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Two diaries were put up without links or a little research of Ron Paul Newsletters history and basic facts. Diarist tjwalker quotes Erick Erikson from redstate.com [multiple diaries out there, 93% teapartiers don’t want Ron Paul ] and he got himself a bunch of believers here at the pond. I’m no supporter of Ron Paul and I would never vote for him even if it was my own district. Just trying to keep fairness and some balance in the discussion. Very frustrating. Elsewhere in a previous thread and in above diaries I did some pretty good debunking of the unfounded attack on Ron Paul in my comments. Apparently only AG has read them. Much appreciated.
Ron Paul Interview with Wolf Blitzer CNN January 2008
Read also Why the Beltway Libertarians Are Trying to Smear Ron Paul (2008)
More below the fold …
The Story Behind Ron Paul’s Racist Newsletters
(The Atlantic) – So as Ron Paul is on track to win the Iowa caucuses, he is getting a new dose of press scrutiny.
And the press is focusing on the newsletters that went out under his name in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They were called the Ron Paul’s Political Report, Ron Paul’s Freedom Report, the Ron Paul Survival Report and the Ron Paul Investment Letter.
These newsletters were published before a decade of war that has exhausted many Americans, before the financial crisis, and before the Tea Party. All three made Ron Paul’s ideas seem more relevant to our politics. They made anti-government libertarianism seem (to some) like a sensible corrective.
At that time a libertarian theorist, Murray Rothbard argued that libertarians ought to engage in “Outreach to the Rednecks” in order to insert their libertarian theories into the middle of the nation’s political passions. Rothbard had tremendous influence on Lew Rockwell, and the whole slice of the libertarian movement that adored Ron Paul.
But Rothbard and Rockwell never stuck with their alliances with angry white men on the far right. They have been willing to shift alliances from left to right and back again. Before this “outreach” to racists, Rothbard aligned himself with anti-Vietnam war protestors in the 1960s.
In the 2000s, after the “outreach” had failed, Rockwell complained bitterly about “Red-State fascists” who supported George Bush and his war. So much for the “Rednecks.” The anti-government theories stay the same, the political strategy shifts in odd and extreme directions.
Lew Rockwell and Tom Woods discuss Rothbard and the Koch Brothers
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
