Talk:Ron Paul

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The "Ron Paul Event Horizon"

I'm thinking we might need to add a section on what I've recently termed as the "Ron Paul Event Horizon". Similar to the Moral Event Horizon, it is the point at which a person has become so much of an enamored supporter of Ron Paul, no amount of logic or reason could possibly convince them that anything he does is wrong in any possible way. At this point, there is no going back, and they are stuck as a Paulbot willing to defend his every racially-charged statement or dangerous economic idea. Thoughts? ^{— Unsigned, by: ShadowofLords / talk / contribs}

Seconded.

Am I the only one who caught this?

In the article about Ron Paul, the author clearly states that Ron Paul supports this pastor Kayser guy... When in all actuality, it's KAYSER who supports PAUL (a quick google will show this). There is a WORLD of f***ing difference! This is my first visit to rationalwiki and honestly; it's no better than conservapedia. So much fail.

False allegations of double billing

I am requesting the removal of the false allegations of double billing

First of all, the source and article states that Ron Paul labelled as one of the most corrupt members of Congress by CREW and this is not true, he actually received a dishonorable mention by CREW for his connection to double billing. The author of the cited source is Elizabeth Flock, who later resigned from her position after an editors note about "significant ethical lapse." CREW is not so reliable either.

The three sources used by Flock and CREW to make these claims are all written by one person, Jonathon Strong. Here is a timeline of events to explain how and why this information surfaced:

1.2006-2008: Jonathan Strong is employed by Congressman Dan Lungren and receives attention for also reporting favorably on Lungren at the Daily Caller.

2.2007: Dan Lungren is identified by Congressman Ron Paul supporters as a major political rival to Paul’s political positions.

3.March 2011: Dan Lungren expresses support over Newt Gingrich’s run for President, later officially endorsing him.

4.April 2011: Ron Paul returns over $140,000 in unused funds from his congressional office to the U.S. Treasury, a something he has repeatedly done during his time as a Congressman.

5.December, 2012: Gingrich identifies Paul as “worse than Obama” declaring he (Gingrich) would never vote for him (Paul) if he received the GOP nomination.

6.January 3, 2012: Gingrich loses the Iowa Caucuses, placing a distant fourth behind Paul’s third and specifically targets Paul for criticism in his concession speech.

7.January 17, 2012: An AP article comes out accusing Ron Paul of lavish spending on First Class flights on taxpayer’s dime, but is subsequently debunked by Lawrence O’Donnell and various other sources

8.February 6, 2012: Jonathan Strong publishes an article on Roll Call implicating Ron Paul in another travel related scandal, this time for receiving double reimbursements from non-profits and the government to the tune of $15,000 over a 10 year period based on stolen evidence that does not actually imply intentional fraud or Paul’s knowledge/involvement. Strong published two follow-up articles with no new evidence presented.

9.September 2012: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) gives Paul “dishonorable mention” in their “Most Corrupt Members of Congress” report based solely on the three Strong articles published earlier that year.

10.September 12, 2012: Elizabeth Flock of U.S. News & World Report publishes on the Washington Whispers blog, “Ron Paul One Of The Most Corrupt Members of Congress, Report Finds”

Here are the reasons why the claims of double billing are false:

1. The evidence ["several layers of documentation"] is based on stolen American Express credit card bills and comparisons of amounts to reimbursements made by the government and other non-profits or implied by hand-written notations on the stolen documents

2. There is no evidence that any intentional or systematic fraud has ever taken place. Rather, the evidence points to nothing more than an infrequently repeated clerical error.

Spokesman Jesse Benton said it was “possible that wholly inadvertent errors were made in a handful of instances” in which flights were reimbursed twice, but he maintained that “absolutely zero taxpayer funds were ever misused.”

3. There is no evidence that Congressman Paul had any knowledge or involvement in the billing or reimbursements of his flights. In fact, sources related to the previously debunked “First Class Flights” scandal indicate his staff handles all of his travel arrangements and billings

“We always get him full refundable tickets since the congressional schedule sometimes changes quickly,” said Jeff Deist, Paul’s chief of staff. Paul might have to pay out of his own pocket for canceled flights in some cases if he didn’t buy refundable tickets, Deist said.

4. Both Ron Paul & his staff have been cooperative in investigating this matter even though in some cases some parties have been less than pleased with the results so far.

“I don’t care what flights the Liberty Committee pays for,” James said, “because Ron never took enough in expenses to come anywhere near his value to us. And this was piddly. But it’s just what it was.”

Paul recently told James that his office is investigating the payments and will return money to Liberty Committee if duplicate payments are found. Roll Call provided Paul with the documents it used in this report, as well as a summary of James’ recollections. Paul’s office said they are “reviewing” the records.

Paul spokesman Jesse Benton said James, who worked for Paul for 18 years and says he still supports the lawmaker’s political message, is “pursuing a personal grudge” against the Texas Republican. Benton said Paul will be “happy” to review the allegations.

And why would Paul, who he himself is worth over $4.9 million, con nearly $15,000 over 10 years while at the same time donating significant amounts to the treasury on a yearly basis (over $500,000 total)?

Conclusion: The evidence used to make the claim that Ron Paul double billed his expenses is unsubstantiated and it is entirely unreasonable to draw that conclusion.

--68.2.64.15 (talk) 07:19, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Did you even look at the source? A 2 year old 15 post blog with all the documentation why CREW came out with the story, wrote a 1-2 sentence long rebuttal without any backup, and said that's good. When someone presents hard evidence hand waving it away doesn't work. Also happily mentioning CREWExposed that makes Time Cube look almost sane with no evidence besides a bunch of accusations they are a "non-partisan, Democrat, leftist attack dog." Can someone tell this guy what partisan means?

The only good part was mentioning that Ron may be doing this, but many senators also do it and should be taken to task for it. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:21, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I looked at the source. Did you? The rebuttal is quite clearly not 1-2 sentences long, I have even quoted quite a bit more than two sentences. CREW is not reliable and this can easily be fact checked and confirmed by other sources.

Here are some more reasons to not trust the supposed "evidence" of double billing(from one of the primary sources used by Flock's article and CREW):

Benton said those flights “may appear to show duplicative reimbursements because Congressman Paul’s wife or a campaign staffer traveled with him. In such instances, the U.S. House would reimburse Congressman Paul’s travel to D.C. for Congressional business, while his campaign or political action committee would reimburse his traveling companion’s ticket.” But Benton declined to discuss any of the trips in detail, arguing that the office does not have records for many of the years in question and that Roll Call was using “stolen” credit card records as the basis for the story.

It is possible that Paul had a traveler with him, such as his wife or a campaign staffer. As for further information about these trips, much of the years in question by Roll Call were before the FEC and IRS required records to be maintained and yet Roll Call is implying some sort of deceit because Ron Paul did not have all of the records at hand (see Occam's razor). Most of the arguments made in the source are non-sequitur's and it's obvious that Mr. Strong cherry picked for information that he could use to falsely accuse Paul.

For example, on March 24, 2003, Paul purchased a round-trip flight from Washington, D.C., to Houston for $651.50. Several weeks later, filings with the FEC show, the Committee to Re-Elect Ron Paul paid $651.50 for the Continental Airlines ticket. Congressional expenditure records show Paul also was reimbursed $651.50 by taxpayers for the same flight.

Note that Roll Call uses the records of one of his credit cards and other public documents which are limited and do not provide sufficient information to support the claims. What happened here(in the above quotation), after careful reading, is that Ron Paul's credit card company paid for the tickets, the credit card company was then paid by one of Paul's organizations, and then Paul was reimbursed for the single payment of $651.50. Ron Paul would only be double billing if he personally paid the credit card bill and then pocketed reimbursements from both the government and his organization, none of which the evidence points to. This source fails to show that Paul personally paid for the ticket, does not show that both the campaign and the government reimbursed Paul, and somehow disproves the possibility of an alternate traveler given the limited evidence. Given these standards used for so-called evidence of double billing (in addition to possible clerical errors) the author's conclusions cannot be considered reliable. Paul has also not been accused of wrongdoing by any authorities.

And, again, why would Paul con nearly $15,000 over 10 years while, afters years of payments, donating over half a million dollars to the treasury? There is no reason to attribute bad faith to Paul's actions unless there is actual evidence (instead of weak implications) to support it.

--68.2.64.15 (talk) 21:56, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

To summarize, these claims of double billing (over a measly $15,000) were brought to light by a journalist who has a history of friendly reporting on a Paul rival that he previously worked for, and the (stolen) evidence used is not sufficient or reliable to make the claims because it does not actually indicate fraud.--68.2.64.15 (talk) 06:16, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

This RW article says that "he's done this with 60% of travel claims" which is false, this number comes from those claimed to have been billed only to the Liberty Committee (not the total of all his travel claims). The article also says that he is "either refusing to respond to inquiries about this, or saying any possibly double billing is an accident", which is also false because he hasn't ever said that any possibility of double billing was an accident and his staff has been open to the interested party and investigated the claims.--68.2.64.15 (talk) 06:57, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Rationalwiki doesn't do their homework. And in a related story, the sky is blue. Burkean (talk) 22:37, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree. This article is so off-base, it is filled with cherry picked misrepresented criticisms and ad hominem attacks. The entire thing needs to be redone. If I were to post similar things about Hillary Clinton on this wiki site it would be removed immediately.--70.176.186.251 (talk) 05:18, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Ron Paul is not a racist

Yeah, he is.

Soon after his election to Congress in 1978, Ron Paul began putting out a newsletter. Originally entitled the "Ron Paul Freedom Report," then the "Ron Paul Political Report,"[47] and finally the "Ron Paul Survival Report," it was full of homophobia, racism, sexism, and paranoia. The Ron Paul Report was roughly equivalent to the John Birch Society in its kookishness. The Report particularly seemed to hate Barbara Jordan, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela.

From 1976 - 1988, 144 editions of the newsletter were published and they had no racist content. There were about a dozen newsletters with racist passages that were published between 1989 - 1994 (that were very much unlike his writing style and demeanor), when he was working full time as a medical doctor and speaker in addition to raising five children.

but a consistent pattern of writing for the better part of the late 80s and early 90s (i.e., when the nuttiest stuff was printed in the newsletter) suggests that he at least knew what was in it.

Baseless speculation and no citations provided.

Movement libertarians have fingered Lew Rockwell as the culprit who ghost-wrote the reports. He, predictably, denies authorship of the letters as well.

Rockwell said that he was "involved in the promotion" of the newsletters and wrote the subscription letters but denied ghostwriting on Paul's newsletters. He said there were "seven or eight freelancers involved at various stages" of the newsletter's history. He spoke about another individual who had "left in unfortunate circumstances" was in charge of editing and publishing the newsletters.

Nonetheless, in previous interviews he has defended several of the statements as both being written by himself and being "statistical" instead of racist.

During his 1996 presidential run he did not refute his claims in the newsletters based on poor advice from his campaign staff. He said "They were never my words, but I had some moral responsibility for them … I actually really wanted to try to explain that it doesn’t come from me directly, but they [campaign aides] said that’s too confusing. “It appeared in your letter and your name was on that letter and therefore you have to live with it.”

(which is, itself, problematic, as he was happy to put his name on it)

Paul took responsibility for the content written in the newsletters because of the oversight on his part.

Nelson Linder, former president of the Austin division of the NAACP, has known Ron Paul for over twenty years and vehemently denies that he is a racist, and in fact admires his work in defense of blacks in the criminal justice system.[51] Naturally, the existence of a single African-American who thinks Ron Paul isn't a racist proves that he indeed isn't.

Nobody said that this one example proves it. There are many others who believe he is not a racist and there is strong reason to believe that he isn't. He does not express racist sentiment and is very kind and accepting of others.

Ron Paul has made noises which suggest that he has back-pedaled from the racism he embraced previously...

He did not embrace it previously.

All of this, and considering he's an opponent of the Civil Rights Act

Yes, he is an opponent of the Civil Rights Act but not in the manner that is implied in this article (he was against the Jim Crow Laws). He objects to the Civil Rights Act because it impedes upon property rights of business owners.

Paul wants equal treatment under the law. The Jim Crow laws impeded upon the rights of minorities, while the property rights provisions of the Civil Rights Act put the rights of minorities above business owners. The removal of the property rights provisions works in the way that racism in businesses can be solved by the free market. If businesses refuse to serve blacks it loses black customers and other customers that don't like racism, and in this day that will make them go out of business. In this manner racism is prevented without compromising freedom.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't vote against getting rid of the Jim Crow laws," Paul said. He explained that he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act "because of the property rights element, not because they got rid of the Jim Crow laws."

He also said in a 2004 floor speech: "The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business's workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge's defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife."

Turns out #2 can be crossed off the list, data leaked by a 2012 anonymous hacking campaign against Neo-Nazism links Ron Paul at the hip with American Third Position.

The Anonymous text is not reliable and contains false misrepresented information. The email dumps don't actually prove that Paul intentionally addressed A3P members and the A3P also rejected the claims.

Why would Ron Paul cause damage to his political career by promoting racist newsletters, which are counter to his expressed views which include support for blacks? It is irrational to conclude that he is racist and there is no smoking gun that proves this.

(previously 68BoN)--70.176.186.251 (talk) 06:16, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Who says being a racist will necessarily damage a political career (especially back in the 1970s)? ScepticWombat (talk) 10:12, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Ron Paul's newsletters did NOT contain racist views in the 1970's. As my post above states, the newsletters were posted with racist content between 1989 and 1994.--70.176.186.251 (talk) 23:06, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Every single candidate in the 2012 election was called a racist at some point, people like to denigrate other candidates that they don't like with these claims. Unless there is more damning evidence than "Ron Paul has his name on the newsletters" this information should be removed from the article.--70.176.186.251 (talk) 23:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

This is my proposed revision. It is worded more neutrally and removes inaccuracies in the previous version.--70.176.186.251 (talk) 09:14, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the version is more "neutral" (and RW doesn't hold with NPOV anyway), just more wishywashy - and it removes the appropriately snarky remark about the value of a NAACP leader acting as a "character witness".

It also involves some really silly claims, such as the one that Paul "stopped short of denying authorship in 1996 because his campaign advisers had thought it would be too confusing and that he had to live with the material published under his name." This sounds more like a campaign trying to have its cake and eat it too ("Oh, Paul didn't write it, but he won't deny it either and he's really sorry anyway.") and one doesn't have to be a conspiracy theorist to get the idea that this was Paul trying to reach outside the loonie fringe he had appealed to with the newsletters, while at the same time trying to avoid alienating that fringe.

It's pretty damning that Paul didn't try to distance himself from the newsletters published under his name until others brought them up, regardless of their actual author(s). Indeed, this failure suggests at least a tacit endorsement by Paul. Either Paul was a racist or he was willing to pander to racists for opportunist reasons, which is not really an improvement. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:44, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Ok whatever, I'm not going to bother trying to fix this mess. Given the state that RW allowed this article to be in (it has many factual errors and misrepresentations of Ron Paul's views, and totally ignores every good thing that he has done) and this response, which contains a lot of unwarranted speculation and ignorance of Paul's behavior, I don't think that I can change it to express Paul's views ethically and accurately.--70.176.186.251 (talk) 12:26, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, you could always have a drink. And just for the record, articles like, say, the one on Eric Hobsbawm doesn't contain "every good thing that he has done" either, because this is not WP. ScepticWombat (talk) 14:33, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Ron Paul is a racist

Seriously. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/395176-ron-paul-tweets-racist-cartoon-faces-backlash LuodiWang (talk) 01:06, 3 July 2018 (UTC)