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

[Skeptic Ginger]

He is indeed opposed to forcible redistribution of wealth, ....

One person's "forcible redistribution" is another person's "paying one's fair share of the community expenses".

 

[mkelvin]

I was utterly unaware of that and it has caused me to re-evaluate my position on him. I had thought he was a good person but a nut, now I think he is just another GOP candidate.

I suggest you reevaluate your position again. He never said MLK Day was Hate Whitey Day. Don't believe everything you read here. A true skeptic investigates all of the facts before coming to a conclusion.

 

[mkelvin]

Wow, the amount of hate being directed at Ron Paul on this forum is unbelievable. I could probably spend 24 hours a day replying to it and still couldn't keep up.

As far as this supposedly all important issue of who wrote the offending passages in those newsletters, my gut feeling, from hearing him reply to questions about it, is that he doesn't want to know who wrote them. What point would it serve after all these years to throw somebody to the media hyenas to have their career and personal life destroyed? He won't do that because he cares about people, even people who have done him wrong. He won't do it even if it means that it ruins his own chances for the presidency.

 

[mkelvin]

I think there is an issue of context and an issue of parsing here. The context indicated Biden believed Obama to be the fist mainstream black presidential candidate. The sentence is slightly ambiguous, but I think he is trying to say that Obama is the first mainstream black candidate, and is charismatic, and that makes for a compelling package.

You "think" that's what he was "trying to say," but what he ACTUALLY SAID was that Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." This is very similar to Senator Harry Reid's well known statement that Obama could be successful because of his "light skinned appearance" and the fact that he spoke "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

Sure, they both apologized for saying these things, but it seems obvious to me that they were just saying what they believed. Ron Paul doesn't talk like that. He sees people as individuals, not as members of racial groups.

>>>>Further, it is hard for me to accept that he finds the whole thing to be uninteresting enough that he hasn't bothered to learn who did the writing.

As I said in another post, my gut feeling is that he just doesn't want to know. It might benefit him politically to "out" the person, but it just isn't in him to put somebody through that media crucifixion.

The defenders of the status quo are scared out of their wits at the prospect of Ron Paul winning the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. If he does win, they will ratchet up the newsletter story about 10 times over what it is now. If he wins the New Hampshire primary, expect more of the same. And if he wins the nomination, the Democrats will try to depict him as a combination of the head of the Klan and the Antichrist.

Ron Paul's reaction to all this has been very interesting to me. He just goes out there and wings it and says what he thinks. I'm sure that political "experts" would urge him to handle it quite differently. And yet in spite of all the criticism, his star is growing. The more people hear him talk about the way the Republicrats are bankrupting our country and trying to run the world, the more popular he becomes.

If any of you are still on the fence, please read his latest book and start listening to his speeches and interviews on Youtube. This guy is for real, and I think if he doesn't become our next president, things are going to get a lot worse.

The powers that be are already preparing for martial law. Have any of you noticed that Congress and the President have now signed off on NDAA, which allows the government to throw anybody in prison for as long as they like, with no trial whatsoever? This violates not only the Constitution, but even the basic principles of the Magna Carta, going back to the year 1215! NONE of the other candidates are talking about this. From what I can tell, they all enthusiastically support it. This is only about a million times more important than those stupid newsletters.

 

[Nova Land]

I suggest you reevaluate your position again. He never said MLK Day was Hate Whitey Day.

You can find scans of Ron Paul newsletter pages on various sites, such as this one. Scroll half-way down the page and you'll find a slideshow box, "Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters", with scans of 11 complete pages. The page containing the "Hate Whitey Day" quote is slide # 8.

Here's the paragraph in which the quote appears:

Note the language: "I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman." In a newsletter published by Ron Paul, about Ron Paul, there's an item by someone who claims to be a congressman and who claims to have voted against making MLK day a federal holiday. That would seem to narrow the authorship of the article down a little bit.

Four 4 paragraphs later, the article continues:

A true skeptic investigates all of the facts before coming to a conclusion.

Really? You must reach remarkably few conclusions.

Which is strange. You seem to have concluded Ron Paul did not say "I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day."

Did you talk personally to Ron Paul to find out what he knows about how those words got in his newsletter? Did you talk personally to Lew Rockwell (who has been named by many as Paul's main ghost-writer, but who denies having written the articles) to find out what he knows? Did you talk to the people who have made and posted scans of the newsletter pages? Did you travel to Wisconsin or Kansas to look at actual copies of the newsletter? If not, how can you possibly have concluded Ron Paul did not say the words which were written in his newsletter?

I think you are setting an impossible standard -- as illustrated by your own inability to live up to it. If you reach conclusions without investigating all the facts, why do you expect others to do so?

A good skeptic should wait before reaching a conclusion until they have examined and weighed a reasonable amount of evidence -- and should be willing to change their conclusion if additional evidence comes to light which alters the balance.

There is, at present, a reasonable amount of evidence to indicate the newsletters exist, that the passage about "Hate Whitey Day" appeared in the newsletter, and that the article containing the quote was apparently written by Ron Paul. There is speculation that the article was ghost-written for Ron Paul (and I'm inclined to believe the speculation is correct); but when someone ghost-writes an article for you, doing their best to make it look as if you wrote it yourself, and you publish it as if it was by you, then it's fair to say you have said those words.

Do you have any evidence to show that the article doesn't exist, or to show that the article does not appear to be written by Ron Paul, or to show that Ron Paul neither wrote the article nor approved of its being published? If so, please present it. Until then, it's highly unreasonable to conclude, as you did, that Ron Paul did not say MLK day is Hate Whitey Day.

 

[Oystein]

...
The powers that be are already preparing for martial law. Have any of you noticed that Congress and the President have now signed off on NDAA, which allows the government to throw anybody in prison for as long as they like, with no trial whatsoever?
...

Have you read the bill? Did you notice how what you say there is not in it?

 

[Undesired Walrus]

He didn't wrote them... Or to be more accurate, at least there is no evidence that he actually did or lied when he says he did not write it.

Then why did he say he did write them?

 

[Oliver]

Then why did he say he did write them?

You're aware that by "did not write them" I'm referring to the racial slurs that have been published 20 years ago...

Beyond the crazy answers he gave to some of the other questions, he explained it again in an interview with CNN that came out just yesterday:

 

[Alferd_Packer]

So, a mystery ghost writer published: "I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day."

What a clear cut case of identity theft.

if Ron Paul raised money based on those publications, did the ghost writer steal that as well?

Why is anyone defending this?

 

[Alferd_Packer]

You're aware that by "did not write them" I'm referring to the racial slurs that have been published 20 years ago...

Why do you think it matters when they were published?

Is there a statute of limitations on being a racist?

 

[Alferd_Packer]

In fact, he was only a minority owner of the publication.

He was a minority owner of "Ron Paul & Associates"?

So he was nothing more than a puppet.

And you want him to be president? Why?

 

[Alferd_Packer]

my gut feeling, from hearing him reply to questions about it, is that he doesn't want to know who wrote them.

Not a ringing endorsement for a man who wants to be president.

 

[Nova Land]

You're aware that by "did not write them" I'm referring to the racial slurs that have been published 20 years ago...

Beyond the crazy answers he gave to some of the other questions, he explained it again in an interview with CNN that came out just yesterday:

I usually don't click links or watch videos which people post unless they present in text a good summary of what it is they think can be found at the link.

My feeling is that links and videos are like footnotes: they should be there so that others can verify what a poster has written and so that others interested in learning more about the matter at hand can find additional details beyond the key points mentioned in the post. They should not be a substitute for presenting claims and evidence clearly.

I clicked the link this time, even though you failed to summarize clearly what the defense Paul makes on the video is, because I have a certain amount of respect for you and trusted there would actually be something worth listening to in the video even though you had failed to say clearly what it would be.

About 6 minutes into a 9 minute video, Paul is asked about the newsletter items. He answers evasively, dodging question after question and saying nothing new. Basically, what can be found in the interview is: I didn't write those things, I don't know who did, it's old news, I've already answered this, why don't you look at the answers I've already given rather than bothering me with this.

If you don't think that's a fair summary of what Paul says -- if you feel he made some significantly different answer which I missed -- then please post your own summary of what he said. That's what I wish you had done to begin with.

It is indeed old news that one of Paul's attempts to answer this is that he didn't write the newsletter pieces and doesn't know who did. Which doesn't answer all the questions that non-answer brings up, such as how a person can publish a newsletter with his name on it, filled with articles that are written to give the impression he wrote them personally, and not know who wrote the articles, not know who on the newsletter staff would know the answer, and not care enough that racist things were published in his name to try to find out those answers.

My impression is that Ron Paul is being a weasel on this, and giving vague non-informative answers which conceal what he actually knows. The vague non-informative answers in this interview did nothing to change that impression.

 

[Kay]

Wow, the amount of hate being directed at Ron Paul on this forum is unbelievable. I could probably spend 24 hours a day replying to it and still couldn't keep up.

As far as this supposedly all important issue of who wrote the offending passages in those newsletters, my gut feeling, from hearing him reply to questions about it, is that he doesn't want to know who wrote them. What point would it serve after all these years to throw somebody to the media hyenas to have their career and personal life destroyed? He won't do that because he cares about people, even people who have done him wrong. He won't do it even if it means that it ruins his own chances for the presidency.

Someone here posted the "some dude" defense, and it still flies here.

Are you claiming that Paul genuinely does not know who wrote them, or that Paul does know but doesn't feel like divulging their identities to the media. The former is pretty much the ur-definition of total incompetence. The latter is no better than the establishment he attacks so much when they conceal things under state secrets or things like that. So, which is it?

 

[Tricky]

There's a lot more scary stuff about Ron Paul in this article from a major news source.

Ron Paul delivered the keynote address to the John Birch Society as recently as the summer of 2009. He is a frequent guest on the Alex Jones radio program, the central station for 9/11 Trutherism.
***
Ed Crane told Reason he recalls a conversation from some time in the late 1980s in which Paul claimed that his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for The Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, anti-Semitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto until it folded in 2001.

While Paul makes some good points on drug enforcement, he continuously panders to the lowest common denominator of society, be it racists, anti-semites, 911 loonies or druggies. He would be stomped in a general election against practically any other competitor. Republicans know this and will never take a chance by nominating such a person.

 

[Oliver]

My impression is that Ron Paul is being a weasel on this, and giving vague non-informative answers which conceal what he actually knows. The vague non-informative answers in this interview did nothing to change that impression.

Well, in this video from 12/23/2011 he's answering more precisely to the accusation:



And sorry for posting a video yet again, but I guess ones own words have more value than a text.

 

[Oliver]

Why do you think it matters when they were published?

Is there a statute of limitations on being a racist?

Jesus Christ, there is no evidence that he has been a racist beyond a newsletter he did not write by himself 22 years ago, by now you should know that.

Got anything more convincing?

I'm pretty sure there must be hundreds of racist quotes of him since and before the newsletters, right?

 

[thaiboxerken]

I don't know why you people direct arguments against the posts written under Bill Thompson's name. You have no proof that he's actually writing them!

 

[thaiboxerken]

Jesus Christ, there is no evidence that he has been a racist beyond a newsletter he did not write by himself 22 years ago, by now you should know that.

Got anything more convincing?

I'm pretty sure there must be hundreds of racist quotes of him since and before the newsletters, right?

You have evidence that Ron Paul did not write the article that he claimed he wrote, then latered denied writing?

 

[brodski]

You have evidence that Ron Paul did not write the article that he claimed he wrote, then latered denied writing?

You have no evidence that oliver has ever said or implied any such thing. Nor do you have any evidence that he does not fully agree that Ron Paul is a racist.