What did Mr. McManus say that you find so objectionable? What horrible positions does The John Birch Society take that makes you smear it? The organization has demonstrated time after timne that there is a plan by elitists to build a one-world government. If you don’t believe us, just read David Rockefeller’s biography published in 2002. He admits to such a plan.

The Ron Paul movement is bigger that a member of Congress from Texas who is running for President. Mr. Paul may not become the next President but he has generated hundreds of thousands of people that can be the vehicle that can elect a constitutional majority to Congress. This is what you fear the most. And this is why you must smear him.

The anti-semitism claims are just laughable, as Jason Kuznicki has expanded on in his most recent post, so I will not pay them any more attention here. The attempts to label Dr. Paul a conspiracy nut should also be easily dismissed.

Kirchik takes the great liberty (the only time he apparently cares for it) in interpreting the quotes he attributes to racism. The quote that you’ve blocked about race certainly reads much more like an issue of economics and inequity than race to me. The rhetoric does seem a bit on the harsh side, but the ideas it contains were not exceptionally incendiary when viewed in relation to the actions of the wider GOP (if you go back a few years, just listen to the Nixon tapes! Now there is anti-semitism and racism.) The author, who is far from “presumably” Paul, also doesn’t appear to label ALL blacks as animals, but those blacks who had violently taken over the Adams Morgan/Woodley Park neighborhood (I’ll admit an unfamiliarity with the history) and who threatened violence as a means of class warfare. It seems to me that it is racist to read the quote “the animals are coming” as a clear statement of racism, rather than a statement about class warfare and its violent proponents. Further, the quotes about Dr. King are far from explicitly racist as well. I can think of reasons to dislike Martin Luther King Day from a libertarian position, and I have certainly heard many other rumors of sexual misconduct. The comments on New York again seem much more directed to the failling of that city, and its inhabitants at that time, than to a clear discussion of race, and the quote about moving from “forced segregation” to “forced integration” is a true statement, which requires more context to illustrate anything more than just a personal dislike of Dr. King. I’m not trying to defend the comments, and I’m certainly not excusing all of them, but if you put yourself in Dr. Paul’s shoes reading them, or more probably only a couple of them in your spare moments while you ran your medical practice, in the way that I’ve just outlined, I can imagine not throwing a fit and making heads roll at the little po-dunk newsletter that you have little time invested in, at least not until you realized how pervasive it may have been (which eventually led to firings.)

The quotes about AIDS and homosexuals in general are more weighty in my mind, but they really don’t far too far from the mainstream GOP beliefs during that period (I’m sure I don’t have to remind people here how many times Ronald Reagan mentioned AIDS during his eight years in office, but in case I do it was 0.) Ultimately, I agree Ron Paul is not my ideal choice to be the messenger here, and if my vote was the only one that counted I would find a better President, and I do certainly hope that a more extensive refutation of this issue will be forthcoming… but unfortunately we are faced with an electoral system that is heavily weighted in favor of the party elites, and so with the limited range of choices in front of us it seems to me that a vote for Dr. Paul is the only form of positive protest available at this point. Seeing the enormous turnout numbers in the first primary contests, I don’t think that a negative protest of not voting would be especially effective, as it is liable to go unnoticed amongst the throngs.

Over the last months I’ve found many critics of Paul who I greatly respect, and they’ve done a great job pointing out flaws in his record as a congressman (a very extensive record that should certainly provide a more exact understanding of what policies a Paul Administration would pursue than a few years of scribblings from a newsletter.) Tim Sandefur, and others, have made me take a much closer look and refine my zeal towards Dr. Paul, and for that I am sincerely thankful. As for absurd articles like this one in TNR, even paying them lipservice just reinforces the obstacles to spreading the message, the only message that can actually combat fascism, racism, anti-semitism, class warfare, and sexual discrimination, and I certainly hope for more than that when I read this fine blog.

I think it is pretty clear just from reading this site that there is a political ideology called Libertarianism that is in favour of market economics, whether that means ’servicing the interests of big business’ is another debate I don’t want to get into.

I wonder if you are confusing them with the fact Spanish Anarchists in the early 20th century also called themselves Libertarian Socialists, your choice of name certainly suggests a familiarity with the period.

I probably agree with Libertarian Socialists more than I do with any of the people listed above (another argument I will leave for now) but even so I think the American Libertarian movement is entitled to call themselves whatever they want.

Paul’s newsletters have themselves repeatedly expressed sympathy for the general concept of secession. In 1992, for instance, the Survival Report argued that “the right of secession should be ingrained in a free society”

Well, shouldn’t it?

Most of the time, when we talk about a free society, part of what we are talking about is a society in which the powers of rulers derive from “the consent of the governed” rather than from unilateral command. But that would seem to mean that where consent has been refused or withdrawn, a right of secession must be recognized. Do you disagree?

and that “there is nothing wrong with loosely banding together small units of government. …”

Is there something wrong with this? If so, what?