Ron Paul's Newsletters, Revealed
Updated: Goods Not Quite Delivered
Updated: PJM Delivers The Goods TNR Can't?

It's from TNR, so some caution is required. Nevertheless, either the newsletters exist or they don't, and I assume they do. TNR's giving them the most uncharitable reading possible, of course, which suits me just fine, because I happen to think the most uncharitable reading possible is probably closest to the actual intended meaning.

Here's John Gibson interview with the guy who unearthed them. A preview of the coming article.

Ron Paul lives in a strange, dark, demon-haunted world. If this stuff is true -- and I assume it is -- it's about time for supposedly-sane Ron Paul boosters like the crew at Reason to admit what this man really is and what he represents. If this is "libertarianism," I want no part of it.

I actually don't believe he's a "libertarian," and I'm surprised libertarians have embraced him as such. "Libertarian" seems to be a fairly malleable term, with liberal libertines like Bill Maher and deranged Truthers like Ron Paul claiming the descriptor. What it seems to be for many is a catch-all term meaning "I'm not a real supporter of either party but I'm angry at both."

Sometimes that anger is of a rational kind -- I don't think anyone's liable to call Instapundit, or millions of other "Don't Tread On Me" small-government types nuts. But often that anger seems to be of nearly schizophrenic nature, based on fantasies about Trilateral Commissions, RaceWars, 9/11 conspiracies, and, of course, Jews with their dessicated, greedy hands on all the levers of the world machine. Some have marched under the Ron Paul banner for the first sort of reason, but it's time they took a serious look at all the other people under that banner with them, and why, precisely, that particular hive of scum and villainy have chosen Ron Paul as the vehicle by which to vent their frustrations.

There's a difference, I think -- and an important one -- between arriving at a "libertarian" position due to a belief in the power of freedom, and arriving there as a pragmatic means of keeping the Jews from stealing your gold. Sometimes "libertarianism" is merely a flag of convenience for those with bizarre or outright reprehensible ideologies to steal an air of political respectability from those actually working to make libertarianism such. Sane, honorable libertarians should recognize this parasitic tendency for what it is and flush the parasites out before they further weaken the movement.

Thanks to Hot Air, which calls the interview "devastating," but which is more cautious about the reportage's accuracy than I think necessary.

Article Now Up: Here. Allah's thrown up a bit of it of up for your perusal.

Ron Paul

The Only Man Who Can Save America

from the Niggras, Kikes, and Trilateral Commission.

Heh: Slate seems to be down, so for the moment you'll have to content yourself with Allah's brief excerpt and the Gibson interview.

It seems like all the Ronulans just swamped the TNR server.

Update: It saddens me to say the Gibson interview overpromised what the article would deliver. The article "raises questions," as the MSM likes to say, but doesn't quite answer them in a conclusive way.

Much of the article is guilt-by-association, which, frankly, I happen to think often does suggest actual guilt, but one can argue against that.

Other parts put a dark spin on what would not be particularly objectionable in the right context. I don't think it should be off-limits, for example, to suggest that the Civil War did not need to be fought, if, for example, the federal government paid for each slave to be released and thus largely (if not completely) dulled Southern resistance to emancipation. (I don't happen to think that would have avoided the Civil War, but I don't think it's off-limits to suggest or debate such a notion.)

Nor is it proof of racism to suggest that there was the possibility of wholesale slaughter and rape of whites after the passing of power to blacks in South Africa. That's precisely what happened in Zimbabwe, of course. The fact that it didn't (in the main) happen in South Africa does not mean it was lunatic to suspect such a possibility.

Nor is the idea of a white enclave carved into South Africa to forestall such a revanchist slaughter necessarily a nutty idea. It's not racist to accept some grim realities, like that sometimes different ethnicities cannot live together without frequent terrorism and murder -- witness Kashmir. Witness Baghdad. Living together in a perfect harmony is a nice idea and certainly a first preference, but where the first preference cannot be realized, it's not lunatic nor racist to suggest ethnic separation. Ethnic partitioning may be bad, but it's not as bad as frequent murders and high levels of death.

It's not, I think, out of bounds to call looters/rioters "animals." Some (including me) would argue that branding such lawbreakers animals showed a praiseworthy commitment to racial neutrality, as of course any whites engaging in similar behavior would deserve to be called animals. On the other hand, there are those just looking for an opportunity to call blacks "animals" and "savages," and see riots as a politically-safe time to do so.

That said, however, I have to invoke the William F. Buckley rule in deciding that, based on the evidence, Pat Buchanan was indeed anti-semitic. Most of Buchanan's positions, from his constant savaging of Israel to his strange defense of an accused Nazi concentration camp guard living in the US, could be justified. But taken as a whole, it seemed that the North Star guiding each of his positions was an animus towards Jews. Surely, given so many issues involving Israel and Jews, Buchanan would come down on the pro-Jew side at least once. And yet -- he didn't. And of course deliberately played with anti-semitism in suggesting that boys named Sanchez and Franklin would be sent off to fight in the first Gulf War on behalf of people named Goldman and Sachs.

So overall I do think the newsletters indicate a very paranoiac and hateful strain of retrograde and often hateful animus towards blacks and Jews (and, of course, the ATF, the FBI, the government in general, the Bildersbergers, etc.) But I'm disappointed that many of Ron Paul's more goodhearted and sober supporters will be able to convince themselves the case hasn't been adequately made, and that all of this is defensible, if often impolitic.

So the R3VO_|ution will go on, with Reason and the like continuing to delude themselves that Ron Paul's just getting a bad rap because he threatens the establishment and status quo.

Whoops! Allah again updates to note that Pajamas Media now has an article up about the newsletters, and they seem to advance the ball further than TNR.

Sample quote:

“[O]ur country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists—and they can be identified by the color of their skin.”

PJM also, however, continues with the bad practice of mixing weak evidence with good, thus undermining the good evidence.

For example, this is noted as a racist quote:

“We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational.”

That statement, on its own, is hardly racism. The FBI's crime statistics can tell you which age, race, and gender cohort is most likely to present you with Stranger Danger on a dark and lonely street, and it's not, for once, the Scandis. As Jesse Jackson himself said, when he looks over his shoulder at night, he's not looking to see if whites are following him, but young black men.

But how about this?

“Last month I reported on massive, illegal spying by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith against its perceived opponents, as revealed in California. The ADL keeps track of people and groups from left to right, and purchases illegally obtained information on Americans from its agents in police departments in order to prepare and maintain hundreds of thousands of dossiers.”

...

“It was such a seminar [i.e. a cult awareness training seminar], arranged by the ADL, that targeted the Branch Davidians in the first place.”

And this snippet, which is actually from the TNR piece, but which I forgot to mention:

Of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a newsletter said, "Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little."

It matters little? Really?

And, actually, now that I reread the TNR piece, it's a lot tougher than I first thought. I guess I'd just been hoping for more. This is pretty reprehensible, for instance:

Paul's newsletters didn't just contain bigotry. They also contained paranoia--specifically, the brand of anti-government paranoia that festered among right-wing militia groups during the 1980s and '90s. Indeed, the newsletters seemed to hint that armed revolution against the federal government would be justified. In January 1995, three months before right-wing militants bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a newsletter listed "Ten Militia Commandments," describing "the 1,500 local militias now training to defend liberty" as "one of the most encouraging developments in America." It warned militia members that they were "possibly under BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] or other totalitarian federal surveillance" and printed bits of advice from the Sons of Liberty, an anti-government militia based in Alabama--among them, "You can't kill a Hydra by cutting off its head," "Keep the group size down," "Keep quiet and you're harder to find," "Leave no clues," "Avoid the phone as much as possible," and "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

The newsletters are chock-full of shopworn conspiracies, reflecting Paul's obsession with the "industrial-banking-political elite" and promoting his distrust of a federally regulated monetary system utilizing paper bills. They contain frequent and bristling references to the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations--organizations that conspiracy theorists have long accused of seeking world domination. In 1978, a newsletter blamed David Rockefeller, the Trilateral Commission, and "fascist-oriented, international banking and business interests" for the Panama Canal Treaty, which it called "one of the saddest events in the history of the United States." A 1988 newsletter cited a doctor who believed that AIDS was created in a World Health Organization laboratory in Fort Detrick, Maryland. In addition, Ron Paul & Associates sold a video about Waco produced by "patriotic Indiana lawyer Linda Thompson"--as one of the newsletters called her--who maintained that Waco was a conspiracy to kill ATF agents who had previously worked for President Clinton as bodyguards. As with many of the more outlandish theories the newsletters cited over the years, the video received a qualified endorsement: "I can't vouch for every single judgment by the narrator, but the film does show the depths of government perfidy, and the national police's tricks and crimes," the newsletter said, adding, "Send your check for $24.95 to our Houston office, or charge the tape to your credit card at 1-800-RON-PAUL."

Taken as a whole, his newsletter does seem pretty eager, if not absolutely gleeful, to make the case that the Jew is using the black man as muscle to move against you, and you are left there defenseless.

But I do think it undermines the case to include weak evidence, sometimes defensible statements (depending on context), along with the stronger evidence. Even in the above passage, TNR slips in the newsletter's statement that the Panama Canal Treaty was the "saddest day in American history" as if that's self-evidently an outrageous and racist sentiment.

And I Forgot This:

While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In a passage titled "The Duke's Victory," a newsletter celebrated Duke's 44 percent showing in the 1990 Louisiana Republican Senate primary. "Duke lost the election," it said, "but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment." In 1991, a newsletter asked, "Is David Duke's new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?" The conclusion was that "our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom." Duke is now returning the favor, telling me that, while he will not formally endorse any candidate, he has made information about Ron Paul available on his website.

As I'm reading these articles critically, I focus upon ambiguous/possibly unfair charges and just gloss over compelling stuff like this.

Let's separate the wheat from the chaff here, huh?

posted by Ace at 03:15 PM

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