Site Meter Reflections on Playboy: Ron Paul was careless with the newsletters. He still gets my primary vote.

January 14, 2008

Ron Paul was careless with the newsletters. He still gets my primary vote.

For all the obvious reasons, I’m disappointed that presidential candidate Paul allowed racist and homophobic content to be printed on his own official newsletters. Although it’s clear that someone other than Paul wrote the offensive passages, they still reflect poorly on Paul’s ability to manage public relations, a crucial skill for any candidate for president.

Yet I haven’t changed my mind about voting for Paul in the California primary. I still see his campaign as good publicity on balance for the libertarian cause. From inside the movement, the Cato Institute’s David Boaz admits that the bigoted words in the newsletters
are not libertarian words. Maybe they reflect “paleoconservative” ideas, though they’re not the language of [Edmund] Burke or even [Russell] Kirk. But libertarianism is a philosophy of individualism, tolerance, and liberty. As Ayn Rand wrote, “Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.” Making sweeping, bigoted claims about all blacks, all homosexuals, or any other group is indeed a crudely primitive collectivism.

Libertarians should make it clear that the people who wrote those things are not our comrades, not part of our movement, not part of the tradition of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and Robert Nozick. Shame on them.
(Thanks for the link, Andrew Sullivan.)

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Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 1:06 PM

  • Blogger American Genius left this comment at January 19, 2008 2:13 AM  
    Sorry,
    I can't get over that Ron is from Texas and technically a republican. When I realized he was a represenative from Texas a red flag went up for me.
    But, if he were to win, I think he's just as good as anyone else right now.

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 19, 2008 1:14 PM  
    AG,
    I’ve never been to Texas, but I confess I’m a little disappointed by your blanket prejudice against Texans. Do you stereotype them all as cowboys or hillbillies? What’s your problem with them?

  • Blogger Robert Paulson left this comment at January 23, 2008 1:18 AM  
    Herr Doktor is not getting my vote. There is no LOVE in his revolution. The John Birch Society lives again through Paul and his "movement".

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