I wrote the first draft of this blog just after the Iowa caucus, and I am revising it after the Florida primary. The Iowa caucus is something between a state fair and a freakshow; it mostly demonstrates the voting preferences of white evangelical Christians with nothing better to do on a cold Tuesday night in January in Iowa. The other primaries thus far have also been freakshows, as far as I’m concerned: Gingrich posturing in Florida about a moon colony, Gingrich in South Carolina making a particular point of disrespecting poor people and black people.
Ron Paul and Rick Santorum both made strong showings back in Iowa. Santorum I’ll deal with another time. Right now I just want to say a word about Ron Paul.
I used to think that, as a libertarian, he was (in the words of Douglas Adams) “mostly harmless.” He was for the legalization of drugs, for example. He seemed friendly to women’s rights and gay rights (at least in the abstract.)
Then, recently, some of the newsletter stuff from the 1990s has been coming to light.
Here is a link to it. Please read at your leisure. It is abominable. It basically rescinds all of the civil rights legislation of the last fifty years.
In brief: Ron Paul says that the government has no right to dictate guidelines on hiring. If you, as an individual, do not see your way clear to hire black people, or women, or Hispanics, or gay people, that is your right. Those people whom you’ve disadvantaged (blacks, women, Hispanics, gays, et cetera) can just go out and find other employers.
Do you see where this leads?
Uh huh.
If Citizen X doesn’t like black people and doesn’t want to hire them, for whom would he vote: Ron Paul or Barack Obama?
Naturally.
And would Ron Paul welcome his vote? Naturally he would. He welcomes all those who share his world-view, for whatever reason.
If, in some odd alternate universe, Ron Paul actually captures the Republican nomination (which he probably won’t, but I’ve been wrong about things before), how many black people, how many Hispanics, how many women, how many gay people would vote for him? Not many.
Ron: we, the American people, do not choose to employ you. Go find another employer.
(And if I should be wrong about all this, and he somehow through some reverse miracle climbs into the Presidency: Jesus Buddha Allah Krishna save us, it’s the Mayan calendar 2012 apocalypse after all.)
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