Ron Paul or Obama?

Ron Paul? Not a candidate that most people would support, particularly those on the Left, as Paul was a long term Texas Republican.

I was about to do a round up of post election comments on Obama’s win when I came across these remarks on an Irish blog, Splintered Sunrise:

“But the interminable presidential election that’s just taken place has thrown up a few surprises. And despite being a hardened cynic, there was one candidate who did catch my imagination, with his manifest integrity and iconoclastic ideas. Unfortunately, that was Ron Paul.”

Which, of course, is a bit of a piss take, but it is worth reminding people of Ron Paul’s very dodgy views:

“Let’s have a look at some of the many, many issues on which Ron Paul places himself squarely in opposition to me and, presumably, you:

Abortion: Ron Paul’s “libertarianism” famously does not extend to the right of a woman to control her body. In February he introduced H.R. 1094, “[t]o provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.” He voted against overriding Bush’s veto of the stem cell bill.

The Environment: Ron Paul may be a Republican, but he’s certainly not a Republican for Environmental Protection. That fine organization gave Paul a shameful 17 percent rating on its most recent Congressional Scorecard (warning: PDF). He doesn’t fare much better in the eyes of the American Wilderness Coalition or the League of Conservation Voters. Paul’s abysmal record on the environment is driven in large measure by his love of sweet, sweet oil: in the 109th Congress alone, he voted to voted allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to shield oil companies from MTBE contamination lawsuits, against increasing gas mileage standards, to allow new offshore drilling, and to stop making oil companies pay royalties to the government for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Par for the course for a man who called the Kyoto accords “bad science, bad economics and bad domestic policy” and “anti-Americanism masquerading as environmentalism.”

Immigration: Paul marches in lock-step with the xenophobic right wing on immigration, calling last month’s compromise immigration bill “a compromise of our laws, a compromise of our sovereignty, and a compromise of the Second Amendment.” Yet even the hardcore nativists in the immigration debate have been hesitant to support repealing birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, as Paul has done. His proposed Constitutional amendment, introduced as H. J. Res 46 on April 28, 2005, reads: “Any person born after the date of the ratification of this article to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of birth in the United States.” Only four other Representatives, all Republicans, were willing to cosponsor this proposed amendment.

Civil Rights: Paul doesn’t much care for ensuring your right to vote. Like when he voted with just 32 other members of Congress against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Or when he voted for the bogus “Federal Election Integrity Act” voter suppression bill.”

and not forgetting:

“THE KLAN’S MAN IN WASHINGTON

Like many members of Congress, the prolific Paul posts his speeches, columns, and statements on his House Web site. He allows anyone to republish and distribute them, and many do. For example, our old friends the Council of Conservative Citizens occasionally publish Paul in its newsletter, the Citizens Informer (warning: PDF). And then there’s David Duke, who can’t get enough of Ron Paul; you can find his columns on davidduke.com here and here and here and here and here. If you’re more of a dead-tree fan, you can find Paul’s thoughts on foreign policy reprinted in the January 2007 issue of the National Times, a white supremacist newspaper that apparently gets distributed through the time-honored neo-Nazi method of throwing the thing onto unsuspecting people’s porches in the middle of the night and scurrying away.

For a real look inside the tiny, demented mind of the neo-Nazi, though, we need to go to Stormfront. Stormfront is the oldest and largest white supremacist site on the World Wide Web; its discussion boards provide an unequaled opportunity for eavesdropping on the thoughts and plans of the racist underground in America and around the world. And you don’t have to visit for very long before one thing jumps out at you: they positively adore Ron Paul. (Please note that links in this paragraph go to a hate site and should probably be considered NSFW.) An “Is Ron Paul the One?” topic is currently stickied in Stormfront’s Newslinks & Articles forum; another active topic on Paul’s candidacy has received 446 posts and 12,040 pageviews since late March. A topic called “Ron Paul’s Race Problem” (hey, Wonkette musta read my diary!) was just started today and already has 17 replies. They’re busy little racists over there.”

CNN also covered him.

Update: I forgot to add that Ron Paul seemed happy to take money from assorted neo-Nazis, like Don Black at Stormfront, as Adam Holland has explained:

“The Lone Star Times has revealed that the Ron Paul campaign has received at least one contribution from neo-Nazi leader Don Black, who heads an internet-based group called Stormfront. (Read the Lone Star Times piece here)

I’ve been looking at neo-Nazi support for Ron Paul and found that there’s quite a bit. It seems that one of Rep. Paul’s top internet organizers in Tennessee is a neo-Nazi leader named Will Williams (aka “White Will”). Williams was the southern coordinator for William Pierce’s National Alliance Party, the largest neo-Nazi party in the U.S. (for more on Williams’ role in the National Alliance Pary see “Beyond A Dead Man’s Deeds: The National Alliance After William Pierce”, page 7 [pdf], for general info on the National Alliance Party, read here) For those fortunate enough not to know, Pierce was the author of The Turner Diaries, the bible of American neo-Nazis and inspiration for this country’s worst case of home-grown terrorism, the Oklahoma City bombing (read here).”

The LoneStarTimes.com investigation here.

Apologists for the Libertarian Party might want to start thinking about that.