Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Dismissing Ron Paul

By Ivan Eland
February 28, 2008
Read on.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

He wasn't

ardee said...

I firmly believe in an open race for the office of the president, I am in fact a third party voter. But I also attempt to bring a rationality to the political discussion that this author apparently wants to avoid.

Mr. Paul's seeming ostracism by the press has much more to do with the fact that he never polled over about 8%, just as Rep. Kucinich, Mike Gravel and the rest of the so-called "fringe" candidates who polled low were ignored.

I always find it amusing when libertarians, and I assume this author to be one, attempt a link between that political ideology and the leanings of the founders. Nice try though. Anyone spending any time researching that fringe belief system very quickly understands its appeal to selfish well off white folks who fail utterly to understand their own obligations to the state which serves them so well, odd that. It is , sad to say, a poltical belief system for those with no conscience at all.

Anonymous said...

I agree with much of the Eland assessment. When I first stumbled across Paul, on CSpan, I marveled.

Has he given a satisfactory explanation the apparently racist writings that he allegedly let be published in his name?

The perfect candidate is a myth. However, without a sharp and decisive account of how these writings, alleged to be crudely racist, convincingly so based on the "excerpts" I heard read on television, it's hard to fault the alleged mainstream press from keeping its distance.

George Collins
Goffstown, NH

Anonymous said...

"That is why I was proud to accept an invitation to serve as a foreign policy advisor to Paul’s campaign."

Well, as long as yours is an independednt voice of detatched objectivity.

What a crock.

Anonymous said...

just as Rep. Kucinich, Mike Gravel and the rest of the so-called "fringe" candidates who polled low were ignored.

What? You mean when Paul was polling higher than other candidates but was still excluded from debates?

EvilPoet said...

Ron Paul is historically challenged.

Anonymous said...

Ron Paul is readying his opposition research about Juan McCain, and he's gonna blow him oughta the water!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQfFDPYMJvk

Victory!

Mary O'Grady said...

Ron Paul has a long history as a vocal and extreme antiabortionist. He pulled the wool over the eyes of all his new followers who give a damn at all about women's lives and autonomy.

Anonymous said...

Why Ron Paul is not a serious candidate

Anonymous said...

From the BlackAgendaReport

by PAUL STREET:

Follow the money.

Obama's presidential campaign has received nearly $5 million dollars from securities and investment firms and $866,000 from commercial banks through October of 2007. Obama's top contributor so far is Goldman Sachs (provider of $369,078 to Obama), identified by Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) investigators as "a major proponent of privatizing Social Security as well as legislation that would essentially deregulate the investment banking/securities industry." Eight of Obama's top twenty election investors are securities and investment firms: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros. (number 2 at $229,090), J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (# 4 at $216,759), Citadel Investment Group (#7 at 4166,608), UBS AG ($146,150), UBS-America ($106,680), Morgan Stanley ($104,421), and Credit Suisse Group ($92,300). The last two firms are also known to be leading privatization advocates (Center for Responsive Politics 2007a).

Meanwhile, Obama's presidential run has been "assisted" by more than $2 million from the health care sector and nearly $400,000 from the insurance industry through October of 2007 (Center for Responsive Politics 2007b). Obama received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006 (Center for Responsive Politics 2007c). His wife Michelle, a fellow Harvard Law graduate, was until a recently a Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $273, 618 in 2006 (Sweet 2007).

And Obama's sixth largest contributor is Exelon, the proud Chicago-based owner and operator of more nuclear power plants than any entity on earth (Center for Responsive Politics 2007a).

Go figure.

As for his "lobbyist ban," last August the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama "raised more than $1 million in the first three months of his presidential campaign from law firms and companies that have major lobbying operations in the nation's capital." Campaign finance expert Stephen Weissman observed that this raised troubling questions about the practical relevance of Obama's much-ballyhooed pledge to turn down donations from "federal lobbyists."

Anonymous said...

The article is pretty accurate. What policies would make him a kook? Basically, he is preaching the word of the US Constitution. He feels that the federal government is way too deep in our personal lives and the affairs of other sovereign nations. I've been aware of Ron Paul since his first run for US president as a Libertarian. I disagree with his ideas on very few minor issues. It was good to see how far he did get with the current campaign. I did see the CNN debates and it was blatantly obvious how they were trying to silence him.

I have personally witnessed what evil government employees are capable of doing. A situation where they can't be fired and usually not held accountable leads to situations that are very questionable. So, Ron Paul's campaign was a brief sign of hope.