But Now You Know

The search for truth in human action

How to Prove Ron Paul is a Racist Enemy of America


Some of the best minds in the nation's political class are working to come up with ways to stop Paul

Ron Paul’s dangerous, confusing message of  “freedom” for Americans has infected the Republican party, the way Reagan’s did 30 years ago. Last time, the faithful Nixonians who controlled the GOP leadership failed to silence it in time.

This time, the threat must be silenced BEFORE it has time to take seed. The message of “liberty” is far too dangerous for common people.

Fortunately, there are some ways to discredit the messenger:

Ron Paul is RACIST!!!

Ron Paul is the Republican candidate most supported among blacks. He must be undermined there, lest he get nominated and beat Obama.

So NEVER mention his popularity among minorities, but instead…

Twenty years ago, some obscure writer said some rather dubious things that seem to be sarcastic, rather petty  shots at black crime. He published them in one of several “liberty” newsletters Ron Paul had sponsored for years before that.

Therefore, Ron Paul is racist.

Yes, Paul had nothing to do with the newsletters, other than as a figurehead, and he disavowed them in the 1990s…but most people have never heard of the “scandal”, much less how it’d been disproved years ago.

So, in order to close people’s minds to Paul’s appeal, before they learn too much, simply ASK them “would you want to vote for someone whose newsletter said racist things?”

Talk about how disappointed you are Paul, who “seemed” like a nice guy. They will listen, because he is a nice guy, so you’ll appear as if you know what you’re talking about.

In fact, everything they have heard Paul say will contradict the picture you are painting, so you must avoid, at all costs, any mention of Paul’s own words, which seem to appeal to young and old, black and white, male and female.

Follow this link for a collage of videos by undaunted Ron Paul supporters...

You must, as always, keep Paul from any actual air-time, himself. Beware quotes like this:

Libertarians are incapable of being racists, because racism is a collectivist idea; you see people as groups. A civil libertarian like myself see everyone as an individual. “It’s not the color of the skin that’s important” as Martin Luther King said, “it’s the character of the individual”.

You know what is really interesting, though, and might be behind [the racism claims]. Because I, as a Republican candidate, am getting the most black votes and black supporters, and now that has to be undermined.
~Ron Paul, CNN (2008)

Paul is popular among minorities, because they share his social values, and he speaks out against how they suffer disproportionately in the abuses of our justice system, in the drug war, and in foreign wars. Their voices need to be silenced, for their own good.

Fortunately, this leads us to the next way to discredit Paul…

Ron Paul HATES the Military!!!

Ron Paul is the Republican candidate most supported by our military. More vote for him, and more support his campaign. He must be undermined there, lest he end up Commander in Chief.

We must avoid mention that Ron Paul is the only candidate to have actually served in the military, and that his fellow veterans share his foreign policy beliefs

But Ron Paul opposes the use of American troops in voluntary foreign wars. You’d think he’d support them, since he’s such a big fan of voluntarism…but he does not. And he votes against our troops.

Well, not really, he actually supports using the troops for defense of America, and votes against huge spending bills that include many things our troops oppose, that are simply lumped into one Monster Bill to keep people from voting against them. In fact, he voted for the initial authorization of force against Afghanistan, in 2001 when it was sold as being a defense of America against the attack, not nation-building…but people don’t need to know that.

Just say “how can you even consider someone who undermines our troops overseas?”

As before, any actual quotes by Paul must be avoided, because even his “worst” arguments really end up looking too patriotic, if you’re not careful. For example:

If we can’t or won’t define the enemy, the cost to fight such a war will be endless. How many American troops are we prepared to lose? How much money are we prepared to spend? How many innocent civilians, in our nation and others, are we willing to see killed? How many American civilians will we jeopardize? How much of our civil liberties are we prepared to give up? How much prosperity will we sacrifice?

…I support President Bush and voted for the authority and the money to carry out his responsibility to defend this country, but the degree of death and destruction and chances of escalation must be carefully taken into consideration.
~ Ron Paul, Foreign Interventionism is Detrimental to Our Security (2001)

This is exactly the concern of so many of our own soldiers, so it attracts their support, and must be avoided.

Likewise, on our troops’ own safety and defense of American principles:

Torture by rogue American troops or agents puts all Americans at risk, especially our rank-and-file soldiers stationed in dozens of dangerous places around the globe. God forbid terrorists take American soldiers or travelers hostage and torture them as some kind of sick retaliation for Abu Ghraib.
~ Ron PaulGovernment and Racism (2007)

Or his take on isolationism:

It is not we non-interventionists who are isolationsists. The real isolationists are those who impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders. The real isolationists are those who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.
Ron Paul, I Advocate the Same Foreign Policy the Founding Fathers Would,  Manchester Union-Leader (2010)

So Paul’s own words are right out. Use someone else’s words, and then keep asking Paul about them, as if they were his:

Paul: I didn’t write them, I disavow them…
Q: So you read them, but didn’t do anything
Paul: I never read that stuff. I was probably aware of it ten years after it was written…it’s going on twenty years that people have pestered me about this.
Q: Well, wouldn’t you say it’s a legitimate question?
Paul: When you get the answer, it’s legitimate that you sorta take the answer I give. You know what the answer is? “I didn’t write them, I didn’t read them at the time, and I disavow them.”
Q: These things are pretty incendiary, you know, saying…
~ Ron Paulversus some CNN badger (2011)

Ignore such replies, keep asking people “why won’t he address the racist newsletters?” In that interview, Ron Paul directly disavowed them, and said he didn’t write them three or four times. The CNN chick even admitted it…but she kept re-asking the question, as if he hadn’t answered it. That’s the kind of games we need to play, to discredit him. We certainly can’t beat him on ideas, because his have been integral to America since the Founders, and even after all this time we haven’t been able to get rid of them.

Even running a third party Republican as an Independent in the general election, in an effort to split Reagan’s votes and get Carter re-elected, failed those brave, determined Rockefeller Republicans.

If we stick together, we can get out of this without the will of the people being heard, this time.

Advertisement

December 23, 2011 Posted by | liberty, Politics | , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Why the TSA Screenings are Unconstitutional


It's not that the image shows your genitals to leering strangers that makes it obscene, but its violation of your 4th amendment protection against random searches

The 4th Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Your prudism about being ogled by minimum wage goons who share pics and stories of your genitals with each other and post them on the Internet is not the biggest reason why the nude scanners and crotch gropings cannot be allowed.

It’s that they also violate your Constitutional rights. And that kind of violation, you must never tolerate.

The Fourth Amendment secures not only our external property, but especially our bodies against unreasonable search and seizure.

By “reasonable” the amendment says it means “with probable cause”, and this means government agents must suspect you, personally, of a crime or else they are not allowed to search you, no matter what.

The police are not legally allowed to search random the houses on your block, just in case they might find something illegal, and even the most law-abiding of us is glad our privacy is protected this way. And they cannot, for the same reason, search all people passing through the gates at the airport, just in case they might find something illegal.

Appeal to Cowardice

Big Brotherment tries to justify this violation of the Bill of Rights with Appeal to Cowardice:

“But aren’t you willing to put up with a little inconvenience, to be safer?”

But real Americans aren’t cowards. Even if the violation of your body were improving safety — and in real life, it does NOTHING for your safety — it would not be a tolerable reason.

The government could judge who seemed a threat, and search those people. That would be “probable cause”, valid under the Constitution.

Searching people at random, instead, violates the Bill of Rights, and helps the actually-suspicious people get through the line. If the searches could actually stop terrorists, the random nature of the searches keep that from happening.

They who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Ben Franklin

Nobody honest, not even on the pro-TSA side, denies that these random searches violate the fourth amendment…they just claim that you should surrender this Essential Liberty, to try to gain a little temporary safety.

But real Americans aren’t cowards. This expansion of the Police State ends, here and now.

November 18, 2010 Posted by | Family, International, liberty, Politics, Society | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Thank Ron Paul, He Blew Up Congress


Remember, remember, the 2nd of November, when Ron Paul took back the House, as the next step in the movement that exploded on Guy Fawkes Day, 2007.

With all the hubbub about this election, there hasn’t been enough talk about how it happened:

How Ron Paul Restored Republican Principles (and/or Power)

Remember, the Republicans were stripped of power by the very same voters, just four years ago. What changed isn’t trust in that party’s old guard leadership, but the restoration of that party’s roots by the TEA Party.

The reason they’re getting it back started three years ago today, when Ron Paul stunned the political world with the massive success of the Money Bomb his grass-roots supporters spontaneously organized.

The Money Bomb

In a single day, these TEA Party predecessors raised $4,700,000 dollars for Ron Paul…more than any other Republican candidate. They chose Guy Fawke’s Day to symbolically represent how Ron Paul was to metaphorically blow up the corrupt, establishment government…probably inspired in part by the movie V, where the hero re-enacts that historic event in his fight against a repressive, tyrannical government.

This brought the liberty movement of Ron Paul to the attention of the “mainstream”, touching off a snowball of support for his campaign that, while not getting him nominated against the will of the establishment Republicans in Name Only (RiNOs), left him with a huge “war chest” after the primaries were over. He used this money to found the Campaign for Liberty, supporting the general liberty movement he had empowered.

Taxed Enough, Already

During his campaign, even before the Money Bomb, supporters started referring to their rallies as “Tea Parties”, some creating the backronym “Taxed Enough Already” to refer to their libertarian economic theme.

By 2009, these TEA Parties, with the support of Ron Paul-supporting groups like Young Americans for Liberty and his own Campaign for Liberty, had taken on a life of their own. As you know, that grew into the movement that people rallied around, and when that movement chose Ron Paul’s party for its candidates, the Republicans finally had an opportunity to return their party to its libertarian base.

They started as a fight against Democratic talk of raising taxes, fighting bailouts and “stimulus” spending, but got their greatest momentum fighting the socialized health care bill, which Ron Paul had opposed even back in 2003 when the Republicans were pushing socialized medicine.

Will It Stay True?

In 2010, of course, the neocons and other RiNOs saw the success of Paul’s movement, and started trying to hijack the TEA Party. They attempted to insert divisive social issues, like anti-Muslim fearmongering and hate, promotion of the drug war, et cetera…but it has not worked: This election was about the economy, smaller government, and other libertarian ideas that the Republican leadership has been forced to parrot, although their history is of doing even more harm to that cause than the Democrats.

The Tea Party movement started with Ron Paul, who is recognized even by his opponents as the most principled, honest man in Congress. It has overcome attacks by Big Government advocates on the “Right”, supposed leaders of the Republican Party and others, but has not lost its way, and almost singlehandedly won this election (except for help by the Democrats, in their own self-destruction).

Hopefully, it can continue to police the Republican party to stick to its base’s principles…or, almost everyone outside the Political Class agrees, the Republicans will have blown their last chance, and TEA will take its party elsewhere.

November 5, 2010 Posted by | liberty, Politics | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Forget the Fed


End the DEBT

The Federal Reserve, though bad, is a scapegoat, and ending it would neither reduce the deficit, nor rein in the printing of money

Among my political companions, “End the Fed” has been the hot, trendy thing for a while. This is mainly because Ron Paul correctly distrusts it, and has sponsored a bill to have it audited.

Now, I almost named this article Eff the Fed, because I, too, dislike it, and know it can never manage money properly…no government agency ever could. Instead of the a fiat dollar, we should have a free market in currency, like the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek advocated . But when it comes to the fight to end it, there’s a problem.

The End the Fed crowd seems to think that getting rid of it is some magic bullet, that will accomplish all kinds of different things.

They believe it will:

  • Bring back “sound money”, by imposing a gold standard.
  • End the printing of new, extra money
  • Restrain runaway government spending
  • Prevent budget deficits

The problem is that ending it will accomplish none of those things.

In fact, it would probably make them worse.

Why?

Because the Fed isn’t what started those things happening, and none of them depend on the Fed’s existence.

Axe the IRS

In effect, fighting those things by attacking the Fed is like wanting  to fight the income tax, and high taxes, by demanding “Ax the IRS”.

Obviously, we had taxes before the IRS, and we’d have taxes after it. In fact, the IRS was not created by the 16th amendment establishing the income tax, but five decades earlier, by Abraham Lincoln.

If we got rid of the IRS, we’d still have the income tax, and high taxes. Putting our time, energy, and money into attacking the IRS would be a waste of time, when we could have fought for actual tax reduction, reforming or ending the income tax, et cetera, directly.

What’s worse, the government would still want to oversee the taxes we failed to actually fix, and would probably end up using something worse than the IRS.

Well, all of this is true of the Fed, as well:

The Feds Don’t Need the Fed

The Fed and a Gold Standard are Compatible

Trade Dollars, coins minted in the US during the gold standard, in an attempt to offset a shortage of money

Ending the Fed won’t bring back a forced gold standard, because they are two unrelated issues.

We had both at the same time for decades, anyhow.

The US had a fiat gold standard from 1873, through 1934.

The Fed, of course, was established in 1913. It existed alongside the gold standard for over two decades. It helped cause the Great Depression while the US was on a gold standard. It created floods of new money in the 1920s, and drew down the money supply by 30% (which would cause any economy, at any time, to collapse) in 1929…both of these things while we were on the gold standard.

Congress Would Just Print More Money

Not only did we have a gold standard while we had the Fed, but we also printed fiat paper money when we did not have the Fed. The reason the dollar is sometimes called the Greenback, is that this was the nickname commonly used for the paper money common in the United States in the 1860s and 1870s, printed to finance the Civil War, known for its green ink .

Right now, the Federal Reserve is a bureaucratic middleman, standing between Congress and simply printing money willy-nilly. The Fed uses what are ironically called “mechanical” means, to create its electronic, funny money for banks. In other words, it has a set of rules that cause the money to be created according to some specific set of conditions, not simply all the money the government wants.

An actual Greenback, fiat paper money printed in the US before the Federal Reserve

Without it, Congress will simply mandate the printing of more money, on its own, surely in accordance to its bloated, and ever-snowballing spending. They printed floods of extra money before the Fed, and would print it after.

As with the IRS, however it replaces the Fed (and, in a sense, it will have to) will probably be with a mechanism that is even worse.

The US government issued treasury notes, and created deficits in other ways, for the majority of US history where there was no Federal Reserve Bank, and would do it again without it.

Restrain the Deficits…How?

This is the silliest one, and speaks to an ignorance of how the Fed works.

The Federal Reserve certainly responds to some deficit spending by selling more treasury notes…but as with printing money and collecting taxes, this would happen whether the Fed existed or not. It simply is the middleman, again.

You might as well blame the mailman for delivering your bills.

A Big, Fat Windmill

The problem with Don Quixote attacking windmills wasn’t just that the windmills wasn’t only that the windmills weren’t actually dragons, harming people.

It was also that he was wasting the energy and time that could have gone into fighting actual bad causes.

And that’s what the End the Fed noise is doing. This energy could be spent fighting deficit spending directly, which has run rampant under Democrat and RiNO alike…or any of dozens of other issues of government abuse.

It’s Going Nowhere

Of course the last problem with tilting at windmills was that it was never going to get rid of them, anyhow.

The Federal Reserve is in no danger of being “ended”. Ron Paul is actually only sponsoring a bill to audit the Fed, which (unfortunately) will not even permanently open its records to the public, the way they need to be. It will do even less to “end” it, since government self-investigations only ever are used to create a pretense that a few new regulations have “put the problem behind us”, and things usually just get worse, thereafter.

A majority of Americans oppose the drug war. Nearly all Americans not directly on the government teat oppose its massive spending and deficits. But the mechanisms for keeping the Fed in place, on both the private and public side, are massive. Not only would getting rid of it have no more effect than axing the IRS, but it’s no more likely to happen.

How To Actually Fix Things

What we need to do, rather than waste our time tilting at the Fed, is to directly address the problems we’re using it as a whipping boy to attack, or at least focus on their actual sources.

For example:

Balance the Budget; A balanced budget amendment would stop massive deficits, rein in government spending, and eliminate much of the incentive to print money and treasury notes, under the current system.

Line-Item Veto; Giving the President the power to veto any specific detail in any spending bill would be a step in that direction, as well. This may need to be an amendment, too, in order to override corrupt Federal courts claiming that it’s somehow unconstitutional.

Pull the Pork; Rules against pork, against Congress specifying projects in detail intended just to send money to their own cronies in their district, would be devastating not only to spending (which, unfortunately, is more centered on entitlements), but also to motives to give officials legalized bribes like campaign contributions.

Or maybe something else, entirely…but, whatever is done, it needs to be done. We need to choose surmountable obstacles that will actually matter, not waste our effort and attention on some scapegoat, however undesirable it is. The Fed is a poster child for government’s destruction of finance and economy, but what we need now is real solutions, not symbolic gestures, however satisfying this one would be.

July 5, 2010 Posted by | Economy, liberty, Philosophy, Politics | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

   

%d bloggers like this: