Commenter lamh finds Santorum talking about the need to stop giving money to black people:
“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money,” Santorum begins. “I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”
Only about a third of welfare recipients are African-American. That’s the reality. (And it’s also worth noting that African-Americans get a disproportionately low proportion of Social Security pay-outs, because of lower life expectancies and average wages.)
I hate that American politics has been dominated by the specter of imaginary strapping young bucks buying T-bone steaks with their welfare checks. It’s what I hate the very most about American politics, because it’s so incredibly toxic in so many ways: it’s divisive and hateful, it turns the middle-class against itself, it makes a rational discussion of the role of government impossible, it holds us back as a society more than any other myth I can think of.
So you’ll have to excuse me for not wanting to participate in all the navel-gazing about what liberals “should” think about Ron Paul. The guy has flirted with strapping young buck racism (as well as anti-Semitism) since forever, not just via his (ghostwritten) newsletter but also in his (presumably not entirely ghostwritten) book. His economic ideas would — in my opinion — probably devastate the American middle class.
For a liberal like me, who is primarily interested in the well-being of the American middle-class and in providing opportunity for everyone in the United States, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion etc., I just don’t see why I should be “challenged” by Ron Paul. I understand that if you’re a liberal who is primarily interested in civil liberties and a less bellicose foreign policy, then you might be conflicted about Paul. But to me, he’s just another racist asshole who wants to fuck the American middle-class.
c u n d gulag
Icky-sticky Rickey should have stopped and left it at, ““I don’t want to make black people’s lives better.”
It would have been shorter, and also have the benefit of being 100% accurate.
c u n d gulag
By the way, how fitting would it be if tomorrow in Iowa, Santorum has a ‘come from behind’ victory?
Jerzy Russian
What I find so challenging to understand is how Paul was ever reelected to Congress. He does not bring home any pork, so what is the point of him being there (from the point of view of the people in his district)?
dmsilev
@c u n d gulag: A surge of Santorum, coming from behind, but is this only the latest bubble in the froth of the GOP race?
Note to self: If Santorum wins on Tuesday, be sure to watch The Daily Show on Wednesday.
Amanda in the South Bay
The problem is, for many on the left, that’s pretty much all they care for. TBQH, I think that makes as much sense as right wing voters who allow abortion and/or homosexuality dominate their voting patterns.
I’ve noticed its an especially prominent brainbug amongst the CS/IT/tech crowd-hence why I go to tech blogs to talk about tech, not warmed over “information wants to be free!!!” liberaltarianism.
Strandedvandal
Maybe it’s me (probably) I think I missed your connection. You start off mired in Santorum, and then switch to the evil elf Paul.
DougJ
@Amanda in the South Bay:
They can be interested in whatever they want, I don’t like them telling me what I should be interested in. That’s where I draw the line.
bemused
This kind of hate speech is proudly spouted by self-described Christians. Jesus would weep.
Li
And yet, Paul is the only candidate who calls out the drug war as racist, and seeks to end it. He’s a weird ball of ideas, that one, but at least he brings something into the debate; if it wasn’t for him, any talk about the most wasteful and destructive policies of our nation (i.e. locking up generations of black people for crimes whites do more often, engaging in endless war, murdering americans with flying death robots, becoming a vassal state of Israel) would be restricted to the 99% encampment, as both parties are in total lockstep agreement upon them.
DougJ
@Strandedvandal:
I edited it to try to make the transition a little more smooth. I agree it was choppy (and probably still is).
Mudge
They are sociopaths. Every last one of them. They do not care if people starve or die of curable diseases due to no health care. They do not view “those” people as members of a society that also contains Republicans. They do not feel that living in that society has obligations as well as benefits. If able to steal from the middle class, they will without remorse. They are the job creators who do not create jobs.
They are bad people.
Baud
This post and John’s prior post dovetail nicely. Ron Paul’s fake reality differs from the standard GOP fake reality, but it’s still make believe.
@Jerzy Russian: Actually, I think Paul does bring home pork. I remember him trying to justify how it’s consistent with his political philosophy.
iriedc
@DougJ Perfect post title! Gotta go find my PE cassettes now.
Bruce S
The GOP is the party of racial paranoia and resentment. So how could they not be the party of racist demagogy? This morning the insufferable douchebag Santorum was making the claim to a bunch of Iowans that Obama hates blue collar workers. Yeah – he used the word “hates.” Sick little punk.
Carbon Dated
@Li
On the other hand, he’s got White Nationalist groups like Stormfront campaigning for him. Not that that makes Paul guilty by association, but the point is his message is very comforting to racists, and it’s the exact one that former Senator Frothy Mix is spouting here.
Villago Delenda Est
Which is the entire point.
Divide and rule.
Carbon Dated
It’s a threeway with santorum.
kwAwk
This to me is the main contradiction in modern conservatism. Conservatives claim to believe that they believe in wanting people to advance themselves through work, but at the same time oppose any and every effort to make work pay.
Or to put it another way, to make the notion of working attractive.
Jerzy Russian
@Baud: Yes, I may have spoken a bit too soon. I remember reading a profile of him in the New York Times many years ago. In it several people from his district were quoted, and many of them complained about the lack of “services” Paul provided. The reality is no doubt more complex.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Li:
And people who concentrate solely on one issue are idiots. Sure, the rest of the country would be destroyed, but you’d be able to get high.
kindness
But of all the GOP candidates, Ron Paul is probably the only candidate who you can believe in when he says he wants to fuck over the
middle classliberals, and has meant it for years. Now that’s conviction!fixed it for ya.
Li
I know, and a lot of Paul’s behavior around racists groups gives me the willies. But, on the other hand, I’m not sure how much gay rights or economic security for the middle class matters if the future Bachmann administration can just fire missiles from flying death machines into gay rights marches with perfect impunity and immunity. Which is precisely the legal framework that Obama has given us, alas.
The power to kill you anywhere, anytime, for any reason that can be wrapped in the extremely loose definition of ‘terrorism’ (jaywalking with a political sign qualifies) kind of trumps any other rights or liberties. That is why “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is in that order. If you have been murdered, then any rights on the books are kind of moot.
Jerzy Russian
@kwAwk:
Well put. The right wingers like to say that the 99% is just jealous of the 1%. At the same time someone like Newt is outraged that janitors can make $100,000 per year (is this even true?) and suggests that we take away those high paying jobs and give them to the school kids.
Pope Bandar bin Turtle
I have no doubt that he will win in teh end!
Baud
@Li:
And don’t forget the death panels Obama created. Why, they don’t even need missiles.
Veritas
Yes, they are one-third of the recipients, while being 11% of the population.
lacp
Apparently ex-Sen. Frothy Mix has never heard of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In November the unemployment rate for whites was 7.6% and for blacks 15.5% – over twice as high. He needs to STFU.
Cacti
@Li:
Why do people keep saying that Ron Paul wants to end the War on Drugs?
Ron Paul has no problem with States and municipalities criminalizing drug use. He only opposes it on a federal level.
Newsflash Paul-kids, most drug offenders are incarcerated in State prisons and County jails, not federal facilities.
geg6
Couldn’t have said it better myself, Doug. Bravo!
Fuck these self-described “liberals” with their crushes on libertarians and stupid self-righteous screaming about all the brown children they imagine that Obama is gleefully blowing up. They are no more liberals than Rick Santorum is. Rick cares for fetuses more than actual living children. Ron Paul cares more about white males than all the minorities, women and children who would be hurt or even die due to his policies. These so-called liberals are willing to let those same minorities, women and kids suffer and die so they can somehow show themselves to be more righteous than a dirty corporatist Obama supporter like me.
Fuck them and the horses they ride in on. Every one of them are actually all about themselves and how they are superior moral beings. No different than the religious right in that respect and becoming just as destructive. I, for one, welcome their hate and disdain. Means I’m doing something right.
Zifnab25
@Jerzy Russian:
His Congressional office runs a tight ship and is excellent in serving his constituency when it comes to things like getting out Social Security checks and seeing Medicare reimbursed. If you are a senior citizen in TX-14, Ron Paul is your best friend.
He is also staunchly pro-life and appeals to the Texas Christian community, while still bringing in the district’s libertarians without fail.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Li:
WTF does that have to do with anything? Paul’s economic views would utterly destroy the country (except for maybe the uppermost of the 1%), making your civil liberties arguments sorta moot. I should be happy being homeless and discriminated against, because President Paul will get rid of the war on drugs (at least at the Federal level, I’m sure he’d be happy with states and cities doing whatever they want), and isolationism FTW!
Villago Delenda Est
@Amanda in the South Bay:
This drives my sane IT friends nuts. These clowns constitute one of the greatest gatherings of idiot savants in the history of mankind. They have no sense, absolutely none, of cause and effect.
Without the eeebil state they would have no vocation as they know it. PCs? Spinoff from “wasteful” spending at NASA in the 60’s and 70’s? The intertubes? Something D0D financed by a bunch of pointy headed academics because the brain trust of Ma Bell said that it was impossible for computers to “talk” to each other over a phone line.
Yet these people think that their entire fucking industry was dropped out of the sky by Jeebus or Ayn Rand.
It’s like the absolutely insidious lie of the “rugged individual” conquering the American West: with a government supplied cavalry regiment and government land grants providing marginal support.
Observer
Doug, I really don’t think anyone liberal is conflicted over Ron Paul.
That said,
I’m just going to have to take your word for that.
As evidenced by policy and political choices over, say, the last 30 years I don’t know any liberals in the public space who are liberals “like you” except for one or two notably rare exceptions.
I’d doubt you too, but like I say, for now I’ll just take your word for it.
eemom
nicely done, DougJ — under the innocuous guise of a post about an entirely different topic — and while cleverly avoiding naming the name of he-whose-name-causes-me-to-throw-up — you slyly slipped in the bait for Flame War Number Eleventy Thousand about mmm-mmmm and Ron Paul.
[headdesk]
Calouste
@Carbon Dated:
If a politician doesn’t explicitly disavow support from groups like Stormfront, they are guilty by association.
Ramiah Ariya
As you say clearly, you are only interested in the American middle class. But your country is going around killing people in smaller countries, and excuse me for thinking that should be a bigger concern, for humanity’s sake.
In the last ten years, you should have been concerned most with the Iraq war; and the drone attacks; and the undeclared wars in six countries. They must atleast matter as much as the American middle class.
It seems what you have is a bargain, where liberal Americans agree on protecting their middle class, while giving a free pass to all the killings abroad.
Ultimately, of course, the killings just do not stay abroad. They come home.
WereBear
Exactly. When one digs down to figure out what Ron Paul is really saying, it’s that he wishes to essentially eliminate the Federal government and gives all power to local fief-lords… oh, I mean the States! who handle all labor issues with their serfs… whoops, I meant citizens, who are then free to have all the health care they can buy once the company store gets done with them.
Just another Confederate who regrets losing the war.
Social Outcast
@Cacti: Okay. And for all the people locked up in a state that would legalize consumption but can’t because of federal action, that would still be the difference between freedom and living in prison. (granted, Congress would never let him change the law, but we’re talking about policies positions here, not reality)
RSA
@Cacti:
I think Paul’s hypothetical election is viewed as something like a libertarian Rapture, with non-violent drug offenders teleported out of their jail cells, and the elimination of 90% of the federal government leading to a paradise of productivity (after an economic tribulation, of course). You have to look beyond the inconsistencies.
kwAwk
I can imagine a highly senior janitor working a lot of hours could approach $100k a year.
But I was thinking more broadly, like opposition to minimum and living wage laws. Opposition to collective bargaining rights in general. Opposition to workplace safety regulations. Opposition to financial regulations. Opposition to anti-trust legislation.
Li
@Amanda in the South Bay: I’m not sure you are listening. The drug war ending would be a large victory for sanity, for sure, but I’m more concerned about the rise of the flying death machines. Those things have the potential to make any sort of rebellion against fascism impossible by reducing the number of people required to actively support such a movement to the people manning the death consoles and the people building the robots. Or perhaps, even more narrowly, to the people pointing guns at those two groups. It would be a perfect tyranny, completely unaccountable, and beholden to the interests of a few dozen people, while subjugating the whole world. Our current political leadership, both parties, is rapidly setting up a legal framework by which any one of us, and anyone unfortunate enough to be within 20 meters of us, could be murdered by the command of some executive or CIA spook, without even having to justify the reason. In such an environment, the destruction of the middle class, and the complete subversion of all rights, can be accomplished almost effortlessly, and anyone who opposes such moves can be murdered with their friends and family with no hope of recourse. So, if you care about the future of the middle class, or any human rights whatsoever, our first priority must be stopping the death machines. And Paul is the only person who seems even concerned about these machines, and the policies that allow them to be used on people on command, with no oversight or accountability. Thus, his presence in the campaign is valuable, if only because it will ensure that this critical issue is at least debated.
My optimal outcome for this campaign would be for Paul to win the nomination, and then force this topic out in the debates against Obama. Then, amidst massive public outcry, the death machines are restricted severely in their use. And Obama wins anyway. I know, it’s unlikely, but I’ll embrace any sort of hope against the dread dystopian future that we are so rapidly building.
eemom
My husband was just looking at today’s newspaper, and offhandedly remarked on how stupid it is for Ron Paul to get all this attention when he’s never gonna get the nomination.
Then he turned the page and forgot about it.
That is how
sanepeople who don’t read blogs live.ruemara
@Li: Paul is full of bs because he knows that this is what his supporters will eat up and ignore his real, actual racism. spare me his melange of ideas shit.
Also @Li pardon, I read the rest of your comments and realized you’re an idiot. Nvm.
lacp
@eemom: Yes. This blog has used up several universes’ worth of pixels hyperventilating over a fringe kook who wants to go back to the Gilded Age and his Brazilian Boswell fluffer.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Li: Jesus you are an idiot. I hope like living in the Confederacy when Prez Paul gets rid of UAVs.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ramiah Ariya:
September 11th, 2001.
‘Nuff said.
Amanda in the South Bay
I think we can safely narrow down Paul supporters to two groups of people (not exactly mutually exclusive): white affluent people and people who want to get high.
lamh35
there is a saying in my community when someone shows a pissy side of themselves that you haven’t seen before and we say they are “showing their ass…”
Well one thing this liberal fascination/love affair with Ron Paul has done is have alot of people who I consider reasonable to completely “show their ass”. People like Maddow, Stewart, Chris Hayes and Greenwald who just seems too willing to excuse Paul if not blatant, then overtly racist positions and commentary. This is not old defense for Paul that people can say was a past statement, Paul again re-interated his disdain for the Civil Rights Act on Sunday.
Yesterday, Ta-Nehisi Coates tweets from yesterday were outrageous, but it sorta brought home how ridiculous it is to completely ignore Ron Paul’s racist rantings just because he’s anti-war or something.
A few of TNC’s tweets:
“Ron Paul slams the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It’s OK because he’s against the drug war”
“For the record “I’m against the drug war” has officially replaced “I have a black friend.”
“”I think lynching is just swell-but too be clear I oppose crack/cocaine disparities.”
I mention TNC because TNC is far from an O-bots and think whole Paul thing is really pissing off alot of the black blog I read. Once the Paul campaign runs it’s course a lot of them I bet won’t soon forget how easy some white liberal bloggers excused the racism inherent in those Paul newsletter.
Ramiah Ariya
Frankly speaking, I suspect that the rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world would prefer Ron Paul to Obama if both their positions on foreign policy are known. This somehow seemed to matter when Bush was president, but not anymore. I wonder why.
Southern Beale
And women. Don’t forget women. He’s anti-choice and made up lies about seeing babies thrown in dumpsters outside of abortion clinics.
The guy is batshit insane and so is his son. There is absolutely nothing and I mean NOTHING appealing about the guy, unless you’re in college and still think the Ayn Rand Study Group is cool.
Cacti
@Social Outcast:
Where does this State exist?
California couldn’t even get 1 oz. of marijuana for personal use decriminalized by referendum. But somewhere, there’s a State leg. waiting to roll back all laws on cocaine, heroin, and meth?
ChrisNYC
Seconded. Only point I’d add is that establishing a society that provides opportunity to people regardless of race, gender, etc etc etc. is another point of our Constitution. Liberals need to not murmur and be embarrassed about this — implicitly saying that the real hardcore lovers of freedom are the only defenders of the Constitution and what we want is somehow soft and PC — but instead need to proudly say that these our our values and that our Constitution backs us up on them.
Also, the question of RP and the supposed veneration he has for the Constitution is altogether suspect. Don’t know if this got hashed out in the previous epic thread but … the kind of extreme, non compromising, bring the whole thing down and start over because “it needs to be pure” thinking process behind Paul’s ideology is anathema to one of the fundamental ideas of the Constitution. First, the founders didn’t want extremes — they wanted balancings, they wanted a slow steady process with very few things held as rigid core principles and a huge amount of popular agreement in order to get things done. Extremes and unyielding allegiance to theoretical principles hurt people and the Founders knew that. Second, as Paul sometimes admits, his program requires pretty much lock step agreement on the part of all branches as well as the populace. It’s freedom to believe whatever you like as long as you agree with RP’s Constitutional ideology.
FlipYrWhig
@Li: an analogy for you.
“flying death machines” is to “2012” as “black helicopters” is to “1993.”
You sound like Dale Gribble.
DougJ
@Ramiah Ariya:
The thing is this, I don’t actually have a very good idea of what the worldwide Muslim community thinks about things. I don’t. So I have no idea if what you are saying is true.
Spaghetti Lee
@Ramiah Ariya:
I’ve seen this before and it’s a scam. Libertarians love trying to play on the overdeveloped liberal sense of guilt (not saying you’re a libertarian, but that’s where I’ve seen this argument come from). They call us selfish, greedy, make us feel like the ugly American we’ve spent a lot of time trying not to be, hoping the liberal will sell out the idea of social justice in exchange for some pipe dream pacifist utopia (Do you really think Paul will unilaterally end the military-industrial complex on his own? I sure as fuck don’t). My guess is that, if a Paul-like figure ever gets elected, he suddenly has a change of heart on the whole war thing, but the killing off of the working class proceeds apace. Maybe we get some pot out of it-which will come in handy when we’re all living in boxes.
There are plenty of liberals out there who are both anti-war and anti-drone and who also don’t want to fuck up the non-rich in this country. Would that all the angst about Ron Paul was being parlayed into energy to find house and senate candidates like that.
Cacti
@Ramiah Ariya:
Maybe it’s because for some people, rollbacks on domestic anti-discrimination laws, reproductive freedoms, financial regulations, and environmental regulations are a pretty damn steep price to pay for an isolationist foreign policy.
Nah, it’s probably because they just love war too much.
DougJ
@lamh35:
Those tweets are awesome.
BruceFromOhio
It still eludes me why anyone, anywhere, gives any of the Republican candidates, or any Republican politicians or operatives anywhere, a moment’s thought. These soulless, two-bit bigoted ratfuck criminals are determined, as a so-called “political party,” to drive this entire country into moral and fiscal bankruptcy in the name of a corrupted set of ideological fantasies.
Has the Russian mob, the Mexican drug cartels, the Ku Klux Klan, the Koch Brothers Inc. or the GOP earned the benefit the benefit of legitimacy? Perhaps, through violence, exploitation and extortion, I could argue that each in turn has some legitimate purpose or reason for consideration, perhaps for prosecution. But as a way of governing, or providing for useful governance, none are responsible, and all are reprehensible.
Save the navel gazing for something useful, like the meaning of your life, or teachings of Buddha, or whether your cute neighbor from upstairs is really hot enough to hit on the next time you meet in the laundry room. These fucking Republicans are a scourge on the face of humanity, to a man and woman, and should be treated as such.
Ramiah Ariya
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, drones don’t really exist. It is like the secret war on Laos.
@DougJ: They certainly don’t think very well of Obama. Obama in some of these countries has a lesser approval than Bush had.
You still have not made clear why the American middle class is your biggest concern instead of actual people dying due to the war on terror.
FlipYrWhig
@Ramiah Ariya: Until there was a disaster that Pres. Paul refused to send aid for, or India decided to bomb Pakistan and he said, “oh well, guess it sucks to be them.”
Cacti
@Ramiah Ariya:
This is a textbook example of the false dilemma fallacy.
Linda Featheringill
@Zifnab25: #30
I don’t understand. I live in Ohio [not Texas] and my Social Security checks always come on time and my Medicare payments seem to go through just fine.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eemom:
Heh. Every political blog should have a tag: “We (or You) are less than ten percent of the electorate”
FlipYrWhig
@Southern Beale: “say what you will about Zombie Ayn Rand, and I’m not saying I’m endorsing her, but her strong atheist voice forces liberals to take stock of their commitment to secularism.”
Ramiah Ariya
@Cacti – So, a non-isolationist foreign policy, in America, means you should be actually bombing and killing people?
The question is not (as you put it) about a steep price for an isolationist foreign policy. The steep price you pay is so that your country stops killing people around the world. I think that sounds different from an euphemistic “isolationist foreign policy”.
FlipYrWhig
@Ramiah Ariya: Helicopters exist too. And they’re coming to get you in the night. Boogah boogah!
Ramiah Ariya
@Cacti – I don’t have the false dilemma. Neither does Greenwald. The dilemma is being posed by DougJ in the post, where he states his biggest concern is for the American middle class.
Lojasmo
@Li:
Paul’s point is probably that the drug war is racist…against whites.
Mnemosyne
@Li:
Actually, he isn’t concerned about them. He doesn’t want to have a federal government that can use them, so he prefers to issue letters of marque to mercenaries and have the mercenaries use them on our behalf.
If you’re worried about completely unaccountable people having access to death machines, you should be a fuckton more worried about Paul’s plan to pay mercenaries to run them than you are having government employees run them.
eemom
@Ramiah Ariya:
Really? What countries are those?
I assume you don’t mean Israel.
kwAwk
@lamh35:
I read GG’s piece on Ron Paul, and what he said is that while Ron Paul is a very flawed candidate and person, the fact that Ron Paul is the only national candidate Repub or Dem to be bringing up certain issues it is good that his voice is in the race.
If you refuse to acknowledge when your political opponent is right, or when you agree with your political opponent, then your criticism of the same opponent when you think they’re wrong doesn’t carry as much weight.
Ron Paul’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 may very well be STUPID, but it isn’t racist.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m sure Ron Paul’s “cut Israel off and unleash the dogs of war!” policy in the Middle East appeals to a great many revanchist Arabs and Muslims, who will finally be able to do justice for the Palestinian people. Of course, the catch is, they won’t have an enemy any more, except for their own ruling classes, and so it’s in the interest of types like the Bandit House of Saud for Israel to continue to be there to be the focus of all that energy.
Of course, Americans tend to look at domestic issues when deciding elections, particularly when the economy is in the shitter, so don’t expect Paul to have much traction beyond people yakking on the ‘tubes about politics.
Rick Taylor
Four years ago, the nail in Kucinich’s coffin for me was when he speculated he might pick Ron Paul as a running mate.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk:
Yeah, but I can’t help but feeling that Paul is “bringing up those issues” to divert us from his long association with total nutcases on the extreme right fringe.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s amazing. For all the times you have made that point, with increasingly spot-on analogies, it STILL doesn’t seem to sink in.
Cacti
@Ramiah Ariya:
Ron Paul’s foreign policy is explicitly, no euphemistically isolationist.
His domestic policies explicitly call for rollbacks of environmental, financial, and employer safety and non-discrimination laws and regulations at the federal level, and that reproductive choice for women should be subject to the whim of State and local laws.
That’s the package that comes with candidate Ron Paul. A vote for no military intervention anywhere, for any reason, in exchange for a rollback of the progressive domestic policies of the past century.
Drum Circles And Weed
@Ramiah Ariya: and the giveaway in…two posts.
Let the rat copulation proceed apace.
Ramiah Ariya
@Spaghetti Lee – All the arguments you make against Ron Paul, about his foreign policy statements, can also be made against Obama on his domestic policy statements and actions. After all, Obama did not end the stranglehold of Wall Street either. He certainly seemed to go through a change of heart (or image) after he became President, on civil liberties, foreign wars and in Wall Street regulations.
Mnemosyne
@Ramiah Ariya:
An isolationist foreign policy also means that our country stops helping people around the world. That means no more economic development money, no more money for AIDS drugs, no more money for malaria spraying, no money for clean water, no money if a devastating earthquake hits. All of that goes away along with the bombs if the US switches to the isolationist foreign policy that you want.
So your position is that you will happily watch people die of preventable diseases and be unable to rebuild their homes after natural disasters as long as they’re also not being bombed.
Lojasmo
@Jerzy Russian:
Ron Paul makes a shit-ton of earmark requests.
http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/04/ron-pauls-earmark-requests-for-fy2009/
This is why NOBODY should believe a word Paul says…about earmarks, or ANYTHING else.
Cacti
@kwAwk:
Assumes facts not in evidence, and is premised upon white privilege.
Mark S.
@Amanda in the South Bay:
How long until Glenn starts writing for lewrockwell.com?
Ramiah Ariya
@Cacti – a lack of military intervention is not the same as isolationism. it seems to mean the same only in the US.
@eemom – the Pew research center tracks this over every year. You can look it up.
Comparing the ongoing drone attacks in at least 3 different countries (Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen) – attacks in which people actually get killed – to a conspiracy theory is a pretty weird analogy.
Lojasmo
@Ramiah Ariya:
prove your own assertion, paultard.
Ken
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Definitely not mutually exclusive. The second is a subset of the first, or at least it should be; for if it is not, then there is a Paul supporter who wants to get high, and who is either non-white or non-affluent. And poor, or brown, drug-users really won’t do any better under Paul than they do now – potentially worse, once the Federal government stops interfering with the states’ rights.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ramiah Ariya:
“Go look up the evidence that supports my assertion” is not a great way to establish credibility
nastybrutishntall
@Ramiah Ariya:
Thanks for playing – please try again: 1) Our guy has only been in there 3 years now. We tried before that, but failed. 2) Are you talking about the killing of Al-Qaeda operatives? Taliban? Collateral deaths associated? Or the Iraq war? These are all different issues. In some cases, the killing was justified. In others, the killing was accidental in the service of justified military action. And the Iraq war was a criminal blunder Obama opposed and is ending as we speak. Drone attacks in Pakistan? The same area where AlQaeda found safe-haven, including OBL? I suppose we could declare war on Pakistan to get rid of them, but that’s maybe not what you are proposing… and other than that, since Pakistan’s military is aiding and abetting people killing our soldiers in Afghanistan who are fighting a justified war, there is no way to stop them except through incursions into their poorly policed territory. So which is it, champ?
Ramiah Ariya
@Mnemosyne – The amount of money the United States spends in running the War on terror DWARVES the amount of money in foreign aid.
Secondly, is that really the choice here? Between a war on terror pursued by President Obama, which also sends some peanuts down the way in foreign aid vs nothing at all? I would love it if an American President actually said this – that the cost of your aid is the flexibility to off some people from time to time.
Mark S.
@kwAwk:
Okie-dokie. These guys will be disappointed.
Ron Paul: World Class Cocktease.
Veritas
Is Ramia one of GG’s sockpuppets?
Cacti
@Ramiah Ariya:
Our current situation in Iraq shows that we cannot allow U.S. national security to become a matter of international consensus. We don’t need UN permission to go to war; only Congress can declare war under the Constitution. The Constitution does not permit the delegation of congressional duties to international bodies. It’s bad enough when Congress relinquishes its warmaking authority to the President, but disastrous if we relinquish it to international bureaucrats who don’t care about America.
Hmmm…I’d say that sounds like a little more than just favoring a lack of military intervention.
Lojasmo
@Ramiah Ariya:
I looked over the pew research site. You are a liar.
Boom, roasted. Fuck off, paultard.
Yevgraf
@Li:
FIFY
Alison
@Ramiah Ariya:
You know, there are also “actual people dying” because of the war on the middle class and low-income folks in the US. Every damn day, people are losing battles with illnesses – some chronic, some not, some barely even “serious” – because they don;t have health insurance and can’t afford to pay for a doctor’s visit or a prescription. Or maybe they do fork out for the doctor and then they can’t pay their rent, and they get evicted, and are living in their car or a shelter, where they’re likely to get sick again, or have a chronic illness magnified.
A lot of these people are already marginalized, they are women and/or POC, they are disabled, etc. They are already bearing the brunt of a systemically prejudicial society that thinks even the idea of helping the less fortunate live a slightly less shitty life is a fucking mortal sin. And sometimes they bear that brunt with their fucking lives.
And Ron Paul does not give one God damn flying fuck about them or their lives. He’s the one who flat out said that someone without health insurance should be left to die in the fucking streets. And that’s not a fucking hypothetical – people in this country are dying in the streets, in the shelters, every day. I care about them and I want them to have a president who cares about them too.
I can *also* care about innocent bystanders killed in other countries where we are waging war. I am sickened and revolted by it and I have endless sympathy for them and their loved ones. But I cannot simply ignore the pain and suffering and struggle and needless untimely deaths of thousands and thousands of my fellow USians because of the possibility that a President Paul – a racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, egomaniac pig – MIGHT avoid war. (I say MIGHT because part of all these discussions has been how OBAMA SAID THIS AND NOW HE’S DONE THAT, and so I wonder why people are so TOTALLY SURE Paul wouldn’t go back on anything he says now, or even that he’d be able to do anything and everything he wants and nothing he doesn’t, Congress be damned.)
You will not make me feel guilty or monstrous for this. And fuck you for trying.
boss bitch
@Li: you really haven’t thought out this Paul vs. Obama election have you? LOL…jesus christ have mercy. LOL!!
Lojasmo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The evidence directly contradicts its assertion.
Ruckus
…he’s just another racist asshole who wants to fuck the American middle-class.
One among many.
Yevgraf
And speaking of that reeking failure Greenwald, has anybody ever been able to point out anything out in the world that he was actually successful at? His civil rights crusade for that shitstain of a client (Matt Hale) went down in stunning flames so he quit doing actual work for a living.
It isn’t like punditry these days requires any extent of life experience or accomplishment. Hell, GG can help usher in the sort of right wing fascist state that all his closeted buddies in right wing think tanks and right wing congressional offices dream of, and he won’t have to live in it or use his personal connections to get out of legal jeopardy.
Ramiah Ariya
@nastybrutishntall – Yes, international law; how does that work? It sure seems that the US can just go in and bomb people in any country, without any authorization, doesn’t it? All that you have to say is that Al-Qaeda had safe haven there. Or some form of Al-Qaeda. Or Taliban. Or WMD. Whatever. As long as you have a population that finds a reasonable balance between keeping its Social safety net vs bombing a few people abroad, how does it matter?
nastybrutishntall
oh, and mother fuck him and Ron Paul.
Mnemosyne
@Ramiah Ariya:
If you’re talking about Paul vs. Obama, yes, that’s the choice. And it’s pretty embarrassing that an ostensible Paul supporter like yourself doesn’t actually know what Paul’s foreign policy position is and is instead touting an imaginary position held by an imaginary version of Paul that doesn’t exist.
Origuy
Ramiyah Ariya, you can’t get Ron Paul by himself. He comes with the rest of the Republican Party. Even if he is as non-interventionist as you think he is, will his Cabinet and advisors be as well?
Not that he has a snowball’s chance in Chennai of getting elected.
Gustopher
Ron Paul is a big ball of crazy with a few very important and correct ideas, which are generally discredited for everyone by Ron Paul’s big ball of crazy.
I wish he would go away so someone else could come along and be a smaller ball of crazy with a few important and correct ideas.
Of course, if he got the Republican nomination (he won’t), I might just vote for him in the general — I’m from a safe state, so it wouldn’t matter, and I’m appalled by the Obama administration continuing the War On Liberty.
nastybrutishntall
@Ramiah Ariya: like I said, are you a go for declaring war on Pakistan? can we count you in? all legal and shit, with thermonuclear sauce on top?
And how about OBL? should he still be surfing porn while trying to kill me and my family right now, or is that an exception to your legal argument?
schrodinger's cat
@Ramiah Ariya: How do you know what muslims around the world are thinking? Also, Ron Paul is not going to win the Republican nomination let alone the presidency, so give your false equivalencies a rest.
Li
@FlipYrWhig:
So, are you saying that they don’t actually exist? Wow! That’s kind of an amazing thing to think, much more fantastic than the thought that new tools of dealing death will be used to subjugate the populace, since that happens just about every single time.
By the way, since I’m such an idiot can you remind me where I have endorsed a Ron Paul presidency? If you read the last sentence of my last comment. . .oh, why bother, you’re so dumb that if the President declares something a secret, it doesn’t exist even when in full view of the world, so why should I expect you to actually read my post?
eemom
@Alison:
Excellent!! Spot the fuck ON.
Veritas
@Li:
Yes, but what about the flouride in the water supply???????!?!!?!?!?
Veritas
After the Flying Death Machines are used, we will be marched off the FEMA Death Camps, right Li?
SiubhanDuinne
@FlipYrWhig:
And… They are not laughing.
Ramiah Ariya
@Alison – You, of course, do not have to feel guilty about choosing that. But surely, that is a factor for many other people in your country. There do seem to be people who think that you should stop the War on Terror; and that you should not be killing so many people to feed the military-industrial complex.
Paul seems to remind the GOP voters, of all the constituencies, that this War on terror is wrong. Therefore he is very valuable in the race for those who care about these deaths willfully caused by America. This is exactly what Greenwald said – that Paul’s presence forces your nation to atleast THINK about blowback – instead of the usual chest-thumping from the bullying candidates on both sides.
Veritas
@Ramiah Ariya:
Hey Glenn, how’s the weather in Brazil?
SiubhanDuinne
@Alison:
Wow. Clearly stated, passionately expressed. Thank you.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Ramiah Ariya:
Newsflash: When the economy is in a shitter, people care more about jobs and surviving and not being homeless. Besides, you have yet to show (beyond rhetoric) just how great of a menace to Muslims Barack Obama is.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
No, I doubt it very much, unless it’s GG very high or very drunk, or both.
Ramiah Ariya
@nastybrutishntall – Well, you could ask your own President to follow your own Constitution, instead of bombing around everywhere. That may actually help.
Mnemosyne
@Li:
No, we’re saying that the fact that the CIA and US military are using drones to bomb al-Qaeda in foreign countries is not somehow “proof” that the government is going to use them to bomb Occupy camps in Oakland, California.
It’s a tiny little nuance of the al-Awlaki assassination that you guys don’t want to acknowledge: he was not in the United States. He was in Yemen. Which is a foreign country that gave us permission to target him within their borders. There is absolutely no legal theory — none — that would allow the US to do the same thing within the borders of the US, even to a non-US citizen.
IOW, your paranoid fears are paranoid, which is why people are mocking you.
Ruckus
@BruceFromOhio:
These fucking Republicans are a scourge on the face of humanity, to a man and woman, and should be treated as such.
Exactly.
Every fucking one of them. They are the enemy. Liberals may not be in a war with them, but they are in a war with liberals. They don’t want compromise, they want, no, demand capitulation. Every time one of them is given any leeway, you are losing a battle. And that’s how one wins a war, one battle at a time. Just because they like the same beer as you does not make them more or at all acceptable.
Kola Noscopy
I’ll just cut and paste my comment from another thread:
I posted in another thread about republicans’ WILLFUL delusions. Most of them are smart enough to know better, but its not in their tribal interest to admit it.
So it is with this entire RP/GG/BO discussion. BO partisans willfully pretend not to be able to grasp that no one here is promoting a RP presidency.
Likewise, they pretend not to grasp that it is entirely possible rational and valid to use the FP questions raised by an RP candidacy to shine light on Obama’s horrendous record in that area.
It’s an Obot pose familiar to anyone who reads this blog: “Obama’s Got This! Shut the fuck up, that’s why!”
Li
@Yevgraf: Very mature. It’s strange how so many of you seem to be unable to separate support for some things that someone is calling for with support for that person himself, even when that distinction is explicitly made. You guys have basic comprehension problems that rival the racism problems that Paul has.
By the way, are all of you officially happy with wars without end, the prosecution of whistleblowers who point out Government malfeasance, the pretrial punishment of people like Bradley Manning and 99% protestors, and the use of flying death machines to kill people far from any battlefield without even showing evidence of guilt, let alone a trial?
The problem with our two party system is that so many people from both sides (though certainly fewer on the left than the right) blindly support fascism as long as it comes from their own people. And then they make rude comments to people who point that out.
Kola Noscopy
@c u n d gulag:
LOL. Keep in mind, however, that we gay folks also regularly assume the missionary position also, too.
Mnemosyne
@Li:
Silly me, I always thought that a public confession of guilt counted as “evidence of guilt,” but apparently you’re one of those people who argue that al-Awlaki only made the public statements that he did as some kind of Andy Kaufmanesque performance art and wasn’t actually part of al-Qaeda despite living and working with them.
Cain
@Amanda in the South Bay:
You should stop visiting slashdot. That’s the only tech place I’ve seen that has that kind of malarky. Thankfully the tide is turning and they get smacked around a lot more. (when they aren’t complaining about GNOME 3 which really pisses me off for different reasons)
Ramiah Ariya
@Amanda – Thanks for the strawman about Obama being a menace to Muslims. That he has expanded and made more secret the War on terror is not in question. That there is a “secret” war in Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan is not in question. That drones are more extensively used after he too over is in question either.
I don’t really think Obama has much of a choice in these too. I think no American President will voluntarily shed the kind of powers proposed and built up during Bush/Cheney. That is exactly why the American people’s awareness is more important. Your watchdog media has failed too – so it is most important that a candidate like Paul comes forward. Ultimately these killings will be stopped either when you are beaten, as in Vietnam or if you have a strong people’s movement.
Kola Noscopy
@eemom:
eemom, it’s past time for you to come clean.
The truth is that GG ditched you for a blind date set up by your college friend who had him as a classmate; isn’t that the truth?
We’ll all feel better after you confess.
;D
Lojasmo
@Ramiah Ariya:
Where in the constitution is bombing prohibited?
Li
@Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne:
It’s a tiny little nuance of the al-Awlaki assassination that you guys don’t want to acknowledge: he was not in the United States. He was in Yemen. Which is a foreign country that gave us permission to target him within their borders. There is absolutely no legal theory—none—that would allow the US to do the same thing within the borders of the US, even to a non-US citizen.
Maude
@Veritas:
90 Yup. He gave himself away.
Ruckus
@Alison:
Xactly!
Veritas
@Maude:
The really scumbag part is he’s hijacking someone’s blog identity. He use to pull this shit on conservative sites back in the ’00s.
Anya
@Li: For the love of all that’s sane, not this again. For the record, Ron Paul is against the futile and destructive drug war, because it’s the Feds waging it, not the states. If a particular state decides to do exactly the same thing, then he does not have a problem with it, young blacks be damned. Also, he’s against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and a host of other policies and acts that protect minorities. He was even critical of the Lawrence v. Texas decision, in which the SCOTUS ruled the Texas sodomy laws unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment.
As Ta-Nehisi’s Coates said on twitter: “For the record, ‘I’m against the drug war” has officially replaced “I have a black friend.” H/T – lamh35.
Yevgraf
@Li:
Fuck off. Sniveling shitbag purity troll crybabies like you make me want to curb stomp hippies.
If it were up to me, Bradley Manning would have already had his shit put to rest by firing squad, pour encourager les autres. His immediate supervisors would be suffering a similar fate as well, for being stupid enough to trust genuinely sensitive information to an E3. For what its worth, I’d have done the Haditha and Mahmoudiya murderers the same way.
eemom
@Li:
No, it’s strange that YOU are unable to grasp what a bullshit distinction that is, even when its bullshittery is explicitly pointed out to you multiple times.
Svensker
@Ramiah Ariya:
You won’t win this argument here. Truth is, we don’t see or know the folks getting blown to smithereens. We do know the folks losing jobs and houses. That’s the difference.
As well, I think there’s an unacknowledged feeling that nothing will stop the US government from blowing other people up, no matter who’s the Prez, so why bother? Probably most folks believe, as I do, that a Dem prez won’t blow up quite as many people as a Repub prez, but that’s as good as it gets.
And Ron Paul is never going to be president, newsletters or no newsletters. And the media will never allow an actual discussion of his ideas on why we shouldn’t bomb Iran, etc., so there’s no point in bothering about that, either.
Cain
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well if you think about it, most of these guys are old hacker dudes who have programmed an entire stack (sans the operating system) so of course they don’t have to rely on anybody, they can code up whatever they want. That’s where that rugged individualism comes from. I also get it from people at work who always encourage me to “just do it myself” when it comes to any kind of labour. That’s okay, some things I can, other things I can’t and I’m not going to attempt it.
What these people don’t understand is that they are still dependent on the _science_ of those before them working out how to design programming languages, designing chips etc. You’re not an island.
eemom
@Kola Noscopy:
Yeah, ya got me. I’ve had the secret hots for him ever since my friend described him as a “gloomy, sulky, vaguely menacing presence” in the corner of the classroom who always wore the same clothes.
DecidedFenceSitter
@Ramiah Ariya: As someone who studied political theory, who is somewhat conversant with Hobbes and Locke; and did a stint for a couple years with an international law nonprofit (American Society of International Law) – I can tell you this:
There is no international law. There’s stuff we call international law, but it is more like international suggestions. Law requires (ala Hobbes, and more gentle Locke) an overarching authority to enforce the rules; without that there are no rules, merely strongly worded suggestions – it is a close thing to the Hobbesian State of Nature where the strongest will take – and guess what, up to what their people will morally accept, that’s what they do.
So please don’t quote international law. It is a joke.
Veritas
I too am curious if Glen Greenwald, er, I mean “Ramia”, would prefer the US to follow the constitution and officially declare full-scale war against Pakistan so it’s 100% legal under “international law”? Somehow I don’t think that would have a very good outcome for Pakistan.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Cain:
I see it in my real life tech friends a lot too. It’s an insidious kind of libertarian lite that, well, I just grin and bear.
Midnight Marauder
@Li:
This shit is just so funny to me. “I know, he enables explicit white supremacists, but…”
Keep sending those postcards from Clown City.
Li
@Veritas: Why bother with camps when you can turn an entire country into a surveilled concentration camp, with instant death for anyone who disobeys? That is the future, perhaps not here if we are lucky, but certainly somewhere.
And also, why bother with argument when you can just smear me with any bullcrap conspiracy theory you can pick out of your hat? The left is increasingly coming to resemble the right when it comes to rhetorical techniques, and an environment in which debate has become impossible is the sort of environment in which nightmare futures can rise without challenge.
Veritas
@Li:
You don’t think they couldn’t do that NOW with current technology sans drones if they didn’t want to?
Fuck, North Korea manages to do it with 1950s tech.
Li
@eemom: So, let me get this straight, I can’t even voice support for any view that Paul supports, because he is wrong in other ways, and in fact those views should be excluded from the debate because they are voiced by someone who is largely wrong? And supporting some idea but not the person voicing the idea is impossible?
That is an odd viewpoint. I mean, if I support animal rights, does that mean I am supporting Adolf Hitler? If I support progressive taxation, does that mean I support communism? This is exactly the same rhetorical technique Glenn Beck uses!
uptown
Is that to long for a bumper sticker?
gogol's wife
Why is Veritas sounding sane today? What happened?
Samara Morgan
/yawn.
cleek is just as wrong as lilla and sully.
conservatism is what it always was, standing athwart history hollering stop.
libertarianism ditto, it is localized mob-rule aka states rights federalism.
conservatives and libertarians roll together, because life was better then….that is their goals align.
they both want america to be a white christian country.
Samara Morgan
@Li: well, that is Julian Assanges theory, that America will become a police state on its way to NLS collapse.
And Johan Galtung predicts America may become a fascist state.
Anya
@lamh35: I wouldn’t lump Maddow with those guys. I think her “fascination” with Ron Paul is not the same. I think she’s more excited by the fact that in the Republican Primary, the guy who’s anti-war and anti-criminalization of drugs, is getting applause and is ahead of the war hawks. Her interest in his rise is to show that more Americans are in line with those views on war and drugs than they are with what’s shown in the media. So, her schtick is more like, “even the wingnuts hate wars and the criminalization of cannabis.” Maddow would never tolerate Paul’s views in civil rights, just remember what she did to Paul junior when she interviewed him. Here in the post interview reflection, she’s discussing why his views are harmful. Also, Maddow does not have a problem challenging people on their racism, she does not use weasel words like GG, or ignore racism all together, like Jon Stewart.
Anya
@kwAwk:
You lose any credibility with that. From now on, anything you say should not be taken seriously.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Li:
The problem is that Paul arrives at his conclusions by thoroughly illiberal means-and obviously, as has been pointed out before, even his talking points (the war on drugs is bad, unless its carried out by state/city level authorities) aren’t what they are cracked up to be.
The fact that some on the left find some of his views attractive is a bug, not a feature of his repellant worldview (the same worldview that fucked over African Americans in the south for almost a century).
gwangung
When you start doing that, I think more people will listen.
I will say, though, when you write
you are REALLY gonna piss off people of color like me.
Drop the privilege and it would help immensely.
gwangung
@kwAwk:
From the point of view of blacks (and other people of color), it’s kinda irrelevant–you really can’t tell the difference because you have to look into Paul’s head to tell.
Lojasmo
@gogol’s wife:
Any mittens supporter will sound sane in comparison to a paultard.
Citizen_X
“Ah jes’ owned mah slaves so ah could make a lotta money off mah cotton plantation, not ’cause ah was some kinda racist.”
Sly
@Li:
“It’s great that Adolf Hitler is involved in world politics, because now we finally have someone who can bring animal rights to center stage!”
That probably won’t work, either, so I’ll just spell it out:
Ron Paul is not insane on most issues. He is insane on all issues. Wanting him “in the conversation” does not lend credence to your ideas, but demonstrates how your support for those ideas is shallow, Manichaean, and naive.
AA+ Bonds
@Li:
If you can’t take the heat, etc.
Reasoned bourgeois Atlantic Monthly tea-sipping debate will not stop the rise of fascism in 2010s America any more than it did in 1930s Germany
Mark
@Villago Delenda Est: This claim that Americans who work in high-tech are Paul-tards is bullshit. I’ve been working in Silicon Valley for over a decade – almost every American I work with is a Democrat. Some of the managers and guys who got rich through IPOs or acquisitions are Republicans.
Just go to Santa Clara County election results to see that your claim is bullshit:
2010 Senate: Boxer 63; Fiorina 32
2010 Governor: Brown 61; Whitman 35
2010 House: Eshoo 69; Chapman 28
2008 President: Obama 69; McCain 29
2008 House: Eshoo 70; Santana 22
2006 Senate: Feinstein 70; Mountjoy 25
2006 House: Eshoo 71; Smith 25
2004 President: Kerry 64; Bush 35
2004 Senator: Boxer 66; Jones 30
2004 House: Eshoo 69; Haugen 27
That’s 67-29 Dem. You tell me where the Paul-Tards figure in.
FlipYrWhig
@Li: No, Ace, just you. #standbyme
FlipYrWhig
@Li:
Timothy McVeigh was worried about that too. I’m not saying you agree with his blowing up the Murrah building, but you have to admit that his views on federal power have a lot to teach liberal apologists for the police state. :P
gwangung
@Li:
Welcome to the present for many African Americans and Hispanics.
Hm…what is this saying here….
Mark
@Cain: Christ, how many people are left like that? Software is but a sliver of high-tech, and nobody’s built software like that since 1983. The very notion of doing all development on Linux and pulling the libraries you need from shit people posted to the internet goes against your half-cooked stereotype.
jpe
@Jerzy Russian: Note that those jobs are high paying only because the government compels those high salaries through collective bargaining rules. I doubt a libertarian would distinguish between compulsory redistribution through tax policy or labor policy.
Mark
@Amanda in the South Bay: Just posting this to make sure all three of you have your circle jerk interrupted. Santa Clara County = High-Tech = Democratic voters. And the weird guy who installs software on your PC or the aging Unix guru with the ponytail and long beard are but a tiny slice of “high-tech”.
AxelFoley
@Veritas:
Yes. Now, are you one of Romney’s?
Why Yes I Think So
Amazing how insular even American liberals are. Doug J’s admission that he doesn’t know much about the Muslim world is actually pretty refreshing. One would think that the next logical step would to be learn about opinion in Muslim countries, but…
vector56
“I understand that if you’re a liberal who is primarily interested in civil liberties and a less bellicose foreign policy, then you might be conflicted about Paul.”
Your words above; “a less bellicose foreign policy”. Consider it from point of view of those “little Brown people” in the Middle East who watch their love ones die by the fucking truck load! Mass Murder on a scale you middle classed, fake liberals could not dream of in your worst night mare. Drone murders that take out entire families to get at one person who we have declared guilty without a trial. So, please go easy on the racist finger you point at Ron Paul!
Below you will find my “Defense of Ron Paul”.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/18/1046581/-In-Defense-of-Ron-Paul?via=blog_744899
sherparick
Thomas Edsall has a very good column in today’s NY Times about how the Conservative Elite come to espouse views like Santorum (and of course he has been living and working in DC, when not running for President these last six years at the AEI and as “consultant” for the Conservative lobbying firms). They have apparently been firehosed with money, and they when they look out over DC the see a predominately Black city, the face of poverty in D.C. is predominately Black, which is actually not typical of the rest of the country. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/the-distorted-view-from-capitol-hill/?ref=opinion
(Perhaps it is curious, but the two shows showing the most ferocious faces of the drug war at the moment on commercial TV are AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and FX’s “Justified” are dominated by white faces.)
Jewish Steel
Straight up racist the sucker was simple and plain
Motherfuck him and John Wayne.
A strong contender for best line ever.
JDReign
@vector56:
*Sigh* drone strikes on terrorist encampments in a country that is predominantly non-white is not racism. An old kook continually spouting racist propaganda about Young bucks, welfare checks and 90% of black men are criminals etc. is.
Sheik Yerbouti
Dig it, “Progressives”;
Currently incarcerated in a federal penitentiary for the crime of selling seeds, Marc Emery, the “Prince of Pot” (60 Minutes, Rolling Stone), endorses the good doctor. Says Emery:
Link.
Sheik Yerbouti
@JDReign:
Continually spouting?
Get back to us when you can find a single clip from youtube or C&L that shows him “spouting” on even ONE of the things you list. Otherwise it’s more of the same recycled bullshit.
Julian
So you care about issues of equality, but the idea of an American citizen getting thrown in prison for his entire life without a trial because of his religion, or his race, or the people he associates with, doesn’t bother you in the least. You care about the middle class, but the endless string of wars which are directly responsible for squeezing state and local budgets, and are currently being used to justify cutting social security and medicare, don’t matter to you. You care about confronting racism and bigotry, but the idea that the US is using drones to blow up people in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia primarily because they’re poor and swarthy doesn’t bother you. Ok, that makes total sense and is in no way a laughably blatant contradictory stance on the issues.
So when, exactly, did you decide seeing a Democrat, one who does nothing to alleviate any of these issues and more often than not exacerbates them, in the White House was more important than your principles? This isn’t about Ron Paul. Ron Paul is not Due Process, an End to War, Social Equality, and Social Spending. Forget about Ron Paul. Why aren’t you willing to judge Obama and his actions by the very principles you claim to hold dear? You’re just using Ron Paul as a convenient excuse to ignore your own inconsistencies.
Feiler
I was this very evening speaking with a friend… a manager in a grocery store. Needless to say he works proficiently & hard at his job, and maintains another business where he is self employed. He mentioned the use of a government issued debit card, used by a customer, in which the man was buying quite the pile of rib-eye steaks because he was having friends over. He himself managed his money in a manner in which this excess was not an option. He was outside the store and observed other circumstances which led him to believe that the person was extravagant in the midst of his demise Whatever demise it was that had led him to be “on the dole”…(as it were) As an aside, the fellow was NOT of any cultural or ethnic minority. We conversed but briefly…but in this short exchange there was frustration. Frustration that involved his keen powers of observation coupled with an introspective view which assessed his own economic condition and responsible management of finances in the light of another who was using “his” (tax) money to live a life he himself would not be so bold as to enjoy. And that comparison disillusioned him. Discouraged him a bit, but it also hardened him a tad in the wrong direction. No one could ascertain from the observed facts whether some unknown set of circumstances brought the customer to this point in his life….but this is not my point, for I do know the situation does bring about specific feelings and from these arise a (usually unrecognized) point of view which is exploited by politicians. They play upon the fears which most people keep reserved, hidden or restrained in many different ways. But this very aspect of human nature is what pits man against man, ideal against ideal, party vs. party… It keeps people divided while it also enables those with power to remain in power by playing upon these very perceptions. In the end they are all based upon fear. For its face is seldom recognized for what is in actuality. A false sense of justice and a limited concept of mercy both contribute to its continued & often times hidden presence. But Oh, what a motivator it is. It drives and compels others for its own agenda, often cloaked behind the thought of benefiting another. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Be it a partisan political house, or the house in which an individuals life is lived. Until we aim at the base of the flame…the fire will continue to burn & consume us; individually…and as a nation.
Stan
what Julian said @174