When rightists fall out

This is a post I wrote back in 2008 but wound up not posting. But I'm posting it know, with minor edits, because it gives some perspective on the "libertarian" position of which Rand Paul is currently the most prominent.

The reporting on the 2008 Ron Paul campaign kicked up a lot of information on the "libertarian" right.

The Libertarian Party split in 1988, after Paul's Presidential run on their ticket. The wing of the movement reflected by the Cato Institute and Reason magazine focuses on business deregulation but presents a friendly, personal-liberties face. Although since even that wing is generally opposed to anti-discrimination laws, their actual commitment to individuals' freedom from invidious discrimination is more than questionable. The Cato crowd also tends toward isolationist foreign policy.

The other wing centered around the Von Mises Institute, that wing probably best know to critics of the Cheney-Bush foreign policy through the Antiwar.com Web site. Prominent leaders in that wing of the movement were longtime Paul staffer and business associate Lew Rockwell and Old Right isolationist Murray Rothbard.

This article by Julian Sanchez and David Weigel, Who Wrote Ron Paul's Newsletters? Reason 01/16/08, gives their version of the split and an account of how the Rockwell-Rothbard "paleoconservatives", as they called themselves, begin pandering hard to racists and nativists. Sanchez and Weigel describe their strategy this way:

The [Ron Paul] newsletters' obsession with blacks and gays was of a piece with a conscious political strategy adopted at that same time by Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard. After breaking with the Libertarian Party following the 1988 presidential election, Rockwell and Rothbard formed a schismatic "paleolibertarian" movement, which rejected what they saw as the social libertinism and leftist tendencies of mainstream libertarians. In 1990, they launched the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, where they crafted a plan they hoped would midwife a broad new "paleo" coalition.

Rockwell explained the thrust of the idea in a 1990 Liberty essay entitled "The Case for Paleo-Libertarianism." To Rockwell, the LP was a "party of the stoned," a halfway house for libertines that had to be "de-loused." To grow, the movement had to embrace older conservative values. "State-enforced segregation," Rockwell wrote, "was wrong, but so is State-enforced integration. State-enforced segregation was not wrong because separateness is wrong, however. Wishing to associate with members of one's own race, nationality, religion, class, sex, or even political party is a natural and normal human impulse."

The most detailed description of the strategy came in an essay Rothbard wrote for the January 1992 Rothbard-Rockwell Report, titled "Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement." Lamenting that mainstream intellectuals and opinion leaders were too invested in the status quo to be brought around to a libertarian view, Rothbard pointed to David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for an "Outreach to the Rednecks," which would fashion a broad libertarian/paleoconservative coalition by targeting the disaffected working and middle classes. (Duke, a former Klansman, was discussed in strikingly similar terms in a 1990 Ron Paul Political Report.) These groups could be mobilized to oppose an expansive state, Rothbard posited, by exposing an "unholy alliance of 'corporate liberal' Big Business and media elites, who, through big government, have privileged and caused to rise up a parasitic Underclass, who, among them all, are looting and oppressing the bulk of the middle and working classes in America." (my emphasis)

See also, The Reckoning Over Ron Paul by Jamie Kirchick New Republic blog 01/15/08.

Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo, an adherent of the Rockwell-Rothbard school of "libertarianism", has written on his version of Old Right isolationist history at the online magazine Taki's Top Drawer:

The Real American Right: Part I 01/08/08

The Real American Right: Part II 01/09/08

The Real American Right: Part III 01/10/08

In the same publication, he defends the leading theorist of "national socialism" in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s: The Subversion of Lawrence Dennis 09/26/07

Papa Doc Paul and Charles Krauthammer

We live in a very weird political (and historical?) moment right now. Newt Gingrich is running vivid ads showing some of the ugliest side of American capitalism; he himself is actually saying that rich people shouldn't just take everything.

Not that he means a word of it. Because the fact that he's saying it is bizarre enough in itself.

Then this week, Charles Krauthammer wrote a column that you don't have to be a blithering warmonger or a psychopath to at least partially agree with. He's writing about Ron Paul’s achievement Washington Post 01/12/2012. He's here anointing Papa Doc's Bircherite extremism with a new level of Establishment respectability:

Paul was genuinely delighted with his [showing in the New Hampshire primary], because, after a quarter-century in the wilderness, he's within reach of putting his cherished cause on the map. Libertarianism will have gone from the fringes — those hopeless, pathetic third-party runs — to a position of prominence in a major party.

Look at him now. He's getting prime-time air, interviews everywhere and, most important, respect for defeating every Republican candidate but one. His goal is to make himself leader of the opposition — within the Republican Party.

He is Jesse Jackson of the 1980s, who represented a solid, African American, liberal-activist constituency to which, he insisted, attention had to be paid by the Democratic Party. Or Pat Buchanan (briefly) in 1992, who demanded — and gained — on behalf of social conservatives a significant role at a convention that was supposed to be a simple coronation of the moderate George H.W. Bush.

No one remembers Bush's 1992 acceptance speech. Everyone remembers Buchanan’s fiery and disastrous culture-war address.

At the Democratic conventions, Jackson’s platform demands and speeches drew massive attention, often overshadowing his party’s blander nominees. [my emphasis]

Given Papa Doc's cuddly relationship with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and groups that indulge in them, Krauthammer's praise is all the more remarkable. Krauthammer is a Jewish neocon to whom the only wrong Israel can do is to not be brutal enough to Palestinians and Arabs. And he's offering Papa Doc a new measure of mainstream respectability?

There don't know where Krauthammer is going with this. But it's obvious that he's ready to welcome Bircher "libertarianism" into the Grand Old Party:

Put aside your own view of libertarianism or of Paul himself. I see libertarianism as an important critique of the Leviathan state, not a governing philosophy. As for Paul himself, I find him a principled, somewhat wacky, highly engaging eccentric. But regardless of my feelings or yours, the plain fact is that Paul is nurturing his movement toward visibility and legitimacy.

Paul is 76. He knows he’ll never enter the promised land. But he's clearing the path for son Rand, his better placed (Senate vs. House), more moderate, more articulate successor. [my emphasis]

Update: In a couple of ways, Krauthammer is provided two of the standard services of Republican partisan columnists. He is recognizing reality, that Papa Doc and his blunt version of segregationist/Bircher politics is a significant force in Republican Party politics. And he's moving the center to the right; if Papa Doc and his constituents are "the opposition — within the Republican Party", then the Newt Gingrichs and Willard Romneys are the moderate wing of the Party. And so the standard for sacred Bipartisanship moves further and further toward the most hardline positions of the Republican Party.

I also suspect that Krauthammer's good words for Papa Doc represents a recognition that Bircher Old Right isolationism really is based on hyper-nationalism and xenophobia. Papa Doc and his followers may see Israel as part of an ongoing plot for world domination by the Elders of Zion. But Papa Doc is against the entire concept of international law, which means he's down with more powerful countries launching preventive wars against less powerful ones. Papa Doc has explicitly said he had no objection to Israel's bombing an alleged nuclear site in Syria, for instance.

Old Right isolationism of the Papa Doc variety may be an annoyance to neocon advocates of a permanent state of war. But they now it's not a serious threat. The nationalism, white racism and xenophobia is more important to its adherents than non-intervention. Pat Buchanan's career illustrates that wonderfully.

Tags: charles krauthammer, republican party, radical right, ron paul

Perils of Papa Doc Paul

There's no way Ron "Papa Doc" Paul and his base constituency are going to be part of a political coalition that could be called liberal or progressive. At the same time, thanks to the nature of our media culture right now, the only kind of broad criticisms of US global military strategy and interventions that most people have heard on TV recently are those coming from Papa Doc. For liberal critics of those policies, Papa Doc's framing is a real problem, not only because of his kooky conspiracy theories but because he often couches them in the false-but-mainstream austerity-economics argument that the US is going broke and can't afford more borrowing or deficits.

Gene Lyons takes on Papa Doc and his movement for the second time in two weeks, Digging in Ron Paul's Survival Kit Arkansas Times 01/11/2012:

While he's often cagey about how he expresses it, Ron Paul's whole history as a conspiracy theorist is right out of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" — the 19th century forgery that's kept anti-Semites buzzing for generations. ...

Reader Mel Birge of Portland, Oregon argues that's precisely why Paul makes such a terrible spokesman. Complaining of "sitting in synagogue for the last dozen years listening to pseudo Middle-East experts give the same frantic talk about the danger of Iran nukes and how the US must stop it," he believes such a war "is no way in the United States' interest."

But he also thinks Paul's "anti-semitic paranoia allows AIPAC, the Neocons and their fellow travelers to paint the entire Iran war opposition with the Ron Paul brush. That's the danger of Ron Paul that you should speak of: He snuffs out substantive discussions on Iran. The media feasts on him and the Neocons love it because he's his own straw man."

Charlie Pierce in his look at the state of the Republican Presidential race, We're All in Romney's Great Adventure Together Now Esquire Politics Blog 01/11/2012, writes that we could have Papa Doc as a visible factor in the Presidential election for months to come:

Which leaves us with the fascinating question of Dr. Ron Paul. He finished a decent second last night, crushing the campaign of Jon Huntsman. He is in an odd place. He is not a contender for the nomination in any real sense. However, he can continue to move through the cycle, not seeking conventional success, but piling up delegates pledged only to him. (If the rumors around Manchester on Tuesday night are true, and Paul's campaign has managed to raise $10 million over the past few days, then he can go on forever. That amount of money to his campaign is $100 million to a more conventional one.) This will give him a center of personal power with which Willard, and the rest of the party, will have to find some way to cope. Paul has stubbornly - and shrewdly - refused to state categorically that he will not bolt the party in the general election. He can string the whole business along, talking in his giddy survivalist code about "fiat money," and nobody will be in any position to take him on. He is going to stay on his own hook; in 2008, across the river in Minneapolis, Paul set up his own convention in opposition to the Republican National Convention. He can do whatever mischief he wants from now until the end of the summer, and nobody's in any position to make him stop. That is the only story left, save for the epic Horatio Alger saga of Willard Romney, Boy of the Streets, proud American, and proof positive that, in this great country, any son of an auto millionnaire and former governor of Michigan can grow up almost to be president. [my emphasis]

Papa Doc is a destructive, retrograde influence in American politics, and not solely inside the Republican Party. But progressive critics of the militarism and interventionism of our current foreign policy also have to deal with the reality that, in the 2012 election cycle, the main general criticism of the current approach to foreign policy that many voters will hear - the only one many voters are likely to register - is that coming from Papa Doc.

That doesn't mean we have to pretend that Papa Doc's general perspective is anything other than the Old Right isolationism and Bircher conspiracy-mongering that it is. The core concept of Papa Doc's foreign policy is hyper-nationalism and xenophobia, which is how it fits in with anti-immigrant and pro-segregation parts of Papa Doc's toxic ideology. And it certainly doesn't mean that the motley crew of segregationists, militia types and assorted cranks who make up Papa Doc's core constituency are even potential allies in any meaningful sense of the word for a progressive movement.

But it does mean that we need to pay attention to which parts of Papa Doc's criticisms of foreign policy are resonating with the public, or have the potential to resonate with a larger audience.

Stephen Walt takes a careful look at Papa Doc's effect on the larger national security debate in Why Ron Paul may actually have something right Foreign Policy 01/06/2012:

... [D]espite his bizarre views on the gold standard, climate change, social security, and the like, Paul has put his finger on a number of issues that could resonate broadly with the American people, especially if discussion were not monopolized by think tanks and insiders who are strongly committed to the status quo. Unlike most foreign policy "experts" in both parties, Paul believes the United States is an extraordinarily secure country, with a robust nuclear deterrent, no powerful enemies nearby, and at present no major power rivals of much significance. He instinctively rejects the paranoia and worst-casing that has convinced Americans that we need to roam around the world trying to remake it in our image (a task, by the way, that we're not very good at). He believes that excessive interventionism and other failed policies are a primary cause of anti-Americanism around the world, and that the United States would be more popular and safer if we focused more attention on trade and diplomacy and domestic issues instead of emphasizing military dominance and overseas meddling. He believes that a bloated national security state and a quasi-imperial foreign policy inevitably fosters greater government secrecy and erodes traditional restraints on executive power. And like former president (and five-star general) Dwight D. Eisenhower, he thinks the current military-industrial complex wields excessive influence on our politics and has become a self-perpetuating engine for counter-productive meddling abroad.

These points are all debatable, of course, but Paul is the only person in the race who even wants to discuss them. The rest of the GOP candidates are mostly competing to see who can sound the most eager for war (usually with Iran) or most willing to toss more money at the Pentagon. Barack Obama is a lot more sensible than they are, but as we've learned over the past three-plus years, neither he nor his national security team are interested in making dramatic changes in America's overall grand strategy. Instead, Obama has emerged as a strong proponent of government secrecy, a staunch defender of maintaining U.S. primacy around the world, and as an enthusiastic user of drones, special forces, and other tools of U.S. power. He did eventually wind down the war in Iraq, of course, but it hardly took a strategic genius to figure out that this was the right course.

Tags: gene lyons, radical right, ron paul, stephen walt

Ron Paul fans vs. "China Jon", or, what Old Right isolationism looks and sounds like

Like I said yesterday, the Patriot Militia/Bircher crowd that are Papa Doc Paul's core supporters are not allies for a progressive movement except on the most narrow, technical basis that their views may occasionally coincide.

The relationship of this video to Papa Doc's own campaign is somewhat murky. But it's a good example of how the xenophobia and white racism of Papa Doc's base can be entirely consistent with their allegedly antiwar position. And does this ad sound antiwar to you? It's called Jon Huntsman's Values and has a YouTube date of 01/04/2012:



Sam Stein writes about the ad in Jon Huntsman Denounces Nasty, Jingoistic Video Allegedly Made By Ron Paul Supporters Huffington Post 01/06/2012.

Tags: isolationism, old right, ron paul, white racism

Papa Doc Paul, antiwar politics and the significance of mainstreamed Bircherism

Tuesday's Iowa primary didn't mark the end of the discussion and debates on the left side of the American political spectrum over the politics of Ron "Papa Doc" Paul, the guy who, in Charlie Pierce's words, "played footsie for his entire career with a bunch of cowflop brownshirts plotting revolution down at Goober's Gas 'n Sip."

A hardcore Southern segregationist and xenophobic Bircher conspiracist, in other words. Complete with absolute crackpot theories about gold and "fiat money". The latter is a technical term for currency whose value is not tied to a physical commodity like gold or silver. In Papa Doc's neck of the political woods, it means that US currency is actually worthless. (I'm not making this up.)

I definitely have been coming down on the side of the debate that says Papa Doc is a far-right segregationist who I have no interest in supporting or promoting in any way. I don't admire him. I don't think he's "principled." I think he's a mean old white guy who's a hardcore Southern segregationist and xenophobic Bircher conspiracist and scamster, though he's likely genuinely fanatical enough to believe a lot of what he says, and what he pretends he didn't write or even know about in his infamous newsletters.

I do think that Matt Stoller has a point in saying that Papa Doc's prominence in this campaign has posed an important challenge to liberals and the Democratic Party: "Ron Paul's stance should be seen as a challenge to better create a coherent structural critique of the American political order." (Matt Stoller, Why Ron Paul Challenges Liberals Naked Capitalism 12/29/2011)

I'm coming from an inside-outside perspective on what the Democratic Party base needs. There needs to be genuinely independent movements like Occupy and the peace movement that continually criticize the current state of affairs from outside the Democratic Party national security state/neoliberal consensus. And there needs to be primary challenges within the Democratic Party at all levels to assert those goals and values. It worked for the Christian Right/Movement Conservatives/(latest label:) Tea Partiers in the Republican Party. Something more positive and constructive can make a similar change in the Democratic Party.

But delegitimizing the current national security-state consensus isn't going to be easy or quick - although events like a war with Iran could conceivably cause a rapid shift of intensity in opposition to militarism. It's almost by definition unpredictable, just as no one could have easily predicted something like the resonance of the Occupy movement at this time last year. In January of 2011, "the 99%", "one-percenters", even "occupy" didn't have the same meaning they do today, a reflection in language of a real political shift in society.

The real significance of Papa Doc's campaign this year is that Bircherism - Old Right isolationism and conspiricism - are now an influential part of the criticism of US militarism and interventionist foreign policy. The are not allies or potential allies in anything that remotely deserves the name of a progressive or left political movement.

They may agree with progressives on this issue or that. Individuals like Papa Doc and Baby Doc (Rand Paul) may have an occasional pungent criticism of some foreign policy foolishness or some civil-liberties outrage in between warning of the dangers of race war and paper money.

But Birchers are not progressives. The don't much care for democracy. Or black people. Or liberals. And their foreign policy comes from the same mindset that makes them despise immigrants. They will not be supporting humanitarian relief for Darfur. They won't be supporting arms-control treaties or the International Criminal Court or international law. They will not support helping any country that still might want to ask us for advice on how to develop democracy. For that matter, it's a Bircher commonplace that the Constitution created a republic, not a democracy and that democracy is evil. They are perfectly at home with flat-earther Christian nationalism.

Gene Lyons weighs in on the Papa Doc question, and really gets it right in Ron Paul, still loony Salon 01/04/2012. He reminds us that even on the positions he supposedly shares with progressive, Papa Doc is coming from a whole different place:

Look, this guy’s no more a Libertarian than I’m a Rastafarian. Even when he’s right, as on bombing Iran, he’s wrong. (Hint: It’s about the Jews.) What he’s got against the federal government is the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Anyway, call me old-fashioned, but sanity matters.

Also at Salon, Gary Weiss makes similar point in Progressive beer goggles for Ron Paul 01/05/2012:

What I find objectionable about Ron Paul is very much related to his positions, which I view as an organic whole, divergent from progressive values on every single vital issue, including the foreign policy views that are the main attraction he holds for some liberals. Unlike Greenwald and Stoller, I don’t find any solace in his positions on foreign policy, or his desire to disentangle the U.S. from Afghanistan. I can’t quite so comfortably carve out Paul's views on defense and foreign policy.

This is also an intersting piece from a conservative who once worked for Papa Doc: Eric Dondero, Statement from fmr. Ron Paul staffer on Newsletters, Anti-Semitism Rightwing News n.d., apparently from 12/26/2011. According to him, Papa Doc takes the standard far-right isolationist line on US participation in the Second World War. But Dondero's also kind of clueless about the actual history of the Second World War; he seems to think the entire official purpose of the war was to stop the Holocaust, which was in reality a side-effect of the defeat of Germany. It wasn't the causus belli, as the lawyers say.

Katha Pollitt can be annoying to a lot of people, including me at times. But she is basically right about Papa Doc in Ron Paul's Strange Bedfellows The Nation 01/04/2012: "Ron Paul has an advantage over most of his fellow Republicans in having an actual worldview, instead of merely a set of interests - he opposes almost every power the federal government has and almost everything it does."

Tags: radical right, ron paul

Frederick Clarkson and Michael Lind on Papa Doc Paul

Unlike the mainstream political press, progressive bloggers have made some real efforts to wrestle with Ron "Papa Doc" Paul's quirky ideology. Some attempts were more successful than others.

I continue to insist that the key to understanding Papa Doc is to see him for what he has been his entire career, a hardcore, unrepentant Southern segregationist and Bircher conspiracist.

Frederick Clarkson, who understands the far right very well, writes in Will Ron Paul Fall after his Surprise Rise? Talk to Action 12/28/2011

Paul also owes considerable thanks to national media that have not devoted much serious reporting to his campaign, perhaps because of his standing in the polls, was not taken seriously as a candidate. Meanwhile, in a remarkable election year twist, his libertarian anti-drug war, and old time isolationist foreign policy views have been taken by marijuana reform and anti-war progressives as a reason to crossover and support Paul in Iowa and elsewhere, while down playing or ignoring his unsavory views that are consistent with the depth and breadth of his support from the far right in the U.S.

Election rules vary greatly by state, and in Iowa it happens that the rules allow for non-Republicans to vote in the GOP caucuses in Iowa. Therefore dedicated antiwar activists (including independents, Greens and Democrats) in the absence of a Democratic challenge to Obama, are planning to turn out for Paul. In so doing however, they are aligning themselves with a man who is about much more than the handful of (important) matters where their views converge. Paul is not only seeking to appeal to theocratic evangelicals, but is also the candidate of members of such anti-progressive entities as the neo-Nazi group Stormfront and the John Birch Society. [my emphasis]

Michael Lind, who has pretty much always been nervous about the Democratic position on "culture war" issues, nevertheless also knows the Radical Right well. In Race, liberty and Ron Paul Salon 01/03/2012, he writes:

Should we be impressed if Paul says that as a personal matter he would oppose such things, while defending their legality? It is hard to see any daylight between an overt racist and someone who claims to oppose racism or anti-semitism, but also denounces the only effective ways to put a stop to them—that is, civil rights laws. If you argue that private racism is bad but anti-racist laws are worse, and if you have no problem with the state’s coercive power when it enforces racism but object to coercive state power only in the service of anti-racism, then you cannot complain when others draw their own conclusions about your motives (even if, unlike Ron Paul, you did not publish white supremacist newsletters for years under your own name).

Lind also points out the key reality-denying aspect of the "libertarian" ideology:

Libertarians typically argue that only government, backed by military and police power, can be tyrannical. Lockean republicans in contrast believe that private power located in the for-profit or non-profit sectors can be tyrannical, as well. By means of their agent, the state, the sovereign people legitimately can protect themselves from predation by private sector tyrants as well as public sector tyrants. ...

Some libertarians concede the legitimacy of government coercion in protecting property rights. But in doing so, these libertarians, like Ron Paul, give up any principled objection to government coercion. They simply want government coercion to be used for some purposes—protecting property rights—and not others—enforcing civil rights.

Bircher "libertarianism" means primarily for rich, mean old white guys to do whatever they want to whomever they want.

And that's what Papa Doc is about.

Tags: michael lind, ron paul, radical right

Papa's Doc's foreign policy

Ben Adler at The Nation addresses Three Myths About Ron Paul 01/02/2012, #2 of which is his segregationist brand of libertarianism and #3 of which is his foreign policy: "Just because Ron Paul opposes imperialism and unnecessary invasions of foreign countries doesn’t mean he has a liberal or progressive bone in his body. Paul is a nationalist and isolationist, staunchly opposed to multilateral organizations."

He links to this piece by Michael Cohen, The World According to Ron Paul Foreign Policy 12/23/2011, which looks at Papa Doc's foreign policy in more detail.

I've been concerned pretty much since the Iraq War started or thereabouts over the way in which neo-Confederate and Old Right isolationist sources like Antiwar.com - which I've quoted numerous times, though normally with a disclaimer about the source - were establishing a presence among war critics for their brand of far-right ideology. Papa Doc's popularity suggests that it's a siren song that some left-leaning critics of US interventionist foreign policy find it hard not to be attracted to.

Cohen writes:

The problem, however, is that there is far more to Paul's view than just his opposition to U.S. military adventurism. Paul also believes that the United States should depart from all international organizations and global alliances. This includes not just NATO, but also the United Nations and the World Health Organization (he introduced legislation to this effect as recently as this March). He stridently opposes NAFTA, all free trade agreements, and even U.S. membership in the WTO on the grounds that free trade should be free of government interference, global rule-making, or apparently dispute mechanisms. He is opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants and believes that securing America's borders should be the "top national security priority."

What about foreign aid? Paul wants to end it completely -- with some vague exceptions made for disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. He claims that "foreign aid never works to achieve the stated goal of helping the poor of other nations." Finally, there is a darker element to Paul's foreign policy views -- a healthy degree of conspiracy-mongering. He has warned against the so-called NAFTA super-highway and the North American Union, a supposed plan to turn the North American continent into an economic union with a single currency and open borders along the lines of the European Union. Paul has even introduced legislation to prevent this non-event from occurring. He has also claimed that the United Nations "wants to influence our domestic environmental, trade, labor, tax, and gun laws" and that "its global planners fully intend to expand the U.N. into a true world government, complete with taxes, courts, and a standing army." [my emphasis]

What some of Papa Doc's left-leaning sympathetic commentators seem to miss is that Papa Doc's rabid nationalism, xenophobia and paranoid conspiracy-mongering are integral parts of his foreign-policy thinking. His antiwar positions don't exist on some parallel track. They are part of a hardcore Old Right isolationist strand of thinking that constitutes an exceptionally ugly tradition. Neither Adler nor Cohen call out climate change as a particular concern. But Papa Doc is also dead set against any kind of international agreements to reduce greenhouse gases. And, for that matter, against any and all domestic government regulations that would control pollution of any kind. Because that would violate the liberty of rich old white guys like the Koch brothers to poison the air, water and soil as they like.

Tags: isolationism, old right, ron paul

Again on Papa Doc Paul and Old Right isolationism

Andrew Bacevich is right when he argues that "isolationism" is a bogeyman used by the US foreign policy establishment to stigmatize criticism of American interventionism. Actual isolationism in the sense of the isolationists of the 1920s and 1930s is not advocated by either Republicans or Democrats - with a small but important exception. And the fact that some many liberals and progressives these days seem to be unfazed by the accusation of "isolationism" is a healthy thing. Well, mostly.

The Patriot Militia/John Birch Society crowd that operates at the overlap between the Republican Party and far-right fringe parties like the Constitution Party do advocate the kind of Old Right isolationism whose tradition runs from the anti-League of Nations crew after the First World War to the America Firsters of the early 1940s to Pearl Harbor conspiracists to the John Birch Society and to today's militia movement and Koch Brothers-type billionaire rightwingers.

And to the brand of Republicanism practiced by Congressman Ron Paul of Texas and his song, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, aka Papa Doc and Baby Doc.

The Papa Doc brand of Bircher Old Right isolationism does have some appeal to otherwise left-leaning critics of current US interventionist foreign policy. I continue to think that's more of a sign of desperation than of nuanced political advocacy on the part of his admirers on the left.

You just cannot understand the brand of dogma that people like Papa Doc is pushing without realizing that Papa Doc is a hardcore, unrepentant Southern segregationist and Bircher conspiracist. Period. Full stop.

And, yes, I'm sure that Papa Doc's Christian heart is as pure as the driven snow. And that he's entirely innocent in advocating policies that are most at home among far right militia types and that is white racist, xenophobic, anti-democracy, bitterly anti-labor, opposed to any and all arms-control treaties and honest-to-God for real anti-Semitic. Did I also mention overflowing with absolute crackpot theories about "fiat money" and the North American Superhighway and the United Nations and more besides? It's not a matter of ad hominem dismissal of his ideas. It's that you just cannot understand his foreign policy worldview without understanding the Bircher conspiracist worldview of which they are an integral part.

Glenn Greenwald discusses Papa Doc's policies in Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies Salon 12/31/2011.

Glenn links to segment of The Young Turks that among other things mentions favorably a melodramatic anti-intervention ad from Papa Doc. Philip Weiss also praises the ad in The Ron Paul moment – bad and good Mondoweiss 12/22/2011, calling it a "genius video Paul just did opposing our occupation of foreign countries." It's called If China Attacks America (JUST IMAGINE) YouTube date 12/04/2011:



But I doubt very seriously that Papa Doc's Bircher/Patriot Militia base takes this as an ad about peace and love. They will process that business about a foreign military occupation in Texas in terms of black-helicopter fantasies about a secret Mexican army hiding in America ready to pounce at the signal of our Marxist Kenyan Islamunist America-hating President. (And it's really pretty cheesy on the face of it.) Remember, in the militia-movement fantasy-world, the federal government is an occupying force in Texas and other states. You know, the "Zionist occupied government" in Washington (headed by that Marxist Kenyan Islamunist America-hating President) that these folks are terrified of?

Glenn's pieces are always worth reading. But I just think he misses the boat on this whole Papa Doc business. I can certainly agree that we don't have to "see all political issues exclusively as a Manichean struggle between the Big Bad Democrats and Good Kind Republicans or vice-versa." But we should also see Papa Doc Paul for who he is.

I don't believe Papa Doc is someone who has a quirky mixture of progressive antiwar views, earnest civil liberties concerns and hardline rightwing attitudes on the economy, immigration, abortion and just about everything else under the sun. He has spent his career catering to a political underworld to whom all US foreign policy is part of a big Jew Commie plot. His position on civil liberties is that the federal government should do absolutely nothing whatsoever to remedy even the grossest violations of civil liberties by states and localities.

Glenn is very good about analyzing the often cynical and, yes, brutal nature of the Obama Administration. He is not so good at seeing the deep cynicism in the segregation, Old Right isolationist viewpoint Papa Doc has spent his entire political career right into 2012 promoting and supporting.

The bottom line on Papa Doc still is, he's a flaming rightwinger!

See also:

Matt Stoller, Why Ron Paul Challenges Liberals Naked Capitalism 12/29/2011. To his credit, unlike many other commentators on the left, Matt digs into the neo-Confederate "libertarian" ideology that is a big part of Papa Doc's and his supporters' worldview. He also speaks from some personal experience working with Papa Doc's staff on Capitol Hill. And he plausibly suggests, "Ron Paul’s stance should be seen as a challenge to better create a coherent structural critique of the American political order."

Michael Tomasky, Democracy Journal, Ron Paul's America Spring 2008, reviewing Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Anti-War Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism by Bill Kauffman (2008).

Tags: isolationism, old right, ron paul

Friday Papa Doc

Robert Scheer, Marginalizing Ron Paul Truthdig 12/29/2011:

[Papa Doc said,]"... The Bill of Rights has no exemption for 'really bad people' or terrorists or even non-citizens. It is a key check on government power against any person. This is not a weakness in our legal system; it is the very strength of our legal system."

That was exactly the objection raised by The New York Times in its own excellent editorial challenging the constitutionality of the NDAA. It should not be difficult for those same editorial writers to treat Ron Paul as a profound and principled contributor to a much-needed national debate on the limits of federal power instead of attempting to marginalize his views beyond recognition.

Papa Doc, The War on Religion LewRockwell.com 12/30/2003 (this and the next one via Digby):

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion. ...

The Founding Fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the state in importance. Throughout our nation's history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility. Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government. This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion: Churches as institutions compete with the state for the people's allegiance, and many devout people put their faith in God before their faith in the state.

Aside from the Christian dominionist distortion of history on the Founders view of separating church and state, it's also curious that a "constitutionalist" who idolizes the Constitution would say that it and the Declaration are "both replete with references to God." Declaration of Independence (which has no legal force): # of references to "God": 1; Original Constitution: # of references to "God": 0; # of references to "Lord": 1, in "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven." Bill of Rights: God references, 0; Amendments 11-27: God references, 0.

Jay Ackroyd, Newt Eschaton 12/24/2011:

It looks like Iowa voters caucus-goers might be in the process of turning Ron Paul into a Newt. ...

And much hand-wringing will ensue on the left, as they try to decide whether or not they like a racist anti-war isolationist who favors a society of bare-foot, pregnant women smoking dope in the kitchen.

Charlie Pierce, There Is No Republican "A Team" Esquire Politics Blog 12/28/2011: "The current frontrunning crazoid is a guy who played footsie for his entire career with a bunch of cowflop brownshirts plotting revolution down at Goober's Gas 'n Sip."

More Pierce on Papa Doc (And the Mitt-Trippers Stumble On... 12/28/2011):

It also means you, Ron Paul. If you're going to play footsie with the gunz-and-ammo crowd for your entire career, including those elements of the gunz-and-ammo not entirely disposed to sharing the country with people darker and/or more Jewish than they are, then you had to know that, sooner or later, our longtime supporters were going to collide with your newer, younger supporters who like what you say about Iran and the Bill of Rights, and that this collision wasn't going to make you look like a bold coalition-builder. It was going to make you look like somebody trying to raise a militia at Bonnaroo. So defenses like, "I dunno what went out there under my name" aren't going to cut it.

But he also finds a good word for Papa Doc - well, context-creating words would be a better description - in "Appearing to Be a Racist" — a Strategy Still 12/29/2011:

You know who also thought that "appearing to be racist was a good political strategy in the 1990's"? The same people who thought it was a good political strategy in the 1960's, '70's, and '80's. The same people who hired Lee Atwater. The same people who looked at the white-supremacist backlash against the triumphs of the civil-rights movement and saw, not a outbreak of lawless racism, but a golden political opportunity, and who built a political movement out of the remnants of American apartheid, and who allowed that movement to take over an entire political party until all that's left is what you see now, parading through the streets of Iowa, or working in the state houses to deprive minority voters of the rights for which they paid so dear a price.

It was more than Lew Rockwell and Ron Paul, boys. It was the entire Republican party, and the conservative "movement" that energized it. It's why Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign talking about "states rights" in Mississippi, not half-a-mile from the spot where murdered civil rights workers were buried in a dam. It was welfare mothers driving Cadillacs and young bucks buying steaks. It was the slandering of Lani Guinier as a "quota queen." It's all those ID laws in all those states, and the phony ACORN scandal, and virtually everything said by every GOP presidential candidate on the subject of immigration and, in case you haven't noticed, it's an awful lot of the problems your people have with Barack Obama. It's what the pathetic Willard Romney is talking about when he talks about "the entitlement society." It's too late to get out from under it now. Without "appearing to be racist" as a good political strategy, there would be no modern Republican party. Modern conservatism would have ceased to exist after the debacle of 1964. Don't be fobbing it all off on poor Ron Paul.

Tags: 2012 election, ron paul

Papa Doc Paul and executing LGBT people

Pema Levy & Benjy Sarlin report for TPM on some of the fine Christian white folks Ron "Papa Doc" Paul has supporting him in Death Penalty For Gays: Ron Paul Courts The Religious Fringe In Iowa 12/28/2011.

The headline refers to Nebraska pastor the Rev. Phillip Kayser, of Dominion Covenant Church, who supports capital punishment for homosexuality: "Kayser confirmed to TPM that he believed in reinstating Biblical punishments for homosexuals — including the death penalty — even if he didn't see much hope for it happening anytime soon."

They also report on Papa Doc's Iowa state campaign director:

Kayser’s allegiance to the Paul campaign may reflect who the campaign has chosen to sell Paul to the churches. Mike Heath, who became Ron Paul’s Iowa state director this fall, has spent his career on the Christian right. In Iowa, Heath has focused on outreach to the religious community in the state, where Paul has made an effort to target evangelical voters.

Heath spent 14 years running the Christian Civic League of Maine (which has since changed its name). As a prominent figure in Maine, Heath slowly alienated the Christian right in the state with his extreme tactics. In 2004, for example, he launched a witch hunt to out gay members of the Maine legislature, asking supporters, according to the Portland Press Herald, to “e-mail us tips, rumors, speculation and facts” regarding the sexual orientation of the state’s political leaders, adding, “We are, of course, most interested in the leaders among us who want to overturn marriage, eliminate the mother/father family as the ideal, etc.” The result was that his own organization suspended him for a month.

“He’s a well-known conspiracy theorist about the ‘gay agenda,’” says Travis Kennedy, chief of staff for the House Democratic Office in Maine, who says Heath was a big figure around the capital for many years. Heath made more enemies than friends, says Kennedy, whose “offensive and aggressive” tactics put off even his allies on the Christian right. In 2007, Heath played a big part in opposing a sexual orientation anti-discrimination ballot measure which ultimately passed by a wide margin. On Heath’s new job in Iowa, Kennedy said, “I’m not surprised he’d be hired in a state far away from Maine. He has a pretty poor reputation around here.”

From 2008-2010, Heath served as chairman of the board of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. AFTAH is a fringe, anti-gay organization and has been listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for promoting false information. For example, the organization and its founder, Peter LaBarbera, have published false reports about LGBT people, including allegations that they live shorter lives and that they are prone to pedophilia. LaBarbera disputes the SPLC’s label.

“Peter LaBarbera is among the most fringe elements of the anti-gay industry in America today,” Michael Cole-Schwartz, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, wrote in an email to TPM. “You’d be hard pressed to find another group that is so singularly focused on telling lies about LGBT Americans.”

Also worth reading on Papa Doc: Lizzy Ratner, Ron Paul and the left Mondoweiss 12/28/2011.

Bottom line: Papa Doc is a FLAMING RIGHTWINGER!

Tags: ron paul

Ron Paul, the drug war and the rightwing mind-bend

One thing I've experienced pretty much my entire adult life is that when I try to follow the thought process of far-right crackpottery is that I get to a certain point and I feel like my brain is being twisted out of shape. That's kind of my signal to step back and say, this just doesn't making any freaking sense, and it's foolish to try to treat this as logic gone awry and instead start thinking about clinical explanations.

The original Hawaii Five-O series had an episode in which Andy Griffith played the patriarch of some hillbilly family cult that murdered people and then stole their money. (I'm a Family Crook - Don't Shoot!) When McGarrett and his team finally caught them, the matriarch of the group (Joyce Van Patten) explained they thought it was a sin to steal. McGarrett asked her then why did they kill to get their money. She explained cheerfully that if they were daid, it wasn't stealing to take their money. Even the reliably unflappable McGarrett was a bit "flapped" by that, getting a totally perplexed expression with a sound-track wrinngggg noise to go along with it.

That's what I mean by the mind-bend moment. The first time I recall experiencing it was from a story my mother was telling me. She worked at the local public health department in our town in Mississippi. Sometime circa 1972, she got a call from a guy who grew up as one of our next door neighbors. He had grown up to be a hardcore white racist and of course was a big supporter of the county's third-rate "segregation academy" that whites had set up so their children wouldn't have to be put in a situation that made them nominally equal to black students. This guy called the health department one day and was ranting at my mother because he said that the health department was spreading a rumor that kids at the seg academy had head lice. Which wasn't true, but this guy was totally convinced and was going off on her, even though she didn't set the department's policies in any case, which he certainly knew.

Stuff like this can't be explained by misunderstandings or twisted logic. In segregationist thinking, accused the pure white children at the seg academy of having head lice would be hanging a favorite segregationist stereotype of African-Americans onto the teenage members of the supposed higher race. Somehow, this metastasized through some strange projection mechanism into being a plot by the gubment-run health department to accuse the seg academy of something that segregationists would make up about black kids. It was just whacked.

I also got that feeling today when I read about the defense that Ron "Papa Doc" Paul's supporters are making against the latest publicity about his hardcore segregationist, white racist politics. Papa Doc, you see, has criticized the drug war and has even criticized it for having racist origins. So if he's racist he's also kind of anti-racist, too. Or something. [Sensation of brain being twisted sets in.]

David Dayen takes a cautious analytical look at that argument in On Ron Paul and Progressivism FDL News 12/27/2011.

Ryan Grim provides some historical background from his own research on the politics of race and drugs in Ron Paul: Drug War In U.S. Has Racist Origins Huffington Post 12/27/2011.

David writes:

Those defending Paul on the racism charge do make a keen argument, that his critique of the US drug war is in its own way a condemnation of historical racism. ...

I don’t think you can separate virtually any figure supporting the drug laws in this country from the roots of racism, if you wanted to make the connection. So you have to choose between someone who allowed unfortunate racist comments to go out under his name, but who parted ways with the policy most likely to put minorities in chains over the last century, and more mainstream figures, who abhor such public expressions of racism but support these structurally racist policies.

Here's the thing. I get that that for some people untangling Papa Doc Paul's words can be confusing. But there's a key to processing them: Papa Doc is a hardcore, unrepentant Southern segregationist and Bircher conspiracist. Period. Anyone who thinks Papa Doc opposes the drug war because he thinks it's racist against black people, or thinks he gives a flying flip about the Constitution for anyone except rich old white guys, just doesn't understand what a segregationist is. And though it's true that the war-loving Republicans get upset at his nominal criticism of various wars, his reference-point is xenophobic Bircher isolationism, which is completely consistent with Papa Doc's anti-immigrant nativism. The reason someone like Dave Neiwert, who knows the American far right as well as anyone I could name, is consistently harsh about Papa Doc is because Dave does understands very well where Papa Doc's coming from.

Both David's and Ryan's posts include Papa Doc's reference to the origins of the drug war, both apparently without recognizing what he's saying in the Bircher context. Here's the passage in question from Ryan's piece which David also quotes:

In 1988 Paul made a presidential campaign stop at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws while running on the Libertarian Party ticket. "What was so bad about the period from 1776 to 1914?" Paul wondered, referring to a time in American history when drugs were legal on the federal, and, in many towns, local level. "In the 20th Century, the doctors, like all business people, decided that there ought to be a monopoly. 'If you wanted a little bit of codeine in your cough medicine, it would be much better if you come to me so I can charge you $25 for a prescription.'"

Paul, in a speech aired at the time on C-SPAN went on. "Before the 20th Century there was none of that and it was the medical profession as well as many other trade groups that agitated for the laws. And you know there’s a pretty good case made that this same concept was built in with racism as well. We do know that opium was used by the Chinese and the Chinese were not welcomed in this country," Paul said. "We do know that the blacks at times use heroin, opium and the laws have been used against them. There have been times that it has been recognized that the Latin Americans use marijuana and the laws have been written against them. But lo and behold the drug that inebriates most of the members of Congress has not been touched because they're up there drinking alcohol." [my emphasis]

Papa Doc doesn't want the government to regulate medicine or drugs, whether it's an inadequately tested drug from Big Pharma or fake cancer cures from "alternative medicine" scamsters. The stuff about racism is just fluff for Papa Doc and his brand of Patriot Militia "libertarians."

Yeah, they want rich white people to have unrestricted access to their recreational drugs of choice. But if poor blacks, Latinos and "white trash" wind up robbing good Christian white folks to be able to buy their drugs and state governments send them to prison in far disproportionate numbers, will President Papa Doc's Justice Department under Attorney General Joe Arpaio step in to do something about it?

If you think there's even a tiny chance of that happening, you really, really don't know segregationists!

Tags: ron paul, segregation, white racism

Ron Paul is still a FLAMING RIGHTWINGER!

Charlie Pierce summarizes Ron "Papa Doc" Paul's politics in one pointed paragraph (The Other Problem with Ron Paul Esquire Politics Blog 12/23/2011):

Look, the man's a hoot and all, and he was right on Iraq and he at least talks the talk about civil liberties, which in the current Republican debate is roughly the same thing as shouting your opinions into the engines of a 747. But the man's views of many of his fellow Americans are straight out of a anti-fluoridation handbill that somebody stapled to a telephone pole in 1957. He apparently ascribes to a view of FEMA that is roughly the same as the one that powered the X-Files movie a few years back. ("FEMA - the secret government," hisses Martin Landau, before They do away with him and stuff him in the trunk of a car that explodes.) He attaches himself to assessments of the civil-rights movement that would have embarrassed J. Edgar Hoover. He trafficks with racists, and conspiracy nuts, and he has spent his career marinating in the most toxic sauces of the lunatic Right, the noxious brew that the more respectable Republicans are happy to serve up to the mouthbreathers in their base, as long as it doesn't leach into the Chateau Petrus in their hospitality suites. That's what's happening now, some discreet ratfking to make sure that Crazy Uncle Ron doesn't interrupt too severely the relentless march of Willard Romney. Nevertheless, these newsletters are a look into the political world according to Ron Paul, along look backward in time through the prism of genuine American nativist bigotry. [my emphasis]

The newsletters to which he refers there are the ones that were a lucrative source of income for Papa Doc 20 or so years ago. The invaluable Dave Neiwert explains in The Freedom To Oppress: Why Ron Paul's Old Racist Newsletters Matter C&L 12/26/2011:

Let's face it -- Ron Paul's lame denials about his repulsively racist and homophobic newsletters of the '80s and '90s on CNN should permanently lay to rest everyone's favorite myth about the man, i.e., that he's a "straight shooter" and an "honest man". No he's not. He's a liar.

Anyone who can make millions of dollars for years off a notorious newsletter with their name on it and then later look into a camera and claim with a straight face: "I didn't write them. I didn't read them at the time. I disavow them. That's it" -- that man is a liar, pure and simple. Especially when you can find videos as recent as the above 1995 interview on C-SPAN in which he clearly embraces the content of those newsletters.

That alone should tell us everything we need to know about the man. The facts: Ron Paul had a significant role in determining the editorial direction of his newsletters, which were edited and largely written by Lew Rockwell and a staff under his direction. And yes, those newsletters were ugly, racist, homophobic, and bizarre excursions in right-wing extremism, extraordinarily popular with militiamen and other far-right "Patriots". But then, that would be because Paul built his political career in pandering to such extremists.

Conor Friedersdorf did a piece for The Atlantic last week (12/22/2011) called Grappling With Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters that Dave accurately characterizes as "a thoughtful and nuanced take on the matter" but which nevertheless "also makes excuses for the inexcusable," i.e., he's willing to give Papa Doc a pass on white racism. Friedersdorf winds up arguing that, well, those newsletters weren't so nice and Papa Doc was at least complicit in them; but for his supporters, Papa Doc looks like the candidate who "would do the most to square American government with the highest ideals of our polity". And he expresses his sympathy for the notion that Papa Doc's "policies, the ones he would champion in general election debates and pursue if elected, are the most moral on offer among the GOP contenders."

Dave's not so willing to mealy-mouth Papa Doc's ugliest political traits away:

Well then, let us consider whether or not Paul's policies would be moral ones. And we know, as he has expressed over many years on many occasions, what the outline of his policies would look like: eliminating the income tax, dismantling the IRS, dismantling the Fed, returning to the gold standard, and radically gutting the federal government and its power, notably including its power to enforce civil-rights laws and to protect minorities. It was only recently, after all, that Paul reaffirmed that he would have voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

That agenda, as it happens, matches up with the agenda that has long been promoted by the most racist elements in American politics of the past two generations and more -- the Posse Comitatus, the Aryan Nations, the Klan -- as well as by a variety of extremists with deep roots in far-right anti-Semitism, such as the John Birch Society (with whom Paul has enjoyed a long association).

And while they may employ vicious racism and bizarre extremism in their rhetoric supporting this agenda -- something largely absent from Paul's -- their reasons for pursuing an agenda identical to Paul's supposed "freedom" agenda have to do with the way they define "freedom" -- that is, as the freedom to oppress other people.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks has shown some enthusiasm for the fact that Papa Doc's antiwar positions seem to be giving him a boost in the upcoming Iowa caucuses. But in this segment from the 12/22/2011 show, he and his panel of commentators address the question Is Ron Paul racist?, including one of the excuses Conor Friedersdorf makes for him:



Tags: david neiwert, ron paul, white racism

Papa Doc Paul and today's Republican Party

Joe Conason asks the right question about Ron "Papa Doc" Paul: "What is it about the kindly old doctor that attracts some of the most violent and reactionary elements in society to his banner?" (The Lethal Fantasies Of Dear Old Ron Paul National Memo 12/21/2011)

Conason briefly recounts Papa Doc's history as "a perennial favorite of the John Birch Society and kindred extremists on the right" because of his general opposition to the 20th century, forget the 21st.

In that column, he doesn't address Paul's isolationist and civil-liberties issues that make him occasionally attractive to progressives. The depth of Papa Doc's libertarian views is indicated by his opposition to abortion choice. He may not like the gubment spying on Patriot Militia groups, but he doesn't think libertarian freedom includes women's reproductive choice over their own bodies.

Paul's Old Right isolationism is based on a narrow nationalism which opposes all international alliances and treaties, including arms-control treaties. He does allow that trade agreements can be acceptable. After all, they can help drive the wages and living conditions of American workers down to Haitian levels, which would fit in well with his Bircher libertarians Utopia.

Conason defines Papa Doc's political significance this way:

There is little reason to worry about the policies of a Paul administration, despite his current lead in the Iowa polls. But the rise of the Tea Party and the vacuum of leadership in the Republican Party have created a space for Paul's lethal fantasies, which if enacted would return us to the bad old days of mass poverty, rampant pollution, racial supremacy, and all the other ills that characterized the America of the robber barons. [my emphasis]

Tags: joe conason, ron paul

Bad Lip Reading does Ron "Papa Doc" Paul

Speaking of Papa Doc, the Bad Lip Reading folks have done a bit on him recently. Their schtick on their videos of politicians is not so much to be satirical as goofy. But they are entertaining. (Their one of Romney is still my favorite.) And they do work in some satire based on the politician's public persona. This one gets in a dig at Papa Doc's insanity as well as his long and friendly relationship with white racism.



Tags: ron paul

The normalization of Bircherism continues: puffing Ron Paul

Ron "Papa Doc" Paul, whose crackpot politics reflect the Old Right isolationist politics of groups like The Constitution Party, the John Birch Society and the White Citizens Council (Council of Conservative Citizens), has been a major facilitator in the transmission of ideas and paranoid conspiracy thinking from the Patriot Militia/white supremacist gutter of American politics into the mainstream of the Republican Party.

Dave Neiwert provides a catalogue of Papa Doc's actual legislative proposals in Ron Paul's record in Congress Orcinus 11/11/2007. As Dave puts it, "I doubt there would be many progressives, or even many liberals, who would like where this man comes from politically, or where he wants to take us."

But Papa Doc continues to find boosters. Conor Friedersdorf has done a puff piece on Papa Doc for The Atlantic Online, Close Why Does Ron Paul Scare You? 08/23/2011. He presents Papa Doc as an opponent of unnecessary wars who has some quaint and cranky views that are pretty much harmless. Alex Pareene provides a response to Friedersdorf's article in What's the worst that could happen in a Ron Paul presidency? Salon 08/24/2011. He writes, "And can you imagine Paul dealing with a 2008-style financial crisis? I am guessing he'd let all the banks fail -- which has its good points and its very terrifying points."

Ed Brayton in Is Ron Paul a Dominionist? Dispatches from the Creation Wars 10/18/2007 reminds us of some of the "libertarian" Papa Doc's positions on freedom in America. For instance:

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders' political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government's hostility to religion. The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life.

This is a typical Christian dominionist outlook, with the typical dishonest pseudohistory that goes along with it.

Brayton also notes that Papa Doc "completely ignores the 14th amendment isn't exactly comforting either. He is also stridently anti-abortion and opposes gay marriage." The reading that Bircher types like Papa Doc make of the Constitution is highly selective, to put it mildly.

Tags: radical right, ron paul

Juan Cole on Ron Paul

Juan Cole has the kind of analysis of Ron "Papa Doc" Paul's Old Right isolationism that we rarely see in Paul, Santorum and the Sixth War (on Iran) Informed Comment 08/12/2011. Papa Doc's views are often treated in the press as a quirky instance of a conservative Republican echoing dovish foreign policy views. But Papa Doc and the Old Right isolationists are coming from a radically different perspective:

Ron Paul was representing the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party. It is not exactly isolationist (note the desire for international trade), but opposes the military-industrial complex. As Right anarchists, they want the least government possible, and see government as a distraction for businesses, who succumb to the temptation to use the government to distort the eufunctional free market. In essence, government [in Papa Doc's view] is a scam whereby some companies are seduced by the possibility of manacling the invisible hand that ought to be magically rewarding enterprise and innovation. A significant stream within libertarianism theorizes war as the ultimate in this racket, whereby some companies use government to throw enormous sums to themselves by waging wars abroad and invoking patriotic themes.

Papa Doc delivers a patriotic baby

 I think he misses a beat by calling "the desire for international trade" a sign that Papa Doc is "exactly isolationist." The dogma of free market international trade is standard for Old Right isolationists. In their view, the magic of the free market would solve all problems if allowed to operate unrestrained everywhere in the world.

Cole notes:

Ron Paul's "peace through trade" approach to geopolitics and skepticism of overbearing imperialism does not have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming the foreign policy of the United States. He represents small-town entrepreneurs who see the wars and their expense as a burden and a block to trade opportunities. They are a significant segment of the Republican Party, but I'd put them at 15% at most.

But a large part of what keeps the Old Right isolationists voting Republican is that their worldview includes other factors which they perceive as more closely identified with the Republican than the Democratic Party: white racism, xenophobia, hostility to government regulations. Papa Doc himself, as Dave Neiwert as reported, has been a major conduit for mainstreaming ideas from the white supremacists and Patriot Militia fringe into the Republican Party. "Tellingly," writes Cole, "Ron Paul calls global climate change a 'hoax.'")

He also quotes Papa Doc as follows. Between Papa Doc's own personal quirks and the ideological hash of Old Right isolationist dogma, it's not entirely coherent:

Just think of what we went through in the Cold War when I was in the Air Force, after I was drafted into the Air Force, all through the Sixties. We were standing up against the Soviets. They had like 30,000 nuclear weapons with intercontinental missiles. Just think of the agitation and the worry about a country that might get a nuclear weapon some day.

... That makes it much worse. Why would that be so strange if the Soviets and the Chinese had nuclear weapons, we tolerated the Soviets. We didn’t attack them. And they were a much greater danger. They were the greatest danger to us in our whole history. But you don't go to war with them.

.... Just think of how many nuclear weapons surround Iran. The Chinese are there. The Indians are there. The Pakistanis are there. The Israelis are there. The United States is there. All these countries ... why wouldn't it be natural if they might want a weapon? Internationally, they might be given more respect. Why should we write people off? In the Fifties, we at least talked to them. At least our leaders and Reagan talked to the Soviets. What's so terribly bad about this? And countries you put sanctions on you are more likely to fight them. I say a policy of peace is free trade, stay out of their internal business, don't get involved in these wars and just bring our troops home.

The Old Right isolationists are hardcore nationalists. They oppose international treaties not exclusively concerned with trade, including nuclear arms control agreements. Like the neoconservatives, they are indifferent to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and oppposed to the kind of international agreements and mutual treaty commitments that are the only way to control proliferation.

Tags: isolationism, old right, ron paul

Papa Doc Paul and Bircher "constitutionalism"

We see hopeful speculations pop up now and then on the possibility of some kind of left-right alliance against the various abuses associated with the national security state and unilateral Presidential warmaking.

The problem is that many of the so-called libertarians who occasionally voice seemingly principled objections to one or another of those abuses are actually authoritarian cranks. Like Congressman Ron "Papa Doc" Paul, in an interview he did with The New American. (Rep. Ron Paul on Libya 03/25/2011) Papa Doc is well regarded at The New American, a publication of the segregationist, conspiracy-mongering John Birch Society, who swear up and down they aren't anti-Semitic but really don't seem to like them thar Jews very much. Papa Doc complains of President Obama's course of action intervening in the Libya War:

The argument is that he's getting authority from the U.N. and treaties allow - that's an international law, it becomes the law of the land. But there are limitations. You cannot amend the Constitution by treaty. What if the UN decided that we shouldn't have a First Amendment? Would you say, oh, this is OK because the authority comes from the United Nations? That would be preposterous. [my emphasis]

Papa Doc there gives us a near-incoherent hash of Old Right isolationist hostility to the United Nations and international law, extreme nationalism, Constitutional illiteracy, and one valid (though buried) legal point.

What leaped out at me from this statement from a supposed strict-constructionist libertarian was the sentence I bolded, "You cannot amend the Constitution by treaty." Uh, yeah, Papa Doc, you can. Article 6 of the document you claim to hold so sacred states:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. [my emphasis]

This clear statement that treaties are the supreme law of the US along with the Constitution does mean that a treaty can alter the Constitution. And the courts have in fact upheld that provision in that way. Papa Doc's fans would presumably comma-dance over the fact that the text does not explicitly call a treaty an Amendment. But in fact, Papa Doc and the Birchers and other hardcore rightwingers who like to call themselves "constitutionalists" or part of the "constitutional movement" have very quirky interpretations of the Constitution.

The United Nations has been one of the favorite bogeymen of the Old Right isolationists since it was first proposed. If you wanted to squeeze the remnants of an accurate claim out of Papa Doc's statement, it is true that the United Nations cannot require a member nation to go to war. That's because the UN Treaty specifies that compliance with United Nations actions must be in accord with the constitutional processes of each member state. So by adopting the UN Treaty, the Congress of the United States did not thereby alter the war powers provision of the Constitution.

I'm probably being too generous in crediting him with a valid point there, because he didn't actually make that point explicitly. But that legitimate objection in Papa Doc's comment is buried not only in the mire of Bircher-style UN demonization. Old Right isolationists reject international military alliances in general as undesirable limits on American sovereignty. And they condemn international law as completely illegitimate.

The answer to Papa Doc's question on the First Amendment is straightforward: yes, if an international treaty ratified by the Senate contained provision altering some aspect of the First Amendment, that change would become the supreme law of the land. So far as I'm aware, no treaty has ever had such an effect. But it recalls a couple of noteworthy points.

The treaty restoring Austrian sovereignty and independence in 1955 (Staatsvertrag), signed by the four Second World War occupying powers the US, the USSR, Britain and France, requires Austria to suppress any attempts to restore the Nazi Party. In accord with that treaty, Austria has on their books and enforces laws against Nazi-type activity, including Holocaust denial. The Holocaust denier David Irving did prison time there for violating that law.

This is a different standard of free speech than that of the US under the First Amendment. The treaty doesn't restrict American speech internally at all. But it does represent an instance in which the US recognized in a formal way that some kinds of advocacy - in this case Nazi Party advocacy - has been so thoroughly discredited historically that it should not be permitted: at least in Austria.

(Do I support that particular legal requirement for Austria? The short answer is no. But a one-word answer can't cover all the considerations involved, including how European democracies recognize political parties legally.)

Defenders of freedom of religious and of a nonsectarian government in the United States can also rightly point to the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli that ended the US conflict with the Barbary Pirates, negotiated under Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, as relevant to those questions:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. [my emphasis]

The bolded provision about how the US government "is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" is a statement of position. But it is a statement in a treaty that is part of the supreme law of the United States. And one that comes in a treaty negotiated under the authority of one of the greatest advocates for freedom of speech and religion and ratified by a Congress during the first decade of government under the Constitution.

Tags: john birch society, libya war, ron paul

Ron Paul and the Republicans

Republican Congressman Ron Paul

Ron Paul attracted a good bit of positive attention from critics of the Iraq War during the 2008 Republican primaries because of his antiwar positions. But his political viewpoint is what is politely known as Old Right isolationism. Which is, in a less polite formulation, hardcore anti-union, segregationist, hardcore opposed to government regulations of business, fond of conspiracy theories (especially ones in which Israel or Jews loom large), anti-women's rights and nationalistic/unilateralist/jingoistic to the point of opposing any concept of international law other than narrow trade regulations.

Ron Paul has also been one of the prime conduits through which ideas from the crackpot Bircher/white supremacist/"Patriot" movement far right have been "mainstreamed" into the Republican Party.

So I was interested though not especially pleased to see this piece by David Weigel Ron Paul’s Economic Theories Winning GOP Converts Washington Independent 05/05/09 on the subject of what purports to be Paul's growing influence among Congressional Republicans.

I was particularly struck by the references to what the "libertarian" right - which would be known in Europe as rightwing liberals, a concept that really doesn't compute in the American political vocabulary - call "the Austrian school" of economics, as represented in particular by Frederick von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises.

I have a friend who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Vienna. I asked her one day out of curiosity if she had studied what some Americans call the "Austrian school" of economics. She was unaware that there was such a thing. Although she did remember having heard of Von Hayek. Which made me wonder if maybe we shouldn't call them the "rightwing American school".

Jamie Galbraith has a cute anecdote about the "Austrian school" in the text of a portion of a debate he recently held with former House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, reproduced in Causes of the Crisis Texas Observer 05/01/09. Jamie's father John Kenneth was the best-known liberal economist of the 1960s and the two or three following decades. Jamie said in his speech:

Leader Armey spoke to you of his admiration for Austrian economics. I can’t resist telling you that when the Vienna Economics Institute celebrated its centennial, many years ago, they invited, as their keynote speaker, my father [John Kenneth Galbraith]. The leading economists of the Austrian school - including von Hayek and von Haberler - returned for the occasion. And so my father took a moment to reflect on the economic triumphs of the Austrian Republic since the war, which, he said, “would not have been possible without the contribution of these men.” They nodded - briefly - until it dawned on them what he meant. They’d all left the country in the 1930s.

The Iraq War gave the Ron Paul-type Old Right isolationists to get a hearing on foreign policy among a wider audience than would have been attracted by the dystopian dogmas of "Austrian" economics. Antiwar.com and The American Conservative are two sources that have notably benefited from their antiwar stance while also producing extreme "free market" economic agendas.

Tags: old right, radical right, ron paul

A good resource on the Christian Right

Radical cleric John Hagee, marching with the Maverick to the 100 Years War

Since that bold Maverick McCain is seeking and embracing the support of radical clerics like John Hagee in his campaign to become President and make the Iraq War a 100-year event, I thought I would mention one of the best blogs I've come across dealing with religion and politics in the US, Talk to Action. Some of their recent offerings:

Chris Rodda catches Ron Paul, darling of the white supremacist set, embracing theocratic pseudohistory in saying that the Constitution is "replete with references to God". Rodda points out that there is, count them - or, rather count it - one reference to the Almighty in the Constitution, contained in the phrase "in the Year of our Lord". (It's in Article VII.)

Bruce Wilson looks into the wild and whacky world of the End Times theology of the Maverick's buddy John Hagee. Hagee's views, he tells us, "veer far to the right, lie along the extreme end of the theocratic spectrum and espouse an intransigent and radically bellicose approach to Mideast politics." Just what we need. No wonder Mr. 100 Years War sought out his support.

Frederick Clarkson reports that Maverick McCain Courted Hagee for at Least a Year.

Frank Cocozzelli reports on how the obnoxious rightwinger Bill Donahue of the Catholic League managed to at least get something "half right" in his criticism of Hagee and his pal the Maverick. Cocozzelli also tacks on about a bizillion links to his posts on the Catholic Right.

Tags: christian right, christianism, john hagee, mccain, ron paul

Ron Paul takes the money and doesn't run, leaving unrequited love behind

Justin Raimondo and other folks at the Antiwar.com Web site have been big fans of Ron Paul in this Presidential election cycle.

But for Raimondo at least, he has reached the point of wondering what Ron Paul, also the darling of white surpremacist groups, was really up to. He writes about it in A Revolution Betrayed? Taki's Top Drawer 02/13/08. (He says that the title wasn't his.)

Paul made big headlines for his prodigious online fundraising. But he actually spent very little money in key primary and caucus states on ad buys. If he was really interested in winning the Republican nomination, laying the groundwork for a third party run, or trying to build opposition to the Iraq War, it doesn't make much sense to not make big media buys in the early contests.

It seems to be dawning on Raimondo that hardline rightwinger Ron Paul may have been playing "libertarians" and other war critics for suckers. He writes of Paul's statement effectively pulling out of the Republican Presidential race and also announcing he will not make a third party run:

To summarize: the presidential campaign is in limbo, there will be no third party run, and we'll get back to you later about what we're going to do with all that money we raised ($6 million still unspent).

As Representative Paul put it: Whoa!

But isn't that how "libertarian" capitalism is supposed to work? Everyone is in it for a buck and acting on perfectly selfish impulses. If you can gull the rubes into giving you their cash, you win. If they're dumb enough to get scammed by you, too bad for them. It just illustrates that the guy who winds up with the money is a winner in the Social Darwinist selection process.

Raimondo accurately points out that Paul was never likely to be the Republican candidate, and that his Presidential candidacy really only made sense as laying the groundwork for a third-party run. If Raimondo takes Paul's opposition to the war as seriously as he claims, one would think he would include building the antiwar movement as a possible rationale. But since I see the core of Paul's Old Right isolationist outlook as being extreme nationalism, I never took Paul's support for anti-militarist that seriously.

Raimondo points out that Paul's claim that he has to worry about preserving his House seat against a well-funded primary opponent is bogus. But his article also conveys the sadness of true faith that has been let down:

Paul’s presidential campaign galvanized so much energy and enthusiasm that, at times, it mimiced the dimensions and depth of a real mass movement, that is, of a serious effort to recapture the GOP from the neoconservatives and inaugurate a new era on the Right. The Paul campaign ignited interest at both ends of the political spectrum, and drew in a broad array of activists and more passive supporters (contributors and voters) that, despite their ideological diversity, showed remarkable cohesion and an amazing degree of self-organization. As a grassroots phenomenon, it has outpaced anything seen in the libertarian movement or, indeed, on the far right side of the political spectrum; since the storied days of Barry Goldwater. (my emphasis)

That would be the "storied days" of Barry Goldwater's Presidential campaign in 1964, when his two main issues were promoting an immediate drastic escalation of the war in Vietnam and opposing integration in the South. It's such things that fire the hearts of Old Right libertarian idealists. He continues:

Furthermore, all this activity generated more publicity in the mainstream media than any comparable candidate: national newspapers, magazines, television, and the Internet have all featured interviews, profiles, stories, and editorials that have focused attention on Paul, and made him the subject of discussion from sea to shining sea. Two appearances on Jay Leno: more publicity than this no libertarian standard-bearer ever dreamed of. ...

Paul set out, I think consciously, to recreate the Old Right coalition on contemporary terrain. Was he so astonished by his own success that he pulled back at the last moment? We can’t know that, but what we can ask is why he failed to give us the leadership implicit in his presidential bid. After all, when you run for president, and put yourself at the head of a movement, you have a responsibility to follow through: you’re asking your supporters to make a commitment, and, implicit in that, is an unwritten agreement on the candidate’s part to follow through. (my emphasis)

Ah, it's so poignant to discover that the idol of white-supremacist and militia types could also be a cheap scamster, just like many of his most passionate followers. So sad.

But, then, there's also the reliable fallback of blaming the Jews neoconservatives:

What really scared the substantial anti-Paul contingent among the conservative GOP establishment is that they looked at the youth movement he had generated and saw that this was the future of their movement and their party--if it was to have a future. The venomous smear campaign organized by the Orange Line Mafia, and the hooligan-style assault launched by Bill Kristol and the worst of the neocons, such as David Frum, was simply a defensive war, at least on their part. After all, Paul has continually gone after the neoconservatives, explicitly pointing to them as the real source of the GOP’s problems. His campaign was and is a dagger pointed at the heart of the neocon network in the Republican party, and they responded in kind – that is, in the only way they could, not with a refutation of Paul’s ideas but with smears and a campaign based entirely on the "principle" of guilt-by-association. I’ve covered that campaign [elsewhere], and won’t get into specifics, except to say that, in assessing the effect of the Paul campaign, this chapter takes on special significance.

Yes, there's special significance, here, know what I mean? (Nudge-nudge, wink-wink)

Never heard the term "Orange Line Mafia"? Me either. And, no, even after I followed the link in Raimondo's post I was still pretty much clueless. Finally I realized they were referring to the "orange line" on the Washington D.C. subway system. And lots of Jews seem to be involved.

But whatever the religious inclinations of these Paul opponents, Raimondo thinks they're down on him because they are, you know, urban elites and stuff who hate good, down-home, all-American white folks:

Of course, when anyone looked at the alleged “hate” in his [Paul's] infamous newsletters, and at the accusations leveled in The New Republic and by Marty Peretz’s "libertarian" cohorts, as I did, it became all to clear that the big objection had nothing to do with what was actually written. Paul’s real crime, in the view of his critics, was the very idea of appealing to what is, after all, Ron Paul’s mass base: rural, white, home-schooling, primarily Midwestern farmers and lower-middle class small business owners and blue-collar workers. For the Beltway “libertarians,” this simply will not do. As Radley Balko, of the Cato Institute, lamented: "The Ann Althouses of the world, for example, are now only more certain that opponents of federal anti-discrimination laws should have to prove that they aren’t racist before being taken seriously." (my emphasis)

Speaking of those dang, mannish-type wimmin:

The Ann Althouses of this world amount to a very small percentage of the general population: after all, what if we got together all the cranky, neoconnish know-it-all female lawyers--;would we even have enough to fill a small room?

Yet it is unfair to apply this argument to the Beltway types, who couldn’t care less about building a real political movement outside the confines of the Georgetown cocktail party circuit. That’s why they care more about the Ann Althouses of this world than they do about that North Dakota farmer who spray-painted “RON PAUL” on hay bales. Heck, they’re embarrassed that Paul won his highest vote totals in rural districts like North Dakota and Montana. Why, those places are nowhere, they don’t matter: only the Washington-New York-Hollywood axis matters: the rest is fly-over country, which, if it isn’t exactly uninhabited, is certainly empty intellectually, as least as far as the Orange Line Mafia is concerned. (my emphasis)

And, hey, we know what kind of people run "New York" and "Hollywood" and of course Washington, too, don't we? (Nudge-nudge, wink-wink)

So, if Paul's true believers can't believe their man bamboozled them as bad as Cheney and Bush and Maverick McCain suckered people about Iraq's WMDs, well, they can always take comfort in thinking that the Jews done him in.

It's a strange, strange world those Old Right isolationist "libertarians" live in.

Raimondo follows up that article with more anguish of unrequited political love in A March to Nowhere, also in Taki's Top Drawer 02/13/08. It includes a video clip of the "antiwar" Ron Paul telling his followers, among other things, grumbling that Republicans are joining with Al Gore on global warming.

Tags: isolationism, justin raimondo, old right, ron paul