ron paul

Came to campus last night to speak on the Diag. I went to see him, along with a couple hundred other people. It was nice because I got to talk to Jessica Hibma for a while, and Sam B-F. They're both cool and I hadn't really talked to either of them in a while. Well, I guess I saw Jessica earlier in the day yesterday, but it was in passing and hardly counts. Anyhow, to sum up Paul's speech: "Freedom freedom Constitution troops home freedom freedom government BAD." He's a racist libertarian extremist who wants to abolish the IRS and the Federal Reserve, and in 1992 had this to say about black people in his personal publication:

Regardless of what the media tell us, most white Americans are not going to believe that they are at fault for what blacks have done to cities across America. The professional blacks may have cowed the elites, but good sense survives at the grass roots. Many more are going to have difficultly avoiding the belief that our country is being destroyed by a group of actual and potential terrorists -- and they can be identified by the color of their skin. This conclusion may not be entirely fair, but it is, for many, entirely unavoidable.

Indeed, it is shocking to consider the uniformity of opinion among blacks in this country. Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty, and the end of welfare and affirmative action.... Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the "criminal justice system," I think we can safely assume that 95% of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

If similar in-depth studies were conducted in other major cities, who doubts that similar results would be produced? We are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, but it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings, and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers.

Perhaps the L.A. experience should not be surprising. The riots, burning, looting, and murders are only a continuation of 30 years of racial politics.The looting in L.A. was the welfare state without the voting booth. The elite have sent one message to black America for 30 years: you are entitled to something for nothing. That's what blacks got on the streets of L.A. for three days in April. Only they didn't ask their Congressmen to arrange the transfer.

Maybe I'm just being judgmental and unfair, but I feel like a lot of the people who were there last night waving signs with his name on them were sucked in by his being against the Iraq War. Well, kudos to him for being right on that count, but he's wrong on just about everything else and I feel like he wouldn't have so much support if people knew just a twinge more about him. One thing I can say, though, is that he does seem like a principled guy, never really wavers or compromises what he believes in. The problem is that his principles are terrible.