Southern Poverty Law Center: The Dangerous Ron Paul

Silverwolf was struck, and somewhat awed, when he saw a list, put out yesterday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group which Silverwolf has always retained a healthy measure of affection for, of 40 individuals they considered dangerous, for various reasons. Congressman Ron Paul, whom Silverwolf has blogged extensively for since almost the start of his last presidential campaign, was the 40th name on the list.

This list is supposed to compromise not only militia types who usually espouse violent, racist rhetoric, but also anti-government activists, tax protesters,, Christian identity promulgators, and Libertarian types. Ron Paul is pretty much included because of what is described as his anti-government rhetoric, as well as the old issues of his news letters. And SPLC accurately pointed out in a previous report, the issue of Ron Paul speaking at the Robert Taft Club, when it was hosted by what Silverwolf would consider a racist, who had previously invited heads of the Vlaams Belang to speak. Go check out the Vlaams Belang and what those speakers at the Taft Club had formerly been up to in Europe before they switched their focus to Muslims. They’re trash.

But given his innocence, and the incompetence of the people around him during his campaign, Silverwolf can well believe that Ron Paul was unaware of these associations. He should have been aware, since it sullied the name of Robert Taft, one of Dr. Paul’s political idols, and a man whom Norman Mailer described as a “values” Conservative, but he doubts he was. Silverwolf thinks not only that Ron Paul would have jumped at a chance to speak to a group that ostensibly championed the principles of Taft, but that even if there were people in that audience who were bigots,  he’d feel they needed to hear the message that he had come to deliver. After all, isn’t it good when a politician makes a bigot aware of his conditioning and image-making? And this overlooks the fact that Jeffersonian Libertarianism is an inherently anti-racist, Universal doctrine that applies to all. Libertarians are color blind if they are true Libertarians, and don’t pre-judge people, for their minds don’t see images, they see Individuals. They don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t aggress against the property rights of any other individual. A simple, moral, political philosophy, that Silverwolf thinks sums up Jefferson’s (and Murray Rothbard’s and Ron Paul’s) view in a nutshell.

And SPLC seems to overlook, or intentionally ignore, a basic fact: that under Libertarianism, the Rights of every Human Being are equal, and that before the law, all have an equal right not to have their property rights violated. In other words, as long as you’re non-violent, whomever you are, you will not be molested or interfered with. But violate someone else’s property rights, either by enslaving them, robbing them, assaulting their body, or polluting the air they breath, and you will have your freedom curtailed.

Is this a wicked doctrine? Is this not, in essence, what Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were saying, and were they not “anti-government” when it came to the injustices of the government of King George? And was it not also Jefferson and Paine, the Fathers of the American Revolution, who said that government is a “necessary evil”? But an evil nevertheless. Evidently, SPLC must disagree with Thomas Jefferson, and feel his view is “dangerous”.

One of the glaring inaccuracies in this attempt to “dangerize” Dr. Paul, is their claim that he is anti-government. This is a highly inaccurate statement if you examine it. Firstly, Congressman Paul works for the government. He IS the government. He is part of it, physically, and I’ve never heard of him attacking anyone in Congress, or assaulting property inside the building, or in his office. If he were truly anti-government, he would not be working as part of that government.

And, of course, this anti-government charge is a lie, because Ron Paul is a Minarchist, in our view. That is, he believes in a minimal government, but still a government. So he is actually pro-government in being a Minarchist; he is not anti-government as SPLC misleadingly claims. He only believes in a much smaller government. But that is a completely different thing from being anti-government.

And it is surprising that a group that has championed civil rights so extensively would criticise someone who has sided so often with the ACLU on many civil rights issues. For example, both Ron Paul and Judge Napolitano, another “dangerous” person named on their list of 40, have talked extensively of the threat to civil liberties caused by many provisions of the Patriot Act. Ron Paul has talked for years about the Civil Liberties Violations due to the drug laws, an issue which SPLC has notably NOT touched over the years, evidently feeling that the jailing of Blacks, Latinos, and Gays by the hundreds of thousands for a few grams over an ounce, and filling the jails all over America with 70% “drug criminals” — people who would not be criminals at all in the view of Libertarians — is a minor matter compared to the monitoring of racist groups. Watch racist groups, but stay mum on drug law injustice that predominantly targets people of color, perpetrated by Liberal Democrats in Congress and the White House — that was the policy of SPLC for eight long years under the Clinton Administration; Clinton, who recently spoke at one of these “anti-racists” meetings. For the Black man rotting in a jail cell for two ounces of pot that was made illegal by the votes of a Liberal Democrat, I wonder who the real racists are, Bill Clinton and the SPLC, or Ron Paul?

What SPLC fails to mention is that if the jails weren’t filled 7 0% with”drug criminals”, then truly violent criminals could and would be jailed for much longer sentences. And any racist who attempted an attack on a person because of their ethnicity would be put away for so long, that “Hate Crimes Legislation”, which Silverwolf tends to think will only serve to martyrize Racist Miscreants rather that effectively punish them, would not be necessary. Anyone, whether racist or not, who perpetrated violence on another would be smashed with a long prison sentence. And judges could still be free to take racist motives into account during their sentencing deliberations instead of institutionalizing a backlash mechanism that will make juries reluctant to convict, and make heroes out of Racist Miscreants. But that’s Silverwolf’s opinion.

Nor did SPLC address the issue of the Obama Administration putting forward the idea of “prolonged indefinite detention”, something which Ron Paul condemned vociferously. Has it never occurred to the braincells of the folks at SPLC that if we passed such a Draconinan piece of legislation, overthrowing almost a millennium of Habeas Corpus, that we would be paving the way for the next Hitler, or Racist Bigot, to get into the White House, to round up and detain anyone in America at his whim? Have you ever even considered the possibility? And how can you call yourself a “Law Center” if you haven’t? What if Theodore Bilbo, or Father Coughlin, or Huey Long or George Wallace had gotten elected President, after such a law had been put in place? Have you ever used your imagination, SPLC?

Yet, Ron Paul, and Judge Napolitano, who have pointed out the horrendous overthrow of our Civil Liberties this measure would entail, are painted by SPLC as anti-government extemists, while the Obama Administration is described in a SPLC report as “Liberal”.

To Silverwolf, such a measure as “prolonged indefinite detention”, is a grave threat to every Black Man, Jew, Latino, Asian, Lesbian, and Gay in America. As well as everyone else. And it was put forth by a “Liberal Democrat”. These are facts.

And Ron Paul is speaking out against it, while Barack Obama is trying to get it put into law.

So who, pray tell SPLC, is the gravest threat to the Civil Liberties of minorities in America? We leave it to the reader to judge.

Silverwolf can well recall the comment by Nelson Lender, the head of the NAACP of one of the major cities in Texas. He stated that he’d known Ron Paul for twenty years, and did not consider him to be a racist.

And it’s kind of strange that Ron Paul, as well as Lew Rockwell and the Mises Institute, others listed on the “list”, would champion the economic philosophy of two anti-Nazi Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, who had to flee for their lives, Ludwig Mises and Frederich Hayek. Hayek received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1973, and Margaret Thatcher, throwing down a copy of Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty” said “This is what we believe in.” (Did that make Thatcher a radical, anti-government racist?) While it is true that Jews can be anti-Semitic (Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Bobby Fischer), Mises, Hayek, and Murray Rothbard certainly were not. They were rabid anti-Nazis, to their great credit.

Perhaps if the folks at SPLC had read Frederich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”, they would understand the phenomenon they are currently reacting to, when they point out with alarm the growing number of racist, and extremist militias, and the growing virulence of the rhetoric on the internet. They would like to think that it has its roots in “outside agitation”, just as the 
Segregationists used to accuse the Civil Rights workers of being roused up by “outside Comuhnist ajitatters”. But, as Hayek clearly points out, at some point Socialism so bankrupts the economy, that competing social groups start battling for the dwindling pool of resources, while the state futilely tries to raise the tax revenue to cover its astronomically mounting debts (the current Greek debt bomb, Obama’s floating of the  socialist V.A. T. tax theft last night), and as people become more and more desperate, that competition becomes more and more violent.  That violence is in response to the frustration which Socialism, which SPLC wants to deny even though it controls maybe 60-70% of the economy, creates.That is exactly what is happening now in America and Western Europe, and that is exactly why SPLC is seeing this increase in extremist activity in America that they are supposedly warning against with this release of a hit list.  But we are afraid this list will only target their former credibility as a guardian of the Rights of minorities.

However, the tragic aspect of this is that the greatest anti-Fascist and anti-Racist element on the American Political scene in the last three years has been that very Congressman whom SPLC seeks to group in with racists and violent militiaists.

For SPLC has forgotten two valuable lessons of history. Firstly, that the most tyrannical repressions of religious and ethnic minorities in modern times have been carried out by governments. You’d think they’d be a little bit more sceptical of any government, even our own, just as Jefferson and Paine were sceptical of all governments. In case SPLC has forgotten, it was that great Libertarian and Civil Rights Liberal, Bertrand Russell, who pointed out the value of scepticism. And, by the way, SPLC, what was George Orwell’s and Aldous Huxley’s view of big government? Were they dangerous anti-government ‘radicals”, or men trying to save humanity?

The idea that the American government is somehow so sacrosanct that it is immune from the corruption that has hit almost every government in history from Rome until now is ludicrous. AS we previously stated,  Jefferson and Paine both pointed out that government is an “evil”, though a necessary one. Yes government is an “evil”, but an “evil” like having to change the oil or maintain the tires. It is far and away worth the effort, if it is minimal, and only goes to the Jeffersonian extent of defending our property rights, not only against other individuals, but against the government itself (or rogue individuals or elements in that government). To protect against those rogue elements, we have the Constitution and Bill of Rights, both of which Dr. Paul champions tirelessly and endlessly, as those who have listened to most of his speeches during the last three years well know.

Now why would a group like SPLC call someone who championed the American Constitution and Bill of Rights an “anti-government” activist? Is that not a contradiction in terms. And does not that  contradiction brings out the absurdity of the charge?

No, what is sad is the vast lack of depth of economic and historical understanding of the well-intentioned folks at SPLC. They forget a very vital piece of history and it is this second historical reason that is key to Ron Paul’s value to America:

Norman Mailer, as well as many others, have attributed the rise of Hitler to one key cause: the massive inflation that occurred in Germany during the early 20′s. This was due almost exclusively to the massive printing of banknotes by the Weimar Republic government (as well as the horrible conditions imposed on Germany by the rapacious Allies in the Armistice). It was this inflation that caused vast chaos and misery in Germany and which made Hitler possible, and if you want to prevent another Hitler from coming about, the one thing you must prevent is “Inflation”.

Yet, the so-called Liberal government of Barack Obama has embarked on just such an inflationary policy, drastically increasing the money supply from the roughly 800-900 billion dollar level to about 2.2 trillion in roughly a year. Have the folks at SPLC considered what effect this massive printing of paper, and dilution in the value of the money will have on inflation, as they listen to those Liberal Democrat politicians who tell them it is essential? Have they thought about how much this will impoverish and marginalize even more people in rural areas, making them more prone to social strife, and more prone to extremism. Silverwolf would bet not, because he would bet that they have never studied economics in depth, or have blindly accepted the Keynesian economics of the Democratic Party, because that has been the Party’s consistent line since the 30s. But we would have them consider the seeming coincidence of the massive increase of the money supply, and the increase they say they are seeing in extremist activity rhetoric. Hayek predicted it in 1943 (Road to Serfdom).

But what SPLC has failed to perceive is that that Keynesian inflation that has been taken place for 80 years, has finally blown up, due to the Collectivist policies of those Keynesians of both parties, and bankrupted America. They don’t seem to comprehend the seriousness of this fact, as far as inflation is concerned. They thought Keynesians could inflate forever, and there would be no problem. And now they are trying to grapple with the effects of the social strife it will exacerbate.

Yet the one Statesman on America who has been trying to educate the public on this issue, and so actually prevent a situation where a Hitler could come about, is Ron Paul; the very man whom SPLC tarnishes in its list by contaminating his name with racists and Nazis.

The SPLC does not understand the economic exacerbator of racism known as inflation. Unfortunately, they are fossilized in their thinking. Sadly, while SPLC puts itself forward as a major think tank, their comprehension of economics is so puerile and non-existent that the views of the board of directors, and the staff writers, are basically worthless when they try to analyse what is going on in society. They do not realise that this current scepticism of government is a healthy, anti-Hitlerian, anti-Stalinist, symptom of people’s love of Liberty, not love of racism. Have they forgot Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Spain, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Idi Amin’s Uganda,  Galtieri and Videla’s Argentina, and Imperial Rome? All governments.

Ron Paul is the greatest political force in America combating the Inflation that will inevitably bring about another Hitler. That SPLC can’t see that fact is pathetic. Whether they have lost much of the credibility by this action which Morris Dees built up with his noble prosecutions of Nazi murderers remains to be seen, but it is probable.

Hoooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwww! —Silverwolf

Tags: civil liberties, Libertarianism, racism, Ron Paul, Southern Poverty Law Center, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine