US Person is still on holiday, but he has agreed to post for the benefit of Iowa Caucus participants. It is apparent that Congressman Ron Paul is anti-fascist, anti-war, pro-civil liberties, and an adherent of the Austrian School. If he wins the Iowa Caucuses, he will emerge from the periphery of American politics to present a viable option to the duopoly of the major parties. Not since Ross Perot have Americans been so willing to endorse a third-party candidate to break the moribund strangle hold of the two-party system. Consequently, Paul is being attacked by the corporate mass media and rival campaigners as the latest alternative to the plutocrats' front man, Mitt Romney.
The attackers have seized on newsletters from the 8o's and 90's published under Paul's name, allegedly revealing his racist attitudes. Paul has publicly disavowed the newsletters as not his own writing. Calculated to appeal to red state fringe voters, the publications did generate income for the candidate. More revealing is the "politically correct" thinking of his current critics. Quotes often cited as showing his bigotry are more correctly characterized as harsh or blunt assessments of American reality. His newsletter described Martin Luther King as "a world class adulterer", a character flaw Hoover's FBI took pains in verifying. Later, Paul's "Survival Report" worried about the "disappearing white majority", an undeniable demographic fact that will affect the social and political life of the United States. While it may be weak to fear all black men, it is not irrational for some to react with fear to the fact that the majority of criminal defendants in urban centers are black. That condition may be the result of economic oppression and police profiling, but it is reality, as is the fact that most fleet NFL running backs are black. Other examples of calculated political overreaction to Paul's provocative prose can be offered. What can be gleaned from all this falderal is that politicians confined to the shadows of fringe party politics often resort to extreme rhetoric to gain a following. The very nature of the political duopoly makes unorthodoxy a necessity. Ron Paul is no exception. As he moved away from libertarian politics to rejoin the Republican party, he disavowed the crank rhetoric. He took responsibility for the newsletters' content in his run for Congress in 1996.
US Person is not a Repugnant or a Libertarian, but Ron Paul is bringing to the forefront issues such as the failed war on drugs, the domination of American politics by the Federal Reserve, the undue influence of the Israel lobby in foreign policy, the deleterious effect of the anti-terror war on our civil rights, and the draining of our national wealth by our military empire that are deliberately ignored or understated by the so-called "mainstream" politicians. US Person for one is glad Ron Paul is in the presidential race, and so are a lot of Iowans who are looking at conditions in their nation from ground level, not 40,000 feet.