You Happy Puppets

Everyone knows already, but if you are late to the party, Ron Paul, my pick for President, published some execrable newsletters in the 1980s and 1990s, chock-a-block with race-baiting, gay-baiting, and other unlovely things. The newsletters were part of a stunningly bad idea a bunch of leading libertarians had back then, the paleo movement, as Steve Horwitz discusses here. How they got into their heads that allying with David Duke and Pat Buchanan was a good idea is something I will never understand. I was just a kid, but my very first impression of Buchanan, in the 1992 Presidential campaign, was of an immigrant-bashing quasi-fascist opposed to free trade. By some mechanism I cannot fathom, Murray Rothbard deduced that Pat was some sort of libertarian savior who would, and I quote, "break the clock of social democracy." I don't know, maybe you had to be there. But anyway.

The newsletters were and are vile- this much is not in dispute. And Congressman Paul has been, to say the least, weaselly about them ever since, refusing to name their author (the smart money is on Lew Rockwell), defending them in one election and later denying all knowledge of their content, and generally acting like a politician caught doing something naughty. Again, none of this is disputed.

I will not mount any defense of the newsletters. They're vile. But, Americans, you're being manipulated again. Here is another fact to place alongside the newsletters: Ron Paul has never been responsible, directly or indirectly, for any actions or decisions leading to the death, dismemberment, or impoverishment of any human beings of any race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or economic stratum. Further, he opposes all the things the federal government does that lead to such tragedies, and would as President put a stop to them.

How much effort does the news media currently working you into a righteous lather over Ron Paul's newsletters expend on working you up about all the massively damaging consequences of the drug war? How often do the talking heads thunder furiously against the rampant police brutality that plagues the black community? Do you ever hear them condemning the architects of America's drug war in the same ringing tones? Do any reporters confront Barack Obama and demand to know why he is directly and undeniably responsible for so much death and suffering? Do they upbraid Mitt Romney over his warmongering or his anti-drug crusading?

Ron Paul's newsletters are disgusting and disturbing. But in the context of a Presidential election, they're the equivalent of being a pickpocket among serial killers. But then you're not filled with moral outrage over Barack Obama's constant and blatant hypocrisy, over his ever-climbing death toll, or over his steamrolling of all the rights you think you have. The New Republic isn't scrambling to get the truth out about Obama's vicious record. The National Review isn't blasting Mitt Romney's monstrous plans. And since your puppeteers aren't telling you to care, you don't, and you'll pull the lever for one or the other of these vicious animals, smug in the secure knowledge that at least you didn't vote for a racist.