Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 523 Editor's Choice: 1
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Chris Sinnard:
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Man, listen to all of you cry about Ron Paul. I guess you're mad because GG isn't lauding over a lefty or a Dem? OMG, is Salon not catering to the left in every single article it puts on its site? Oh noes!
Haha. Your tears, they are so tasty. I knew that GG would eventually write a positive piece re: Ron Paul. How could he not? He seems to me like a Constitution kind of guy, judging from his background and all, and Paul's constitutional position had to be appealing enough for him to at least write an article. Ya dig?
Actually, Glenn has previously taken conspicuously libertarian stands on hate speech laws and the concept of prescription drugs. I am not surprised at all to see him lauding Paul's constitutional advocacy.
And you're not paying attention when you call us "haters" in your cackling glee that someone outside of Digg finally noticed Paul. The left has looked at him and we find him sorely deficient outside his desire to end the war. The comments section here is loaded with substantive serious critiques of the man, his positions and the inevitably undesireable results of same.
It doens't help to save a few thousand US service people in Iraq if we trade that for tens of thousands of women dying in botched back alley abortions, or a new great depression, or the resurgence of Jim Crow laws with a weakened Federal government unable to stop them.
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From Ron Paul's newsletter
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is not the first time Paul has veered into potentially insensitive territory. In 1992, a copy of his newsletter, the Ron Paul Survival Report, criticized the judicial system in Washington, D.C., before adding, "I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." Under a section headlined "Terrorist Update," the following sentence ran, "If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be."
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GlennC:
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, I'm afraid it is you that misunderstand's Paul's positions.
He is vehemently anti-choice. He would use the federal government's power to make abortion absolutely illegal. He sponsored HR1094 in 2007 which defines "life" as beginning at conception.
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Chris Sinnard:
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't notice you snidely responding to my quotation of Ron Paul personally saying that some TSA employees "look unamerican"
Were they wearing Iranian flags? How can one "look" unamerican except, to a racist judging people by the color of their skin?
Yes, "we" in the left have looked at Paul. If you choose to be a pedantic idiot you can interpret that as meaning every individual and be a pissant word parser, but I am far from alone among liberals who know and understand Ron Paul and find him highly objectionable. I will posit you cannot be on the "left" and support Ron Paul generally, if you understand what else he supports beyond ending the war.
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Svensker:
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]None of the leading Dem candidates can say the U.S. will get out of Iraq on their watch -- that's not scary and extreme?
Few Dems seem to have a problem with the expansion of the Executive, wiretapping, aggressive foreign policy -- that's not scary and extreme?
To your first point, no it is neither scary nor extreme. I disagree and want the troops out, but it is hardly implausible to argue some residual forces must remain or so forth. "Ending the war" does not have to be "all troops home"
As to "few dems" seeming to have a problem with the expansion of wiretapping and so forth, that's just a plain misrepresentation. The majority of Democrats are against such things. A minority of congressional Democrats support them, who, coupled with the uniformly supportive Republican congressional minoritys adds up to congressional majorities.
It bugs me to see purists acting like Ron Paul is the only one concerned with these things. Even agreeing that the Democratic leaders in Congress are failing on these issues does not equate to that Democrats generally are on side with this. After all, Ron Paul has not left the Republican party. You'd think he would, since it is his party that most actively seeks to destroy the rule of law in America.
Where is his principled stand there? Why would you be a member of a party that explicitly seeks more immoral wars, and more torture?
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Ron Paul opposed HR180
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This was a bill to order the Federal Government to divest from companies known to be profiting from the Sudanese genocide.
It did not direct states to divest, nor private entities. Just federal government spending programs could not go to companies known to be doing business with the Sudanese genocidal regime. There were exemptions for companies that only provide food/medicine/etc too, and for companies that do business with the rebel groups fighting the Sudanese government.
Can you think of a more constitutional act? A bill controlling Federal Government spending?
Ron Paul was the sole vote against this. It passed 418-1.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll764.xml
I guess Paul's libertarian "principles" and non-internventionism don't extend to reducing the Business the US government does with genocide profiteers.
Bear in mind also the United States has treaty obligations to oppose Genocide as UN signatories.
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THE-ROC
[Read the article: The Ron Paul phenomenon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, and when Paul discovered this text inserted into his newsletter, he prompted issued a retraction and fired the staffer right?
No. He didn't. You try harder. The mask slipped, and the true racist underneath showed through, but now's he's cagier about hiding his private beliefs about non-whites.