http://wannabechomsky.tumblr.com/post/16324922597/why-ron-paul-is-not-an-ally-to-minorities
1/28/2012 7:29 AM EST
It is crystal clear that those newsletters reflected Ron Paul's views then, and probably reflect them now as well.
Ron Paul (and his considerably more despicable son Rand) are not "libertarians" in the old sense of that word. They are not proteges of great men like William O. Douglas and Hugo Black, who understood that taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society and that government had many good purposes among which was the regulation of commerce and industry.>
This modern day, capital "L" Libertarianism arose in part from the civil rights movement, and the cry of "states' rights" as a euphemism for racial bigotry, and the notion that people had an individual right to discriminate however their prejudices dictated. The other part is the anti-tax crusade conducted by Republicans since the late '70s but pioneered by the Libertarian Party.
Paul advocates some limited aspects of genuinely libertarian thought -- avoidance of foreign military adventures, an end to the ill-begotten "War on Drugs," and an opposition to the truly oppressive degree of government surveillance that is now so pervasive in our society. These stances are laudable, but his economic ideas are truly crackpot and truly dangerous.
There is no liberty under the impoverishment his economic policies would foist on America. They are ignorant and childish, and they indicate a very essential misunderstanding of the impact on the lives of real Americans. These were lessons learned in the late '20s and early '30s that Ron Paul would have us forget and deny, and particularly in conjunction of the other lessons from that era that we have so hastily abandoned under "supply side economics," the result would be an unmitigated disaster of unprecedented scope.
Ron Paul (and his considerably more despicable son Rand) are not "libertarians" in the old sense of that word. They are not proteges of great men like William O. Douglas and Hugo Black, who understood that taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society and that government had many good purposes among which was the regulation of commerce and industry.
This modern day, capital "L" Libertarianism arose in part from the civil rights movement, and the cry of "states' rights" as a euphemism for racial bigotry, and the notion that people had an individual right to discriminate however their prejudices dictated. The other part is the anti-tax crusade conducted by Republicans since the late '70s but pioneered by the Libertarian Party.
Paul advocates some limited aspects of genuinely libertarian thought -- avoidance of foreign military adventures, an end to the ill-begotten "War on Drugs," and an opposition to the truly oppressive degree of government surveillance that is now so pervasive in our society. These stances are laudable, but his economic ideas are truly crackpot and truly dangerous.
There is no liberty under the impoverishment his economic policies would foist on America. They are ignorant and childish, and they indicate a very essential misunderstanding of the impact on the lives of real Americans. These were lessons learned in the late '20s and early '30s that Ron Paul would have us forget and deny, and particularly in conjunction of the other lessons from that era that we have so hastily abandoned under "supply side economics," the result would be an unmitigated disaster of unprecedented scope.
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