"Ron Paul racist rant caught on tape!" (note, in quotes)

[Skeptic Ginger]

So he thinks the slaves ought to have been freed without bloodshed. That's naive, not racist.....

Funny how that compartmentalizing brain thing works:

How long does Ron Paul think it would have taken to muster the political will to fund a slaveowner bailout that only benefited people who couldn’t even vote? The British bailout plan that Paul refers to freed 40,000 slaves, at a cost of £20 million, 40% of the government’s total annual expenditure. There were almost four million slaves in the US when the Civil War began.

So which is it, no big government or slave owner compensation?



The author of that piece goes on to say

in the years I’ve been covering him, nothing I’ve seen or heard from him would lead me to believe that the ideas in those newsletters reflect his beliefs.

My brain can't resolve the two compartments where slaves were legitimate property owners should have been compensated for and slaves were human beings in a country where the Constitution starts with "We the People".

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... Show me a quote from one of these newsletters where Paul specifically says he hates people who have black skin and he judges these people as a group just because of the color of their skin.

It would appear you've redefined racism to exclude racists like Ron Paul. There's always a way for our brains to rationalize our beliefs. Changing definitions is a frequent way.

 

[Bill Thompson]

It would appear you've redefined racism to exclude racists like Ron Paul. There's always a way for our brains to rationalize our beliefs. Changing definitions is a frequent way.

Nice try. I have not decided on any "political beliefs". I would like to gather all of the facts before making a final decision.

Ron Paul says the quotes were taken out of context. What was the context of the two paragraphs about Martin Luther King? Was it an anti-communist rant or was it a anti-black person rant. I would like to know.

I define racism as judging a person by the color of their skin. How do you define it?

Those quotes are shocking and it is hard for me to understand why anyone would not like Martin Luther King. I want to see the whole article. Is Ron Paul lying? King, like everyone, had his faults and, yes, Morris Childs told his agents in the FBI that King was being seen by Soviet agents and looking into Communism. That is why his hotel was bugged.


Chris Rock can get away with saying on stage the exact same thing that got Jimmy the Greek fired and unemployable. So, let's cut to the chase. Show me a quote from one of these newsletters where Paul specifically says he hates people who have black skin and he judges these people as a group just because of the color of their skin.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Ron Paul says the quotes were taken out of context.

And he's lying.

As for this statement...
"If you have ever been robbed by a black teenaged male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be."

. . . he defended it by saying, "If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, there is no chance to catch them." Linky.

Wait a second! In the original quote, he clearly specified robbers who are black teenage males. He wasn't talking about any purse snatcher. So yeah, he's lying when he says that remark was taken out of context, and that the actual context was an observation about any purse snatcher.

AS for this statement:
"Given the inefficiencies of what DC 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."

His defense was that he was using figures from a '92 study by a think tank called, National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives.

He said, "These aren't my figures." (A lie, the 95% figure is his own extrapolation.) "That is the assumption you can gather from" the report of that study. Maybe so, but it's his assumption and not those of the think tank, or else he could have cited it directly rather than offering his "I think" extrapolation.

[ETA: It gets better! It seems that no such entity as the "National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives" has ever existed outside the pages of Ron Paul's newsletter! Linky.]

So nope--the "out of context" defense fails also.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Nice try.

Thank you. I do try to find the root of seeing the same world and drawing a different conclusion.

I have not decided on any "political beliefs". I would like to gather all of the facts before making a final decision.

Ron Paul says the quotes were taken out of context. What was the context of the two paragraphs about Martin Luther King? Was it an anti-communist rant or was it a anti-black person rant. I would like to know.

I define racism as judging a person by the color of their skin. How do you define it?

There is no shortage of evidence that Paul judges people by the color of their skin. You're trying to narrow that definition though. Can a racist have a couple black friends or does that automatically negate the rest of his attitude?

Ron Paul has a bitterly judgmental attitude about a lot of people. Because he can exclude rich blacks from his stereotype does not make the stereotype he frequently reflects in his comments go away.




[snipped some repetition]

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Again, what Chris Rock says, what Obama has said or done, and what you remember your college anthropology professor saying are all irrelevant.

Nothing about any of them will lead to the conclusion that Ron Paul's remarks weren't racist.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html

 

[Ladewig]

Show me a quote from one of these newsletters where Paul specifically says he hates people who have black skin

Why are you defining racism as hatred? One can believe that a particular race is inferior without actually hating members of the race. For instance if someone believed that blacks, as a race, were more prone to being criminals than other races, then that person would be a racist.

he judges these people as a group just because of the color of their skin.

Really?! You don't think the quote about the black purse snatchers was judging a group based on the color of their skin?

 

[Kay]

Chris Rock can get away with saying on stage the exact same thing that got Jimmy the Greek fired and unemployable. So, let's cut to the chase. Show me a quote from one of these newsletters where Paul specifically says he hates people who have black skin and he judges these people as a group just because of the color of their skin.

David Duke has never said he hates people who have black skin, and I would guess Stormfront doesn't explicitly say that either - I would never go on that site, but I know they rant about white nationalism a lot. I guess they aren't racists.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

David Duke has never said he hates people who have black skin, and I would guess Stormfront doesn't explicitly say that either - I would never go on that site, but I know they rant about white nationalism a lot. I guess they aren't racists.

Indeed. Earlier I pointed out that most of the racist remarks I hear are prefaced, "I'm not racist, but. . . ."

Bill Thompson is just moving the goal posts to make it virtually impossible for anything Ron Paul ever said to be considered racist.

 

[respect]

Let's say that Ron Paul is not racist, does not support or condone and has never supported or condoned racism, and that racism is totally contrary to his political views. This is Ron Paul's stated position. So lets take him at his word for the sake of argument.
If we believe him then he is, by his own admission, hopelessly ignorant and negligent on a level comparable only to James Murdoch.
He let someone ghost-write for him for years expressing opinions which were (according to him) 180 degrees out of phase with his own, and send these letters, using Paul's signature, to his supporters- and he didn't notice, and seemingly none of his supporters or staff brought the issue to his attention.
As president,. as he hopes to be, this lack of oversight would be disastrous.

Exactly, either he wrote this crap himself, or he hired someone to ghostwrite it for him in his name and never bothered to look at what they were doing, regardless of which is the case, it demonstrates extreme ignorance on his part.

Granted, so does just about everything else he has ever said or done.

 

[DavidJames]

I don't hate black people, in fact I have friends who are black. However, I don't want them to vote nor use the same toilets I use and they definitely should have their own place to sit at restaurants. *

Hey Bill - I'm not a racist either.



*I should have to say this, but I don't believe any of that.

 

[Ladewig]

I don't hate black people, in fact I have friends who are black. However, I don't want them to vote nor use the same toilets I use and they definitely should have their own place to sit at restaurants. *

Right. We're not saying that they have to have inferior facilities - just separate facilities. Separate but equal.



. . . . . . .. . . . . . .
I should have to say this, but I don't believe any of that, either.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I would like to interview Ron Paul. MLK was good for everyone. He made the country better for all people. I don't understand this "Hate Whitey Day" comment.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I don't hate black people, in fact I have friends who are black. However, I don't want them to vote nor use the same toilets I use and they definitely should have their own place to sit at restaurants. *

Hey Bill - I'm not a racist either.



*I should have to say this, but I don't believe any of that.

I don't think Ron Paul wrote anything that bad. Even that bit about shooting car jackers didn't even go that far.

BTW, I cannot support Ron Paul now.

I would just like to ask him a few questions. And, yes, by the way, I have written politicians in the past and they often write me back.

I think I might be the only one in this forum who has seen real racist propaganda. I have seen worse than what Ron Paul says. Also, it is not out of the rhelm of possiblity for a black guy to have written or said the same things Ron Paul says. I bet if a black guy did, you would not give it a second thought.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
I think I might be the only one in this forum who has seen real racist propaganda.

This is a silly claim. This forum has members from all walks of life, of all ages, and from all over the world. Why would you be the only one to see real racist propaganda?

...I bet if a black guy did, you would not give it a second thought.

You'd lose that bet.

 

[Bill Thompson]

This is a silly claim. This forum has members from all walks of life, of all ages, and from all over the world. Why would you be the only one to see real racist propaganda?

I get the feeling based on my personal experience that all you people are white. And so you might not really know what real racism looks like.

You'd lose that bet.

I don't think so. I can imagine a black guy who is a passionalte and narrow minded anti-communist to say the exact thing about MLK whilst ignoring all the good King did for the world. And I am pretty sure everyone would just let it slide.

 

[Tricky]

I think I might be the only one in this forum who has seen real racist propaganda. I have seen worse than what Ron Paul says. Also, it is not out of the rhelm of possiblity for a black guy to have written or said the same things Ron Paul says. I bet if a black guy did, you would not give it a second thought.

No. Not by a long shot. This guy was running for office when I was a teenager. And lots of other stuff. Lots.

It is true that Ron Paul's message is fairly tame by standards of the 1960's, but then, the US has mostly grown out of this now. Racists are now deeply undercover and use a lot of "politically correct" terminology rather than actually coming out and calling people the "n-word". That doesn't mean we can't tell it when we see it though. Ron is not going to get a pass on this unless he comes out and admits that he used to be a racist, but has now repudiated it, ala George Wallace and Robert Byrd.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I get the feeling based on my personal experience that all you people are white. And so you might not really know what real racism looks like.

So now you think white people are genetically incapable of recognizing racism?

ETA: Since I've been pointing out the many flaws in your reasoning, this is another ad hominem fallacy. The arguments we've been making, mostly presenting evidence that Ron Paul made racist comments in his newsletters, stand or fall on their own regardless of the ethnicity of the person making the argument.

 

[MaGZ]

There is plenty of evidence in the public sphere that Ron Paul is racist. But like anything, the world is not all black and white. Ron Paul defends the blacks incarcerated for drug crimes and acknowledges the inequality of it. But that's because he's defending his Libertarian position against laws restricting the behavior of adults who choose to use currently illegal drugs. If you listen to what else Paul has to say about blacks he continually refers to them as people who want a free handout.

Well it does seem Black congresspersons of the Progressive Caucus are the ones who always defended government giveaway programs.

 

[MaGZ]

This wasn't a major newspaper here, this was a 2-bit, 10 page newsletter.

Once again, it went out under his name, he paid for it out of his campaign funds, thus he is responsible for the content, even if he did not write it.

Have any idea who subscribed and save those newsletters to released them at this time?

Hint: ADL