Bumperstickers: One Last Ron Paul Moment

I generally don't like them. Today I saw a truck with a very impressive graphic displaying the driver's association with the US Marine Corp and his affection for the flag. Okay, that's fine. But underneath all the visual hullabaloo were at least two bumperstickers. The one on the right took me awhile to discern; I assumed it would have said "Bush Was Right," or Rush Is Right, or Support the Troops, or something typically jingoistic. Nope. I don't know if you've seen this one, but it said in all caps with several exclamation points: "WHERE'S THE FENCE?!?!?" Yipes. That gave me a chill up the spine, but shouldn't be surprising in the land of Tancredo. Then I scoped the other bumpersticker on the left side: "Ron Paul '08." If that doesn't give anyone pause who had ever even considered voting for Ron Paul, well. Well it just reinforces my prejudice regarding the American Right Wing "Libertarian" movement and Ron Paul.

And the Right Brothers and their song Bush Was Right reinforces my prejudice of against all things neo-punk. The guitar lick "neener neener neener;" what could be more idiotic? But that was the point of the Ramones. It seemed idiotic, except it was genius.

But, on the contrary side, I don't like the "anti-idiot" talk either. I saw a bumpersticker the other day about what this country needs is to get rid of all the idiots. In Orcinus terminology, this Eliminationist. I want to ask these people, people like comedian Lewis Black, who says we need to get rid of all the idiots: How do we determine who are the idiots? Mandatory IQ tests? What about idiot-savants? What about the Ramones? They seem like idiots, they act like idiots, they sound like idiots, but what they did was genius. Unlike the Right Brothers--who look like fratboys who got moderately high scores on the SAT.

More Fun with Ron Paul: Ghostwriters in the Sky

Well, my mind on Ron Paul was decided as soon as I looked at his fundamental ideology. People seem to be attracted to him because he speaks his mind, and he wants to restore "liberty" to the constitution. Say what you will about the democratic candidates, but, ultimately, each one of them is at least in favor of traditional liberal values. You know, New Deal, Great Society, Unions, Civil Rights such as Immigrant Rights, Gay Marriage, Women's Rights (including icky abortions), active oversight on industry, all that wonderful crap. Ron Paul is not a liberal. He is a libertarian. If that means something to you, great. If not, well, more power to you. It means enough to me not to vote for him. Though I would welcome Ron Paul one-billion times more as president than I would Rudy Giuliani.

Anyhow, in reference to those quotes, I got them from this openleft post, which pulled them from a realchange.org article entitled "Ron Paul's Skeleton Closet." As the article entails, the quotes were culled from a newsletter, his own newsletter in an article bylined by Ron Paul. The newsletter was not intended for the general public, but for fellow Libertarians; and it was written before he switched to the Republican party. This was 1992. Realchange puts it:

In 2001, as Paul moved to the mainstream and rejoined the Republican party, he disavowed these comments and blamed them on an unnamed ghostwriter. But when Paul ran for Congress in 1996, as a Libertarian, his opponent brought these up to show that Paul had fringe ideas. At that time, Paul told the Houston Chronicle that he opposed racism and his commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." In other words, he didn't deny writing the Ron Paul column in the Ron Paul newsletter, profits of which go to Ron Paul, until many years later. Then he claimed that his campaign aides thought it would be "too confusing" to tell the truth, so he had to lie and accept responsibility.

It's all just too confusing. Just like Bush's military and criminal record, as openleft points out. So if you love Ron Paul, don't worry about it. We must be too stupid to see how he's not racist.

Update:

And for more about the legal definition of byline and ghostwriting, see this. But that's only for those stickler-types.

Fun Ron Paul Quotes

From realchange.org via Openleft:

"If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be." - Ron Paul, 1992

"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." - Ron Paul, 1992

"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." - Ron Paul, 1992

"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" - Ron Paul, 1992

Oh well. I guess we're gonna have to vote for Hillary. Or, as I like to call her, Hillary Clinton.