Ron Paul's Narrow Ideology and Predictable Denial

There's an extensive collection of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul's racist/homophobic newsletters on The New Republic.  (That would be, yknow, all those divisive campaign messages bearing Paul's name that he supposedly knew nothing about?)  Below are four typical examples, published by TNR:

An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that  “Welfaria,”  “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,”and “Lazyopolis ” would be better alternatives—and says,  "Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house."

This December 1990 newsletter describes Martin Luther King Jr. as "a world-class adulterer" who "seduced underage girls and boys" and "replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

The June 1990 issue of the Political Report says:  "I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."

A January 1994 edition of the Survival Report states that "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

But hey, let's not dwell on the past.  Let's look at some relatively recent position statements made by Dr. Paul:

Tommy Christopher at Mediaite reports that during a 2007 appearance on NBC's Meet The Press, Ron Paul said fighting the Civil War in order to end slavery was a mistake.  The Texas Republican/libertarian/physician told legendary journalist Tim Russert:  "Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I’m advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where the hatred lingered for 100 years? Every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn’t sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach."

Dr. Paul walks a tightrope on the issue of same-sex marriage, dragging around his peculiar "individual rights" canard like an inoperable goiter.  "Marriage is a church function, it's not a state function," he declares.

Does that mean gay-welcoming churches in, say, Houston, Texas, should be permitted to marry gay and lesbian couples?  And what about atheists?  In Ronnie World, are they forbidden to tie the knot?

"We do not get our rights because we belong to a group (unless that group happens to be a conservative Christian denomination) whether it's homosexual, women, minorities - it leads us astray.  So (if) you want to change people, you change them through persuasion, through family values and church values."  (Just ask African-Americans in the Deep South how that worked out for them.)  "But you can't do it through legislation because force doesn't work.  A group can't force themselves on anybody else. So there should be no affirmative action for any group, so if a homosexual group wanted to enforce their way on us, there's no right to do that either."  (Video here and here.)

Why, why must conservative politicians and pundits perpetuate the lie that gays and lesbians want to "force" something on heterosexuals.  As taxpaying citizens, we merely want the same basic rights everybody else takes for granted.

My personal feelings about Paul are pretty much summed up in the following video from the wags at Talking Points Memo.

UPDATE:  Ron Paul is courting Iowa's anti-choice extremists by signing their "Personhood Pledge."  (He's a physician, see, so he knows about these things.)  The pledge proclaims that "every human being at every stage of development must be recognized as a person possessing the right to life in federal and state laws without exception and without compromise."  In Paul's opinion, two-celled zygotes are human beings.  That makes women little more than breeding machines who could conceivably be jailed for accidentally endangering the life of a week-old fetus.  (If you miscarry, ladies, you may have to explain yourselves to the authorities.)  Ironically, Dr. Paul keeps insisting he believes in individual liberties and keeping the government out of our lives.

UPDATE:  Would it surprise you to learn that Ron Paul once "sternly" ordered an aide to devise an excuse for him to leave the home of gay supporter because he needed to use the bathroom and refused point-blank to go wee-wee in a toilet that had been used by homosexuals?  Eric Dondero, a former top aide to the politician writes about another curious incident:  This top staffer adores Ron, but was extremely insulted by his behavior, I would even say flabbergasted to the point of considering resigning from his staff over it.  "Bobby," a well-known and rather flamboyant and well-liked gay man in Freeport came to the BBQ.  Let me stress Ron likes Bobby personally (judge for yourself the veracity of that) and Bobby was a hardcore campaign supporter.  But after his speech, at the Surfside pavilion Bobby came up to Ron with his hand extended, and according to my fellow staffer, Ron literally swatted his hand away.  (Afraid of "AIDS germs," Dr. Paul?)

Comments

[matt]

I still really like a lot of Ron Paul's views. Such as the government not being involved in marriage. That makes a lot of sense to me. He's also the only one I've heard willing to end the war on drugs.

[2cents]

Marriage is a church function? Who gets to decide what churches have that power?

[matt]

I think his view on marriage is that it shouldn't be recognized by the government at all. So churches could do whatever ceremonies they wanted. They just wouldn't have any legal relevance. (source http://bit.ly/uNH0Uv)

[tanya]

Ron Paul opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act because he said it treaded on individual liberty. He also said social security and medicare was unconstitutional. I have grandparents wjho depend on those programs.

[David S]

Ron Paul may have extremist views, but seems like the lesser of evils. He's the only major-party anti-war candidate. He wants to end the empire. All the rest are corporate globalist puppets.

[Nita K]

I'm sorry, but I just can't see how "Annual Hate Whitey Day" could be the lesser of evils.