Ron Paul's Easy Violence

Here is Ron Paul in 1992:

“An ex-cop I know advises that if you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example).”

Notice that Paul cannot by definition be talking about the use of a handgun for self-defense as he’s advocating for the premeditated purchase of an unregistered firearm solely for the purpose of murdering a young person. One understands that this is Texas blarney: for “youth” you can read “colored youth” and for the conditional future perfect tense “if you have to use a gun on a youth” you can see one of Paul’s John Birch Society fixations, eg, the inevitable race war that he would love to see unleashed.

In ordinary times, or what passes for them, I’m not inclined to give a misanthropist like Paul much more than a shrug, but his recent surge in Iowa serves as a reminder that Americans will often overlook the most specious and reprehensible ideas if they can be convinced that a candidate stands for liberty. In Ron Paul’s case freedom means freedom from civil rights– which is to say that he’s for rolling back the clock on everything from the voting rights act to the ADA. Civil liberties are not abstractions, nor are they regionally conditional unless of course you’re not concerned with them at all. Both Ron Paul and his son Rand are hostile to civil rights but quick on their feet to declare they’re for getting the government off the average citizen’s back. Libertarian rhetoric sounds so good to Americans, especially to those who carry loads of class fed resentments. Remember the Willie Horton ads? Ron Paul plays vengeance fantasies with a multi-cultural society and people ought not to forget it.

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