[Video] Alex Jones Endorses Rand Paul 2016: I would support Rand Paul for President

[BlackJack]

It's great when you value liberty, but when conspiracism is always your default position it is a toxic way of thinking.

How is it a toxic way of thinking? Alex is not trying to scare people to death, he reasonably wants people to stop reading their propaganda Faux Newbs and MSMNBC trite articles and face the music. He wants people to wake up, develop some common sense about their government, which is currently doing everything it can to turn its citizens into cattle.

 

[Crashland]

I don't think we're really going to get anywhere arguing over Alex Jones, but I will say that of course false flag operations and cronyism should not be ignored. But you also can't go around propagating unsubstantiated claims. When I (and a lot of voters, I presume) think of Alex Jones, I see these conspiracies he touts that require a multitude of unfounded assumptions compared to other generally accepted simpler explanations. No one is saying we should automatically trust what the government claims. But Jones is not the only independent party that evaluates those claims, and more often than not the vast consensus goes against Jones, a la moon landing and 9/11..... I understand the goal is liberty to some extent, and I listen to him quite often but I just can't get on board with an alarmist who claims practically everything under the sun has some secret agenda behind it. Even a noble purpose is no excuse for making stuff up

 

[LibertyEagle]

Your putdown of mainstream pro-liberty people would only hurt the movement.

I seriously doubt that the vast majority of Republicans consider Alex Jones to be "mainstream".

I hope you stay out of it.

You're telling a forum member to stay out of the liberty movement? I'm pretty sure that is against forum guidelines.

Jones told us he thought the compromise endorsement of Mitt was cynically done, considering the mixed signals given by the Paul campaign at the time. He said at the time he would get over his displeasure, but he would never view the Pauls as idealistically as he once had.

Who cares what Jones thought. I certainly do not.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

I seriously doubt that the vast majority of Republicans consider Alex Jones to be "mainstream".

You're telling a forum member to stay out of the liberty movement? I'm pretty sure that is against forum guidelines.

The context was clearly in jest, in response to the person making exclusionary remarks who was not joking. And by objective standards of audience size and influence, yes, Jones has become mainstream. It's not the old "mainstream is whatever we elite approve of" regime of the MSM, with their collapsing ratings and readership, but that of the emerging new mainstream of Drudge, the web and the alternative media, who frequently attract much larger audiences.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

But Jones is not the only independent party that evaluates those claims, and more often than not the vast consensus goes against Jones, a la moon landing and 9/11..... I understand the goal is liberty to some extent, and I listen to him quite often but I just can't get on board with an alarmist who claims practically everything under the sun has some secret agenda behind it. Even a noble purpose is no excuse for making stuff up

Can you back any of this up? It's just mischaracterization after mischaracterization, without proof. When Jones has mentioned the moon landing, he basically sides with the "we did land there" view. He doesn't make things up, his show comments on what his staff has documented the government and major media has admitted. That is different from Rush and other talk shows that merely react to news stories, without doing original reporting.

Jones has a number of research writers and sites, that publish findings, complete with links to and screenshots of the source material. The center of his operation are the sites, the talk show just gives wide exposure to the information those sites uncover. If a given government source is wrong, or public disclosure of the info causes the elite to change their plans, that's different from "he made stuff up."

 

[jmdrake]

Alex Jones's support would only hurt a Rand Paul candidacy. I hope he stays out of it

Actually the way it's going it can only help. The highly publicized rift between Alex Jones and Rand Paul in the aftermath of the Romney endorsement means that nobody is expecting Rand Paul to go on the Alex Jones show including Alex Jones listeners. So Alex Jones can pump Rand Paul to his own followers without Rand risking getting on the show, relaxing a bit and saying something that might be used against him elsewhere. He gets the benefit of Alex Jones' huge listening base without any of the risk. A conspiracy theorists might say the tift between them was scripted. Really during 2012 we had the odd case of some of the same folks who were attacking Alex Jones for "hurting Ron by association" were simultaneously slamming Alex Jones for not pushing moneybombs after it was clear that the campaign wasn't serious about winning. (And making a calculated effort not to attack Mitt Romney = not serious about winning. And insider Doug Wead confirmed that was a calculated decision.) In retrospect Alex Jones did the right thing. His fan base would have lost respect if he went along with the Romney endorsement. So he had nothing to gain from it and frankly neither did the liberty movement. His fan base/potential donor base, is still in tact and Rand will need that dearly to win. Sorry if that doesn't fit into your anti Alex Jones belief system, but it's the truth.

 

[jmdrake]

I seriously doubt that the vast majority of Republicans consider Alex Jones to be "mainstream".

The vast majority of Republicans have no opinion of Alex Jones one way or another. Many who had never heard of him were at least appreciative of his sticking it to Piers Morgan. I know. Some folks want to pretend that rant somehow hurt the gun movement. Quite the opposite is true. Alex Jones and Ted Nugent put PM in his place and only AJ gets attacked for it and typically it's by people who don't like him anyway. Further FrankRep has it right. Alex Jones being linked by Drudged and quoted often in the media these days makes him mainstream whether you feel he views are mainstream or not.

Who cares what Jones thought. I certainly do not.

Who cares what you think about what Jones thought? Seriously, some people care what he thinks, some don't. So what? The Romney endorsement was controversial and bothersome to a lot of people. So were some of Jesse Benton's antics. Rand has a delicate dance to do to win the nomination. So far that dance has included the Southern Avenger being thrown under the bus. Hopefully Jesse Benton will be thrown under the bus. Alex Jones did himself and Rand Paul a favor by taking himself out of the path of the bus. Was it intentional? I dunno. But his pitching Rand to his own supporters is a good thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you one of the people in 2011/2012 complaining that AJ didn't push moneybombs enough?

 

[jmdrake]

I don't think we're really going to get anywhere arguing over Alex Jones, but I will say that of course false flag operations and cronyism should not be ignored. But you also can't go around propagating unsubstantiated claims. When I (and a lot of voters, I presume) think of Alex Jones, I see these conspiracies he touts that require a multitude of unfounded assumptions compared to other generally accepted simpler explanations. No one is saying we should automatically trust what the government claims. But Jones is not the only independent party that evaluates those claims, and more often than not the vast consensus goes against Jones, a la moon landing and 9/11..... I understand the goal is liberty to some extent, and I listen to him quite often but I just can't get on board with an alarmist who claims practically everything under the sun has some secret agenda behind it. Even a noble purpose is no excuse for making stuff up

Hmmm..."new member" with only 5 posts in about a year. First post and 4 out of 5 posts in this thread. Okay.

Alex Jones, to my knowledge, has never said the moon landing was fake. He's allowed people on his show who said it was. And they make some pretty good arguments. As for 9/11, we now have two U.S. congressman, one republican and one democrat, that have come out and said that Saudi Arabian involvement in 9/11 was redacted from the official report. That's just more evidence that the official report is bunk. So questioning it isn't "making stuff up" whether you realize it or not. You might not agree with Alex Jones' conclusions, but the facts he draws from are usually quite solid.

 

[Crashland]

Hmmm..."new member" with only 5 posts in about a year. First post and 4 out of 5 posts in this thread. Okay.

I have lurked here for a while since the 2012 nomination but haven't participated in the forum. First post was not on this thread. But yes I am new so forgive me if I am being overly combative. I don't really want to make a big deal out of it so I think we will just have to agree to disagree. Apparently there are many of us on both sides of this issue so it's not a particularly unifying subject. My primary interest is Rand Paul becoming the next president.