Playing the Race Card against Ron Paul

Ron Paul raised around $20 million in the last quarter. The only part of it I've heard about from the mainstream media is the $500 he got from the leader of a pathetic white supremacy group. (won't reward with a link) One of Fox's talking heads, Niel Cavuto, grilled Dr. Paul about it as if the good doctor had just ignited a cross in the lobby. (3:30 into this video)

Fox News was untroubled about giving free publicity worth thousands to Warped White Whackos, or whatever their name is, to put Paul on the spot. Fox clearly thought a generous donation to a hate group was a small price to pay to paint Paul as a racist.

Ron Paul is not a man to make empty, politically correct gestures. He calmly explained he had never heard of the group or the guy who sent the $500 to his campaign. He pointed out how hard it would be to screen every contributor for ideological purity. Dr. Paul added that it would also make no sense to return the money. The whacko would simply use it to promote his own twisted agenda. Paul's campaign, on the other hand, would use the money to spread a message of individual liberty and limited government.

If the donor, like Fox's Cavuto, thought $500 could somehow persuade a life-long anti-collectivist like Ron Paul suddenly to become a race baiting socialist, he was going to be disappointed. 

To his credit Cavuto conceded it would be difficult to screen every contributor about his racial opinions. But the guilt-by-association smear was complete. Mission accomplished.

Others are using ghost written remarks in a 1993 newsletter to slime Dr. Paul. The remarks, for which he admitted "moral responsibility" in 2001, and which even the New York Times Magazine admitted Paul had denied "…quite believably…" were more statements of politically incorrect fact than racist opinion. 

They were statements unlike anything I've seen in the many books, speeches and articles he's written. When looked at closely they were simply politically incorrect observations of the racial realities of crime. Dr. Paul is not inclined to avoid the truth for reasons of political correctness.

This is one of the damning statements that appeared in Dr. Paul's newsletter in 1993. It would be considered deeply racist by any true leftist leveler:

"We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."

As lamentable as the fact is, it is still just a fact, not a racist opinion. What has become more intolerable than racism itself, is the mention of politically embarrassing facts. It does not deny that blacks have been treated badly in the past nor that there is real racial prejudice in the world to mark the fact that blacks commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime in the U.S.

U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics show that in 2005 the black murder rate was over 7 times that of whites. In 1993, when the newsletter articles were written, the rates differed by a factor of nearly 10. At that time black homicide rates had increased by almost 50% in the previous 9 years. Rates for other violent crimes show smaller but still remarkable disparities.

There are those who will label me a racist for pointing out these facts. I take no pleasure in them. I draw no conclusions from them, except that as Dr. Paul's newsletter pointed out, in certain circumstances, fear of black men is hardly irrational.

I've grazed widely in the broad meadow of Dr. Paul's writing and have never read a racist word or phrase. Ron Paul is a certifiable expert in free market economics, a colleague and friend of the brilliant economist Murray Rothbard.

He knows that government action cannot make anyone richer without making someone else poorer. He is unshakably opposed to collectivism, a word that describes the entire gamut of socialist flimflam on which governments thrive by promising everyone they can live at everyone else's expense. 

Ron Paul wrote this about racism:

"Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans only as members of groups and never as individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike; as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups."

If Ron Paul is a racist, he's kept it well hidden in his writing his whole adult life. He has called racism "a sin of the heart." Although no one can know what sins lurk in another's heart we can examine the intellectual trail he has left and form our own opinions.

A journey through the library of liberty written by Ron Paul reveals a lucid, rational, compassionate mind, a deep commitment to principles of personal liberty, and a bright optimism for the future. Such a journey also reveals Dr. Paul's courage and willingness to speak truth to power. That courage is now being twisted and used to attack him.

Though his writing, speeches and voting record deny it from end to end, I cannot see into Ron Paul's heart and tell you if he is a racist. I can say that if he remains true to lifelong beliefs in the rule of law, individual liberty, free markets, and the better future that those principles promise, it will keep him from ever allowing a racist government policy.