The Freedom Bulletin

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) announced today that she will resign from Congress to focus on her recovery from the head injury she suffered in a shooting rampage just over a year ago. The Freedom Bulletin would like to wish her the very best in her recovery and her future career, whatever shape it may take.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Ron Paul took a break from the campaign trail this week to introduce and speak on the House floor about a piece of legislation to repeal section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This provision allows the government to indefinitely detain, without trial, people who allegedly “substantially supported al Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.” President Obama wrote in a signing statement that he would not use this law against U.S. citizens, but the bill’s vague language makes it possible that it could indeed be used against U.S. citizens one day.

Paul said that Section 1021 “provides for the possibility of the U.S. military acting as a kind of police force on U.S. soil, apprehending terror suspects, including Americans, and whisking them off to an undisclosed location indefinitely … Sadly, too many of my colleagues are too willing to undermine our constitution to support such outrageous legislation.”

Thank you Congressman Paul for fighting for liberty both on in the presidential campaign and in Congress!

OK that might be a little bit of an exaggeration. But this is truly a night that all Ron Paul supporters, and supporters of liberty in general, should enjoy. Ron Paul had a strong second-place finish to Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire primary, coming in with 23% of the vote to Romney’s 39%. He gave a magnificent victory speech (watch on Fox, YouTube, or above) and issued a press release calling on all of the other candidates to drop out and unite against Romney. “President Paul,” as he was anointed by chanting crowds, is even trending on Twitter. It might seem strange to consider second place a victory, but if you think about this time four years ago, when Paul was running solely to publicize his libertarian ideas, to gain such a significant share of the vote, beating Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Rick Perry, is quite a victory indeed. And to see his genuinely happy reaction warms my heart. All hail President Paul!

Highlights from Paul’s speech in case you don’t want to watch the whole thing:

• “I’d like to thank the Union Leader…for not endorsing me!”
• “He (Romney) has had a victory but we have had a victory for the cause of liberty tonight!”
• “I think that the intellectual revolution that’s going on in this country to restore liberty is well on its way, and there is no way that they are going to stop the momentum that we have started.”
• “I sort of have to chuckle when they describe you and me as being dangerous. That’s one thing they are telling the truth, because we are dangerous to the status quo of this country.”
• “What should the role of government be in a free society? The role should be very simple: the protection of liberty!”
• (Crowd chants: Ron Paul revolution, we respect the Constitution!) “Wonderful, wonderful!”
• “You know, the Constitution was written for a very precise manner. It was not designed to restrain the individual…but to protect your liberties and to restrain the federal government. Liberty has to be re-emphasized because we’ve been careless over the last 100 hundred years, we’ve taken liberty and chopped it up into pieces. Some people think liberty has to do with personal habits, which I agree. Other people think liberty is how to spend your money, and they defend that part and then they fight about when to do what. I think what we need to do, is make this emphasis that liberty means you have a right to your life and your privacy and the way you want to live your life as long as you don’t hurt people, and you have a right to keep and spend your money as you want to.”
• “Freedom is a wonderful idea and that’s why I get so excited, but I really get excited when I see young people saying it; it is a wonderful idea. Freedom is popular, don’t you know that? Freedom brings people together. I think it’s magnificent that the crowds that have come out over the weeks and months have been very diverse, because it should be, because some people want their freedom to practice their religion in one way, maybe another way, some might not even want to practice it at all. But freedom if you understand it, you should all fight for freedom, because you want to exert your freedom the way you want.”
• “They say, how are you gonna compromise and give up some of your beliefs in order to get some things passed? You don’t have to compromise, what you have to do is emphasize the coalitions that people want their freedoms for different reasons, and bring them together.”
• “We’re well on our way… I always assumed that the best I could do is set a record. I didn’t know you were out there. But it’s no longer that irate, tireless minority that is stirring up the troops. Now that irate minority, and so tireless as you have been, it’s growing by leaps and bounds, it’s going to continue to grow by leaps and bounds, and we will restore freedom to this country.”

Photo by Gage Skidmore

At yesterday’s Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire, America got to see Ron Paul more assertive than ever before. He was asked almost all negative questions – asked to justify his previous criticism of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, questioned on 20-year-old newsletters that he did not write, challenged on his comments about running as a third-party candidate, and attacked on his foreign policy. And that was just by the moderators. He started out a little shaky but got better as the debate went on.

My favorite moments from last night’s and this morning’s debates:

During an exchange over Paul’s comments that Newt Gingrich was a “chickenhawk” for advocating war while never having served in the military himself, Gingrich said that he did not go to war because he was married with a child. (As a single person I found this remark slightly offensive. Are single people’s lives less valuable than married people’s, so it’s not as objectionable for them to be sent off to war?)  ”When I was drafted, I was married and had two kids and I went,” Paul retorted.

When challenged about some allegedly racist newsletters bearing his name, he gave a perfect response. “One of my heroes is Martin Luther King because he practiced the libertarian principle of peaceful resistance and peaceful civil disobedience, as did Rosa Parks… I’m the only one up here… who understands true racism in this country is in the judicial system, and it has to do with enforcing the drug laws. Look at the percentages. The percentage of people who use drugs are about the same with blacks and whites. And yet the blacks are arrested way disproportionately. They’re prosecuted and imprisoned way disproportionately. They get the death penalty way disproportionately. How many times have you seen a white rich person get the electric chair or get, you know, execution?”

After being interrupted during his first couple of questions, Paul said sternly, “Do not interrupt me.”

At one point, Paul cheerfully and charmingly proclaimed, “I’m doing pretty well. Catching up to Mitt every single day.”

In this morning’s debate, when asked about the fact that only one of his bills has passed during his 20 years in Congress, Paul replied, “That demonstrates how out of touch the U.S. government and U.S. Congress is with the American people.” Right on. Candidates should be judged on the quality of their ideas, not the ideas of the people they happen to work with. If the other people in Congress don’t agree with Paul’s ideas of liberty, that reflects badly on them, not Paul.

When speaking about entitlements, Paul also gave a fantastic defense of his supposed opposition to minority rights: “Entitlements are not rights. Rights mean you have a right to your life, you have a right to your liberty, and you should have a  right to keep the fruits of your labor. And this is quite a big difference, but earlier on there was a little discussion here about gay rights. I, in a way, don’t like to use those terms, gay rights, women’s rights, minority rights, religious rights. There’s only one type of right. It’s your right to your liberty. And I think it does cause divisiveness when we see people in groups, because for too long we punish groups, so the answer then was let’s relieve them by giving them affirmative action. So I think both are wrong. If you think in terms of individuals, to protect every single individual, no they’re not entitled. One group isn’t entitled to take something from somebody else.”

Check out some more highlights from the International Business Times. Also, Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast live-blogged the debate, and even though he comes off as a bit left-wing on some issues, he even said, ”I find the notion that Ron Paul is a racist to be preposterous.”

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Now that Ron Paul is finally considered a legitimate presidential contender in the top tier of candidates, people are naturally looking for any way they can to tear him down. Apparently, the best thing they could find, and the thing that a disturbing number of people are starting to make a big brouhaha about, is several newsletters from the 1980s and 1990s, called the Ron Paul Survival Report, Ron Paul Freedom Report, and Ron Paul Political Report, which contained some arguably racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic comments.

Among the contents of these newsletters were things like “95 percent of black males in that city are semi-criminal if not entirely criminal,” and “it sure burns me to have a national holiday for that pro-communist, philandering Martin Luther King,” and “I’ve laid bare the coming race war in our big cities, [and] the federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS.”

Now, I have heard and read things that are more bigoted than anything in these newsletters. The newsletters do not, to my knowledge, actually state anything to the effect of, “black people are inferior to white people.” But the main problem with the Paul-bashing is that Paul consistently denies knowing the content of these newsletters, let alone writing them. Not exactly known for being phony, he has never, as far as I have heard, said anything even remotely racist in public. Or, says his former aide for 12 years, Eric Dondero, has he ever said anything racist in private. Dondero split with Paul because of disagreements about foreign policy and has been very critical of him on his blog, so if he had any bias it would be against Paul.

Plus, Paul’s policy positions – based on the belief that people should have the freedom to live as they please as long as it does not violate the rights of others – are friendly to people of all races, religions, and sexual orientations. Paul believes that the government should treat people equally without regard to the demographic groups to which they belong, and that people should be free to form any relationships that they wish to, without government labels or licenses. As Wes Messamore points out at the Daily Caller, Paul has denounced overzealous law enforcement, mandatory minimum sentences, and their effects on African-Americans, and mentioned his friend, African-American economist Walter Williams, as a possible running mate. When it comes to homophobia, certainly it would make more sense to pick on Republican candidates Rick Santorum (who supports anti-sodomy laws) or Michele Bachmann (whose husband allegedly believes in “curing” gay people of their gayness) than Paul.

As an example of how widespread the anti-Paul bias is, a surprisingly ignorant and illogical CNN blog entry (or at least an ignorant and illogical headline) interprets a book that Paul actually did write, “Freedom Under Seige,” as “criticiz[ing] AIDS patients, minority rights and sexual harassment victims.” In the book, Paul writes that people with AIDS often have AIDS because of their own decisions, and that they do not have the right to force other people to pay for their treatment. This is completely true, and completely consistent with Paul’s libertarian ideology. He also writes that federal laws against sexual harassment are unnecessary because employees are free to quit their jobs. I do not agree with this, but it is completely consistent with Paul’s central belief that the government should be small and allow free markets to solve problems whenever possible. And Paul decries the tendency to create separate sets of rights for different groups, such as racial minorities, children, employees, and the homeless, pointing out that, “White people who organize and expect the same attention as other groups are quickly and viciously condemned as dangerous bigots. Hispanic, black, and Jewish caucuses can exist in the U.S. Congress, but not a white caucus.” Far from “criticizing minority rights,” this statement sums up the very essence of both libertarianism and diversity – the rights of all individuals to be accepted, treated equally, and treated as individuals.

Yet even though there is nothing homophobic, anti-Semitic, or racist about Paul, far too many people speak of him as if he is the leader of the KKK or the National Vanguard or something. Those who declare their support for Paul are treated as if they made an embarrassing faux pas. And as Salon’s Steve Kornacki describes, nearly all of his campaign rivals have made despicable comments about him in recent days, with Bachmann and Mitt Romney saying he will not be allowed to become the GOP nominee, Newt Gingrich saying he might rather vote for President Obama, Santorum saying he would have to take “a lot of antacid” to vote for him, and Jon Huntsman running an ad about him entitled “Unelectable.”

When Kelly Clarkson announced her endorsement of Paul on Twitter, people responded by saying inaccurate, condescending, and just plain rude things like:

• “Now THAT is how you get someone to unfollow you on Twitter…and in your career.”
• “its good that you dont want women to have the right to choose & think ppl should die in the ER”
• “oh my god I’ve never been more disappointed I thought you were smarter wow”
• “It does concern me a little that you support Ron Paul given his hateful views towards Jews…it did kind of rub me the wrong way”

Fellow singer Michelle Branch bravely agreed with Clarkson, and she was met with a storm of similarly obnoxious comments, such as…

• “ron paul is a homophobe! how could you EVER support him? when you used to sell records, you had so many gay fans. #sad.”
• “supporting ron paul means supporting racism and homophobia, you both need to stop.”

It is beyond me how people can find it sad or disappointing that someone endorses a pro-liberty politician. Even if a celebrity endorsed a politician I hated, I wouldn’t personally attack them or insult their intelligence. And, if I disagreed with someone’s opinions, I would criticize those opinions, using logic and reasoning. But I guess that takes more effort than calling someone a homophobe, an anti-Semite, and a racist.