Dr. Gottfried,

An excellent post.

Gottfried writes:  “Senator Obama, belongs to a black-nationalist church in Chicago, one whose pastor holds racialist views that he freely vents. This fact has been generally kept out of public attention, together with the anti-white outbursts of Obama’s wife Michelle.”

A point I’ve made often during the past few days.  Ron Paul’s candidacy is over, but he should go down in style.  Instead of groveling in front of the liberal media and kissing the PC ring, he should have said:  “Why am I being attacked for things I did not even write?  If we’re playing guilt by association, why are inquiries not being made about some of the attendees of Senator Obama’s black nationalist church in Chicago?”

Gottfried writes:  “Unfortunately, there is no way that one can acquiesce in the Left’s double standard without conceding its larger points about the need for thought control and selective reconstructions of the past. In my view, what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander. If the Left likes racists as long as they’re anti-white and sexists providing they’re anti-patriarchal, I see no reason why our side has to bend over backward not to give offense to its antagonists. Perhaps we should stop caring about what these hypocrites would tolerate and be true to ourselves. “

Well said.

“What about those who express sympathy for the Confederacy? Such types typically come up for criticism in the neocon and liberal press as being indistinguishable from the Nazi sympathizers, whom we would agree to stay clear of”

I am a little surprised you’re asking this.  “Those of us” who express sympathy for the confederacy could not be further from fascists.  Both the neocons and leftists have tried their best to make Jeffersonianism a ‘racist’ ideology (IE states right is a code word for white supremacy).  Sir, you should consider the Jeffersonians like myself allies, 100%.

“Even more importantly, do we take our cue about keeping suitable company by looking at our enemies’ classifications?”

As a Christian, I don’t look for moral guidance from the depraved guardians of our disordered culture. Instead, I try to live by the Gospels, ardently pursue the Truth and avoid anything that might compromise my spiritual well-being.

Why would anyone emulate the Left, adopt it’s mores and methods to a right-wing agenda and pursue a life of unprincipled machinations and manipulations? To win what? Political power?

Of course liberals live by a double-standard. How else can they maintain the fictions that are essential to living in their fantastic alternative to Reality? Lies, deceptions and false posturing are necessary to exercising the fleeting power they have acquired? Are you arguing that because they elevate black racists to positions of prominence, we should do likewise with white racists? I don’t get it. Other than it appears
you’ve grown embittered by your battles. Step back and think of the larger issue here.

There is no cultural transformation worth undertaking if it based on hate. And there is no prize worth capturing in this life, if it leads to damnation in the next.

Identity politics has been a great leveling tool for our managerial class, but it is about to turn on them. The whole cynical edifice they’ve built through divide and conquer tactics may not survive when the Obama-Clinton circus
winds it way through town.

Here’s just a respectful reminder that the arguments of “tu quoque” and pointing out the hypocrisies of political opponents are the oldest and dullest tools in the Communist propaganda box.

A point I’ve made often during the past few days.  Ron Paul’s candidacy is over, but he should go down in style.  Instead of groveling in front of the liberal media and kissing the PC ring, he should have said:  “Why am I being attacked for things I did not even write?  If we’re playing guilt by association, why are inquiries not being made about some of the attendees of Senator Obama’s black nationalist church in Chicago?”

AMEN. AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.

In fact, it is worse than that as Obama credits that Minister with teaching him what Christianity is all about (race apparently).

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/barack-obamas-church-ultra-left-and-afrocentric

I would LOVE to hear a Republican candidate refer to Hillary and Bill’s actual record of theft and fraud during their entire political careers, and especially all the funny money from Chinese Commies.

And is it too much to ask a Republican candidate to refer to Hillary’s Hubby as THE IMPEACHED PRESIDENT and use her own rhetoric of a co-presidency to paint her as an unindicted conspirator in all of his crimes?

If you think - Well, they are just waiting until the national campaign - you are fooling yourselves.

Sam Francis did not label us the Stupid Party for nothing. Stupid and Craven. And it sickens me to no end.

Kudos to Mr. Gottfried. He is all aces, as usual.

My, My. Look at what I just found about Mr. Paul.

It turns out that Mr. Paul DID author some of the rants and has, in print, publicly defended doing so.

This is sad. If he believes what he wrote, then he should defend it. But, this lying and weaseling-out tactic he is trying makes him appear much less of a man than I thought he was.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/01/ron_pauls_racist_rheoric_uncov.html

It will be interesting to read the responses of Mr. H, Willb, and all the other true-believers.

And regarding the actual comments in the Paul newsletter, let’s not forget that any of these things would have been permissible to say on the “right” only 40 years ago.  Peruse the pages of National Review from the 1950s and early 1960s, where such things were said regularly, and you will see how politically correct we’ve become.  The Cultural Marxists have won.  It is completely acceptable for Barack Obama to attend a black nationalist church, but Anglo-European Americans must prostate themselves and celebrate their own demise.  How bad is it going to be 40 years from now?

Paul Gottfried’s comments are proof of my thesis: “The Left” is becoming “Right”—(1)racialist, (2)nationalist (aka “identity politics"), (3) Judeophobic, (4)Fascist in tone and method, and (5) even “sexist”.  For #5 I particularly thank Dr. Gottfried. As in 1914, nationalism sadly trumps sect, class, and other ideologies.

Our Stormfronters on this site will rage, but, as I’ve said before, to Black Nationalists and Black Supremacists (Wade Nobles, Frances Cress Welsing,Carol Barnes, Leonard Jeffries) our “Far Rightists” are, so to speak, brothers under the skin.

I must tell Andy Capp, by and large a good guy on this site, that his views, surely unintentionally on his part, might give aid to Judeophobes, company I’m sure Mr. Capp would shun.  Catholic Christianity’s roots are in Judaism, even the Temple cultus.  To be Judeophobic or Antisemitic is to be anti-Catholic.

With all due respect to Dr. Gottfried, whose analysis of political movements is unmatched, I must say that I find his attitude too reactive and ideological. I agree that we should not decide with whom to associate based on the fear of denunciation by leftists. NEITHER should we emulate their promiscuous embrace of cranks and haters. Even if it made for effective politics, which in the long run it doesn’t. In my piece I suggested one check one’s OWN internal moral compass to judge which apparent “allies” are really worthy of cooperation. And my main reason for doing this is moral, not political: I don’t want to be seduced by ideologies of hate, any more than I want to get addicted to crack. So when I discover that a “friend” I thought was an insurance agent is in fact a crack dealer, I will avoid him. The fear of scandal is part of the reason, but only a small part.

First-rate commentary.  As you implied in your essay, the Right can learn from its enemies on the Left as well.  Like the classical Marxists of old, perhaps the Right should turn the language of the ruling class against its lapdogs in the media and academe.  We should be relentless in exposing the truly intolerant hypocrites of our age.  When Ron Paul was recently denounced for daring to support DiLorenzo’s critique of Lincoln, that was a classic opportunity for the Right to denounce leftists and neocons as the truly intolerant and prejudiced ideologues who fear the “open exchange” of ideas.

When evaluating whose support to accept and whom to communicate with, you might want to keep in mind an idea that used to be central to Christianity:  you have to hate the sin, but not the sinner.  However evil the sin, the person must always be loved.  The idea underlying this rule was that the person and the personality are two entirely different things, and the latter can be totally changed.  Indeed, the concept of original sin required every human to change their personality.

From this perspective, the “us vs. our enemies” attitude that underlies your argument is quite troubling, because it looks a great deal like a sign of interpersonal hatred.  Furthermore, this attitude is very probably counterproductive because it cuts off communication and makes it unlikely that you could create in (for example) racists a mindset, where they could look back and wonder: ‘How could I ever hold views like that?’

Interestingly, neoconservatives themselves are an example of people holding views that they later change—and not only change but regret.  As is widely known, many of the founders of neoconservatism started as Trotskyists.  Yet they abandoned this political view.  It might be useful to make this point in defending Paul.

@ Spartacus,

i read the article -re: ron paul -at the link you provided above. 

I often find it instructive to check out the “about” or “about us” pages of various websites.

Thus, from the “about” page of the “American” Thinker website ....

“American Thinker is a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans. Contributors are accomplished in fields beyond journalism, and animated to write for the general public out of concern for the complex and morally significant questions on the national agenda.

There is no limit to the topics appearing on American Thinker. National security in all its dimensions, strategic, economic, diplomatic, and military is emphasized. The right to exist and the survival of the State of Israel are of great importance to us. Business, science, technology, medicine, management, and economics in their practical and ethical dimensions are also emphasized, as is the state of American culture.”

Things that make you go hmmmm, eh?

Mr. Capp:

Catholics and Jews ("Talmudists", better the Tannaitic literature) BOTH have a great respect for law, as opposed to Protestants, some of whom, I fear, sometimes might pit Grace against the Law in a manner that is not New Testamental.  Catholics in fact learned their love of the law through Jews.  The first Catholics, the Apostles, were of course Jews. Many Gentiles, St. Luke likely among them, and especially Romans had a great respect for Judaism’s high ethical standards and thus attended synagogue services without become Jews (they rejecting circumcision).  The Jews called them “God Fearers” (better: “God Reverers") When the Catholic Faith came along with Paul’s mission to the gentiles, many these people became Catholics.

Likewise the idea of THE TRADITION comes from the Tannaitic school, and it is from such rabbis that Catholics developed their own idea of THE TRADITION and the Deposit of Faith handed on from the Apostles.

for the rabbis taught that on Sinai the Almighty revealed both the written word (written = scriptura)in the Torah, later extended to the Tanakh, and the unwritten word, aka THE TRADITION.  The rabbis expounded on this Tradition, as does the Magisterium of the Church (rabbi = teacher = magister), and the sum total of their expositions are what first the Mishnah, and later the Talmud are.

So both law and Tradition are Jewish ideas taken over from Judaisim.  The debt to the Jews doesn’t stop there.  Our Lord understood his own mission in terms of the Isaiah “suffering servant” and the Day of Removing (aka Day of “Atonement"). The debt of the Eucharist to the Passover needs no mention.

I ask Jewish readers for their indulgence: It might be argued that the Catholic Faith has preserved much of OT Judaism: for that Faith still has Scripture, Tradition, Law, the Prophetic Office, the Magisterium, the religious, AND priest, altar, and sacrifice, to say nothing of Passover and Pentecost.

The American Group Thinker is very neocon. In fact, they banned the use of the word neocon because it was considered “code.” And they are pro-Lincoln. I don’t have time to look for links to support this now, but will later if anyone doubts me. So just consider the source.

Dr. Gottfried.................Yes!.........You are correct. The problem
with conservatism is it’s “Intelectual Purification” process! Where
liberals understand that “More Warriors” are better than “Some Warriors!”
If truth be known, Omaha Beach at Normandy was littered with Drunks,
racsists, pedephiles, jews, atheists, robbers, crooks, rednecks, hoodlems,
christians, atheists, rich kids, poor kids, etc,etc. But they had a
comon goal of taking the fucking beach!.......Conservatives can not
survive with some twisted, elitist, Harvard concept, of what a conservative
should be!........Conservatism should be simplified so that the Southern
redneck that want’s Washington out of his life, can understand that
the California Pot Smoker want’s Washington out of his life!(And,
yes I feel your pain, as we were all audited by the Clinton’s Gestapo
tactics of utilizing the IRS for intimidation!......Intelectual conservatism
has to recognize that the “Toothless Moonshiner” of Arkansas hates the
“revenuer” just as much as the graduate of the “Ludwig Von Misses” institute
of Auburn Alabama!............I know......I live in Alabama!

@I Am not Spartucus : Oh come now. He never said he did not write some of the newsletters. If his campaign took reponsibility for these newsletters in 96 it’s highly possible he did not even know about it. Why is your site calling him anti-semitic? I think you’re blowing this way out of proportion.

I did not mean to suggest that John Zmirak, who is too kind in his praise of
my analytical acumen, is calling for neocon style witch trials in order to punish rightwing dissenters from some bowdlerized version of the Right. What I was doing was to use the questions that John raised in order to raise other ones. It was certainly not my intention to link him to the efforts of Fox, Frum, and the like to turn the American Right into a less interesting form of the multicultural, egalitarian Left.

It appears that Paul said those things and is now trying to weasel-out. In that, he is like all other politicians.

And Bede is correct. What Paul said was permissible on the right 40 years ago.

While an accurate observation, it fails to include the further observation that when some of those things were said it was blatantly racist.

As for Am-Think, I know where they stand.  Whenever I am out and about breaking the speed limit laws, I hear AmThink cited by Rush.

I just decided to do a search on the Paul and his past statements issue and that was the first thing I discovered.

I think it goes without saying that in this binary America, few sites on the “right” would trouble themselves to really dig for the truth because it might harm “their” man.

And that is another problem,isn’t it?

One of the great things about this site is I have read men being frank about this or that personality/politician even though he is, presumptively, in “our camp”

I am not Spartacus,
Your reasoning is odd:  you seem to operate on the priciple that if a person held some views 15-20 years ago, that disqualifies the person today.  Haven’t you ever changed your mind?  Haven’t you ever learned anything new?

You may want to recall Lord Keynes’ response, when he was accused of abandoning his old positions:  “When the facts change, I change my mind.  What do you do, Sir?”

You may also want to recall the early decades of last century, when Darwinism—and with it racism—were at the vanguard of science, struggling against what they regarded as the backward forces of Christianity.  In those days it would be very understandable for a person to believe in the importance of race.  (Much of the left used to be blatantly racist.  Look at the Eugenics Society’s membership list.  This part of leftism was hushed up after WW II for obvious reasons.)

Similarly, place yourself in the 1930s, with economies crashing everywhere and unemployment around 30%. Taking an objective look around, it would be very understandable for a widely read and rational person to reach the conclusion that capitalism cannot work and that communism was a better solution. The failure of communism as an economical system only started to become obvious in the 70s.

Your view of human nature is strangely static.  It does not accept change at all.  (Or are you ignoring this intentionally to create guilt by association?)

I’ll continue my support for Ron Paul for President.  Many of you, after administering purity tests and flinging library books at one another, might wish to support Rudi’s candidacy.  He was once a good Catholic boy - so I hear.

Again, the lines from these newsletters are, for the most part, true.  A few may be expressed in a slightly over the top manner, but they’re racist as compared to what, the way the New York Times and the U.S government have completely ignored (sponsored) racist violence committed against whites the last 50 years?  The context of many of these remarks were the LA riots where innocent whites were being dragged out of their cars and quite literally being lynched, and to go ballistic over these very mild remarks is to deny whites the right to be angry over such crimes, because the system believes that all whites are born guilty and deserving of being murdered or raped for the the color of their skin.  The “gentleman’s agreement” that establishment conservatism has with this murderous system is that they’ll turn a blind eye to the racist murder, rape, and terrorism (indeed at genocide) aimed at whites as long as they are allowed to feed at the trough.

Well, well, well.
So the enlightened few at this blog have finally succumbed to race
baiting and journalistic demagoguery. Why and I not suprised?
Mr.Spartacus wannabee, I read your link and the only QUOTE attributed
to Dr. Paul is:

“If you try to catch someone that has stolen a purse from you, then
there is no chance to catch them,” Dr. Paul said.

Wow. That statement is SEETHING with racist implications. Rick Moran
then goes on to fill in the blanks for us: ‘Them’ meaning those skittery
black folks.”
How convenient that Moran carefully attributes HIS own personal racist
REACTION to the statement to be Dr.Paul’s intent.
Baloney.
The only reason this article was written is to give opportunity to the
following lie:
“To put it as succinctly as I can, Ron Paul is a lying racist.”

This type of slander goes beyond the pale and is demagoguery of the
Nth degree.
Here’s a political test: If you read this article and agree with the
author then you are a sheep, not a human and should therefore not
participate in any vote of any kind whatsoever. You are a political zero.

Liberty and truth have enemies, my friends.
Rick Moran is just one of them.

As for Mr.Gottfried’s point of accepting double standards I do not
agree that we should and this article is a very good example of why
we should NOT. The hyperbole being employed against Dr.Paul versus
the reticence exercised toward Obama speaks volumes about why this
country is falling apart before our very eyes.
People are afraid, and not just of the imaginary islamofascist boogeyman.
No, much worse. They are afraid to speak the truth and if Dr. Paul
accomplishes nothing more in this campaign it will be to re-introduce
the truth to public debate and give it the pedestal it deserves.

(Sorry for the poor format, above.)

person today.  Haven’t you ever changed your mind<?I>

Yes, but not as often as Romney.

Dr. Ron Paul, a Republican congressional candidate from Texas, wrote in his political newsletter in 1992 that 95 percent of the black men in Washington, D.C., are “semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

<I>So what exactly did Paul and his campaign say about these and more egregious statements during his contentious 1996 campaign for Congress, when Democrat Lefty Morris made the newsletters a constant issue? Besides complaining that the quotes were taken “out of context” and proof of his opponent’s “race-baiting,” Paul and his campaign defended and took full ownership of the comments.

So, according to Dr Paul almost all blacks are fast-footed criminals.

Nope. No racism there.

I read your link and the only QUOTE attributed to Dr. Paul is:..

You missed many more. Click on the matt welch link.

Why do the neocons have so much power and influence in this country, anyway? I think ultimately it’s because American evangelicals are dumb. They are intellectually uncritical and given to dispensationalist fantasizing and casual anti-intellectualism, as Mark Noll brilliantly described in “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.” I have nothing but respect and affection for evangelicals--I graduated from an evangelical college myself--but the typical evangelical is so hung-up on a golden image of Israel as the chosen land that he or she buys into the pablum of the neocons.

By the way, a good example of the “gentleman’s agreement” I wrote of above was George W. Bush saying in Israel that America should have bombed Auschwitz.
The full version of “should have bombed Auschwitz” is “America should have bombed Auschwitz but they didn’t because they’re all a bunch of Jew haters really no different than the Nazis, they purposefully refrained from bombing because they wanted more Jews to die.” Bush’s little Dixie Chick moment shows just how willing the leadership of the Republican party is to spit on its own culture, nation, and people, to spit on even on the memory of its war dead for a momentary personal advantage, no matter how small.  Compare this to Paul’s stereotyping. 

Here is an article from “American Thinker” which discusses some of the technical problems with bombing Auschwitz, though in typical gutless and dishonest “conservative” style it doesn’t deal with the racism that is the real substance of this charge:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/bush_wrongly_blames_america.html

(Odd how you never hear this “should have bombed Auschwitz” aimed at the Soviet Union, which was much closer to it than the Western Allies throughout much of the war.  No cha-Ching in that, I suppose.  Nor do you ever hear that the powerful Israeli Air Force had some moral obligation to bomb during the many African episodes of genocide.  But consistency isn’t a hallmark of the “should have bombed” crowd.)

Having an opion of any kind automatically
excludes you from U.S. politics.
This is why the Dems only preach “change”
without offerring any definition of what
that means.
Likewise, the Reps only talk about past
records with no forward direction.
Ron Paul is the only candidate that is
offerring specific direction but of course
he is being attacked for this.
It is easy to smugly sit back and throw
cold water on anyone who offers solutions.
Such is the state of our nation, adrift.