Ron Paul: the Case Against, Part 3

Not long ago I said that I wasn't going to defend my assertion that Ron Paul is a racist- specifically a white supremacist- until I had positive proof in hand.

Well, I'm going forward with that now.

I first found out about this trait of Ron Paul's when I made the horrible mistake of buying a copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, a truly noxious mixture of incomplete truths and complete lies by Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. I bought it without reading the reviews or doing any research on Dr. Woods. Had I known that Woods was a co-founder of The League of the South, a white supremacist group dedicated to the resurrection of the Confederate States of America.

(The Wikipedia article on the League of the South is pretty well researched and covers the basic points about the organization; the article on Woods, however, reads more like an advertisement for his works.)

I posted a scathing review of the book (look to bottom of page) and was promptly counterattacked by numerous supporters of Woods. I was shocked when I saw that one of those supporters was Ron Paul. I was further shocked to read, in Paul's review and related writings, that Paul supported the efforts of the League of the South to "defend the unique culture of the Southern states."

The unique culture the League of the South seeks to preserve is white supremacy and racial purity.

Unfortunately, I lost my bookmark of that statement, and I've yet to rediscover it. Instead, I've had to rely on scraps and snippets regarding Ron Paul's frequent writing for The Southern Caucus, his frequent speaking engagements in front of the League of the South and other secessionist and/or white supremacist groups, and his endorsement by Stormfront and other white supremacist or Klan-associated groups.

All of this, of course, is guilt by association, as was Michelle Malkin's accusation that the presence of 9/11 conspiracy theorists at Ron Paul rallies meant that Ron Paul himself was a conspiracy theorist. Still... it's a LOT of association.

About the one semi-solid thing I have in hand at present is Ron Paul's newsletter, Freedom Watch, which has run more or less continually for over twenty years. Some of the most egregious items came to light in Paul's 1996 race, as reported by the Houston Chronicle:

"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e., support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."

"Politically sensible blacks are outnumbered as decent people... I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city [Washington] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

"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."

"By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism."

Another, even more noxious article in response to the Rodney King race riots of 1992, is the first article archived here at the Nikzor Project.

Selected quotes:

"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." . . .

"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." . . .

"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." . . .

"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."

What's interesting is, according to a Texas Monthly interview quoted in part at this website, Ron Paul disavows authoring these words (which, at Nikzor, are attributed to Dan Gannon)... but does not disavow the words themselves.

In one issue of the Ron Paul Survival Report, which he had published since 1985, he called former U.S. representative Barbara Jordan a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist." In another issue, he cited reports that 85 percent of all black men in Washington, D.C., are arrested at some point: "Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. 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." And under the headline "Terrorist Update," he wrote: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."

In spite of calls from Gary Bledsoe, the president of the Texas State Conference of the NAACP, and other civil rights leaders for an apology for such obvious racial typecasting, Paul stood his ground. He said only that his remarks about Barbara Jordan related to her stands on affirmative action and that his written comments about blacks were in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." He denied any racist intent. 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 does, doesn't it? And considering the sheer volume of opinion articles he puts out, you'd think a man so dedicated to expressing his own views would keep anything he doesn't agree with out of his own newsletter, wouldn't you?

Ironically, last April Paul wrote an article about racism, in response to the Don Imus scandal. After mentioning the free speech issues involved in the Imus case, he places the blame for racism on... guess what... government.

"In fact it is the federal government more than anything else that divides us along race, class, religion, and gender lines. Government, through its taxes, restrictive regulations, corporate subsidies, racial set-asides, and welfare programs, plays far too large a role in determining who succeeds and who fails in our society. This government "benevolence" crowds out genuine goodwill between men by institutionalizing group thinking, thus making each group suspicious that others are receiving more of the government loot. This leads to resentment and hostility between us."

In other words, eliminate government and, as he says, "focus on individual liberty," and racism will fade away. Paul deliberately ignores the fact that it took active government intervention to stop institutional racism- Jim Crow, segregation, hiring preferences and barriers, etc.- and that there is no sign whatever that these things would have vanished of their own accord.

Now, I agree with some of what Paul says in his article. There are too many people who want to present all people of a certain race as identical, and who want special treatment for one race or another. I regard Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as racists no less vile than David Duke. I also believe that government intervention helps, in certain cases, to encourage racial friction and mutual resentment. But laying the entire blame for current racism on government action isn't merely misguided or disingenuous... it's an outright lie.

So- what do I have? Circumstantial evidence at best, but rather a lot of it. Publishing blatantly racist statements in publications intended to further his own beliefs, associating with openly racist organizations... yes, circumstantial, but when commentators like those on The Daily Kos put it all together, it's pretty damning.

Note that I'm not pointing to Paul's opposition to the US-Israel alliance as anti-Semitism. It's entirely possible to want to distance America from the government of Israel and its actions and, at the same time, have no bias against either the Hebrew faith or people of Hebraic descent. Paul might well be an anti-Semite- I don't know. What evidence I have in hand, however, points to his being anti-African and a white supremacist... and I'd vote for a Democrat before I support such a man, knowing what I currently know.