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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPaul On Newsletters: Not Only Did I Not Write Them, MLK Was One Of My Heroes
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) answered the charge that some of the newsletters that were put out under his name in the Republican presidential debate on Saturday night in New Hampshire, saying that Its been explained many times, and again denied that he wrote any of the offending remarks. He then pivoted by saying that the Rev. Martin Luthar King was one of his heroes, and that hes the only candidate on the stage that actually takes on the imbalances in the criminal justice system.
- But also I'm the only one up here...that understands true racism in this country. It's in the judicial system. And it has to do with enforcing the drug laws. The percentage of people who use drugs are about the same with blacks and whites and yet the blacks are arrested way did I proportionately. They're prosecuted, imprisoned way disproportionately. They get the death penalty disproportionately. How many times have you seen a white rich person get the electric chair or get execution?
by Ron Paul
On June 4, 2004, Congress hailed the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Act. Only the heroic Ron Paul dissented. Here are his comments.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.
This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul188.html
Ron Paul Tells CNNs Candy Crowley: Civil Rights Act Destroyed Privacy
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ron-paul-tells-cnns-candy-crowley-civil-rights-act-destroyed-privacy/
Listen to the guy who supports DOMA talk about the government coming into" our bedrooms."
On edit, this needs newsletter context:
Ron Paul's Homophobia In Context
http://www.towleroad.com/2011/12/ron-pauls-homophobia-in-context.html#ixzz1ioTOaRiQ
BootinUp
(46,924 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)It's quite in here.
rurallib
(62,342 posts)ProSense
(116,464 posts)Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)gkhouston
(21,642 posts)Skip Intro
(19,768 posts)I mention this only in the interest of full honesty and fairness.
On edit, I see that you have pointed that out, but that it has been ignored in the replies.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)he's for you when he's actually against you.
It's like Republicans saying affirmative action is racist and unfair to white people. You can twist, turn, and spin anything out of context, but the result is racism. Pure and simple.
Skip Intro
(19,768 posts)I haven't heard ANY candidate other than Paul rail against institutional racism.
I don't believe the guy is racist.
I think if he were, given his outspokenness and zero lack of restraint in speaking his views, if he were a racist, there would be a wealth of blatantly racist quotes from him over the years.
Those don't exist, as far as I can tell. If you have clearly racist quotes from him to prove me wrong then please share them.
In the interest of honesty and fairness, I cannot condone or join in in calling him a racist because I have yet to see any such quotes.
There is something about Ron Paul that has turned the media, both right-wing and left-wing, as well as party establishment, both Dem and Repub, against him. What I see is a politico-media establishment so threatened by this guy and his ideas that they will marginalize him in any way necessary to make him disappear.
I have to ask myself why that is...
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)and I don't buy his lame excuse he had no clue what was in them.
Look, no matter what I present here, you'll only argue that there's no proof I'd seen Paul type up those newsletters himself, or whether or not I saw him, personally, and videotaped the moment when he voted against the bill commemorating the 1964 Civil Rights Act in 2004, or that businesses should have the right, under property rights, to refuse service to anyone they don't like based on whatever tickles their bigoted fantasies at that moment, or women should carry their rapist's seed to full term because abortion is wrong no matter what, or any other of his bigoted ideas, because you'll do just as I've proposed in the comment you'd responded to: twist, turn, and spin it to justify defending the most conservative U.S. Representative (based on votes I didn't see him make in the House, but what are filed under his name) since 1937.
But just for your entertainment, here are a few instances that show how racist Paul is:
"1985 to 1994
The controversial statements that have surfaced stem largely from this period. They were contained in newsletters with titles like Ron Pauls Freedom Report, the Ron Paul Political Report, the Ron Paul Survival Report, and the Ron Paul Investment Letter, rarely under a byline (although many contained first-person references that readers would assume referred to Paul himself).
Some samples: A December 1989 newsletter quoted by James Kirchick in the New Republic predicted "Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities" because "mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white 'haves.' "
Another letter said "I think we can assume that 95 percent of the black men in that city [Washington] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."
An August 1992 edition of the Ron Paul Report labeled former Rep. Barbara Jordan (D) of Texas "the archetypal half-educated victimologist," according to the Houston Chronicle."
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2011/1229/Racist-newsletter-timeline-What-Ron-Paul-has-said
And *I* have to ask why people just want to pooh-pooh the above away...
Remember, Paul being *the most* conservative U.S. Rep since 1937 means he's to the right of Cheney (a U.S. Rep once upon a time, too) and both he and Bush are actually more to Paul's left - and that's as scary as it is sad. NO Progressive, Democrat, or Liberal should defend and/or lend their support to the one congresscritter who is this CONservative.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"He also railed against the racist drug laws and institutionalized racism in the court system. I mention this only in the interest of full honesty and fairness."
...repeating that Ron Paul is "against the racist drug laws" doesn't absolve him of his views that people should be free to treat blacks as second class citizens.
In the interest of full honesty and fairness, it took 40 years for someone to do something positive related to the war on drugs. http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/justice-served
In the interest of full honesty and fairness, he conveniently didn't cast a vote for the Second Chance Act (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1083.xml) He voted against the hate crimes bill and employment discrimination laws
In the interest of full honesty and fairness, Ron Paul's position is simply to get the federal government out of drug law enforcement, eliminating government regulations (giving corporations free reign), eliminating the safety nets, and then let the states decide.
Ron Paul constantly votes against FDA oversight of tobacco and talks about it in very much the same way he talks about federal involvement in drug regulation.
My objections to the bill are not an endorsement of tobacco. As a physician I understand the adverse health effects of this bad habit. And that is exactly how smoking should be treated -- as a bad habit and a personal choice. The way to combat poor choices is through education and information. Other than ensuring that tobacco companies do not engage in force or fraud to market their products, the federal government needs to stay out of the health habits of free people. Regulations for children should be at the state level. Unfortunately, government is using its already overly intrusive financial and regulatory roles in healthcare to establish a justifiable interest in intervening in your personal lifestyle choices as well. We all need to anticipate the level of health freedom that will remain once government manages all health care in this country.
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=115
His views are not hard to understand.
Paul: Ron Paul opposes the War on Drugs. On November 20, 2008 Ron Paul said in a New York Times / Freakonomics interview: [...] the federal war on drugs has proven costly and ineffective, while creating terrible violent crime. But if you question policy, you are accused of being pro-drug. That is preposterous. As a physician, father, and grandfather, I abhor drugs. I just know that there is a better way through local laws, communities, churches, and families to combat the very serious problem of drug abuse than a massive federal-government bureaucracy.
Source: www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/war-on-drugs (10/31/2011)
Paul: Ron Paul opposes the War on Drugs. On November 20, 2008 Ron Paul said in a New York Times / Freakonomics interview: [...] the federal war on drugs has proven costly and ineffective, while creating terrible violent crime. But if you question policy, you are accused of being pro-drug. That is preposterous. As a physician, father, and grandfather, I abhor drugs. I just know that there is a better way through local laws, communities, churches, and families to combat the very serious problem of drug abuse than a massive federal-government bureaucracy.
Source: www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/war-on-drugs (10/31/2011)
Paul: The issue is not whether one supports medical marijuana or not. The issue is whether Washington decides or local voters decide. For most issues, the Constitution leaves decision-making to the states. For most of the 20th century, however, the federal government has ignored the Constitution and run roughshod over state sovereignty. As a result, the centralizers of both parties in Washington cannot imagine a society not dominated by the federal government.
Source: Ron Paul (02/26/2008)
Paul: I believe that this issue needs to be resolved at the state and local level, and that the federal government has no constitutional authority to intervene in these decisions.
Source: Ron Paul (02/26/2008)
http://vote-usa.org/issue.aspx?election=us20121106ar&office=uspresident&issue=busillegaldrugs
His position on everything is anti-federal goverment, and then you're on your own. His position on the war on drugs is no different, and as for any help for people affected by his decisions, well like his opposition to health care there is always charity. http://www.democraticunderground.com/100288476
I know Paul co-sponsored Barney Franks bill on marijuana (http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002102660) , but I damn sure know that Barney Frank supports government health care and that he sponsored the Second Chance Act.
redqueen
(115,096 posts)Some people actually believe these things. At least the racist kind are ashamed of it, cause at least racism isn't socially acceptable (mostly).
ProSense
(116,464 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Send it all to the NAACP or for upkeep on the MLK Memorial? Right? Or is he just going to keep all those lovely, lovely racist dollars to himself? Dr. Paul has an obsessive preoccupation with money, but I have yet to hear what he plans to do with all the money he pocketed from his racist little newsletter he didn't write, and now disavows.
Most ethical people, if money was rolling in like it was for Dr. Paul, would check into its source. That apparently has never crossed Dr. Paul's conscience, if any he has.
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)And tragically he's the only candidate (including the President) who is really talking about this.
That said, his views on everything else are batshit crazy. I don't think the guy is a racist, but I do think he has no problem pandering to them. And the fact that he just wants to overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because he thinks it's unnecessary, rather than because he hates black people, doesn't change the fact that he wants to overturn the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Skip Intro
(19,768 posts)indiscriminately. Race doesn't enter into his view of government.
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)And that's why his standard of freedom doesn't apply to a woman's uterus and why he's one of the few people who graduated from medical school that claims not to believe in evolution.
It's also why he's never denounced these Klan types as the vile human beings that they are. His agenda isn't white supremacy. But it certainly is beneficial for white supremacists and so he's more than happy to take their money and support up to the point that they become detrimental to his ambitions.
Skip Intro
(19,768 posts)You want to hate the guy, fine. I'm not in the habit of defending him or campaigning for him.
But truth is truth. Honesty is honesty.
If what you are saying is real, then back it up with links to real, accepted sources.
If you can do that, then I'll thank you for your enlightenment.
If you can't do that, then I'll have to assume you're just spouting bullshit.
Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)But if they're not, here you go...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/29/scitech/main20098876.shtml
http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/abortion/
Skip Intro
(19,768 posts)Instead you go to abortion and evolution
I'm sorry, I was looking for quotes from him on the racism charges that have been made relentlessly but never backed up with quotes from this outspoken politician. I find that odd.
Instead of offering quotes/vids to back up the racism assertions, we get vids on abortion.
Here is the video you posted on abortion. Please point out the offending quotes:
Tarheel_Dem
(31,207 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Can wait until next Monday when the racists in the Republican party will start invoking Dr. King's legacy, declaring how much of a hero he was to them.
Here are the vote tallies for the MLK, Jr. holiday:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h1983-289
Oh yeah, and according to them, Dr. King would have been a Republican were he alive today!