<p>Why are Ron Paul’s racist aides such a big story, and Obama’s racist pastor/church and Mitt Romney’s racist Mormon friends not?</p>
<p>Well, Vyse, I suppose it’s because neither the pastor nor the friends you allege have come out with newsletters with either Mr. Obama or Mr. Romney’s name in the masthead.</p>
<p>A smear campaign does not involve using your own words to show you are a horrible person. It’s called accountability. </p>
<p>Suggesting Paul did not know what was being written in his own newsletter is simply unbelievable. Especially given the length of time over which offensive comments were made. </p>
<p>Paul should release all issues of his newsletter right now. Who does he think he is hiding records – Hillary Clinton?</p>
<p><sigh>This thread is such a waste of time. The smear campaign directed at Dr. Paul is so obviously desperate, it’s almost comical.</sigh></p>
<p>razor’s comments in #23 indicate he is intentionally distorting facts and ignoring refutations to his attacks.</p>
<p>I believe the facts I would need to be assured of in this case involve:
[ul]
[<em>]What were the actual comments made in the newsletters?
[</em>]When were they made?
[<em>]How were the articles credited?
[</em>]Who had editorial responsibility and authority over the newsletters?
[<em>]What responses were made by Dr. Paul to the comments?
[</em>]When did these responses first happen?
[/ul]
To a poster above; as it happens, I wouldn’t necessarily blame Oprah for everything in O magazine - but I would certainly hold Amy Gross responsible and I would expect Oprah to make statements regarding anything in her magazine that people found racist or sexist. If incendiary columns or articles were published and Oprah did not respond to things published in “her” magazine, then I would have serious questions about her character and integrity. The same is true here, which is why I am seeking factual clarification.</p>
<p>DukeEgr93 has precisely identified the issues. </p>
<p>Lealdragon, can you answer what did Paul know and when did he know it?</p>
<p>Why would Paul allow racists to write in his newsletter and why didn’t he reject their comments immedately after they were written. Why hasn’t Paul released copies of all of his newsletters? Paul has a lot of explaining to do. </p>
<p>I haven’t ignored any facts becuase neither you nor Paul have presented any. I haven’t ignored refutations becuase none have been made. How about answering some of the issues listed above rather than just ignoring the smoking gun.</p>
<p>Ron Paul has claimed he is “morally responsible” for his racism which, of course, is true. Since he is responsible, he ought to pay the price for the harm he has caused. His words have helped poison the nation against folks like me for years on end, and yet I have done nothing against this man. He is an open insult to all that I hold as good and true. I have little choice but to denounce him as unfit to represent me and mine.</p>
<p>The fact he is now trying to claim the person who allegedly wrote the pieces was “fired” some fourteen years after the pieces were published, shows me just how insulting Ron Paul can be even to those who support him. And that those supporters cannot recognize Ron Paul’s insult to their intelligence is a lesson in how overt dishonor can survive and even thrive to serve as the foundation of even worse dishonor. It is how, for example, Ron Paul and his ilk routinely commit open abortion against historical fact so they may live in a den of stillborn fantasies regarding Lincoln and the Civil War.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a CNN story about the newsletters, with a few more details.</p>
<p>[Ron</a> Paul '90s newsletters rant against blacks, gays - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/10/paul.newsletters/index.html]Ron”>Ron Paul '90s newsletters rant against blacks, gays - CNN.com)</p>
<p>What were the actual comments made in the newsletters?</p>
<p>(from tnr)
“Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began. … What if the checks had never arrived? No doubt the blacks would have fully privatized the welfare state through continued looting. But they were paid off and the violence subsided.”
<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/downloads/sponraceterrorism.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tnr.com/downloads/sponraceterrorism.pdf</a></p>
<p>He praises David Duke, a former head of the Klan
<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/downloads/November1990.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tnr.com/downloads/November1990.pdf</a></p>
<p>Calls MLK a world class adulterer, pedophile, and homosexual
<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/downloads/december1990.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tnr.com/downloads/december1990.pdf</a></p>
<p>An October 1990 edition of the Political Report ridicules black activists, led by Al Sharpton, for demonstrating at the Statue of Liberty in favor of renaming New York City after Martin Luther King. The newsletter suggests that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” would be better alternatives–and says, “Next time, hold that demonstration at a food stamp bureau or a crack house.”
<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/downloads/October1990.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tnr.com/downloads/October1990.pdf</a></p>
<p>A January 1994 edition of the Survival Report states that “gays in San Francisco do not obey the dictates of good sense,” adding: “[T]hese men don’t really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners.” Also, “they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick.”
<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/downloads/january1994.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tnr.com/downloads/january1994.pdf</a></p>
<p>Spoke at southern meeting on how to promote secession
<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/downloads/misesmarch95.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tnr.com/downloads/misesmarch95.pdf</a></p>
<p>(see more here [Selections</a> From Ron Paul’s Newsletters](<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=74978161-f730-43a2-91c3-de262573a129]Selections”>http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=74978161-f730-43a2-91c3-de262573a129))</p>
<p>When were they made?</p>
<p>Between at least 1978 to at least 1999 [Angry</a> White Man](<a href=“http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca]Angry”>http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca) </p>
<p>How were the articles credited?</p>
<p>Almost all were credited to Ron Paul, even being written in first person and speaking of his wife and grandkids.</p>
<p>Who had editorial responsibility and authority over the newsletters?</p>
<p>Ron Paul, obviously, unless one buys the wholesale nonsense about a ghostwriter who was “fired” fourteen years after the fact.</p>
<p>What responses were made by Dr. Paul to the comments?</p>
<p>He claimed “moral responsibility”. Later claimed the comments did not reflect his views (which means he could be an even worst racist than he is).</p>
<p>When did these responses first happen?</p>
<p>Not until October 2001, about a decade after this racism had gone forth repeatedly under his name without comment.</p>
<p>Ron Paul will be pulling out of the race…no question about it.</p>
<p>"According to Ron Paul, he did not write those words. But here’s the thing - do we want a president who would allow such things to be said in his name? "</p>
<p>He might not write his own speeches, either, so what does that have to do with it?</p>
<p>Well - I certainly would give zero weight to an argument from a president that gives a speech and then disclaims responsibility for what he or she said using his or her own voice because someone else wrote the words. In exactly the same way, I am giving zero weight to an argument from a candidate for president that had a newsletter produced and then disclaims responsibility for what he or she publishes using his or her own newsletter because someone else wrote the words.</p>
<p>Lealdragon…</p>
<p>Still waiting for a plausible reason to give Paul a pass on this…</p>
<p>Tap, tap, tap…Lealdragon?</p>
<p>Lincoln was a tyrant, there’s nothing racist about pointing THAT out.</p>
<p>
So says Ron Paul in the CNN article.</p>
<p>Interesting. I did not know this about libertarians. I guess the guy writing the newsletters must not have been a libertarian.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Evidently not! duh. Not possible. </p>
<p>It matters not what label someone puts on themselves. Only their actions matter. Surely we all know of people who call themselves ‘Christian’ who don’t act very Christian, right? Same thing.</p>
<p>Bottom line is, Ron Paul was busy delivering babies at the time.</p>
<p>Again, watch his video.</p>
<p>He basically said in his video that he was
a) too busy to read his own newsletter
b) still clueless about what it says because he was delivering babies and campaigning 24/7 (despite the fact that this is not the first time it has been brought up in an election cycle, and is certainly not the first time he has responded to it)
c) not responsible for writing the newsletter
d) incapable of being racist because he was a libertarian and libertarians can’t be racist
e) able to win elections several times because no one knew about his newsletter
f) a hero to minorities anyway because he wants to stop the War on Drugs and release incarcerated drug users.</p>
<p>With all due respect, your summary does not quite do his response justice. </p>
<p>I still encourage everyone to watch the video for themselves.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it is not racist, but it is flamboyantly ignorant which, of course, unlike racism is a problem only for those who are flamboyantly ignorant, a great concentration of whom exists in the American South.</p>
<p>Thinking men, on the other hand, understand that tyrants are not interested in seeing slavery end, and that they do not take measures to give rights to the oppressed even against the wishes of their constituents. Lincoln not only sought to end slavery’s expansion, but when it seemed to him beneficial to end slavery altogether he actually did it. He was the right man at precisely the right time. Had he been more abolitionist, America never would have elected him. Had he been less, he would not have had force enough to insist, against great criticism, upon ending slavery. History records, correctly, that instead of being a tyrant, he ended southern tyranny over human beings and was in fact the key player in codifying freedom in our law along with equal protection of American citizens regardless of race. No southerner had the courage, power, and decency to do this. Indeed freedom, either of the body or of the mind, has never come from the South with any sort of frequency worthy of a remark. But tyranny has. In many ways it still does.</p>
<p>I missed the part where he said that no one could prove that he was a racist because no one had ever recorded him saying something racist. </p>
<p>Oh, and the part where he said that he was the only candidate (Democrat or Republican) to support minorities because he wanted to eliminate drug laws.</p>
<p>Drosselmeier: You (and I, to a lesser extent) have repudiated all of Vyse’s anti-Lincoln remarks over the course of several threads. It stands to reason that Vyse is not listening. I highly doubt that his opinion will change.</p>