Ron Paul is beginning to frighten me.
To be totally accurate, it isn’t just Dr. Paul that frightens me, but
his followers as well. The relationship between Ron Paul and his
followers seems to be almost unique in modern American politics. Dr.
Paul’s followers, often referred to as “Paulestinians” by talk show host
Michael Medved (listen to Medved on Atlanta’s
AM-920 WGKA),
are fiercely loyal to their candidate, which explains why Paul often
wins straw polls. These contests are not normal elections, but consist
of activists who often have to pay or go out of their way to take part.
Paul’s supporters, while small in number, are fully dedicated to Paul’s
success.
Ron Paul is in the Republican Party, but is not of it. He was originally
sent to Congress as a Republican,
but later left the party to run for president as a Libertarian in
1988. He was re-elected to Congress as a Republican in 1996 and has run
for president twice, both times as a Republican, since then. When he
failed to win the Republican nomination in 2008, Paul did not support
John McCain. Instead, he
endorsed Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate.
Most of his supporters do not seem to consider themselves Republicans
either. In fact, the majority of Ron Paul supporters that I have come
in contact with see both major political parties as two sides of the
same coin. Recently, a Ron Paul supporter told me that it was her
opinion that Obama was “Bush’s third term.” This is not the view of a
majority of the Americans regardless of their party affiliation.
Many of the other
views of Paul
and his disciples are not shared by other Americans. Paul criticized
President Obama for ordering the raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout and
his foreign policy platform smacks of isolationism. He has favored
extending friendship to Iran, rather than threatening sanctions or
attacks to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
Paul claims to be for “nonintervention” rather than isolationism. In a speech posted on
Youtube,
Paul explains that this means he is for trade and talk between
countries, rather than for sealing the country off from other nations.
He doesn’t explain how he would protect Americans abroad (or at home for
that matter) without intervening militarily against foreign threats
from people who have no such compunctions about using military force
against Americans.
Many Ron Paul supporters also seem to be more at home with members of
the Occupy Wall Street movement than with the Tea Party. When
I visited Occupy Atlanta
last October, more occupiers professed an admiration for Ron Paul than
any other presidential candidate, including Barack Obama. Paul
supporters are often quick to parrot liberal criticism of the Tea Party
and the Koch brothers, even though Paul is widely considered to be one
of the inspirations of the Tea Party movement.
Paul’s most vocal supporters seem willing and even eager to believe
the most outlandish conspiracy theories. Ron Paul supporters have
argued with me that
Israelis are not really Jewish,
that FEMA is secretly building concentration camps around the country,
and that American soldiers are required to take an oath to kill their
own families if ordered to do so. Many are believers in the
9/11 truther and
birther
movements as well. These are only a few of the many paranoid fantasies
that Ron Paul supporters have supported in dialogues with me. The only
requirement seems to be that the conspiracy must be anti-American and
anti-Israeli.
Even Paul himself has seemed to endorse conspiracy theories as well. He says at a gathering recorded and posted on
Youtube that the government investigation of the attacks was “a cover-up, basically.” As late as 2007, Paul told
liveleak.com
that he believed that there was a cover-up of 9/11, even though he
denied being a truther. In an article from his newsletter posted on
ConservativeNetwork.com, Paul shared “research” that speculated that the U.S. government created the AIDS virus.
Paul also has a history of
racist statements in his newsletters. I could find no statement where Paul has renounced the racist statements in his newsletters or the
anti-Semitic comments
of his supporters that are common on websites dedicated to Paul. While
Paul cannot be held responsible for the behavior of his supporters,
there is evidence that
he authored or
had direct knowledge of the contents of his newsletters. When asked to condemn the behavior of his supporters by “
American Spectator” blogger Jeffrey Lord,
he failed to do so. He is, however, on record as saying that “the
philosophy of white supremacy is wrong and immoral” in an interview
posted on
Youtube.
Paul and his supporters both seem to agree that he is the only
candidate who is worthy successor to the Founding Fathers as an upholder
of the Constitution, yet they both misunderstand American history. For
instance, Paul criticizes the Federal Reserve as unconstitutional, but
fails to note that Congress established a central bank, the
Bank of the United States, in 1791. This was only three years after the Constitution was ratified.
Likewise, Paul criticizes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as
unconstitutional. He fails to note, however, that Article I Section 8
of the Constitution gives Congress the power to “punish Piracies and
Felonies committed on the high Seas,
and Offenses against the Law of Nations,” such as genocides and crimes against humanity. Military interventions are not new. According to “
the Savage Wars of Peace,”
U.S. Marines landed abroad 180 times between 1800 and 1934, with one of
the first actions, the war against the Barbary pirates, occurring
during Thomas Jefferson’s administration in 1801.
As disturbing as their political beliefs is the ardor with which
Paul’s disciples support their man. Their fervor approaches the point
of becoming a
cult of personality.
They seem to see him as a Messiah-figure. Many unabashedly pronounce
their belief that Ron Paul is the only hope for the country and the
world. The only thing that comes close in recent U.S. history is the
leftist adoration of Barack Obama prior to the 2008 election.
When others fail to see the world as the Paulestinians do, they are
denounced as “sheeple,” unthinking people who follow the crowd and do
what they are told. When presented with evidence contrary to their
beliefs, they cite a conspiracy to cover up the “truth” (even though
Paul hasn’t been silenced over his long career and the conspiracy sites
are still up). When Ron Paul suffers an electoral defeat, it is because
he was ignored by the media, not because his ideas only appeal to a
small, vocal minority. (In 2008, he won
less than three percent of the Republican primary votes in Georgia and less than two percent of delegates nationally.)
Admittedly, there are some casual supporters of Paul. These are
people who may have heard him in the debates and like his fiscal
policies, without knowing the details of the man, his platform and his
disciples. Their existence is illustrated by Paul’s recent rise in the
polls as Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich faltered. These people have not
yet been swept up into the world of paranoid fantasies that the
Paulestinians inhabit. Some will. Others will take a closer look at
the candidate and reject him as they have rejected other Republicans
this primary season.
Nevertheless, if, by some miracle, Ron Paul became the Republican
candidate in 2012, I would support him. In spite of the good doctor’s
foreign policy failings and questionable attitudes about race, his
economic policies would make him a better president than Barack Obama…
but just barely.
