Anyone reading this if you happen to have any resources to help me understand why this guy thinks I’m wrong, I would appreciate it. I’m getting nowhere with him.
Dude, I’m just asking you to explain in your own words, not someone else’s why you think that slavery would have collapsed so quickly in an indepent CSA and why you think the Northern US would have turned into a haven for escaped slaves.
If Paul truly believes this then he is wrong and ignorant of some history. The Haitian Revolution was a civil war fought largely over slavery. The difference is that the rebels won (for a short time, anyway).
I disagree. I think the popular evidence for this is cherry-picked, like his opposition to MLK Day. I oppose much of his ideology but in the end I think he is a man of good character.
I have some libertarian leanings but this is where I part ways. I think at times it is morally consistent to spend other people’s money. It opens a dangerous door but I think it reprehensible to keep it entirely closed.
In addition to the newsletters he published which made numerous racist claims, he’s complained minorities working for the TSA “don’t look very American.”
That’s a pretty classic case of racism.
I’m not sure where “good character” comes into it. My grandparents were most assuredly people of good character. They were also racist and sexist (even my grandmothers) to an extent unfathomable to most right thinking people.
Just because he’s a decent guy in other contexts doesn’t mean he can’t be a complete douchebag in other contexts. And indeed, all the evidence points to a guy that’s getting a lot of apologies and excuses for his flaws because some people kind of like some of his views and think he, personally, is a decent guy, in a scrappy underdog kind of way.
I dunno if it’s apropos for this thread so I continued the discussion here.
IMO people who are racist and/or sexist are not ones of good character. I haven’t seen direct evidence of that in Paul although if Ibn Warraq’s quote from above is true then that would definitely taint Paul.
Since Paul and his aides who were present during the interview haven’t denied it occurred then one would have to be a complete moron or a Paul apologist to believe it’s false.
Since you’re obviously neither, once you think it over, I’m sure you’ll recognize just how utterly idiotic it would be to assume that the Paul campaign, which videotapes all of his interviews wouldn’t come forward to deny the quote and present the video disproving it.
The other difference is that the slaves were the rebels.
False dichotomy. Perhaps I don’t swallow everything written on the internet as immediately true even though it fits my political bias.
No, but you also refuse to give credence to interviews of political candidates conducted by reputable news organizations even when the political candidates themselves haven’t challenged the veracity of those interviews.
So now we’re dabbing in hypotheticals? I’ve dropped the n bomb on several occasions and I know I’m not a racist.
Getting half naked and dancing around is a little different than making a pass, too. It’s not like he was sending mixed signals that could be taken as being interested lol. Come on…
I don’t know how someone who believes in individual rights and liberties for all human beings can be labeled as a racist, but, whatever. You probably think he wrote the racial stuff in those letters so there’s not much point in beating my head up against a wall.
For those interested, you can see the video here.
I’d venture a good majority of the male population would have handled it much worse than Paul did. My only concern is how his staff didn’t clue in that this was some sort of a joke or setup before the interview went down.
And, if anyone thinks the rest of the GOP field hasn’t dropped a racial or homophobic slur at some point they’re kidding themselves. But, just fall in line and vote for one of the other puppets and our country can continue to be flushed down the toilet.
Watching the Ron Paulites in action, I’m reminded of the closing scene in one of my favorite movies, Stalag 17. The leader of the American prisoners who’ve been watching the final explosive scene play out in the prison compound tells the men “Alright, everyone back in your bunks like you’re sleeping, just like nothing ever happened.”
What Paul supporters are telling us is, “Everyone into the polling booth and vote for Ron, just like the 19th century and first half of the 20th century never happened.”
Sure, plenty of non-racists have used slurs, but in different contexts. Have you ever said to anyone “That n_______ totally screwed me over at the grocery store today!” or anything similar?
You know what? Even if he didn’t (and I’m willing to buy the notion that the newsletters weren’t written by him), the fact that he let it go on (apparently for some time) under his name means that he was giving tacit approval to it. Even if he didn’t personally agree with the views, he was apparently happy to let it go out, and happy to collect donations from people who agreed with those newsletters.
This.
If I had publications going out in my name saying really atrocious things, I’d put an end to it immediately and find out who was responsible, apologize to the public for the oversight immediately, reinforce my true views, etc. This isn’t what we saw, here. Instead we saw tacit approval and a lot of excuse-tossing, weaving, and bobbing.
I love how Ron Paul supporters try to make it sound like you’re the one being unreasonable for believing that Ron Paul’s newsletter, published in Ron Paul’s name and with Ron Paul’s signature, which happened to make Ron Paul more money than I’ll ever see in my entire life, was written by Ron Paul.
If somebody found 10 years of Obama! magazine, published under Obama’s name, filled with support for Marxism and talking about how now is the time to prepare for the upcoming war against the white man, which also made Obama millions of dollars, I have a difficult time accepting that these same people would believe Obama if he said “I didn’t write it, I swear!”
You left off part of “Obama’s” quote: “I didn’t write it, I swear! And I don’t know who wrote it, there’s no way I could be expected to know which of my employees wrote it, I don’t know if the person who wrote it still works for Obama! magazine, and I’ve answered these questions before so THIS INTERVIEW IS OVER!”
And if Ron Paul didn’t write or approve of the content of his newsletter, doesn’t that rather undermine the basic theory of libertarianism? We’re supposed to believe that the free market can go unregulated because no company would ever screw their customers, pollute the environment, mistreat their workers, etc., because it would be bad for business, and no CEO with the company’s interest at heart would allow it to happen. How is the CEO of Monsanto supposed to control what pesticides get dumped into a river in Oregon when Paul can’t even control what gets printed in his own newsletter?
Even if we take Ron Paul at his word, it demonstrates the kind of irresponsibility that libertarianism makes no allowances for.
To build on what Robot just posted, one of the things I’ve found amusing is how completely unconcerned they are with the idea that their leader, if he actually didn’t write those newsletters then he perpetrated a fraud on a grand scale over the course of 15 years.
Paul published the letters, used them to fundraise and recieved over a million dollars for them. Also, the newsletters are clearly written as if he wrote them with lines like “In my years as a pediatrician…” and “I voted against this bill because…”.
So, the question of whether he wrote the letters or not is also a question of whether he’s a racist or simply a fraud.
Nevertheless, not only are his apologists not bothered by this, but they harp on and on about his “great character” and his “integrity”.
I think the letters are less directly a repudiation of Libertarianism (which is admittedly stupid), but about RP. If he can’t even control what is published in his own newsletter under his own name, then why would he make a good president?