As the shadow of likely 2016 Presidential candidate Rand Paul looms ever more ominously over the United States; we should all expect the lonely, 20-y-o skeleton in the Pauls’ closet to be exhumed once again and be aired out in another futile attempt at discretization. If you haven’t heard of the controversial content published in newsletters bearing Ron Paul’s name in the late 1980s and the early 1990s – I guarantee that you will have by the end of the 2016 electoral cycle. Seeing as Tony Stiles’ guests this week, Lew Rockwell and Jeffrey Tucker, are both men with explicit proximity to this issue – this is a good time to explore it for our cherished patrons.

 

 

Background

 

            First, for those unfamiliar with the story, Ron Paul resigned from his House seat in 1984 in protest of President Ronald Reagan’s abandonment of the free market principles the latter campaigned on, and proceeded to found a publishing company known as Ron Paul & Associates with several family members and his former Congressional Chief of Staff Lew Rockwell. The next year, RP&A began publishing several regular newsletters bearing Ron Paul’s name in the title, such as The Ron Paul Investment Letter. RP&A operated in this fashion for approximately a decade until Ron Paul returned to Congress in 1996 and during this time hundreds of articles were published on economic and political topics, most of them with no bylines and only carrying Ron Paul’s name in the publication title and occasionally his signature as a means of promotion. During Paul’s 1996 bid to return to Congress, his Democratic opponent Charles “Lefty” Morris dug up some controversial statements that had been printed in the newsletters between 1988 and 1993 – and focused his entire campaign in the heavily Republican district on using these to paint Paul as a bigot of various sorts.

 

            While at the time the coverage of this controversy did not reach far outside of Paul’s Congressional district, the statements quoted were indeed quite despicable and understandably raised many eyebrows. Many articles criticized the issue of political correctness in regards to race as they discussed failing strategies to curb street crime and reduce dependence on the welfare state, and the snippets from these offered by Morris’s campaign contained some significantly offensive and questionable phrasing. One article on street crime in DC claimed that "given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal." In a December 1992 column on carjacking, the author “urged everyone in [his] family to know how to use a gun in self-defense” and prophesized “the animals are coming". Another newsletter suggested that black activists who wanted to rename New York City after Martin Luther King Jr. rename it "Welfaria," "Zoovile," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," or "Lazyopolis". For that matter, a number of articles criticized the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., calling him a pedophile and "lying socialist satyr". "Boy,” one newsletter with no byline read, “it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist philanderer, Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day." Nor were the statements limited to race. An article titled "The Pink House" said "I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities." Another newsletter asserted that HIV-positive homosexuals "enjoy the pity and attention that comes with being sick" and approved of the slogan "Sodomy=Death.” Some remarks concerning Jewish issues and the State of Israel were also noted, such as the defense of famed chess champion and holocaust denier Bobby Fisher for being "politically incorrect on Jewish questions, for which he will never be forgiven, even though he is a Jew," a classification of Israel as an “aggressive, national socialist state”, and vague references in 1990 and 1993 to “tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise” and the World Trade Center bombing being a "setup by the Israeli Mossad", respectively. Morris’s strategy of airing these embarrassments out in public made the race competitive in what was otherwise a very Republican district; but he still failed to defeat Paul and slipped into obscurity, taking the statements with him for the next 12 years.

 

Recent Exhumations, Facts and Fiction

 

            As libertarian philosophy has become more mainstream and Ron Paul rose to national recognition as one of its champions with his Presidential campaigns of 2008 and 2012, the statements above have been resurrected by his opponents, this time following him into national headlines as well as all over the internet. Personally, I first discovered them when I told a friend in 2007 that I was volunteering for Ron Paul’s campaign and got an earful for “supporting a racist”. Upon committing the deadly sin of asking her to source and explain her judgment, I received the logically impeccable answer “I heard it somewhere”. Since then, including in preparation for writing this editorial, I have conducted many hours of research into the controversy and uncovered a disturbing pattern of similarly responsible and credible citations. According to an interview with Ron Paul conducted by the Dallas Morning News in 1996, the newsletters at the time in question had an estimated 7000 to 8000 subscribers. Such limited circulation with 20 years in between and preceding the internet has made the original source material understandably difficult to find, and in light of this – it appears very few pundits, writers, and so-called journalists have bothered to try. Citations in the various publications on this topic, notably even those defending Paul, are few and far between; and those I’ve found are traceable back not to the newsletters themselves, but to the statements as they were reported by Morris’s campaign in 1996 and the various local media carrying the story at that time. To make matters worse, the publications often cite and recite each other and their spread of information resembles the children’s game “telephone”; often butchering and abridging the statements far beyond their 1996 ugliness and misattributing them to speeches made by Ron Paul on his campaign trails or on the House floor. The only journalist I have come across claiming to have tracked down copies of the original newsletters was James Kirchick writing for the New Republic in 2008; however, that man’s admission of having only seen a very small sample did not stop him from thrashing Ron Paul with far-fetched and over-arching accusations of bigotry and obsession with conspiracies, all with very sparing use of direct quotes.

In academia, where I learned to write, this relationship with source accuracy gets you an F and a very uncomfortable meeting with a panel of professors to learn about the concept of “academic dishonesty”, and that is for your FIRST offense. But therein lays the problem with this issue and US media in general. No one reporting on this controversy has ever started with an impartial attitude and sought to uncover the truth, they only did it to either mar or defend Ron Paul’s political candidacy – that is, until now.

 

Analysis

 

            Despite being a supporter of many of both Pauls’ political stances, I take the controversy very seriously and find many of the statements to be quite personally offensive. But putting this in reasonable perspective rather than jumping to conclusions, I have to remember that my only concrete facts are a very small selection of newsletter content republished out of context by one political campaign in effort to smear another. Quoting these selective citations even without butchering or misattributing them as if they are representative of hundreds of articles over the course of a decade and then concluding based on them that Paul is a bigot is simply absurd. Nevertheless, before you either cheer or chastise me for defending Paul, the statements are quite disgusting and they were published in newsletters bearing Ron Paul’s name, so questions arising out of their publication are not unreasonable – such who wrote the articles, and how much involvement did Ron Paul have in their publication and approval?

 

            Searching for possible answers, I come across the fact that Paul himself has never claimed the authorship and on many occasions profusely denied it; taking responsibility for the statements having slipped through under his management. But while every associate of Paul’s ever interviewed on the subject has corroborated that Paul did not write the articles himself; their accounts over the years get vague and contradictory regarding who was the authort, how involved Paul was in screening and approving them, and if he weren’t – who gave the final go-ahead. Paul’s associates that remain in good graces with him such as this week’s guests Lew Rockwell and Jeffrey Tucker have always insisted Paul was not involved, but have also remained tight-lipped about the identity of the author and directing editor. When asked about this by Tony Stiles on the September 22nd, 2013 show, Lew Rockwell explicitly denied any involvement while Jeffrey Tucker neither confirmed nor denied involvement. Some disgruntled former associates, notably former employees John W. Robbins and Renae Hathway, have implicated Rockwell in having written the articles and Paul in having knowingly allowed them into print as a means of boosting circulation and profits. But as Paul’s spokesman during his 2012 Presidential campaign, Jesse Benton made a valid pointed that these claims were made by former associates that have fallen out of favor with Paul in likely search of vindication; and that despite their loose claims of “dozens” of other witnesses – no one has come forward to corroborate them. Nevertheless, it would seem Paul, Rockwell, and Tucker could put the entire controversy to rest by naming the author and editor and remains perplexing that they have not done so. However, Tony Stiles believes from private conversations with Jeffrey Tucker that the identity of the true author of the controversial newsletters is kept silent due to contractual agreements.

 

Implications

 

            Whatever the barrier to the public exposure of the truth may be, I believe the mature adult stance on this is to acknowledge we do not have enough information to make a reasonable conclusion. Ron Paul is clearly guilty of a count of poor management for letting the statements be released bearing his name, but he has acknowledged this and taken responsibility for it – and those not involved in media would be surprised at how common such oversights really are. As for whether or not Paul holds the views expressed and/or approved of their distribution to boost his circulation – the answer to these questions is simply unavailable, and I take the drastic step of questioning their political relevance. In 30 years of serving in the US House of Representatives, NOTHING in Paul’s authored bills or his voting record has ever indicated support for discriminatory policy of any kind. As Ron Paul’s political belief is that government has a responsibility not to discriminate in terms of equally before the law and eligibility for public services but neither the authority nor the duty to counter-act private discrimination; it is even plausible that he simultaneously holds some personal intolerant views and has not incorporated them into his policy proposals. While that thought is unpleasant and its corroboration would make me lose respect for Paul personally, it also takes much of the weight out of these allegations as being politically disqualifying. He is the only candidate with a political agenda based on observable facts and logical deduction, and on the off-chance that he holds some personal intolerant views – there is no reason to believe they would ever seep into his policies. So really, who cares if he’s a bigot? Not if, but WHEN you see this skeleton exhumed again in 2016 as an even more logic-devoid attack against Rand, I urge you to ask yourself one key question. Why such desperate attachment to something that happened 30 years ago and the facts surrounding which remain selective and vague?

 

            I will tell you my theory. Both the 2008 and 2012 Presidential campaigns saw candidate after candidate demolished by gaffes and personal scandals, including John Edwards’ love child, Rick Perry’s “Oops”, Herman Cain’s lifelong incapacity to keep it in his pants, Newt Gingrich’s extra-marital affairs, Romney’s etch-a-sketch and 47%, and so on. And with each such demolition, more and more Americans noticed that crotchety, angry, brilliant old man who had been married to the same woman for 55 years without a single infidelity accusation; and whose crisp, articulate expression of reasonable and consistent views exposed the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama as rhetorical, emotion-baiting lunatics relying entirely on appearing better than the other major party to get elected. Both party establishments and their media pets realized that these views breaking into public discourse presented a colossal political threat, and in an age of very effective scandals and controversy they rummaged through Ron Paul’s closet and discovered this lonely skeleton in a desperate effort to discredit him. A glimpse at the roll call on the Amash Amendment to defund the NSA or at the debate on intervention in Syria clearly demonstrates they failed, MISERABLY, and I could write an entire other editorial on why. But for the purposes of this one, just consider that special interests neck-deep in entanglements with the establishments of both major parties realize that Ron or Rand Paul’s political agenda coming to power means they will no longer be able to rob this country blind through sanctioned bank fraud, foreign policy belligerence, and the over-regulation of every consumer industry from agriculture to health care. So, they join together to play a dried up race card they once fought over, because they have absolutely nothing else.

 

By: Neurotoxin

 

 

 

About the Editor:

Neurotoxin holds a dual BA in Psychology and Political Science and an MSW with a specialization in Community Organizing. Politically, he is a “structural anarchist”; a school of thought that believes in treating all power structures as facts of nature that should be accounted for but not preserved. This school of thought dictates that policy ought to be driven solely by its empirically calculated outcomes.

Neurotoxin is the co-owner of Edge of Chaos – a political podcast and blog that can be found @ www.edgeofchaospodcast.com and http://www.facebook.com/theedgeofchaos.