The Blue Voice

Friday, June 15, 2007

Ron Paul is a hardline rightwinger

Liberal columnist Saun Gonsalves is raving about the virtues of far-right Congressman Ron Paul in Ron Paul for President? AlterNet 06/11/07 because of his expressed opposition to the Iraq War:

I feel such gratitude toward the Distinguished Gentleman from Texas [Paul] for his words alone that I just might vote for guy - as a write-in, of course. You sure as hell don't hear Democrats talking like that, other than Dennis Kucinich whose been given the short - guy - with - big - ears treatment by the "liberal" media and therefore doesn't have a snowball's chance, unless ...

... the real conservatives stand up. And then maybe, just maybe, "progressives" and "conservatives" could get together to effect "regime change" in Washington. OK, now I'm getting carried away. Anyways, thanks Ron.

At The American Prospect's Web site, Zack Pelta-Heller, a graduate student at the New School, praises The GOP's Lonely Anti-War Candidate 06/11/07 also. She manages to mention - just barely - that Paul is anti-choice on abortion (she calls his position "pro-life") and that he's "adamantly opposed to amnesty for undocumented immigrants and birthright citizenship for their children."

People: Ron-Paul-is-a-rightwinger!!! Now, if he wants to vote against the Iraq War in the House, great. We'll take all the votes we can get.

But pragmatism is one thing. Liberals lionizing him as a some principled light in the Republican darkness is just goofy. Because in the dark corner of our political landscape where people take his ideas seriously on the gold standard, on how the current American dollar is worthless, on "states rights" and more more - the ones among those people who are against the war oppose it because they think it's all a giant Jewish plot. And not because they follow Likud Party politics in Israel, but because The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is one of their very favorite books.

David Neiwert provides a tour of Ron Paul's political neighborhood in Ron Paul vs. the New World Order Orcinus blog 06/08/07. Commenting on his late popularity among liberals who really should know better, Neiwert writes:

... Ron Paul has made a career out of transmitting extremist beliefs, particularly far-right conspiracy theories about a looming "New World Order," into the mainstream of public discourse by reframing and repackaging them for wider consumption, mostly by studiously avoiding the more noxious and often racist elements of those beliefs. Along the way, he has built a long record of appearing before and lending the credibility of his office to a whole array of truly noxious organizations, and has a loyal following built in no small part on members of those groups. ...

While I think the evidence that Paul is incredibly insensitive on racial issues -- ranging from a racially incendiary newsletter to his willingness to appear before neo-Confederate and white-supremacist groups -- is simply overwhelming, it isn't as simple to make the case that he is an outright racist, since he does not often indulge in hateful rhetoric -- and when he has, he tries to ameliorate it by placing it in the context of what he thinks are legitimate policy issues.

Go check out Neiwert's post for much more detail.

Seeing that silly Sean Gonsalves column reminded me of that saying, credited to Robert Frost (maybe apocraphally), that liberals are people who are so open-minded they won't even take their own side in a debate.

In this case, it appears that some liberals don't even know what their own side is.

Any kind of liberalism (American-style, not European-style, which is something different) worth the name is not the same side as people who support racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and anti-labor policies and positions in the name of unrestricted freedom for big capital to do whatever its owners feel like doing.

Tags: ron paul

posted at 12:09:00 AM by Bruce Miller

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