Or, at least, Ron Paul's peeps were mean to Bob Barr's peeps, when all Barr ever wanted to do was have Dr. No on his ticket as VP. Robert Kraus, acting Executive Director of the Libertarian Party, has had Andrew Davis post a long missive excoriating the Ron Paul folks for treating the Barr campaign poorly : I have been hearing a lot from many LP Members about concerns over Bob Barr not attending Ron Paul's press conference. However, before you form an opinion, perhaps you may want to consider the facts and not rely on blogs for your news. Of course, Kraus is posting this (get ready for it) . . . on a blog. Kraus then proceeds on his litany of abuses suffered at the hands of the Ron Paul movement, which basically boils down [read it yourself] to: Wah. Wah. Mean old Dr. Paul wouldn't accept the Libertarian nomination. Wah. Wah. Mean old Dr. Paul wouldn't endorse us. Wah. Wah. Mean old Dr. Paul only wants to promote his book. This is then followed by a very int...

Tyler and Shirley are both Ron Paul advocates. Waldo isn't. And frankly, I couldn't resist this one, because Waldo in full rant is the reason you should read him every day: Dr. Ron's Paulines are now planning a three-day extravaganza outside the gates of the Republican Convention. Good Republican that he is, Dr. "I hire all my kids but don't give my fundraiser health insurance" Ron will show up for a book signing, at which he will divest the suckers of their money in between their sessions on kum-bah-yaing, organizing for taking over the party by 2040, Star Trek, building solar-powered girl sex robots, and debating the merits of the 100% Ron Paul community in East Bumfuck Gulch, TX now or the Ebay founder's cities on spikes in the ocean later with each resident getting 350 square feet of independence apiece. It's sad, really. All those people who don't realize that the airy way Paul say he has no idea what people are doing in his behalf can be int...

This is from I Like My Fic Like I Like My Bunnies , and for me at least it puts the whole issue of Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and the question of gay rights in the Libertarian movement in a different perspective. Fair warning: this is going to piss off a lot of Libertarians: I'm a campaign volunteer for a Senate candidate here in Michigan, who is a Libertarian named Scotty Boman. Naturally (because I wouldn't be working with him otherwise), he is in support of equal rights for the GLBT community. Now I'm more of a liberal on this issue than most Libertarians, but I think that the Libertarian path to equality is the most effective. It's a divisive issue, and many conservatives feel that liberals advocate *special* rights for homosexuals. By maintaining a hard-line constitutional position on this issue, I think we can actually achieve progress. It's a stance that can appease both conservatives and liberals, which is really the only way to get anything done in this country...

My recent post on Ron Paul v Bob Barr has attracted (as of this writing) 16 comments, which is probably a record of some sort for Delaware Libertarian. This is one of those blogs, according to Google Analytics, that a lot of people read each day, but less than 1% of them every leave comments. This is quite different from a blog like Delawareliberal, where the thread UPDATED III: 43% of Delaware Super Delegates Pledged To Clinton is now up to 287 comments. This is unusual even for DeLib, but posts with 100 or more comments are not. So I began, just for the hell of it, to examine my previous postings to determine just exactly what draws people to this blog, and what causes people to comment. I learned that posts including in the title any of the following--"Ron Paul," "Michelle Obama," the "Tata Nano," or "circumcision"--will draw an unusually high readership and more comments than usual. I think this is because people search those terms fairly ...

....choose to support in the November election can be summed up succinctly this way. Through his work, Ron Paul energized a group of young Americans to the Libertarian ideas that make up the foundation of our national heritage. So that at some point, many of these ideas will be incorporated into the national debate. I admit, I was attracted to Ron Paul's message of economics and individual liberty, because I am a democratic libertarian, and as an American historian, I immediately recognized the platform as the same as Thomas Jefferson's- the founder of both the republican and democratic party. The government under Jefferson was arguably the best America has ever had. His campaign in and of itself, was a shot heard around the world in loud and clear terms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRTDynbHVYQ Even conservative icon Cal Thomas remarked that, "WHERE ARE WE AFTER THE MICHIGAN PRIMARY AND JUST BEFORE SOUTH CAROLINA THIS WEEKEND? MITT ROMNEY WON IN MICHIGAN, PARTLY BECAUSE...

That's a question that Jim Fryar, the Real World Libertarian , has been contemplating that question for some time. Contrary to the loudly voiced opinions of many Paul supporters (and many Libertarians) calling for Dr. No to run either as an independent or as a Libertarian, Jim makes a persuasive case that Paul supporters should now support Senator John McCain . Definitely worth reading. I'm not sure if I agree with his choice of arguments, but maybe I'm not the best person to judge, since I wasn't a strong Ron Paul supporter in the first place.

Here are my naked, raw economic debates as filled with vulgarity as they are with optimistic pan Americanism for the future: http://www.delawareliberal.net/2008/02/29/big-hit-to-economy-from-credit-crunch-study-says/#comments They are debates both with liberals and conservatives and many of the arguments come from my teachers like Steve Forbes, and other economists and financiers. Most importantly it shows an intellectual aggression that is unusual for me, but which was provoked by the current economic crisis, so many people's misunderstanding of its complexity and my understanding of its drivers. I almost regret studying John Nash, Buffett and with Forbes. Who are all in agreement that the Greenspan, Bernake crowd cannot create lasting prosperity for our nation or a pan-American group of nations. Ron Paul's idealism features in the discussion, but the important thing to take away is that Pan-Americanism does not have to be a violent event, it is a natural progression and we ...

Strangely enough, the three topics upon which I have consistently received the most comment and most views have been circumcision (boy, I'll never do that again), the Tata Nano, and Ron Paul. I probably shouldn't be surprised on a Libertarian blog that Ron Paul draws a lot of attention. (Today I got my solicitation from the Libertarian Party to send money to help Ron Paul try for the Libertarian nomination; this both annoys and amuses me. After all, the party is supposedly in the midst of its bizarre Liberty Decides competition that amounts to little more than a popularity auction, and now it starts soliciting money to have Ron Paul intervene. What gives?) I haven't endorsed Paul, and I've been significantly less positive about his candidacy than others in Delaware, partly because I've known about the newsletter issue, and partly because I don't agree with his views on gay rights. But I think he has been a phenomenal force for bringing out Libertarians and t...

The foundational idea behind post-modernism is that there really are no objective facts , but a complex web of competing narratives , each of which has equal intellectual legitimacy. Huh? Think of it like this. Suppose you are studying the works of William Shakespeare, and you have the following six sources: A memoir by an actor contemporary to Shakespeare; A website on Romeo and Juliet put together by a sixth-grade class in central Indiana; A scholarly linguistic analysis of word-use in Shakespeare's sonnets; A letter from an evangelical Christian complaining that plays should not be performed in public; A science fiction story with a character named William Shakespeare Jones' A You-Tube video recorded in the basement of a thirty-year-old introvert explaining why he is really the subject of Hamlet. Post-modernism would hold that all six sources are equally important narratives about Shakespeare and deserve equal consideration in any serious analysis, because the study of Sha...

I have a rule of thumb that I teach my students about the concepts of a useable past . I ask them, "How do you know that a politician of either party is distorting 'the lessons of history' to support his or her current political agenda?" The answer: "Look to see if their lips are moving." Politicians and other ideologues are not interested in history for the sake of finding out what happened; they are interested in a useable past wherein they cherry pick individual facts and stories to build a case, ignoring all data and arguments to the contrary. Sometimes this process becomes really troubling, especially when you mix in some of your own folk heroes. Here, try this: This sounds like a standard if mundane rendition of the early years of the Revolutionary War, doesn't it? Military operations continued into 1782. With the occupation of the rebel capital of Philadelphia the colonial troops were forced to go into winter capital of Philadelphia the coloni...

From the Daily Kos (I was forced to do it by a regular reader, ouch): Where Are All the Libertarians on FISA? For all the talk of "freedom" that the Paulbots claim to believe in, they sure as heck have been silent on the horrible FISA bill we're fighting to fix in the Senate right now. Same for Ron Paul. Why the silence? And the CATO people and the libertarian publications like Reason, where are they? Here we are engaged in a huge civil liberties issue, and progressives are being forced to fight this thing alone. It's easy to talk about "liberty". It's much more impressive to actually do something about it. Of course it's easier to take cheap shots than do your homework. From the Libertarian Party Website : Washington, D.C. - The Libertarian Party has sent letters to 22 Democratic Senators who voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments in August of last year, urging them to reconsider against an upcoming Senate bill that would ma...

I'd actually say that, at this point, Ron Paul has about the same chance of becoming President as John Edwards--which is, to say, not much. But stranger things have happened (the Election of 1824 comes to mind), so it's worth thinking about. Econlog devoted a post to that very speculation in December : "What Could President Paul Actually Do?" I'll give you the teaser (it's not a very long post): What would happen if Ron Paul actually became president? First, I'd have to write a $200 check to Walter Block. But what would happen next? There are some major changes that Paul could make unilaterally. He really could recall U.S. troops from not only Iraq and Afghanistan, but all over the world. I believe he would really do so, and despite the radicalism of this change, I'm confident that these orders, however unpopular, would be obeyed. Perhaps there would be a 2% chance of a coup if he made the changes overnight, but that's about it. Furthermore, ther...

Sometimes you get the best perspective from your friends abroad. Thoughts on Freedom, the Australian Libertarian Society Blog has an extensive article bringing Aussie libertarians up to date on the Ron Paul story. Here's their take on the newsletter controversy: About 20 years ago RP allowed his friend Lew Rockwell to publish a newsletter in his name, and he apparently used to write articles for the newsletter relating to foreign policy. In the early 1990s, when RP was out of politics and spending his time travelling & working, the newsletter included a couple of racist comments. The author of these comments isn’t known, but it was probably one of the many writers employed by Lew Rockwell. Ron Paul has strongly repudiated the racist sentiments in the newsletter, but he took responsibility for allowing his name to be linked to such comments and apologised. Over the years he has spoken repeatedly against discrimination against any groups, and he counts Martin Luther King and Gh...

From my friends at Where HipHop and Libertarianism Meet , a consolidation of the reports on who wrote what at the Ron Paul nutty newsletter factory. The article has some credibility as it is sourced to Eric Dondero, a former Paulist disciple who no longer supports Dr. No, but who--it has always seemed to me--has been very careful not to trash him gratuitously. Although I don't think for a second this all absolves Paul from the responsibility for the material printed under his name, it should surprise NO ONE that Lew Rockwell appears to have been the source for racially oriented material.

Well, intellectually, maybe. And I think he would have liked her. The whole Ron Paul-is-a-closet-racist-homophobe controversy has made me think about three incidents from elementary school that may shed some light on thinking about Dr. No and his now-infamous newsletters. Incident one: pay no attention to the fat lady behind the felt board In rural Virginia during the early 1960s there was Protestant religious education in the public schools. Once a week we had music class; once a week we had Bible class. You could get out of it if you brought in a note from home that said you were Jewish or Catholic (apparently being an atheist was not an option). At the time my family did not go to church, had never gone to church. In first grade I thought about becoming a Jew or a Catholic to get out of Bible class, but then I found out that Jew and Catholics had to go to the library and spend an hour doing worksheets (take that you despicable non-Protestants!), so I thought it would be more ...

Over on Delawareliberal there's been a spirited debate regarding The New Republic expose about the racist, homophobic rantings and ravings that occurred in Ron Paul's newsletter during the late 1980s-early 1990s. Now you can actually visit the NR website and view scans of the offending documents for yourself. They are disturbing. Moreover, that they were out there has been fairly common knowledge for some time, and in large part explains the deafening silence of the gay Libertarian and Republican communities regarding Ron Paul's candidacy. Outright Libertarian s, for example, has dealt with Paul by ignoring him in its blog, while condemning him in other forums : “The LP offers an uncompromising stance on equal rights regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity—with sexual rights in the Libertarian platform for more than three decades,” says Rob Power, who chairs Outright Libertarians, a gay group within the party, and supports Phillies’s candidacy. “Paul’s ide...

This is neither an Iowa prediction nor a Ron Paul commercial, but an observation that complements the one Dana made over on Delaware Watch about excluding Paul from debates. Here's how Newsmax presents the latest Zogby tracking poll that ended yesterday: With a Huckabee surge and a Romney dip, the former Arkansas governor opened up a six-point lead over his nearest rival. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson also lost a point, and Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has been surging in New Hampshire, faded here into a tie for fourth place. Notice that the poll doesn't say who McCain is in a tie for fourth place with . From Real Clear Politics here's the breakdown of the same Zogby tracking poll: Huckabee=31% Romney=25% Thompson=11% McCain=10% Paul=10% Funny, when you look at the numbers it would seem that the real news is that Ron Paul has risen into double digits and entered a virtual three-way tie for third place, given the usual margin for error. Newmax is not always the mos...