I want the truth.

[Jeremiah]

Well said!

The truth it is bull. and not to give Ron Paul the same media access to actually respond to it should be all the proof you need. read his response on his official campaign ronpaul2008.com.

I can tell you as the cousin of a former deputy attorney general, this is unjust to accuse a man of something and not even let him respond. His family I am sure is very hurt that this was done to him on the very day the polls were opened in a hotly contested State.

I encourage you to read his Press Statement and email those who put the report out and then retracted it, they should answer to you.

Well said!

 

[Jeremiah]

Good Post

Luhiss -- I encourage you to look more into the issue before getting down on yourself. I felt betrayed and hurt initially when I read all this. That night I went to sleep with a knot in my stomach.

I woke up the next morning, took another look at it and realized how far from the truth any of this stuff is. Check out some of the other posts in this "Bad Media" thread and you'll easily see how none of this, looking at it logically, can be true.

Just remember this.. if this story had any merit, it would have been picked up by the major news outlets, but it hasn't. Because they just are too busy? No, because no one can provide solid evidence that Ron Paul actually wrote/knew about any/all of it.

Houston Chronicle did a huge expose on this in 1996. The conclusion was Ron Paul did not write the newsletters, and was very peripherally involved if at all post 1988 (please note that all the racist comments were made in '90/'91). Democrats ran with the story, but quieted down once evidence came up that Ron Paul was actually very peripheral.

Stupid on Paul's part for letting people use his name and newsletter without checking. No doubt about that. And he apologized for that.

Here is some more information: http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=41721

Good post!

 

[Jeremiah]

Excellent

I've looked at all of the "newsletters" and I have yet to see anything that I find offensive.. Shocking yes but nothing that I would put along the lines of some kind of racist viewpoint..

I did some research on the allegations against MLK in the newsletters and from what I can tell they seem to be factual at least in the respect that there are many people reporting the same or similar information that was obtained by the FBI..

Maybe people do not want to hear it, who knows so many people today are PC braniwashed zombies it's like the Lincoln stuff no one wants to hear how he wasn't a saint..

As far as the rest of it you have to look at the time period it was written in, alot has changed in this country since the 70s and 80s.. I belive that the ghostwriter or Dr. Paul, whoever it was, shared the silent majority view of the time..

To me NONE of these writings are damning... It is all pretty soft and definately not extremist..

For those of you who would give up or change your vote are either to weak minded to see what is at stake if we do not win, or never really understood the message. I suppose you would have been part of the weak colonists that fled to St. John, Newbrunswick because the Revolution was to radical for you..

I agree 100%

 

[Jeremiah]

Exactly!

I have not read the most recent article in TNR, but quotes from old newsletters were widely cited on hostile blogs several months ago. The quotes I read at the time were politically incorrect but not racist. They reminded me of some of the things Bill Cosby has been quoted as saying.

I am surprised that this is news to anyone. This is old news dredged up with a fresh coat of paint slapped on, to mix multiple metaphors.

First, they are not that bad. Second, Ron Paul did not write them, nor does he, nor did he ever, agree with them. That is the truth.

Exactly!

 

[Jeremiah]

Well said!

Because, addressing the smear, spreads the smear nationally. It was 100% addressed and debunked in his 1996 congressional run. However, it is much easier to stamp out the lies when you only have to cover a single congressional district. If he fought this on the national airways and media, far more people would be like luckystars here, and never accept the truth when it is right in front of their faces. Ron Paul WILL NOT BE ALLOWED the airtime to properly address this with the facts. His enemies are far too great. In true Ron Paul fashion, he wants the people to find out for themselves. Not accept the media as 100% truth. Unfortunately many people CHOOSE to be ignorant.

Well said!

 

[Jeremiah]

Excellent!

Some theory's...

One, the shock value of this story wasn't all that much to begin with. With each regurgitation it's shock value will be less and less.

Two, (I mentioned this before but I think it's worth mentioning again), people see what they want in candidates and will forgive most anything. Consider the Clinton's legacy of scandal after scandal (after scandal). Hillary to this day has number 1 honors at the Judicial List of corrupt politicians.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/judici...on-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2007

Rudy Giuliani & Mike Huckabee are 5th and 6th respectively. Obama gets an honorable mention. McCain has skeltons in his closet (Keating 5 to name one).

Think Clinton's. Whitewater, Chinagate, Lost law firm billing records, $100,000 windfall from cattle futures after a $1,000 investment, Vince Foster, White House Travel Office firings, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica, Kathleen Willey, Jaunita Broaddrick, The Lincoln bedroom, coffeegate, pardongate, etc etc etc. I've barely scratched the surface.

Talk about guilt by association. How many criminal and unsavory charactors have the Clinton's been invloved with over the years? America loves these two people!! They love them!!!

Three, doing an "I'm So Sorry" tour has never helped anybody be forgiven for breaking the PC laws, it just blows more air into it and makes the accused look like a groveling idiot.

Four, Paul throwing the authors of the newsletters under the bus by naming them would be against the very things he stands for. He's for everyones free speech even if he finds it repulsive and he has as much said he finds the content of those letter as such and he admits blew the mission by letting them slip by with his name on them.

Five (and finally), there is a segment of population out there who doesn't "get it" and will never "get it" because they would rather believe the lies that makes them feel good instead of a truths that don't. These are the type of people who voted for Clinton and McCain.

Great Post!

 

[Jeremiah]

Come on guys whatever happened to your devotion to the First Amendment. I don't know which is worse the sophomoric smear in The New Republic or the defensive reactions of some members of the so-called libertarian movement. For the record, I have never heard Dr. Paul describe himself as a libertarian. I have heard the MSM so describe him and constantly bang on about his run for President on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988 in an attempt to label him as a fringe candidate. I have never heard Dr. Paul self-describe himself thusly. Maybe he has, I have never heard him. He just lets others put him in their own little boxes. He says consistently that he is a Constitutionalist, that he believes in and will adhere to the Constitution. If this makes him libertarian so be it. He certainly believes in liberty.

As to The New Republic article, if this is the worst they have then we are home clear. I have read about these newsletters before but this is a much bigger sampling. I just love the breathless horror of the TNR writer as he tries to make us believe that Dr. Paul is some modern day Dr. Mengele. It is so ridiculous and laughable. Why do you take these accusations seriously? It must be my British sense of humour. Usually there are all kinds of skeletons in candidates' closets but thus far Dr. Paul has been smeared by the actions of his supporters and those connected with him not his own actions. To say that he is naive and/or lacks judgement is to agree with his detractors. He BELIEVES in the First Amendment and lives according to that law.

The problem we have today is that so few people actually understand the meaning of liberty and free speech. Dr. Paul is one of the few. He is also one of the most consistent Christians I have ever seen in public life. Of course he is not perfect and he says so. He allows others to be who they are and clearly believes that the power of love and reason will conquer all. We should use this attack to talk about freedom, not recoil in feigned horror from the fact that Dr. Paul actually lives up to his promises to work to promote liberty, and demonstrates this in his dealings with others who are in his immediate circle.

I have posted above some of the comments by others that really speak to this issue.

 

[hillertexas]

Yes, there's no denying that many White Nationalists or White Supremacists as others call them are interested in the economic principles that Ron Paul espouses. Go to Stormfront or any similar site and check this out, you will find they are overwhelmingly so. In fact the screed contained in the offending Ron Paul articles sounds like it came straight out of Stormfront: blacks are called 'animals', NYC is called "Zooville", "Rapetown", gays are derided for having "limp wrists".

Sorry...none of us here frequent the Stormfront website.

What were you doing there?

 

[Luft97]

Sorry...none of us here frequent the Stormfront website.

What were you doing there?

Very good point hiller, I would like to know that myself...

 

[Ricochet]

No, yuiop is a troll. Read all their other posts.

I just figured out how to use the forums ignore thingy because of him. Now this thread is awesome.

 

[Iowa4Paul]

What am I doing there? Spying. Don't be so ignorant; just because I am aware of what goes on at that site doesn't mean I support that site. If I was a White Nationalist, why would I be upset about the newsletters? You are being stupid about this as you are being about the newsletter issue. You don't want to face reality, which is that Ron Paul's newsletters could have come straight from Stormfront: "the animals are coming!" "Zooville" "limp-wristed" ... is this the kind of candidate you admire and look up to? Ron Paul has got more explaining to do than what he has done.

he already explained. What do you want him to do? Write a 400 page essay on "how someone else wrote an article that people said I wrote", and the sign it in triplicate?

You may not be a spy, but you are acting like one.

Anyways, enjoy the ignore.

 

[pikerz]

How am I supposed to handle low level racists within my organization?

How do I explain something an employee did to a client?

I say, "My sincerest apologies, sir. As the leader of this organization, I take full responsibility for this incident. I give you my assurances that this person is no longer with us, and we have taken other remedial steps to try to prevent it from happening in the future. I hope that we can look past this incident and continue to do business together."

This doesnt make me a racist despite my oversight responsibility, and my "association" with this bad person. It does show integrity and leadership by taking responsibility.

Stuff like this happens. Its unavoidable. There are bad people out there that do not let it be known until its too late.

 

[Luft97]

It just went on too long for my liking. And how do we know the person who wrote these things or approved them as an editor for inclusion in the newsletter isn't still associating with Paul?

If anyone wrote the same things in this forum we would be banned. These things were circulated to a 100 or more people. You would think Paul would have been made aware of it the first time it happened.

I really cannot believe he didn't read these newsletters. If there was just one newsletter involved, I could accept he didn't see it but it wasn't and despite being a doctor and working hard, I am sure he would have found ten minutes in the month to read his OWN newsletter.

Sorry that you feel that way, What could Ron Paul do to make you feel better? Don't come back with a he can adress this.. Cause he already did...

If the answer is nothing put it behind you and move on.. If this is a deal breaker for you and you don't realize he is the ONLY one that can solve the problems in the US then get lost.. This is a Ron Paul supporters forum..

 

[Jeremiah]

Rebuttal to knee jerk reactions

It just went on too long for my liking. And how do we know the person who wrote these things or approved them as an editor for inclusion in the newsletter isn't still associating with Paul?

If anyone wrote the same things in this forum we would be banned. These things were circulated to a 100 or more people. You would think Paul would have been made aware of it the first time it happened.

I really cannot believe he didn't read these newsletters. If there was just one newsletter involved, I could accept he didn't see it but it wasn't and despite being a doctor and working hard, I am sure he would have found ten minutes in the month to read his OWN newsletter.

Your underlying assumption is that the newsletters were reprehensible. They weren't. The facts on which they were based were verifiably true. How the writers responded to these facts did not indicate hatred of any group, which is what racism is generally considered to be. For the most part, their remarks simply expressed revulsion with certain government policies and people's behaviour resulting from them. You can wrench quotes from any context and make them sound ominous. A text without a context is a pretext.

For example, there was one newsletter warning not to have a blood transfusion because homosexuals had given blood to spread AIDS to the general population. This is a fact. I have read actual gay activist newsletters in the 1980's making this suggestion. I also know that in Canada, where I resided at the time, there have been class action lawsuits against the government for allowing tainted blood from American sources into the blood products network. These lawsuits have resulted in compensation payments of billions of dollars. However the Ron Paul newsletter writer did not suggest that the government stop homosexuals from giving blood. He simply made his readers aware of the situation and suggested a course of action. This is a liberty position. Inform do not regulate.

I could go on but you get my drift. Knee jerk reactions, based upon emotional, politically correct conditioning, simply prolong the agony of dealing with this palbable nonsense with clarity and advancing the cause of freedom at the same time.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

So who were these people, and why was Ron Paul even associating with them, let alone giving them a newsletter to write under his own name?

THIS is what I need to understand...

A lot of people who talk about this being a "movement" don't understand that this has been a "movement" for a long time. When your out their trying to defend freedom, you also defend it for people you disagree with about (a lot). Take Randy Weaver, for instance. I would never agree with his white separatist viewpoints, but I sure agree that he has a right to be left alone, associate with who he pleases, and I sure agree that he has a right to posess and modify a shotgun. Is there common political ground for the two of us? Yes, there is.

10 years and he didn't know? In my world if a very inflammatory news letter was being distributed in a congressman's name it would come to his attention really FAST. At that point he would take out a full page ad in the newspaper, and sue the persons responsible. Yeah he won in Texas, because I guess many of his constituents agree with this letter! There is no way, no way he didn't know.
How about the kids who quit their jobs to work for free for this man? Hannity might not be the only one chased down.

You older supporters knew, we didn't.
Duped we were, the new people. Bilked we were.

I didn't know, but given what I said above, it isn't all that shocking, either. If you want to defend freedom, you also defend it for people you don't like. That goes for the people who quit their jobs, too. It's not like Paul is a racist with a racist agenda. As I mentioned Randy Weaver as an example above... I don't think any of us would be supporting Randy Weaver for president. I wouldn't be suprised if Weaver supported Paul, and I can live with that just fine. Gerry Spence, whom I have a profound amount of respect for, never defended Weaver's racism. He defended his rights, and was defending all of our rights at the same time. If you can't defend everyone's rights at the same time, the whole notion of "rights" becomes meaningless.

If anyone wrote the same things in this forum we would be banned. These things were circulated to a 100 or more people. You would think Paul would have been made aware of it the first time it happened.

If it's circulated to 100 idiots who hold the same viewpoints, I'm not surprised he didn't know. I doubt they were sending him copies of anything truly offensive. For all I know, racists could be using my name and sending it out to 100 buddies.

It just went on too long for my liking. And how do we know the person who wrote these things or approved them as an editor for inclusion in the newsletter isn't still associating with Paul?

Extremely unlikely. How do we know McCain isn't a lizard type alien from another planet? I bet he'd say he isn't.

I was also shocked after I saw the actual print. After I cooled down, it's still just a rehash of things that came out long ago, and surfaced again months ago. And while I know it looks bad, I have no reason to feel duped, and will continue to support Paul publicly, face to face, and with anyone I meet. Compared to a long record of a of a 72 year old man, this is a very small, inconsistent blip.

 

[gilliganscorner]

I thought this might be interesting to you. I write a blog and I had comments posted to a blog entry I made with respect to Liberty Maven's Media Governance guide that I slightly tweaked, but cited the original post.

You can see the first article here

Eric left a comment on this post, which I reprint here:

On the contrary. The exact opposite is happening. They’re giving Ron Paul a complete pass.

I served as his 1996 Campaign Coordinator here in Texas for his Congressional Campaign. The liberal Houston and ultra-liberal Austin newspapers ate Ron Paul for lunch. Daily barrage of attacks on his for being a “Racist” and tied in with Anti-Semitic groups, and a fringe Texas Separatist. It was awful stuff.

But back then Paul was running more as a standard Republican, almost a Bush Conservative.

Now, he’s bashing Bush and opposing the War in Iraq. So he’s become the media darling, getting far more press than he deserves.

Witness his national polls numbers are consistently less than 5%. Yesterday a poll came out of Florida with Paul at 2%!!

Duncan Hunter has nearly the same poll numbers, but you don’t see the media fawning all over him.

Of course Hunter supports the War in Iraq. Ron Paul doesn’t. There’s your answer.

At the time, I had not heard of Dondero. I googled his name, and that prompted me to write a second post, based on his comment above. Instead me reposting it in it's entirety, which would include comments from him asking me to retract the article I had written as he felt it was slanderous, you can read it here

Feel free to leave your own comments.

 

[luckystars]

A lot of people who talk about this being a "movement" don't understand that this has been a "movement" for a long time. When your out their trying to defend freedom, you also defend it for people you disagree with about (a lot). Take Randy Weaver, for instance. I would never agree with his white separatist viewpoints, but I sure agree that he has a right to be left alone, associate with who he pleases, and I sure agree that he has a right to posess and modify a shotgun. Is there common political ground for the two of us? Yes, there is.






I didn't know, but given what I said above, it isn't all that shocking, either. If you want to defend freedom, you also defend it for people you don't like. That goes for the people who quit their jobs, too. It's not like Paul is a racist with a racist agenda. As I mentioned Randy Weaver as an example above... I don't think any of us would be supporting Randy Weaver for president. I wouldn't be suprised if Weaver supported Paul, and I can live with that just fine. Gerry Spence, whom I have a profound amount of respect for, never defended Weaver's racism. He defended his rights, and was defending all of our rights at the same time. If you can't defend everyone's rights at the same time, the whole notion of "rights" becomes meaningless.

I agree with much of what you said. Funny you mention Randy Weaver and Gerry Spence. I moved to a rural area and ended up sueing over property I bought. My lawyer ran me out of money, basically fraud on his part. So I went pro per because I wanted my day in court. I read Gerry Spence's book and was very inspired. I went to the law library and met this guy who taught me how to use the law library. There was a group of people in this area who were always fighting the government over traffic tickets, refused put license plates on their cars etc. He was a very helpful. Then he asked me "Is your husband into this." I guess he meant my unwillingness to back down, since the courts wanted me to settle and I wouldn't, I said "My husband is foreign, from Italy." He turned around and never spoke to me again. So I am like, wow, this is what these people are about.

If you are running for President or just running down the street, the same applies. We are all in this together, while Randy Weaver had the right to be a separatist in the USA it is now nearly impossible to do so.

This hurts Ron Paul, its fatal. I was able to convert liberals on the war issue, and by telling them he is a man of character. He knew about the newsletter, to say otherwise is just plain disingenuous. He can't be elected to anything outside of rural Texas now. Politics is about compromise, and this can't be repaired.
Its very sad because our country is on life support as I speak.

 

[Tuff_Fish]

.........
..
.

How do I explain something an employee did to a client?

I say, "My sincerest apologies, sir. As the leader of this organization, I take full responsibility for this incident. I give you my assurances that this person is no longer with us, and we have taken other remedial steps to try to prevent it from happening in the future. I hope that we can look past this incident and continue to do business together."

.............

Ron Paul's response then and now has not risen to this level.

T

 

[Tuff_Fish]

Your underlying assumption is that the newsletters were reprehensible. They weren't.

I think that says a lot about ........

T

PS: They were.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

I agree with much of what you said. Funny you mention Randy Weaver and Gerry Spence. I moved to a rural area and ended up sueing over property I bought. My lawyer ran me out of money, basically fraud on his part. So I went pro per because I wanted my day in court. I read Gerry Spence's book and was very inspired. I went to the law library and met this guy who taught me how to use the law library.

Many lawyers are dirtbags and profit from a very unfair legal system. Pro se litigants are roadkill too, and most lawyers and judges laugh about it. Even if you know the law, it's nearly impossible to operate in that buddy system unless you're paying one of them. Even in that case, if you know what you're doing, you spend much of your time educating them.

There was a group of people in this area who were always fighting the government over traffic tickets, refused put license plates on their cars etc. He was a very helpful. Then he asked me "Is your husband into this." I guess he meant my unwillingness to back down, since the courts wanted me to settle and I wouldn't, I said "My husband is foreign, from Italy." He turned around and never spoke to me again. So I am like, wow, this is what these people are about.

Personally, I've always steered clear of those types, and haven't actually met many. I usually can't stand to listen to their crap, and they're full of unsubstantiated and unresearched claims in my opinion. Not only that, but most of them are trying to create a confrontation that they have no hope of winning in any manner. They make up such an infintecimal amount of Paul's support, I don't care if they vote or not.

At the end of the day, those bullshit newsletters haven't changed my opinion of anything. They're inconsistent with the rest of Paul's record.