Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Ron Paul Enigma


Ron Paul: one of the last hold-outs for decency, a living reminder of more civilized times when gentlemen wore powdered wigs and read Plato? Or a racist-enabling a**hole?

Ron Paul is 50% joke, 50% wisdom. He's an intriguing enigma. But I admire his principled words on the "Ground-zero Mosque" that must have got many 'bagger heads a-scratchin':

The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer... This is all about hate and Islamaphobia... Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.


Fine sentiments indeed.

And if it's true that he's the "spiritual father of the Tea Party movement", maybe he can cut through the Palin/Beck noise and speak some truth to idiocy... maybe school some of those hate-consumed lunkheads who yell about Islam. Who knows?

But...

Before we start ordering Ron Paul Revolution t-shirts online, let's remember that he's still a libertarian. He might be the smartest guy in the room, but that room is a McDonald's ball pit full of retards hopped up on Tea Party Kool-Aid. Working to push libertarianism as serious political philosophy, as he does, is like working to get glue sniffing accepted as alternative medicine. Libertarianism is pseudo-philosophical garbage, anti-Marxism for third-graders... and its opinions on the basic building blocks of civilization - from individual social responsibility through to the common interdependency of citizens - are so abstruse that it's become the go-to ideology for the "I got mine, f*ck you" folks.

For all his high and mighty principles, Paul's become a hero for angry a**holes looking for people and ideas to hate. He's also an intellectual beard for bigots seeking the advancement of white privilege and the de-entitlement of minorities by 'shrinking' the government and the laws that help level society's playing field. In other words, the self same bigots he's criticizing for their Islamaphobia are the people who comprise the bulk of his support.

So, on balance, let's just say his statement on the mosque is a rare hit out of the park in a long season of misses. But that's not to say I won't stand up in my seat and applaud him.

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1 comment:

  1. "He might be the smartest guy in the room, but that room is a McDonald's ball pit full of retards hopped up on Tea Party Kool-Aid." I just about wet myself.

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