"Everybody knows in my district that I didn't write them and I don't speak like that... and I've been reelected time and time again and everyone knows I don't participate in that kind of language. The point is, when you bring this question up, you're really saying 'you're a racist, or are you a racist?' The answer is no, I'm not a racist. As a matter of fact, Rosa Parks is one of my heroes, Martin Luther King is a hero, because they practiced the libertarian principle of civil disobedience and nonviolence. Libertarians are incapable of being a racist because racism is a collectivist idea: you see people in groups. A civil libertarian as myself sees everyone as an important individual."
— Ron Paul, CNN, Jan 10, 2008
Maybe we should re-title this thread to Put quotation marks around anything and attribute it to anyone.
OK, UT and Foot. Here’s more info than I bet either of you ever cared to know. :p:
My quote of Ron Paul came from the entry about him in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul which states in part:
Controversial claims made in Ron Paul's newsletters, written in the first person narrative, included statements such as "Boy, it sure burns me to have a national holiday for 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."
The source Wikipedia cited for this quote is a blog here:
http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane-mccalla/ron-pauls-racist-newsletters-revealed/
There has been controversy over Ron Paul’s ties to racism for some time now. Many people have pointed to Ron Paul’s Newsletters as proof of his racism. Paul has previously admitted to* writing the newsletters and defended the statements in 1996, then blamed them on an unnamed ghostwriter in 2001 and then denied any knowledge of them in 2008. He has given no explanation, for how the racism entered his newsletter. If we are to take Paul at his word, he is guilty of at least promoting racism on a large scale. Paul earned almost a million dollars a year from the racist, conspiracy theorist newsletters. Here [is] an excerpt that I’ve found.
In this piece he criticizes Martin Luther King as a pro-communist philanderer and says the MLK holiday is “Hate Whitey Day.” This is in great contrast to 2008 when he told Wolf Blitzer that Martin Luther King was one of his heroes. When activists suggested naming a city after Martin Luther King Paul suggested other names such as “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis”
Wikipedia also cited an article in the New Republic by James Kirchick:
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/angry-white-man?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84c
Kirchick did a search of the newsletters under the name of Ron Paul that were put out at various times going back as far as 1996. Kirchick concludes:
But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul’s name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that they were written by him--and reflected his views. What they reveal are decades worth of obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry against blacks, Jews, and gays. In short, they suggest that Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing--but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics.
The New Republic, BTW, considers itself a publication which draws upon a variety of viewpoints from both the Left and the Right.
@Dana - Of course Merc would be opposed to MLK Day. Doesn't surprise me one bit. :rolleyes:
