That isn’t the question. I’m attempting to plumb the depths of your conviction that you stand by people’s right to be racist. If you were an adviser to Ron Paul and the situation came to light where a notorious racist and neo-Nazi contributed $500 to his campaign, what would you advise him to do? Nobody disputes that racists have the right to make campaign contributions. The question is the degree to which one may wish to benefit from their exercise of their rights.
I wouldn’t have to think for a second: I would return the money.
If I ran for office, in order to promote my ideas and be elected, I would feel obliged to take contributions from everyone regardless of their views. But I wouldn’t run for office.
If you do, you kinda acknowledge that when people contribute to you you’re supposed to give them some quid pro quo. Because if there is no quid pro quo, then the source of the contribution is immaterial.
One could argue that the only reason why a neo-Nazi would contribute to Paul’s campaign is that the contributor sees value in a candidate that would like to roll back the Civil Rights Act and defend people’s right to be racist. Is that a quid pro quo?
Let me make sure I’m doing my SAT analogies portion correctly. You are saying,
Ron Paul : keeping campaign contributions from neo-Nazis despite political pressure :: Barack Obama : helping NATO drop bombs on Libya after Qaddafi endorses him
Something doesn’t seem quite right about that attempt at equating the two situations… Can anyone else put their finger on what seems slightly off about that?
Aside from having positions that bigots also share on issues like opposition to parts of the Civil Rights Act, opposing Martin Luther King Day, awarding Rosa Parks a Congressional Gold Medal, opposing same-sex marriage, proposing to prohibit courts from ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, seeking the overturn of Lawrence v. Texas, opposing the Voting Rights Act, wants to stop emergency medical care for illegal aliens…
Of course, I still think Paul is not a racist. I’m confident he has fine, non-racist reasons for those positions, every single one of them. But bigots would certainly have bigoted reasons for taking similar positions, and Paul is happy to have their support, even if he does not subscribe to their reasoning.
Compare that to Obama who was helping NATO bomb Libya when Qaddafi sent a letter saying he hoped Obama gets re-elected, and oh yeah, PLEASE STOP BOMBING ME!!! To which Obama offers no reply, and keeps on assisting NATO in bombing Qaddafi’s armies. I would tend to think that bombing someone as one peculiar form of rejecting their entreaties – perhaps you disagree?
Fondness for puppies isn’t a substantive issue with impacts on millions of people.
I believe that their support and money should be rejected, and that Paul is substantively wrong on all the aforementioned issues. He should not take money from racists and vote against civil rights legislation. If he did one and not the other, it wouldn’t be worth a comment. The fact he does both leads me to believe, as I have stated several times, that he is simply out of touch and fundamentally doesn’t understand the issue of race in this country.
Your faith in Paul not providing any quid pro quo is touching, but not demonstrably reality-based.
Arguably far more important than the tangible benefit Paul gets from accepting donations from racists, is the benefit inherent in not rejecting them.
If Paul were to disavow any support from racists, explicitly reject their views, declare that he does not want such people associating with his campaign and return their donations, they’d likely be upset enough to not only stop sending him money but decide not to turn out to vote for him.
Right now they can preen themselves on the belief that Paul shares a substantial portion of their bigoted views but doesn’t want to tip off the electorate at large (not that I think Paul is anywhere close to being a Stormfronter, but he’s benefiting by not calling them out).
If Obama was to accept money from any comparably repellent group and do a similar dance to get around offending them, he’d be equally culpable. Except that he has not done so.
Ok. I accept your explanation of the Paul’s electoral arithmetic calculations. Can you tell me what’s wrong with it?
Obama (in Reverend Wright’s case) has done the same electoral arithmetic and figured that he’d lose more votes by keeping mum than he’d gain. If he the calc had gone the other way, he’d be quiet to this day about it.
Well that’s the point. Ron Paul’s agenda and the agenda of racists overlap. Furthermore, Ron Paul actively courted bigoted support during the 1990s: he and Lew called them “Paleo-Libertarians”.
As an aside, I find some of your responses slippery and evasive. You make claims about what would happen in the absence of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 which are refuted by history. When this is pointed out, you claim that bigotry existed 1000 years ago. True. But off the point. That’s an evasive stance and is bad practice in a board devoted to fighting ignorance.
Continuing, I point out that if you believe that anti-discrimination laws have no contemporary effect, then their existence surely does no harm. You reply: “The plaintive cry of a liberal: “I will take just a bit more of your freedom away. There is no harm.”” But taking away the freedom to do something that you have no desire or intention of doing amounts to nothing. Really. Laws only take away freedom to the extent that they stop somebody from doing something.
In fact, I do think 1960s Civil Rights legislation has a continuing effect, one that restricts the behavior of bigots. It also has some effects that are arguable and legitimate topics of debate but so far they haven’t been addressed in this thread. Instead we’re back to arguing with market fundamentalism.
If I owned a business, I wouldn’t serve known neo-Nazis. If I were a candidate, I would reject their support (yeah, like they’d give me their support). I have no interest in being associated or implicated with the likes of them whatsoever, so I would tell them to take a hike.
Perhaps other people are comfortable with the idea of being associated with neo-Nazis. However, I reject categorically their philosophy, their association, and their money.
Malik Zulu Shabazz, NBPP national chairman, who has given scores of speeches condemning “white men” and Jews, confirmed his organization’s endorsement of Obama in an interview with WND today.
Tom Metzger - White Aryan Resistance
“Obama, according to his book, Dreams Of My Father, is a racist and I have no problem with black racists.”
Erich Gliebe - Chairman, National Alliance
“Obama might be a better candidate for our cause because he’s racially conscious.”
…
Perhaps the best thing for the white race is to have a black president. My only problem with Obama is perhaps he’s not black enough."
