WHY WON'T THE MEDIA CALL OUT RON PAUL?

The corporate media have portrayed Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul as a 'maverick'. Liberals have been seduced by his so=called 'independent' stance on American foreign policy. What goes largely unmentioned is his desire to take the axe to welfare services, his racism and his homophobia. He has also associated with neo-Nazi groups and the Ku Klux Klan. Trish Kahle writes that its time to stop giving Ron Paul an armchair ride.

Ron Paul is not very different from the other GOP candidates. He’s a racist, sexist, homophobic radical free-marketist. And he should never be allowed to set foot in the halls of power. But that’s not the Ron Paul being portrayed by mainstream media sources. NPR called him a “maverick” (not again!). Pundits left and right will jabber on about his “controversial” stances on foreign policy. They mention his “libertarian values” every chance they get. He seems to have escaped the media scrutiny he deserves. For every Rick Perry racist family campsite, there’s a photo of Ron Paul like this one:

This is Ron Paul with former American Nazi Party member and current KKK Grand Wizard and Stormfront.org webmaster, Don Black. Ron Paul also distributed racist newsletters that his campaign has tried to distance himself from–but there’s a snag: Paul’s name was in the newsletter title, which makes it somewhat implausible that he didn’t know about the content of the letter. He also voted against renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act and he claimed the Civil Rights Act violated the Constitution and undermined personal liberty. Obviously, this doesn’t make any sense unless you’re a racist. However, there’s an easy solution. Anytime Ron Paul says “personal freedom” or “individual liberty” add on “of white people.” That’s where he’s coming from.

Paul also has a long history of homophobia. In 1994, he wrote: “[Gay] men don’t really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centred on new sexual partners…they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick.” He’s tried to skirt around the question this election–knowing that Americans’ views on LGBT rights have dramatically shifted over recent years, but the record speaks for itself. In 2004, he spoke in defence of the homophobic DOMA. He then co-sponsored the so-called “Marriage Protection Act” which would have prevented legal challenges to DOMA. In a 2007 article, he wrote that recognizing same-sex marriage at the federal level would be “an act of social engineering profoundly hostile to liberty.” (The liberty he’s referring to is the liberty of the states.) If you’re confused about how he’s managed to sell this as “individual liberty,” you’re not alone.

Because in Ron Paul world, not only are corporations people, so are the states. In Ron Paul world, corporations and states have more rights than you–unless you happen to be a rich, white, heterosexual cis man. In 2005, Paul introduced the “We the People Act,” which would have removed from the jurisdiction of federal courts “any claim based upon the right of privacy, including any such claim related to any issue of sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction” and “any claim based upon equal protection of the laws to the extent such claim is based upon the right to marry without regard to sex or sexual orientation.” If you’re not sure how Ron Paul claims to be a strict constitutionalist while arguing that the Fourth Amendment is invalid, you’re not alone.

To continue the bizarro-states-rights line of bullshit, Paul has said of the death penalty, “Over the years I’ve held pretty rigid to all my beliefs, but I’ve changed my opinion of the death penalty. For federal purposes I no longer believe in the death penalty. I believe it has been issued unjustly. If you’re rich, you get away with it; if you’re poor and you’re from the inner city you’re more likely to be prosecuted and convicted, and today, with the DNA evidence, there’ve been too many mistakes, and I am now opposed to the federal death penalty.” So basically, Ron Paul thinks it’s not racist if the state carries out an execution of a poor, Black man. If you’re wondering if there is a planet where that train of thought actually holds any logic, you’re not alone.

But all this is sort of moot. We already know Ron Paul’s a bigoted asshole. What I think is worth noting is how much of this shit he gets away with.

Even though I’m of the opinion that every GOP candidate should be charged with hate speech, and the media clearly aren’t interested in that level of scrutiny, most of the other candidates have had to endure some fire over their bigotry. So why does Ron Paul get a free pass?

The only reason I can think of is that he calls himself a libertarian, but no one will interrogate that. As I’ve shown, Paul is for pretty much everything except personal liberty. Did it never occur to any of the mainstream media dimwits to consider how someone who claims government should get out of everyone’s business also claims that the government belongs in a woman’s uterus? Somehow, Paul has managed to evade any real inquisition of his policies regarding same-sex marriage by shouting “STATES’ RIGHTS” at every available moment. Some disillusioned liberals seem to have taken this as a sign of progressivism. Nothing could be further from the truth. States’ Rights are slavery. States’ rights are Jim Crow. Calling states’ rights is a tactic for stifling social movements from being able to demand national change and for preventing courts from issuing nationwide class action rulings like Brown v. Board of Education.

So, everywhere Ron Paul goes? Call him out. Call him out and shut him down.

MIC CHECK!

This article was first published at I Can't Believe We Still Have To Protest This Shit