Mallory&#39;s Camera

i mean, i keep offering to explain to people how the newsletters happened.

after all, i did meet one of america's most famous white supremacists at a conservative and libertarian gathering in turkey last summer.

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mallorys-camera.livejournal.com

Spill!!! :-)

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Ok - maybe if I explain it correctly i can copy and paste this to my other friends who are stuck on it.

Before 2008, no one paid any attention to libertarians. They were not Republicans, they rarely wanted anything to do with the Libertarian Party, and yet here they were, scattered through all walks of life. Obviously, since I am only 24, I have no idea how long this status quo existed. But i can tell you there was a massive change in 2008 where people began to learn what the word even meant, who Ron Paul was, and suddenly we had a place in national discourse. That's the political arena, and for the first time, libertarians have united behind one person and one image. I am truly amazed by it when ever i think about it...

But, before that point, libertarians were so few and so localized that they linked with paleo-conservatives, Reagan republicans, constitutional conservatives, anarcho-capitalists, Misesian economists, and many others. We tried to avoid social conservatives, because, after all - they are our polar opposites in a lot of ways. But anti-immigrationists became somewhat accepted because they were also very non-interventionist internationally which was a strong feeling in the group.

Basically, it was an intellectual discussion group. My brother has written for Lew Rockwell's site, he wrote an article about how anthropogenic global warming was unlikely. To some extent, the feeling among libertarians became, let's bring in all the freaks and give all the people a voice."

This also brought in a lot of international libertarians, which certainly leads to some quirks. In Turkey I attended a libertarian discussion group that was completely open to any taboo ideas, and I believe they had an exception for Holocaust denialism. There, we talked about the structure of the Federal Reserve and the ECB, we talked about an EU for the middle east, we talked about the risks of non-risks associated with china, and yes, a group of us watched the documentary on how aids science is so bad and Aids needs to be completely reassessed especially for how it is being dealt with in Africa. If Holocaust denialism had been on the menu, a (honest and intellectually switched on) person would have said "well, the science there is crap too." but did you know it is illegal in europe to engage in any academic or scientific inquiry into it? This guy is probably the reason why the topic became so popular with us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germar_Rudolf

If it's taboo, we're interested. Why? Because questioning the government is taboo, and that turned out to be a pretty good idea. Questioning the Federal Reserve is taboo, questioning our military operations used to be taboo, and still is in Washington. What is happening here with the newsletters is that people are taking discussion points and academic (as in, unrealistic) ideas and trying to convey them as political manifestos. Libertarians have been in the business of idea-testing for a long time.

We did it among ourselves and continue to do it, separate from the political arena. But read the politics of the true racists that have managed to work their way into the outskirts of our community, and you will realize they have nothing to do with political libertarianism. Within the intellectual community, conspiracy theorists are there, 9/11 truthers are there within our fringes as well. Libertarians pride themselves in their absolute dedication to asking fundamental questions. To exclude these people would be against our ethics.

American academia has become a mockery when it comes to ideas. No academic can question anything. The "global warming consensus" is a running joke these days. So what America has done is outsourced the ideas that academic cannot explore to libertarian organizations. Part of that allows constitutional conservatives and social conservatives to hover on the side-lines. Sometimes we give them the stage. It's just how it has worked for us, and it has nothing to do with political libertarianism.

This is the white supremacist, by the way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brimelow

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mallorys-camera.livejournal.com

Excellent analysis. Thanks for taking the time to write it out.

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to be honest, i read through these: http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/98883/ron-paul-incendiary-newsletters-exclusive and only found three that were actually offensive, two about gays and one about blacks. a lot of it is either 1) seeking out controversy or taboo topics, as i described above, or 2) a rather misguided attempt to support the minority in question.

for example, the famous one about the race riots ending because the welfare checks had to be picked up. this is really pointing out something very dark about welfare. we wouldn't have welfare, as a culture, if it wasn't for the need to "pacify" - anyone who can't see that is being dishonest with themselves. ideally we would have welfare out of compassion and generosity, but we don't.

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mallorys-camera.livejournal.com

Welfare is a type of insurance policy. As a culture, we're paying premiums. I've always seen it like that.

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i mean, that particular point is basically the crux of the controversy. oh, someone once told it how it is. libertarians are interested in people who tell it like it is.

the fact that trashing martin luther king made it onto that list is almost embarrassing. obviously, he was trashed pretty hard. but we do have a national holiday for him. so the idea is we need to counterbalance the mythology with some harsh truths.

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Charges of racism is a tactic used by the left to shut down their political opposition. George Stephenopolis brought up the newsletter issue again, at yesterday's New Hampshire debate. They hammer "racism", over and over, and regardless of the real facts, many voters will absorb the perception that Ron Paul is a racist wingnut.

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to be honest, because he never says anything hateful, the accusation rings hollow.

he doesn't sit around talking about gays, abortion doctors, and illegal immigrants the way the others do. it's hard to be convinced that someone is a racist when they do not exhibit hate.

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put another way, true libertarians like ron paul are actually extremely compassionate, not hateful. you can sense his compassion, it's almost tangible.

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You're listening to the candidate directly, but so many people let the media filter the message and shape their opinion. They don't watch the debate, but see a 30 second ABC news story about it. If voters were critical thinkers, they could never have elected Obama.

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ccjohn.livejournal.com

The problem with politics is they will dig up everything you've ever done or said in your entire life, and prove anyone you've ever known, who you're out of touch with, has a price.

I used to help write Tip O'Neill's constituent newsletter. It was propaganda. Politicians and others trying to earn a living by pimping themselves, wind up signing so much crap they've never seen, I'd be inclined to give Ron a pass on that one. To a libertarian there's no such thing as race or creed. Means the entire thing to me is (a) needing money 25+ years ago; (b) not checking how crummy your staff was. It's their job to protect The Dude from things like this because he can't know everything. Most staffs I've seen are loyal only to the power to advance careers.

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ccjohn.livejournal.com

Libertarianism is an artificially short list of principles afraid of the long list.

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nodressrehersal.livejournal.com

I rarely venture into public discussions about politics because it seems people are so, so polarized and it almost always gets ugly but, well, this seems like a delightfully civilized discussion...

Anyway. I've been quietly wondering to myself about Ron Paul based on some things I've read that I liked - and then I heard all the negative hoopla about him being a racist - so the discussion in the comments of this post have been very interesting and informative.

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millysdaughter.livejournal.com

I generally like what he says when I listen to him speak, but he does not have the charisma to excite the masses and get elected.

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Even he has admitted this, he'll have a certain amount of leverage at the Republican convention. The Republican leaders are walking on eggshells, because if Ron Paul runs as a third party candidate, he could draw enough support to sink the Republican chances against Obama.

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flaxendandelion.livejournal.com

"true racists"?

"nothing to do with political libertarianism"?

Since when is "true racism" (whatever that means) exclusive to a political ideology? I've met flaming liberals who are bigoted as hell. If you were to experience life in the shoes of a person of color, racism will become less of an abstract thing to discuss. There are racists of all ideologies, and Ron Paul is a racist.

Also...may want to get a more balanced view of what racism is and isn't than from a white supremacist.

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flaxendandelion.livejournal.com

"Charges of racism is a tactic used by the left to shut down their political opposition."

I love this chestnut, a logical fallacy that those on the right use to excuse right-wing politicians who play the race card to scare white voters into voting for them.

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"Logical fallacy" doesn't really fit in a discussion of political tactics, but it sure makes you seem "brainy"!

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flaxendandelion.livejournal.com

A very typical statement of someone of your political ideology, going for the ad hominem when you have nothing of meaning to say, and proving you have little capacity for either logic or brains.

Everything in politics follows one kind of logic or another, moron. If you want dada, take an art class.

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this is really pointing out something very dark about welfare. we wouldn't have welfare, as a culture, if it wasn't for the need to "pacify" - anyone who can't see that is being dishonest with themselves. ideally we would have welfare out of compassion and generosity, but we don't.

Agreed, but why not then "discuss" this as you just did? Why the need to couch the statements in terms which appeal to openly racist constituencies, unless you're trying to garner support from those areas?

I used to think Rron Ppaul was at least consistant in his opinions, even if I disagreed with most of them. But upon closer examination, he's really an opportunist of a very familiar stripe. I find it very telling, for example, that he never mentions agricultural subsidies when he talks about "shrinking government." A cynic would say that this is because agribusiness interests are among his biggest supporters.

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I've never been able to decide if Paul really thinks he has a chance of becoming president, or if he's fully cognizant of his role as "useful idiot" within the GOP. As it stands, his more toxic ideas about defunding public education, destroying social security, eliminating environmental protections, retaining the Bush tax cuts and further deregulating the financial industry(because that worked out so swell the last time) are given further legitimacy within the mainstream political discourse, while his more attractive (to me anyway) antiwar and anti-drug-laws stances will of course be ignored as usual.

Even his anti-drug-law position has always seemed suspect to me. If I understand him correctly, he's agin FEDERAL drugs laws. He doesn't give a crap whether STATES throw people in jail for smoking flowers, and since the vast majority of drug offenders are incarcerated at the state level, nothing much would change here under a Paul presidency.

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Yes that compassion comes through loud and clear here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9fk7NpgIU

Aside from the unacceptability of allowing ones own citizens to die by the tens of thousands a year due to lack of access to health care (something no other industrialized nation does)Paul is either being disengenious here, or he's lying. "Churches" did not "take care" of people in pre-medicare/medicaid America, in fact these programs were instituted in part because hospitals and doctors were constantly getting stiffed by indigent patients. Paul is talking about a world that never existed.

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Charges of racism is a tactic used by the left to shut down their political opposition."M

Wouldn't it be great if it actually worked this way? You could just holler "racism" and all these asshats would shut up?

Instead, if you dare insinuate that nattering on about "the blacks" being paid off with welfare checks might possibly be racist, you get accused of "playing the race card" and YOU get shut down.

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