House of Eratosthenes

Ace’s frustration, one senses, is not so much with the collection issues themselves, but with the effort to deflect it. He starts out with all his cool, and then in what has become his tradition, loses it a few paragraphs down. Wonderfully.

As I wrote previously, there’s a big difference between a real libertarian who joins the movement due to a belief in the power of freedom and someone using libertarianism as a flag of convenience to add respectability to retrograde and repugnant views. Ron Paul’s positions don’t indicate that he’s terribly interested in freedom so much as he’s interested in keeping the Jews from stealing his gold.

His goldbuggery? He’s trying to keep “international bankers” (wink, wink) from “manipulating” currencies to enrich themselves at the expense of normal, patriotic people. Normal, patriotic people who spin no dreidls and do not control the media. Savvy?

His foreign policy? He just wants to keep “the Jewish lobby” — “the most powerful lobby in America,” he says — from getting the US to fight more wars on behalf of Israel.

Oh, and he wants to stop fighting in the Middle East and stop supporting foreign countries. Let me just postulate, based on Ron Paul’s long record on such issues, that he’s chiefly interested in ceasing animosity with Israel’s enemies and most passionate about ending support of Israel. The other countries are just added for consistency. We can see what’s animating this little anti-semitic cunt.

Wait, it gets much, much better…

The idea that Ron Paul published this screedy, LaRouchian crap for twenty years and never once inquired into precisely what contents may lie therein is so transparently absurd I’m literally angry to read the supposed smarty-pants Poindexters at Reason attempting to spin this as plausible.

This was Ron Paul’s periodic manifesto to his like-minded political brethren.

This was a newsletter that cost money to produce and disseminate, particularly if we are to believe that Lew Rockwell spent so much of his free time writing anti-semitic and racist zingers under the pen name “Ron Paul.”

This most likely was the source of some amount of income for Ron Paul, as he claims he had some 100,000 subscribers at one point.

This was Ron Paul’s attempt to keep in the mind of possible future voters, and donors (Ron Paul loves him some donors!), should he return to Congress (as he ultimately did).

And you are trying to sell me on the idea that Ron Paul had no idea what published in this piece of shit rag, ever?

With all fairness to Congressman Paul, I’m among the undecideds about whether he’s Neo-Nazi down to the marrow of his bones. I don’t think so. I think he started out as a capital-L Libertarian…like me…you know, gummint shouldn’t be doing nuthin’ the Great Charter does not specifically empower the gummint to do. Maybe he tempered that flow of sanity with a kooky isolationist streak, which is where I parted company with him.

And then somewhere along the line, in some sequence of events leading up to this whole run-fer-Prez business, he came to realize an ugly truth. He realized that antisemitists, here as well as overseas, are exceptionally well-funded. And they just can’t get enough of him. It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that whole “stop sending money to Israel” thing was the genesis of this unholy alliance.

Applause If we simply sideline the whole deliberation about the good Congressman’s intentions — and this seems, to me, only fair — we’re left wondering about the consequences, which is his problem with unsavory bedfellows. And at that point, what we’re pondering is the obvious. At that point, we’ve yanked the discussion out of the realm in which there can be reasonable disagreement.

He’s got a problem.

He’s had it for awhile.

And I have not seen him do jack-shit about it.

This take-down was overdue. And very well done, Ace.

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- Webloggin - Blog Archive » Ace Hits the Ron Paul Nail on the Head | 01/11/2008 @ 12:21
Out of curiosity, what’s the problem with having the position that we should be uninvolved in the affairs or interests of other political entities outside the US?

Ah. I seem to have answered my own question. The Fed exists in part to broker group deals between the citizenry and other national governments, presumably for the purpose of trade or safety when traveling abroad. Should the Feds intercede as an interested third party, say between Saudi Arabia and Israel? The above suggests so, if our citizens have interests in S.A. or Israel.

I wouldn’t say he’s done nothing about the “strange bedfellows” problem. He’s stated in various interviews regarding the issue that it’s irrelevant where the money came from, because it’s all about his message. I can’t say he’s in the “bought and paid for” class of politician; his voting record bears this out. Additionally, the money donated is prevented from furthering the message of aforementioned unsavory character. Besides, how many unsavory individuals contribute to the Democrats? Plenty, we just don’t hear about them, because their position is not in direct conflict with the media’s goals.

All this said, the most “isolationist” of his policies is to withdraw all US troops from overseas, and spend the money here lowering or eliminating tax burdens. I’m personally tired of having my money forcibly taken from me and given to foreign powers, with whom I may or may not agree. It seems wrong, somehow, that I should help to prop up various and swarthy governments so that General Electric can make a buck.
- dcshiderly | 01/11/2008 @ 15:34
I’m personally tired of having my money forcibly taken from me and given to foreign powers, with whom I may or may not agree. It seems wrong, somehow, that I should help to prop up various and swarthy governments so that General Electric can make a buck.

Okay, well that’s a reasonable point since it’s certainly a debate I think we should be having. Mere visibility doth not a debate make, so even though a lot of people are complaining about this, I don’t think we’re giving the complexity of the issue the treatment it deserves, nor am I unqualifiedly supportive of all these things we’re doing overseas.

My beef with Congressman Paul here is with his phony argument. It seems to me he’s been using the word “constitutional” as an all-purpose cudgel, kind of a bully stick for anything that isn’t done the way he personally would like to do it. To the extent that some of his objections and ideas might actually be sound, I’m of the opinion that he as a sitting congressman has a lot of ways to get his message across beyond what he’s been doing. I see this as (in prior years) voting nay, and offering an occasional speech on the House floor about why everybody should be voting the way he does; and (now) running for President, trotting out the occasional sound bite about this-or-that being unconstitutional.

He could have simply done what most congressmen do when they don’t like something — take the message, WITH the supporting argument, to The People. Get us ticked off about it. Yes there’s some inertia involved in that, but he’s been serving for a very long time. And that way, people like you would be able to have their say. We’d vote on it in a democratic process within a constitutional republic, which seems to me to be much more in keeping with the principles of our nation than some guy talking about the “constitution” and then a bunch of his Internet supporters, most of whom have never cracked open that document in their entire young lives, supporting him with such reasoned and logical arguments as “YEEEAARRRRGGGHH!!!”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Ron Paul uses the phrase “doesn’t seem to be authorized by the Constitution” the way Jesse Jackson uses the phrase “smacks of racism.” It’s meaningless. It’s just “I don’t like it” with garnish sprinkled on top.

Also, until a better argument is forthcoming from him about our relations with other countries, it’s kind of off-topic because it’s not exactly self-explanatory how any kind of international arrangement, financial or otherwise, can be unconstitutional. Article II, Section 2 invests in the President the power to make treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate. There is no limitation mentioned on this power, either there or anywhere else of which I’m aware, other than the restrictions that are enumerated in the Constitution generally. So in my book, his dislikes of our dealings with other countries, are personal dislikes of his and some of his constituents (or sympathizers, since he’s running for Prez), and should be treated as that and nothing more — not objections over constitutionality.

And that goes for his objections over the invasion of Iraq, too. Defending the country, even pre-emptively, most decidedly is constitutional. If that is not the case, then the Constitution really is a suicide pact after all, and we don’t deserve to exist.

I wouldn’t say he’s done nothing about the “strange bedfellows” problem. He’s stated in various interviews regarding the issue that it’s irrelevant where the money came from, because it’s all about his message.

And that’s as good as nothing. It’s just a simple instruction to anyone listening, that they should pay attention to what he wants them to pay attention to, and not bother him with questions he doesn’t want to be getting. You know, that’s the very definition of weak leadership there. It’s the methodology of someone who’s unaccustomed to a genuine exchange of ideas.

Regarding hatred of Jewish people as a modern issue: As a product of public schools who was brought up as a protestant (the name “Freeberg” suggests otherwise, I know), I really don’t have a dog in this hunt personally. I haven’t even known that many people of the Jewish faith. But I have come to absolutely despise antisemites; I think they’re subhuman scum. And most of the reason for that is, when I read about their complaints — beyond the headlines, where they claim to have been “cheated” out of something, and get into the text & substance — they almost always have to do with simple success. In other words, I see antisemitism as based on jealousy. I see it as something as simple as — Jewish people have a tendency to invest in their childrens’ education, therefore those children have a tendency to get better jobs and more solid careers…they tend to end up owning things…and some people can’t handle it. Going back to biblical times, that seems to be the core of the complaint: My kid can’t do trigonometry or name the first five American Presidents, well then nobody else’s kid oughtta know how to do it either.

And that just offends me to the marrow of my bones.

So people who hate Jews just because they’re Jews, I think, are themselves slime and vermin. I’d rank them BENEATH racists, because racists are separatists, occasionally wishing destruction instead of mere separation on the targets of their hatred — but antisemites want to diminish everybody else as well. They say, I’m mediocre, I don’t save and I don’t invest, my kids are dumbasses, and I’m not happy unless everybody else is brought down to my level.

So I expect a candidate for President to do a whole lot more than tell people not to be worried about it. I expect a refund of all the money, an apology for having taken it in the first place, and…well, I’m not sure what. But for him to simply brush these concerns off like that, why, that’s just completely inadequate. It’d almost be better to really do nothing.

Thing I Know #112. Strong leadership is a dialog: That which is led, states the problem, the leader provides the solution. It’s a weak brand of leadership that addresses a problem by directing people to ignore the problem.
- mkfreeberg | 01/11/2008 @ 17:50

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Friday, January 11th, 2008