitate their control of the population by the ruling elite. The present mindsphere of much of Western society is conditioned by this ideology. Even those who see themselves as "libertarian", embracing the principles of unalienable individual rights, have grown up and been educated in schools and universities that are impregnated with the collectivist ideology and presuppositions and so they themselves have been mentally and emotionally conditioned to accept them as true."

Think about this in depth and you will begin to understand where Dr. Paul is coming from. The articles in question were for the most part not written by Dr. Paul but they certainly reflect his opposition to "Civil (Group) Rights" and their malign effects. The articles are not only NOT RACIST they are in fact ANTI-RACIST.

This entire racist attack is a red herring thrown out by his statist enemies whose minds are incapable of thinking in any other way. Their thinking is dictated by the emotional and cognitive conditioning to which they have been subjected and which they believe wholeheartedly. Once you understand this then you will understand why they attack Dr. Paul. He is threatening their very existence. This is an existential struggle for them. If he wins then their entire universe will collapse. They will no longer have a reason for existing. They may not be aware of this, any more than you are aware that you are also caught in the same dialectic dichotomy as evidenced by your statement quoted above. You however can escape because you have received a glimpse of the truth and can now learn more if you are willing to make the effort. Do not assume that because you have seen the light you must therefore know everything. Dig deeper.

[dkim68]

He needs to be honest. His answer is unbelievable because I know he isn't that stupid.

- R
He HAS been honest. And it wasn't stupidity that got him into this, it was being too trusting.

[Jeremiah]

This was his name. This was going out as a message that he endorsed. If he didn't want to endorse racism, he shouldn't have. Your argument makes him sound weak-willed, which I definitely do not believe to be true.


In 1996, it did. He may not have wanted it to, but it did. (Contain racism)

- Rick

Rick,

You seem to be determined to pin the racist tag on Dr. Paul after quite a few people have demonstrated to you that he is not a racist. The articles in question are anti-racist/collectivist as I myself have argued on several occasions so there is no rational basis on which you may accuse him of racism. This is a typical collectivist attack from people whose minds are coloured (no pun intended) by their emotional and cognitive conditioning in the ideologically collectivist/racist mindsphere in which we all live daily. You are not so ideologically bound as they are but you need to recognise that you have been subjected to the same conditioning, as we all have. Breaking free of it is no easy task but you must do it, otherwise you will in time revert to being a statist, which I am sure is where you started.

If you are unable to shake this conviction perhaps you should take time off to reconsider your position and pass the job of publishing the Daily Roundup to someone less conflicted.

[Jeremiah]

Rick: After referring to this Ron Paul report several times in my posts and asserting that it is ANTI-RACIST, I decided to post it here and let people make up their own minds. To my way of thinking the article opposes the "group rights" mentality of the modern collectivist state, and supports my contention that the purpose of the ruling elites is to use interracial animosities to "divide and rule". The real racists are those who use racial differences to foment strife at the expense of natural justice in order to increase their political power. This article may not have been written by Dr. Paul but in my view there is nothing in it that he would, in principle, disagree with. In my next post I will publish a review of a book by Jared Taylor, written around the same period, which details some of the facts that I assume the Ron Paul article was based upon. Lest anyone imagine that this social conditon has changed in the intervening years, an article by Mychal Massie in today's (January 15, 2008) World Net Daily should be read: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59679


LOS ANGELES RACIAL TERRORISM
(Article from the Ron Paul Political Report)

The Los Angeles and related riots mark a new era in American cultural, political and economic life. We now know that we are under assault from thugs and revolutionaries who hate Euro-American civilization and everything it stands for: private property, material success for those who earn it, and Christian morality.

Ten thousand stores and other buildings looted and burned, thousands beaten and otherwise seriously injured and 52 people dead. That was the toll of the Los Angeles riots in which we saw white men pulled from their cars and trucks and shot or brutally beaten. (In every case, the mob was not too enraged to pick the victim's pocket.) We saw Korean and white stores targeted by the mob because they "exploited the community," i.e., sold products people wanted at prices they were willing to pay. Worst of all, we saw the total breakdown of law enforcement, as black and white liberal public officials had the cops and troops disarmed in the face of criminal anarchy.

In San Francisco and perhaps other cities, says expert Burt Blumert, the rioting was led by red-flag carrying members of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Workers World Party, both Trotskyite-Maoist. The police were allowed to intervene only when the rioters assaulted the famous Fairmont and Mark Hopkins hotels atop Nob Hill. A friend of Burt's, a jewelry store owner, had his store on Union Square looted by blacks, and when the police arrived in response to his frantic calls, their orders were to protect his life, but not to interfere with the rioting.

Even though the riots were aimed at whites (in L.A. at Koreans who had committed the crime of working hard and being successful, and at Cambodians in Long Beach), and even though anti-white and anti-Asian epithets filled the air, this is not considered a series of hate crimes, nor a violation of the civil rights of whites or Asians.

The criminals who terrorize our cities--in riots and on every non-riot day--are not exclusively young black males, but they largely are. As children, they are trained to hate whites, to believe that white oppression is responsible for all black ills, to "fight the power," and to steal and loot as much money from the white enemy as possible. Anything is justified against "The Man” and "The Woman.' A lady I know recently saw a black couple in the supermarket with a cute little girl, three years old or so. My friend waved to the tiny child, who scowled, stuck out her tongue, and said (somewhat tautologically): "I hate you, white honkey." And the parents were indulgent. Is any white child taught to hate in this way? I've never heard of it. If a white child made such a remark to a black woman, the parents would stop it with a reprimand or a spank.

But this is normal, and in fact benign, compared to much of the anti-white ideology in the thoroughly racist black community. The black leadership indoctrinates its followers with phony history and phony theory to bolster its claims of victimology. Like the communists who renounced all that was bourgeois, the blacks reject all that is "Eurocentric." They demand their own kind of thinking, and deny the possibility of non-blacks understanding it.

The insurrectionist and revolutionaries intended to destroy large sections of Los Angeles. Why did the ghetto youths so furiously rage together? Was it because they have been neglected? Hardly. Welfare has transferred $2.5 trillion from white middle class taxpayers to welfare programs in the last 30 years. And if we adjust that figure for 1992 dollars, the total is more like $7 trillion. Are blacks being denied economic opportunity? The cities could have freer markets, but so could the rest of the country, where there is no rioting and little street crime. Are black killers and looters responding to racism? Japanese Americans were treated far worse in California than blacks. They were even put in concentration camps by Earl Warren, John J. McCloy, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, yet Japanese-Americans have never rioted. Korean-Americans, hated by blacks, never riot, and in fact are some of the most productive people in America (the reason for black hatred).

The cause of the riots is plain: barbarism. If the barbarians cannot loot sufficiently through legal channels (i.e., the riots being the welfare-state minus the middleman), they resort to illegal ones, to terrorism. Trouble is, few seem willing to do anything to stop them. The cops have been handcuffed. And property owners are not allowed to defend themselves. The mayor of Los Angeles, for example, ordered the Korean storekeepers who defended themselves arrested for "discharging a firearm within city limits." Perhaps the most scandalous aspect of the Los Angeles riots was the response by the mayors, the media, and the Washington politicians. They all came together as one to excuse the violence and to tell white America that it is guilty, although the guilt can be assuaged by handing over more cash. It would be reactionary, racist, and fascist, said the media, to have less welfare or tougher law enf orcement. America's number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks.

Rather than helping, all this will ensure that guerrilla violence will escalate. There will be more occasional eruptions such as we saw in Los Angeles, but just as terrifying are the daily muggings, robberies, burglaries, rapes, and killings that make our cities terror zones.

The rioters said they were acting out their frustration over the acquittal of four L.A. policemen accused of using excessive force when arresting Rodney G. King, but in fact, they were looking for an excuse to kill, burn, and loot. Nonetheless, it is important to understand why the jury decided not to convict, whether or not we agree with their verdict.

The California highway patrol began chasing drunk driver Rodney King, a black man with a long arrest record, and his two passengers on the night of March 3, 1991. He was recklessly driving at speeds up to 115 mph for almost eight miles. They raced on the highway until King turned off to drive through traffic lights and stop signs on residential streets (families could have been killed). The L.A. police department came to assist in the high-speed chase with lights and sirens on. One of King's passengers asked him to pull over.

King initially refused, driving faster, but he finally complied. When the cops approached the car, suspecting armed criminals, the two black passengers immediately stepped out of the car and fell flat on their stomachs with arms stretched out, as instructed. They were handcuffed. King could have done the same. But he chose a different route. He refused to get out of the car. He stalled for a minute, and several times, stepped out of the car and then back into it.

The police wondered if he was searching the car for a gun. Once King stopped this game, he was told by cops with guns pointing at him to put his belly down on the ground with arms outstretched. Instead, King began to do a crazy dance and laugh freakishly. He taunted the police and even the helicopter buzzing above him. This is why the police thought he was on PCP.

Despite police orders, King continued to dance, grabbing his buttocks to make lewd gestures at a female cop. Sgt. Koon approached him and warned that he would be stung with a Taser gun. King got down on his hands and knees, but refused to lay flat. He was again warned, but King refused. Officer Powell put his knee on King's back to get him down on the ground so he could be handcuffed. King went down to the ground, but bounced back up, shaking off all the police who were trying to get hold of him. Finally, Koon stung him with the gun, delivering 50,000 volts of electricity, and King fell to the ground again. But again he bounced up, prompting Koon to deliver another 50,000 volts. King fell again, this time into the proper position. Not a single baton blow had been delivered and the cops thought everything was over.

At this point, the video camera started to tape the action. Officer Powell approached King to put handcuffs on him, but King, weighing 250 pounds and standing 6'4" tall, shocked everyone by springing into action again from his flat position. Like a professional linebacker, he charged Powell, who thought King was going for his gun. That's when Powell started using the baton. At one point, Powell thought King was subdued, put away the baton and reached for the cuffs. But King started to stand up again. Remembering how King rushed him before, he put away his cuffs and brought out the baton again. One officer even tried to put his foot on King's neck to prevent him from getting up again so he could be cuffed.

In all, he was hit 56 times, and even in the end he refused to comply. He had to be cuffed in an odd position that risked the lives of the cops. The hospital reported that King had suffered an injury on the face from when he fell to the ground and minor injuries to his leg. He was never hit on the spine or the head, this would have violated regulations. And he was not beaten nearly to death, as some have claimed. The jury concluded that at every point of that night's action, King was in control. He could have complied at any time and stopped the beating. Whether we agree or disagree with the jury's verdict--that the cops did not use excessive force--it is instructive to know what they saw and what the media still refuses to tell us or show us. None of the major networks showed the video scene when King rushed Officer Powell after the first Taser jolt. Only CNN showed it, one time. And no major paper even mentioned it. Neither did any major paper or network tell of the two passengers who complied and were peacefully arrested. Why? We were shown the section of tape where the cops hit King as a metaphor for white racism. Shown it again and again, we were supposed to feel guilty.

Not long after this incident, King was found trying to pick up a transvestite prostitute, and when caught, tried to run over the cops who intervened. He was not arrested. This was not reported outside of L.A. He was also not jailed for violating his parole (for armed robbery) or for drunk and reckless driving or for violently resisting arrest. The verdict was handed down at 3:15pm on April 29. For weeks we had heard threats that the blacks would riot if the officers were not convicted. Taking that into account did the media or politicians defer to the jury (as they do when a liberal-approved criminal is released)?

Not at all. At 5:10 pm, liberal black L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley said he was shocked and outraged at the verdict. He denounced the jurors for approving "the senseless and brutal beating of a helpless man." As an afterthought, he asked the city to "remain calm." With those words, he might as well have thrown a match into a pool of gasoline. It was permission for the blacks to "express their rage."

Ten minutes later, the police got their first report of trouble. Blacks were throwing beer cans at passing cars. When the police showed up, the crowds had gotten much bigger. Cops tried to control them, but realized they were outnumbered. Realizing that they could not use their guns or even look cross-eyed at a black, a video recorded a policeman saying: "It's not worth it. Let's go." Indeed it wasn't worth it. The cops could only have put themselves on trial and had their lives ruined too.

Ironically, they were being filmed and are now denounced. But it was the Establishment's reaction to the Rodney King verdict that set the precedent that black criminals always have the benefit of the doubt over white police. At 5:45, the field commander in the area where the riots began ordered that no police go into the area. "I want everybody out of here. Get out. Now. " He wanted to protect his police force, which could take no action without media criticism and legal action, from rioters who vastly outnumbered them and were sometimes better armed. The blacks started to attack cars driven by whites and light-skinned Hispanics with crowbars, rocks, bottles, and even a metal traffic sign. At the last minute, some police officers rescued a woman abandoned in her car and were pelted by rocks as they left.

At 6:45, a white man was dragged from a delivery truck and thrown to the ground and beaten, as black assailants yelled, "That's how Rodney King felt, white boy!" Another white truck driver, Reginald O. Denny, pulled into the area and five blacks beat him nearly to death. One threw a fire extinguisher at his head as he lay unconscious, breaking nearly every bone in his face. A white boy was pulled from his motorcycle and shot in the head. All this happened less than an hour and a half after the mayor had denounced the verdict. Rather than call for even minimal standards of justice, the Establishment coalesced into its excuse making mode, justifying black terrorism in various ways. It was caused by poverty, frustration, "12 years of neglect," etc., but never evil. The fires burned out of control as firemen were attacked by the rioters as well, in one case with an axe.

All banks within the vicinity of rioting, meaning nearly all of central L.A., were immediately shut down. People who wanted to cash checks or make deposits were shocked to find them closed. They were also stunned to find city transit not running. Taxicabs were nowhere in sight. White people found themselves walking alone many blocks to get home, running the minefield of black gangs out for their blood.

Many people tried to buy guns to protect themselves. But, whoops, California has a 14-day waiting period. And then, just to make sure honest Californians could not get ammunition for the firearms they already owned (poor rage filled youth might be shot), Mayor Tom Bradley ordered all gun and ammo shops closed, a great help to criminals who had stocked up earlier, or who could simply break in and loot.

Another group that had stocked up were Korean merchants, many of whom defended their places with guns, and later were arrested for illegal use of firearms. As one told the L.A. Times, "Two looters entered my store; one left." These Korean immigrants were the only people to act like real Americans, mainly because they have not yet been assimilated into our liberal culture, which admonishes whites faced by raging blacks to lie back and think of England. White reporters and photographers who entered the riot zone were dragged from their cars and beaten. A freelance reporter for the Boston Globe was shot five times. The anti-white hate crimes accumulated.

In the midst of the rioting, Jesse Jackson and Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) spouted the pro-terrorist line that it was all justified because blacks "can't get no justice." The newsmen of the major networks interviewed them and lovingly bemoaned the "plight of the inner-city youth." Liberal statist Jack Kemp weighed in with a victimological line similar to Jackson's, saying we need more federal programs for the cities. As the Establishment promised to spread more white taxpayers’ money around the inner city, the killers and looters spread their violence to Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Fairfax, and Westwood. A mall in Compton burned.

The Violence wasn't limited to the L.A. area. It extended to Long Beach, CA (where more than 500 Cambodian-owned businesses were torched); Seattle, WA; Eugene, OR; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Las Vegas, NV (where it still lingers); Madison, WI; Birmingham, AL; and Atlanta, GA. Terrorism swept America. In Las Vegas, for example, a white man was pulled out of his car and severely beaten by blacks breaking up from an anti-white rally at l0:30 pm. The blacks shouted racial insults as the police carted him away to the hospital. The crowd then pelted SWAT teams in armored vehicles with rocks and bottles. Someone in the crowd of blacks shot a gun and the police responded with tear gas. I'm sure that there were many more incidents of looting, fires, and violence that we haven't heard about for the simple fact that the media doesn't want us to know about them. Newsmen and editors are protecting us from the truth.

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. The "poor" lined up at the post office to get their handouts (since there were no deliveries)--and then complained about slow service. What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.

Several days after the violence ended, we learned that there would have been blacks on the King jury--if the NAACP hadn't engaged in jury tampering by telling potential black jurors that it was their racial duty to convict the cops. The blacks admitted this to defense lawyers, and were rightly excluded from jury. This is a serious crime, but the NAACP will not be prosecuted.

Imagine the irony. Blacks have whined endlessly that letting the cops off was "all white" (even though the jury included an Hispanic and an Asian). But it was the leading "civil rights" organization that is at fault for this.

What did Bush say about the riots? First he promised to have the Justice Department see if it could retry the cops for violating Rodney King's "civil rights." But what about the constitutional prohibition of double jeopardy? No one cares. Then Bush promised an immediate payoff of $600 million to L.A. gangsters. When the liberals called this a "token", he raised the amount to $1.2 billion. He has vacillated between pretending to be a tough guy and condemning the rioters, and taking up the Jack Kemp line that inner-city "despair" can be fixed through more federal programs. But this is capitulation to terrorist demands. The advice some libertarians give--"don't vote, it only encourages them" applies here. We must not kowtow to the street hoodlums and their sanctimonious leaders.

At a Washington, D.C., rally two weeks after the L.A. attempt at revolution, many poured out to lobby for more money to be given to the cities. The most commonly held sign was: "Justice for Rodney King. Free all the L.A. prisoners." Now, consider for a moment what this slogan implies. Were they upset by the murders, the burned buildings, and the $1 billion in property damage? Not at all, except to use it as an excuse to get more cash. They wanted the cops jailed and the murderers, arsonists, and thieves set free. This came not from the underclass, but from middle-class blacks and black political activists, who hold opinions not markedly different from the Crips and the Bloods. But the Crips and the Bloods, it turns out, have been "misunderstood," according to Ted Koppel who interviewed two of these animals. After spending several hours with them, he decided he liked them. Unfortunately, they didn't pull him out of his stretch limousine.

Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action. I know many who fall into this group personally and they deserve credit--not as representatives of a racial group, but as decent people. They are, however, outnumbered. Of black males in Washington, D.C, between the ages of 18 and 35, 42% are charged with a crime or are serving a sentence, reports the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives. The Center also reports that 70% of all black men in Washington are arrested before they reach the age of 35, and 85% are arrested at some point in their lives. Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries out of all proportion to their numbers.

Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics. The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer.

Blacks have "civil rights," preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black beauty contests, black TV shows, black TV anchors, black scholarships and colleges, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda.

Two years ago, in a series of predictions for the 1990s, I said that race riots would erupt in our large cities. I'm now predicting this will be the major problem of the 1990s.



Taken from the Ron Paul Political Report, 1120 NASA Blvd., Suite 104,
Houston, TX 77058 for $50 per year. Call 1-800-766-7285

[Jeremiah]

Below is a review of a book that came out about the same time as the Ron Paul Political Report on the LA Riots. I believe it gives some context. I also believe that the solution to the problems described here is the Restoration of the Republic with its emphasis on unalienable individual rights, as opposed to the civil rights that have given rise to so much misery, and which have been used by the ruling elite to maintain their grip on power. If the Ron Paul Revolution does not succeed in electing the next President of the United States, the alternative may well be a backlash against the oppressive and divisive racism of the collectivist Establishment, represented by both political parties, that would be greatly exacerbated should the anticipated economic depression ensue.



PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS: THE FAILURE OF RACE RELATIONS IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA
by Jared Taylor.

Reviewed by Charles Stanwood

(Charles Stanwood is the pen name of an educator who holds a Ph.D. in
History. He has taught at the college level at institutions in the West
and Midwest. Author, co-author, and contributor to nine books and
monographs, his articles and reviews have appeared in a wide range of
scholarly American periodicals.)

During the 1950s and 1960s, America's black civil rights leaders, with support from liberal politicians and the most influential molders of public opinion, pressed hard for "non-discrimination" in voting, education, housing and employment opportunity. Equal opportunity, it was argued, would inevitably lead to equal social-economic results. Upholding the standard of a "color-blind" constitution, this movement succeeded in anchoring its demands in law, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the 1968 Open Housing Act.

When equal opportunity failed to bring the hoped-for results, America's political and cultural leaders abandoned their original goal of color-blind "non-discrimination." Armed with new state and federal laws, key court decisions and a network of administrative guidelines and regulations, they instead fashioned a new social order based on racial preferences for non-whites and proportional distribution of benefits among ethnic (and now gender and linguistic) groups. New theories of "compensatory justice" have been invoked to provide a philosophical gloss for this revolution in policy.

Moreover, as author Jared Taylor graphically relates in this meticulously documented, closely argued and powerfully written review of the lamentable state of race relations in America, a system of "prevailing taboos" has been allowed to evolve, a dangerous consequence of which is that honest and intelligent discussion of race and related issues has largely been proscribed.

Boldly defying this proscription, Taylor has produced the first book in decades issued by a mainstream publisher that forthrightly confronts the profound failure of America's racial policy. In his introduction to this damning indictment, the author sets the tone of “Paved with Good Intentions”:

“Race is the great American dilemma. This has always been so, and is likely to remain so... In our multicultural society, race lurks just below the surface of much that is not explicitly racial... Race is the fearful question that looms behind every social problem in America."

Almost from its opening pages this book casts doubt on the basic assumptions about race and society that have driven social policy for decades. In attempting to show how mistaken assumptions begot mistaken policy, it has been necessary to show just how miserably those policies have failed.

In the pages that follow, Taylor spares no words in portraying the harsh reality. "Hideous things are happening in our country," he writes. "Millions of Americans -- many of them black -- live in conditions of violence and squalor that would shame the rulers of Third World nations."

What's worse, he goes on, in spite of billions of dollars and countless pledges by platoons of politicians, conditions have actually deteriorated in recent decades. A large proportion of America's black population is much worse off today than it was during the pre-civil rights era. Over the past 40 years, the lifting of social or institutional restraints on blacks has coincided with a drastic worsening of their condition.

Grim Figures

Citing an impressive even numbing array of facts and figures, “Paved With Good Intentions” thoroughly documents the extent of this deterioration and the yawning gap between black and white America. A few examples:


* While blacks make up only twelve percent of the population, they commit 60 percent of the murders and over half of all rapes and robberies.

* One of four black men in their twenties is either in jail, on parole, or on probation. In Washington, DC, 85 percent of black males were arrested during their lifetime.

* Black babies are twice as likely to die in their first year as white infants.

* Blacks are more than four and a half times more likely than whites to be on public assistance.

* Over the last four decades, the institution of marriage has virtually disappeared among blacks. In 1950, when discriminatory "Jim Crow" laws prevailed in many states, 52 percent of black children were living with both parents. By the 1980s, this figure had fallen to just six percent. Two-thirds of all black children are now born out of wedlock. (The rate for whites is 19 percent.)

* Around a billion dollars a year is spent treating gun-shot wounds in America's inner cities. Blacks are ten times more likely than whites to require emergency-room treatment for the effects of cocaine abuse.

* Between 1985 and 1990, the rate of syphilis infection among blacks increased by 150 percent, while it decreased by half among whites. Nationwide, blacks are fifty times more likely to have syphilis than are whites.

* AIDS is increasingly becoming a disease of blacks and Hispanics. By the end of 1991, blacks were 3.6 times more likely than whites to have the disease. Hispanics were 2.9 times more likely. In some inner-city areas, health conditions now mirror those prevailing in many parts of Africa.

* Black men between the ages of 15 and 24 are now nearly nine times as likely to kill each other as are whites of the same age, and homicide has become the leading cause of death for black men between ages 15 and 44. In Harlem, there are so many killings that a black man living there is less likely to reach age 65 than is a man living in Bangladesh.

Interracial crime rates show a similarly stark asymmetry. When whites commit crimes of violence, they choose black victims 2.4 percent of the time. In contrast, blacks select white victims in over half of the crimes they commit. Blacks are 325 times more likely to engage in gang attacks on whites than whites are to take part in pack assaults against blacks. Interracial rape is overwhelmingly black on white. Analysis of recent crime statistics reveals that black men rape white women 30 times more often than white men rape black women.

"Hate Crimes"

Even in the special case of "hate crimes" -- a new category invented in the late 1980s to track "abuse" of ethnic and gender groups, and which was supposed to disclose widespread discrimination against blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and homosexuals by white males -- whites are victimized much more often than are blacks. Observes Taylor: "The fact that blacks are far more likely to commit 'hate crimes' than whites is a fact for which there is simply no room in the conventional view of how American society works."

Institutional Hypocrisy

A good portion of this book is devoted to the hypocritical double standard on matters of race that has taken root in our society. "There are now many things that whites may not do but that are tolerated and even encouraged among blacks," he writes. "We have double standards in politics, in school, at work, in the press, even in our speech. Many Americans are reluctant to acknowledge these double standards."

The author details how the national news media deliberately distorts reality by failing accurately to report black-on-white crimes. The relatively rare instances of racially motivated white-on-black crime are often seized upon and sensationally blown out of all proportion. On the other hand, crime against whites is largely ignored or vastly under-reported. This may help explain why whites have not organized protests, or sought revenge, for attacks against co-racialists committed by blacks and other non-whites.

"...One of the most striking -- and destructive -- examples of the way the media handle news about race was the Rodney King affair," Taylor contends. "It is not an exaggeration to say that the coverage of this incident was so slanted as to be a major cause of the riots that later rocked Los Angeles."

America's entertainment media engages in anti-white racist stereotyping. On television and in motion pictures, blacks are rarely portrayed as bad guys, while white businessmen are routinely depicted as villains.

School textbooks similarly reinforce the notion that wicked whites are responsible for black poverty and lawlessness. They present a racially skewed picture of America, Taylor writes, one that exaggerates non-white contributions to society while playing down those of whites.

Whereas whites are forbidden to think in terms of racial identity, "blacks are encouraged to identify with their racial 'brothers,' to promote 'black consciousness,' and to see themselves as a group defined clearly by race." One consequence of this is that black jurors are less and less likely to convict black defendants, even in cases where the evidence against the accused is overwhelming. This is especially true in cases where the victims of crime are white.

"Many whites," Taylor contends, "thunder against the faintest trace of white racism, while they ignore the blatant racial excesses of blacks. They have convinced themselves that blacks cannot get ahead without handouts and special treatment. By exempting blacks from individual responsibility, they treat them as vassals."

Predictably, black-white relations have deteriorated, and whatever sense of community may have existed in the past seems largely to have evaporated. The sometimes euphoric confidence of the 1960s, about the future of race relations in the US, has given way to a national mood approaching despair.

All this has become possible, concludes Taylor, because "whites have stripped themselves of collective racial consciousness. They do not see themselves along racial lines."

White Racism to Blame?

The familiar explanation for black failure -- repeated endlessly in motion pictures, newspapers, magazines, and by political and educational leaders -- is lingering white racism. As Taylor stresses:

“Americans are so accustomed to hearing -- and repeating -- this view that they scarcely bother to think what it means. It means, essentially, that white people, not blacks, are responsible for black behavior. It implies that blacks are helpless and cannot make progress unless whites transform themselves.

Do blacks drop out of school? Teachers are insensitive to their needs. Do black women have children out of wedlock? Slavery broke up the black family. Are blacks more likely than whites to commit crimes? Oppression and poverty explain it. Are ghetto blacks unemployed? White businesses are prejudiced against them. Are blacks more likely to be drug addicts? They are frustrated by white society... There is scarcely any form of failure that cannot, in some way, be laid at the feet of racist white people.

This kind of thinking denies that blacks should be expected to take responsibility for their own actions. More subtly, it suggests that they cannot do so."

Taylor marshals an army of facts to explode the myth that whites are to blame for the problems that plague black America. In fact, he documents, blacks and whites with similar backgrounds and educational levels are doing about equally well. Although the general public is unaware of these facts, studies reveal that black women, for example, earn more than white women with equal qualifications. Blacks holding doctoral degrees make as much or more than comparably educated whites. Young black couples who manage to remain married have family incomes almost identical to those of white couples. In families where both spouses are college educated and both work, black families generally make more than white families.

In the area of criminal justice, the comparison is instructive. Contrary to what the public has been led to believe, black police officers are "more active disciplinarians" who are "more likely to make arrests." In fact, Taylor goes on, "black policemen are more likely to shoot blacks than white policemen are," and black judges often deal out harsher sentences to black criminals than do their white counterparts.

The figures on the death penalty do not support often-repeated charges of "institutional racism." Whites convicted of murder are more likely to receive the death penalty than black murderers. Whites who kill other whites are more likely to be executed than are blacks who kill whites.

Virtually every study comparing like groups of blacks and whites has arrived at similar findings.

"Affirmative Action"

The two long chapters devoted to a discussion of "affirmative action" are among the best in this outstanding book. Although this ambiguous term first cropped up in a 1961 executive order by President Kennedy, it was the Nixon administration that really institutionalized "affirmative action" policies. The author reveals that after "equal opportunity" legislation failed to lead to equal results, the elites in control of government, big business and education agreed to lower standards and devised a race-based point system. In every sector of American life, whites -- and especially white males -- are officially discriminated against. "'Civil rights' now means special treatment for blacks, the meaning of 'equal opportunity' has been neatly reversed, and 'affirmative action' is a euphemism for officially sanctioned racial discrimination." Today, writes Taylor, "essentially any non-white can get preference, including recent immigrants." Nowhere is this more true than on the campuses of our colleges and universities, where preferential treatment for non-whites has become the operating norm.

"Sensitivity training" designed to defuse white resentment against manifestly unfair practices in access, hiring, and promotion is now obligatory in government, business, and education. While blacks are openly encouraged to act in their own interests, "whites, on the other hand, are expected to support, or at least remain silent about, a system that discriminates against them." As the author goes on to note, "one of the great, unwritten rules of race relations in America today" is that "affirmative action has lowered employment and admission standards for non-whites all across America, but everyone must pretend not to have noticed."

High Price

The United States is paying a frightfully heavy price for all this. For example, Taylor discovered that only 14 percent of Fortune 500 companies confess that they now hire new personnel strictly on the basis of merit. The author cites report after report documenting how less-qualified blacks are being admitted to, and graduated by, colleges and graduate schools -- including medical and law schools -- and then hired by police and fire departments, other governmental agencies, and private business firms. Around half of the "black middle class" is employed by government. Those in business serve often as affirmative action/equal opportunity APPARATCHIKS or they are carried along, with white co-workers taking up the slack (though without extra compensation). The double standard prevailing throughout American education should be regarded as a national scandal. All this has undoubtedly affected the morale of conscientious and hardworking Americans, who are understandably ever more cynical about the nation's political and cultural institutions and leaders.

If not white racism, what then accounts for the disparity in black-white performance and lifestyle, and the calamitous state of black America? The answer, Taylor explains, "is that the black population is not identical to the white population."

While carefully avoiding exploration of the thorny and highly emotion-charged question of racial differences, he does muse at one point:

"If whites are not holding blacks down, it might mean that they have arisen as far as their inherent limitations permit. The possibility of black inferiority is the unacknowledged goblin that lurks in the background of every attempt to explain black failure. Part of the shrillness with which white racism is denounced stems from the belief that any letup in the struggle against it might leave room for a theory that is too dangerous to be contemplated."


[B]Courage to Face Facts Needed

Given the grim reality of racial relations in America, what, then, is to be done?

"The first step in halting black decline," Taylor insists, "is to throw out the deadly equation of Black Failure = White Guilt. Black shakedown artists and white guilt mongers alike must be exposed as the dangerous frauds they are."

Secondly, he argues, the reproduction of the underclass (white as well as black) should no longer be subsidized by society's productive element. At a minimum, he recommends that the government should provide free contraceptives and abortions for poor women, and require some welfare recipients to use the Norplant contraceptive device, which prevents pregnancy for up to five years. Here Taylor echoes the arguments made against "legal theft" by the brilliant 19th-century French political economist, Frederic Bastiat.

In any case, Taylor argues, only by confronting the true dimensions of a failed policy can we hope to resolve the many daunting problems that are its consequence. He writes:

"One hundred thirty years ago, this nation very nearly tore itself apart because of race. It could do so again. Policies based on white guilt and reverse racism have failed. Policies, based on the denial of individual responsibility, have failed. We must have the courage to admit that they have failed, and forge new policies that will succeed."

For producing this wise, disturbing and even enraging examination of the most crucial issue facing our nation, Jared Taylor deserves the thanks of every American who cares about the future. (The book's New York publisher, Carroll & Graf, likewise deserves praise for its courage in daring to issue this bold volume, and for committing substantial funds to promote it.)

If any single book can re-open an honest debate on race relations in America, and motivate concerned and thoughtful (but now silent) Americans, it is “Paved with Good Intentions”

"Timely, powerful, breathtaking. This is a painful book to read, yet hard to put down. Its impact is profound. Let us hope that this important book does not itself become another victim of the conspiracy of silence, and that it gains the attention it deserves."

--Richard J. Herrnstein, Professor of Psychology, Harvard University

[RSDavis]

Thanks, I'll check it out when I get a second.

[Sunshinysmile]

On the issue of Blacks as criminals, its true. Not because Blacks are BAD, because the criminal laws on the books are so outrageous, and THAT is the message. Its hard NOT to be a criminal when everything is illegal!

That's how I read it! It's an offense called LWB - Living While Black. If the police are only in your neighborhood, and only stop people that look like you, then all the criminals look like you! So, all people that look like you must be criminals...it was set up that way. Ron Paul is suggesting the dismantling of the system by a just application of just laws and a new infusion of ALL the people participating in THEIR government

[Sunshinysmile]

that article about the Riots was not anti racist...your argument does not hold water. the argument is insulting and godawful. while i do not agree with the rioting, the language of the piece characatures non-white people and creates more divisions. The language does not fit the Ron Paul I have been introduced to via the Net. I don't think he wrote it, and I hope he really didn't know about it...because it is some one-sided garbage, that many of the people who are attacking him believe as well.

[RSDavis]

that article about the Riots was not anti racist...your argument does not hold water. the argument is insulting and godawful. while i do not agree with the rioting, the language of the piece characatures non-white people and creates more divisions. The language does not fit the Ron Paul I have been introduced to via the Net. I don't think he wrote it, and I hope he really didn't know about it...because it is some one-sided garbage, that many of the people who are attacking him believe as well.

Yeah, I don't see how the statement that the riots didn't end until it was time for blacks to pick up their welfare checks could ever be construed as anti-racist.

- Rick