Ron Paul: Racist?

The New Republic has written an article critical of Ron Paul, citing excerpts from a series of newsletters (mostly in the 1990's) bearing his name: Ron Paul's Freedom Report, Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report, and The Ron Paul Investment Letter. TNR has concerns about Ron Paul's position on these subjects: "Race," "Gays," "Survivalism and Militias," "Conspiracies," and "Middle East" (by which they really mean, "Is Ron Paul a 'Holocaust-denier?'").

Although as a voter I'll probably vote for Ron Paul if I have a chance, as a candidate I don't have any desire to be seen as a Ron Paul wanna-be. So I'd like to take a few posts to respond to the allegations in The New Republic. Not to defend Ron Paul, but myself, in case anybody associates my campaign with Dr. Paul's newsletters.

There seems to be a consensus that Ron Paul himself probably did not write those articles. The ghostwriter has not yet been identified. Thomas L. Knapp has speculated that Christian Reconstructionist Gary North was the author. I've known Gary North for about 30 years. Not closely, but he has published a couple dozen of my articles. I was a "Chalcedon Scholar" at the think-tank formed by his father-in-law. I asked him for the "scoop" on his involvement with Ron Paul's newsletters. He told me this morning,

I worked for Ron Paul from June, 1976 to January 2, 1977, when his term expired. My salary was paid by the U. S. Congress. That was my last connection to him financially.

Gary North is a hard-core Christian Theocrat, and is busy churning out the blueprints for America (and the world) as a Christian Theocracy. You can see his output for the 1990's on this page at his freebooks.com website. In addition, he was spending way too much time in the 1990's listening to the "experts" on the y2k problem. And he spends a great deal of time formulating investment advice and Specific Answers to current economic issues in his $95/yr investment newsletter, Gary North's Remnant Review.

So why would anyone suspect that Gary North was also doing pro bono work for Ron Paul's investment newsletter?

Perhaps the fact that his father-in-law, R.J. Rushdoony has (and other "Christian Reconstructionists" have) written some racist-sounding lines, and has been accused of being a "holocaust denier" and a "racist." More. The "hard right" or Theocratic right is often accused of racism, and the hard right often responds in ways that seem to confirm the accusation.

Let's face it: blacks are in bad shape. They are disproportionately in jail or on probation, on drugs, illiterate, and diseased. I thought about linking each of those words to nifty webpages documenting the accusation, but we all know these demograhpics are true.

And when someone (usually a "conservative") points these sad facts out, and is then accused (usually by a "liberal") of being a "racist," the conservative often digs in his heels, solidifies his position, and comes out looking even more like a racist. I've seen people who are really not racist at heart sound like racists when arguing with Democrats, when what they're really arguing against is Democratic social policies. There can be no doubt that the New Republic and similar articles are dodging the social policy debate by slinging "racist!" and other scare words.

My definition of "racism" is the belief that sad demographic realities are inherent in all members of the race. A connection, perhaps, with the quantity of melanin in their skin. Who knows what genuine racists believe causes these things; I don't. I really doubt that Ron Paul or Rushdoony believe that blacks -- because of something inherent in their genetic make up -- will always be criminals or government welfare dependants rather than economists or guest-hosts for Rush Limbaugh.

Gary North has taken Rushdoony to task for some of the awkward things he has said about race: Rushdoony on "Hybridization." He has also confronted the belief often stated at LewRockwell.com that slavery was not the central issue in the Civil War (Appendix D in his commentary on First Timothy).

As I read the excerpts from Ron Paul's newsletters, I don't see much of anything that is not factually or demographically accurate. I can't vouch for the inner motivations of the ghostwriter, but "statistics don't lie."

In line with my basic campaign strategy, "Bad Publicity is Better than No Publicity At All," I'll go on record saying that blacks were better off on plantations than they are now. I like to look at it this way: when blacks were slaves to Christian slavemasters, they wrote music we now call "Negro Spirituals." Now that blacks are enslaved by the secular federal government instead of people like Philemon , and have been relocated from Southern plantations to Northern "projects," they write music called "gangsta rap." Are blacks better off now that they've been "freed?" Listen to the music.

I don't say this because I support slavery (I don't, and Gary North has also explained why from a Christian Reconstructionist perspective) or because I think any race is genetically inferior to any other. I say this because some political theories are genetically inferior. The political strategy of Democrats condemns blacks to perpetual slavery; slavery to sin and slavery to the feds. The "Saints" of the Democrat pantheon have not led blacks to the promised land.

My heartfelt desire would be for blacks to be free: free from federal education, free from the initiation of force, and free from myths that legitimize their own initiation of force or the initiation of force "on their behalf" by Democrats and other socialists. In short, I want to see all blacks become "classical liberals" and Christocrats.

Next: Ron Paul and "Gays"