More on Ron Paul's Crackpot Campaign

My Street.com column today again explores the Ron Paul phenomenon, this time dealing with the crackpot character of both the candidate and his supporters.

After I filed the column I found some more evidence - not that any was needed - on just how off-the-wall Paul truly is.

Back in 2004 he was the only member of the House of Representatives opposing a resolution commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I'm replicating his floor comments in full below:

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H. Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H. Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.

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 judge's 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 judges 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.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join in sponsors of H. Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting race-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H. Res. 676.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
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AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Click here to pre-order the book from Amazon.com, and here to pre-order from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter @gary_weiss.

My Take on Fracking and Ron Paul

I am definitely in red-line-crossing mode this week, as I generated two columns appearing today on the most divisive subjects in the land, Ron Paul and hydrofracking.

My Street.com column deals with fracking, which I view as a well-poisoning monstrosity, and I have an essay in Salon dissecting Ron Paul, whom I view as a fraudulent populist. Both columns are generating numerous comments and, in the case of Paul, fiery emails!

But I'm pleased to say that the Salon column has generated, so far, over a thousand Facebook recommendations, indicating that the vast majority of readers tend to like the piece. So far, 630 comments, including many from peeved Paul-ites. Golly!

Not to worry. If you hate (or love) Paul there will be more to hate (or love) from me in the future, as I am becoming a regular contributor to that estimable online periodical. Ditto for fracking, a subject that I think will be fodder for future columns. So stay tuned.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Click here to pre-order the book from Amazon.com, and here to pre-order from Barnes & Noble. Follow me on Twitter @gary_weiss.

The GOP Grapples With Ayn Rand's Atheism

Not Ayn Rand's cup of tea

My latest post in the FrumForum describes how Ayn Rand's atheism is infecting the far right, the Tea Party movement and, through Ron Paul especially, Republican politics in general.

It's kind of a sneak preview of one of the themes that I explore in AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, which will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28.

Given how fashionable Rand is in the GOP nowadays, her atheism is going to raise some thorny issues for the Republican Party. She repudiated not just belief in God but cherished Judeo-Christian moral tenets, including the desirability of altruism and help for the needy. Rand's Objectivism celebrates selfishness and promotes the belief that the poor need to rise up without relying on help from anyone.

Rand's celebration of individuality certainly has its place, but her influence on national politics is corrosive -- if, that is, you believe that government plays an important role in society.

Read more about it on the FrumForum, and feel free to plunge into the lively discussion taking place there.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Click here to pre-order the book from Amazon.com, and here to pre-order from Barnes & Noble.

How Ron Paul Channels Ayn Rand

I have a blog item in the FrumForum today on serial presidential candidate Ron Paul, and how he has adopted policies that closely parallel those of Ayn Rand.

This is the first a number of blog posts I expect to write for FrumForum, which is a leading political website.

© 2011 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.
------------------------------
AYN RAND NATION: The Hidden Struggle for America's Soul, will be published by St. Martin's Press on Feb. 28, 2012. Pre-order by clicking here.

Patrick Byrne Hedges His Bets

Byrne is the fickle type, apparently.

My favorite CEO, the always-affable, telegenic Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com, used corporate resources a few weeks ago to give a ringing endorsement to fringe Republican candidate Ron Paul.

Made sense. Paul taps in to the deep-seated paranoia that afflicts all too many people nowadays, has endorsed Byrne's loony "naked shorting" conspiracy theories, and his self-styled "libertarian" (a/k/a "screw the public") point of view is very much in keeping with Byrne's. He is a friend of Wall Street, as is Byrne despite his rhetoric, and endorsed a book by a stock scamster.

A marriage made in heaven, one would think. In endorsing Paul, Byrne said:

In October Dr. Paul came to Utah, and he and I visited for an hour in my office. After that meeting, I gave him the largest donation I could under federal law: it is rare to meet a politician who understands the Constitution, and rarer still to meet one who thinks it binds the government meaningfully (I would give Dr. Paul more were there not now a federal blackout on free speech known as “McCain-Feingold”). In a television interview last week I stated that, while for the first time in my life I felt there are several candidates qualified to be president, my #1 choice would be Dr. Paul.

The maximum under the cursed McCain-Feingold act, designed to limit the influence of lucky-sperm types like Byrne, is $2300.

The Deseret News reports today that Byrne gave a ringing endorsement to yet another Republican candidate, Mitt Romney. What's interesting is that, according to the Federal Election Commission, he gave $2300 to Mitt Romney on Nov. 30. That would be about a month after he dug deep and gave the max to Paul.


Romney is, of course, pretty much the polar opposite of Paul on most issues.

While I guess there might be a bit of a lag time in reporting these things--his contribution to Paul does not show up just yet -- it does appear that the two donations took place in the same time frame, and he probably gave to Romney after he gave to Paul. (As best as I can tell, "date of receipt" means just that.)

That would indicate that Byrne is pretty crassly hedging his bets. Why doesn't he use corporate resources to tell his customers he is giving the max to Mitt?

He previously gave the max to Rudy Giuliani and almost the max to the cursed free-speech-abridger John McCain.

Hey, don't blame Byrne for inconsistency. He and his company are under SEC investigation and a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

Ron Paul: Friend of Stock Scamsters

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been making a lot of noise lately for being in the very uncommon position of being right. He was unfairly excluded from a Fox News debate Sunday night.

But before you shed too many tears for Paul, or even bother to read through his ultra-right position on the issues, there's a couple of things you may want to peruse. Seems that Paul has a long history of promoting bigotry and a more recent, equally creepy record of climbing in the sack with corporate cretins.

First read the devastating exploration of Ron Paul's bigoted past in the New Republic website today.

Then peruse Paul's ringing endorsement (see left side of page) of a book by a stock promoter named Anthony Wile. But be sure to read that slap on the back with the SEC press release charging Wile with stock manipulation.

No surprise there, given Paul's generally half-baked worldview, and neither is his endorsement of beefed-up SEC rules against the phantom menace of naked short selling. That is contrary to his smaller-government ethos, but in league with his sympathy for stock scamsters.

Another sleazeball to be embraced by Paul is Overstock.com's SEC-investigated CEO Patrick Byrne. The loopy Byrne, famed for his stock market conspiracy theories, recently used Overstock corporate resources to tout Paul's candidacy.

Byrne vigorously endorsed this friend of Wall Street as follows:

In October Dr. Paul came to Utah, and he and I visited for an hour in my office. After that meeting, I gave him the largest donation I could under federal law: it is rare to meet a politician who understands the Constitution, and rarer still to meet one who thinks it binds the government meaningfully (I would give Dr. Paul more were there not now a federal blackout on free speech known as “McCain-Feingold”). In a television interview last week I stated that, while for the first time in my life I felt there are several candidates qualified to be president, my #1 choice would be Dr. Paul.

No surprise here either, as the notoriously paranoid Byrne has found a kindred spirit: a candidate who thrives on paranoia.

The New Republic article today observed that "Paul's newsletters didn't just contain bigotry. They also contained paranoia--specifically, the brand of anti-government paranoia that festered among right-wing militia groups during the 1980s and '90s." Paul and his supporters continue to embrace conspiracy theories. So there's real synergy here with Byrne's famous "Sith Lord" conspiracy theory and the crackpot websites he supports.

Paul's history of racially tinged comments has raised eyebrows even before the New Republic article, such as this blog by black conservative Bob Parks.

I imagine that more than a few Overstock customers would not appreciate getting a political spam such as that email, particularly on behalf of a candidate with a record of extremist positions and, according to the New Republic article today, a "bigoted past." Even without knowing that, no doubt many Overstock customers are offended by Paul's position on the Iraq war, and his view that U.S. policies prompted the Sept. 11 attacks. Hardly the kind of person most companies would want to flaunt before their customers.

But what the hey, Byrne is not a perennial on "worst CEO" lists for nothing.

UPDATE: Paul's response to the New Republic article, quoted today in Bloggingstocks, can be found here. He says the views in the newsletter are not his and (classic P.R. spin here) that this is "old news." He says that “when I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product."

This is what is known as the "Sergeant Schultz defense," after the "I know nothing" character in Hogan's Heroes, and it is not convincing. Even if you believe him, as Zac Bissonnette points out: "If this guy can't run a newsletter without racist tirades showing up, can we seriously consider him for the role of leader of the free world. Delegating is a big part of being president -- Ron Paul appears to have delegated his newsletter to complete wackjobs."

An intriguing blog item, meanwhile, has further insights into the credibility of Paul's Sergeant Schultz defense.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.

Ron Paul: Friend of Wall Street?

Presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas, a would-be populist, said as follows to Maria Bartiromo in Business Week:

Q. Do you consider yourself a friend or a foe of Wall Street?

A. If they believe in freedom, free markets, and sound money, they'll love me. But if they like creating credit out of thin air, they'll see me as a threat. I was one of three people who voted against Sarbanes-Oxley because I thought it was detrimental to Wall Street. I'd repeal it.

Dealbreaker conducted a straw poll today: is Ron Paul a friend or foe of Wall Street? The results so far from the mainly Street readership: 88.8% friend, 11.2% foe.

Some populist.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



-----------

Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.