Ron Paul Is Crazy. Admit It.

sfweekly.com ^ | 12/26/2011 | Peter Jamison

[TBBT]

Congressman Ron Paul grabbed the lion's share of headlines among GOP presidential candidates last week, and not just because he is the latest improbable figure to challenge the inevitable nomination of Mitt Romney.

The conservative Weekly Standard ran a rehash by writer James Kirchik of an article he wrote for the New Republic in 2008 that collates, to deadly effect, the astoundingly bizarre, racist, and anti-Semitic comments Paul broadcast in a series of newsletters he published for two decades. Paul implausibly claims the newsletters (written in the first person and bearing his name) were produced by others, but it really doesn't matter. The time has come, as Kirchik helpfully reminds us, to recognize Paul for what he is.

He is not -- as some disillusioned moderates and media pundits like to believe -- a refreshing, small-government Republican with a healthy distaste for Wall Street and foreign adventurism. He is a clinically paranoid (and likely bigoted) conspiracy theorist. And you don't even have to cite his newsletters to prove it.

I paid some attention to Paul's 2008 campaign, because at the time I was assigned by my newspaper to cover two of his biggest fans: Ed and Elaine Brown, a pair of New Hampshire tax cheats who engaged in a months-long standoff with the U.S. Marshals Service over the couple's refusal to pay federal income taxes. The Browns believed they lived on a sovereign enclave atop a hill in rural Plainfield, N.H., stockpiled scary weapons, and threatened violence against any federal agents who came on their property.

You would think a presidential aspirant would want to distance himself from such wackos. Not Paul, who declared in a videotaped interview that the Browns were "heroes":

[EternalVigilance]

Not even when hell freezes over. You own him. He’s one of your “front-runners” for goodness sake.

[Designer]

"Ron Paul is the only guy who cannot beat BO."

Ha-ha! In my opinion, Ron Paul is the only Republican who could beat Obama.

Think about it; Ron Paul is the anti-Obama, whereas the RINOS are merely some kind of "liberal lite". The lack of contrast between the dem/communist and any old RINO will assure the dem victory.

What we need to run against Obama and the dems is a conservative, and Ron Paul is the only one.

[EternalVigilance]

What we need to run against Obama and the dems is a conservative, and Ron Paul is the only one.

Well, other than the fact that he isn't a conservative.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Who do we get to smear next!

I can't wait!

You don't really want to actually focus on boring stuff, do you?

Admit it. This is much easier.

[algernonpj]

Saul Alinsky.

Not just for commies anymore.

ROFL Thanks, needed the laugh!

[baddog 219]

[Doc Savage]

First they came for Palin and I simply stood by waiting for others to defend her. Then they came for Cain. Then they came for Perry. Then they came for Newt. Then they came for Paul. But they NEVER came Mitt. Of course, they WILL come for Mitt. But not for a while yet. They always come for us and we do nothing. We just roll over and take it. We must like be beaten into dust.

[central_va]

He does look natural in an Aluminum helmet.

[algernonpj]

I am trying to go to each “example” of Paul’s “looniness” to understand them in context.

In this case, you have misquoted and mischaracterized what he said in the interview. He gave a lengthy and reasoned explanations and (paraphrasing) said that it was heroic to stand up against unjust laws. ...

:Like you, I have found, any time I have been able to track down the entire newletter referenced in a Ron Paul smear, the smear has been a dissembling partial truth.

Like him or not Paul, brings to the campaign serious questions that warrant discussion, questions about big government, how US taxpayer money is spent, foreign policy, the role of the Fed...

While my research thus far leads me to believe that Ron Paul is naive regarding the most basic motivation of Jihadis, consider the following:

GW kept reminding us that 'Islam is a religion of 'peace'. Never mentioned that Islam is a total political system and peace is achieved when there is a world wide caliphate under Sharia.

Ultimately Paul's foreign policy would be better for both Israel and Christianity.

While Israel would get no foreign aid, neither would its enemies:
2011 Interview

Newsmax: What should our relationship be with Israel?
Ron Paul: We should be their friend and their trading partner. They are a democracy and we share many values with them. But we should not be their master. We should not dictate where their borders will be nor should we have veto power over their foreign policy.
... Stop and consider America’s policy: We give $3 billion a year to Israel in loans; and we give $12 billion or more in assistance to Israel’s self-declared enemies. Some of these are countries that say they will drive Israel into the sea.
... We should share intelligence for mutually agreed-upon goals. We should honor our pledge to refuse any arms sales that would undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.

As a result of nation building, promoting 'democracy' in the middle east, and PC immigration:

Iraq's Christians Near Extinction

Per Pamela Geller "US policy regarding the refugee resettlement program would shock most Americans if they only knew. The UN picks who becomes US refugees. Christians are being refused refugee status and face persecution and many times certain death for their religious beliefs under the sharia, while whole Muslim communities are entering the US by the tens of thousands per month despite the fact that they face no religious persecution"

Paul would stop funding the UN and pull us out of all treaties that impinge upon our sovereignty. His proposed budget would shut down entire federal bureaucracies while preserving military pensions. Could shutting don the tax payer funded trough be what has the political elite so p*ssed and resorting to smear tactics?

[driftdiver]

The current GOP boneheads WANT mittens.

[algernonpj]

The current GOP boneheads WANT mittens.

How could anyone be so mean as to deny Myth his turn???

[hosepipe]

Ron Paul is no crazier than ANY DEMOCRAT..
and a boatload of RINOs...

[driftdiver]

Guess I’m heartless.

[ejonesie22]

Who are we smearing?

Paul is a loon and he and his sycophants do it to themselves!

If they were all lies you'd have a point but in the nut jobs case you don't...

LOL....

[SaxxonWoods]

It’s Ron Paul’s supporters who are crazy. They want the rest of us to believe that a man who says he can’t supervise his own newsletter staff can somehow supervise a country.

They also want us to support a man who idea of foreign policy is to withdraw into a shell in a world poulated with reigious fanatics increasingly armed with weapons of mass destruction and petrodollars.

Obama has done better at chasing bad guys than Ron Paul would, and that’s saying something.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I'm not Paultard.

I simply see you as a useful idiot of state-controlled media.

Can you name a single state-controlled media smear campaign against a non-Democrat candidate that you have not hopped on board for this election cycle?

[ejonesie22]

Everything about Cain...

Not buying the extremes on Newt...

Or Perry or Bachman

I support our legitimate sane Conservative candidates.

That leaves out Ron and Mittens...

Next oh wise one...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

You've even more of a useful idiot, because you're arrogant and self-satisfied.

There is no one as smart as you, is there?

[Popman]

——Ron Paul has a huge following.——

Define Hugh....? In the scale of all republicans or independent.....rather small actual die hard followers

Loud and obnoxious bordering on cult like-——yes

[ejonesie22]

I called you on your crap comments.

Who's the idiot?

If you have some facts get back with me, otherwise...

Get over it, you're acting like a Paulitard...