Is Ron Paul a Bigot?

The January 8 New Republic has an article by Andrew Kirchick entitled "Angry White Man: The Bigoted Past of Ron Paul." Essentially, Kirchick digs through Ron Paul's past publications (The Ron Paul Political Report, The Ron Paul Survival Report, etc.) to present the Texas Congressman as a racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic extremist.

Ron Paul's response is that he is not the author of the racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and extremist quotes. When his critics then appeal to a 1996 statement he made that took credit for a racist article, Dr. Paul responds that he was lying back then. According to Ron Paul, his opponent in the 1996 Congressional election was attacking him for the controversial parts of his newsletter, and his staff suggested that the truth would be too confusing. After all, would people truly believe that Ron Paul didn't write those articles, when they appeared in his very own newsletter, under his very own name? How would it look if he said that he was neglectful about what appeared in his own publication? How does it look right now when he's saying it? Consequently, in 1996, he took credit for the quotes and argued that his critics misunderstood them. He expresses regret that he didn't tell the truth at the outset (see Ron Paul Race Smear Erased? - Free Market News Network).

But if he's not the author of those articles, then he had a ghostwriter who was writing under Ron Paul's name. It's not as if the Ron Paul Political Report was presenting itself as National Review, which contains articles by different authors. In Ron Paul's newsletters, some of the controversial statements appear in articles in which an author describes his career as a Texas Congressman--in the first person (see Proof: Ron Paul Lied About Not Being the Author of the Newsletters ). But Ron Paul supporters say that Dr. Paul was a busy man (being a doctor and all), so he didn't supervise his newsletter as much as he should have. Well, live and learn!

I'll admit that this is an embarrassing situation for the Paul campaign, since Ron Paul has to decide if he will appear as a bigot, a liar, or a negligent supervisor. But I have problems with the approach that Kirchick takes in the New Republic article.

Why is Ron Paul (or, rather, his ghostwriter) an anti-Semite for criticizing the Israeli government? When radical leftists and Amnesty International argue that Israel treats Palestinians poorly, they are called human rights advocates. When Ron Paul makes the same claim, he's labelled an anti-Semite. Why?

Why is Ron Paul a racist because he has David Duke's endorsement? The fact that the two overlap on certain issues doesn't mean that Ron Paul agrees with Duke on race. David Duke is against NAFTA, so are all NAFTA-critics (e.g., John Edwards) racist?

Why is Ron Paul's ghostwriter a racist because he didn't agree with everything Martin Luther King did? I agree with Dr. Paul's libertarian admiration of King, for King took on government mandated oppression of African-Americans through libertarian means: he started a bus boycott and set up a private, alternative way to transport African-Americans. That's about as libertarian as you can get--if you don't like a service, then don't use it! But King also did some pretty bad things. He was a philanderer. He spoke in favor of Communist governments. He advocated socialism. Would Ron Paul be a racist if he opposed these things?

I read the most controversial article from Ron Paul's newsletter (see His Early Writings: Is Ron Paul A Racist Wingnut?), and I found no statement that blacks are racially inferior to whites. The author dislikes certain problems within the African-American community (e.g., crime, riots, hatred of whites, victimology, support for Democrats, welfare dependency), and he approaches them differently than Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, or most liberal sociologists would (Just a hunch I have!). But he never said that blacks are racially inferior. And, as for his statement that government welfare programs encouraged the Los Angeles riots, I remember President George H.W. Bush saying the same thing while the riots were going on. Bush I is considered "mainstream." Heck, the left even treats him like a hero! "If only George W. were like his father," they continually say.

There are two ironies. First, although the controversial "Ron Paul" article says that "[o]pinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action," there are many African-Americans who support Ron Paul. See Ron Paul Polls Better Among African Americans than Other Republicans. If Ron Paul indeed held those sorts of opinions in the past (which is disputed), I'd like to think that he is learning and growing. Isn't that what is truly important--that he's correcting old stereotypes and learning to value people for who they truly are? Have Ron Paul's critics never been wrong? Can they honestly say that they have never had a bigoted thought in their lives? Then why are they so quick to jump on someone for past mistakes (and alleged ones at that)?

Second, the candidates who are called "racist" the most loudly can sometimes surprise you. Truman was an explicit racist, yet he supported civil rights as President. The same goes for LBJ. In 1996, Pat Buchanan endured similar treatment to what Ron Paul is experiencing, but he had an African-American woman as his running mate in the 2000 Presidential election. Who in the Democratic and the Republican parties has ever done that? And Buchanan is the racist? Ron Paul has expressed admiration for African-American economist Walter Williams (who subs for Rush), and there is talk that he may name him as his running mate. And, you want to know something? I don't think that Paul likes Williams just because he's black--he likes what he has to say. Regardless of what his critics may claim, Ron Paul is someone who values people, whatever their demographic group may be.