I’m posting this here because I think there’s a fairly large cross-over between Technoccultists and Ron Paul supporters, and because I’d really like to get the bottom of this. Paul’s not going to get to get a fair shake in the mainstream media or the progressive media, and the libertarian media (such that it is) seems a bit quiet on the issue of Ron Paul’s alleged racism. Though I admittedly skew to the left for the most part, I have a few libertarian tendencies as well so I feel like maybe I can give him a fair shake. For your inspection:
Ron Paul, In His Own Words.
Ron Paul: The Radical Right’s Man in Washington.
The defenses of Paul I’ve seen so far are:
1. Deny that the newsletters even exist and claim that the Daily Kos poster who posted this is “obviously a neocon Guiliani supporter who has been building up a record on this site in an attempt to give you some sort of street cred to run bullcrap like this diary throughout the Republican primary.” (From “libertynow”‘s comments on the Kos diaries).
2. Take the Paul’s defense that he didn’t write the newsletters at face value.
The former I find fairly absurd, and the latter just doesn’t quite work for me. And while it’s true that you can’t choose your supporters, one has to look at why the racist right tends to support Ron Paul. Even before I read about these newsletters, I was worried by Paul’s immigration positions and asserted that he was deliberately playing to the racist right. But I’m quite open to being proved wrong.