Republican Presidential Candidates

[Taranne]

Ca fait peur, non? Qui a envie de voir ça à la Maison-Blanche pendant quatre ans?

[Ronnie Hayek]

Ca fait peur, non? Qui a envie de voir ça à la Maison-Blanche pendant quatre ans?

Apollon.

[Taranne]

Apollon.

Chacun ses goûts. Moi la présidence dynastique ce n'est pas mon truc, même si je ne détesterais pas revoir le Grand Bill aux affaires.

[Rincevent]

Euh, en attendant, si Ron Paul a vraiment écrit ces trucs, ça fait peur. Il y a des choses que j'imagine bien prises hors de contexte, mais d'autres moins.

Yep. Il faut admettre que ces révélations sont pour le moins gênantes.

Tiens, j'ignorais que Rincevent était ton autre pseudonyme. […]

[Prend un grand souffle, laisse la rage passer, et écrit en pesant ses mots]

Ne parle pas des absents pour en dire du mal. Jamais. Je suppose que tu connaissais cette règle ; n'étant pas un ignorant, tu es donc une "canaille".

[Reprend une activité normale]

[A.B.]

n'étant pas un ignorant, tu es donc une "canaille".

Spece d'objectiviste.

[xara]

Ces socialauds de New Republic sont vraiment de fieffés hypocrites. Si la malhonnêteté intellectuelle était mesurable, ils serviraient de mètre-étalon; en France, ils travailleraient au Monde.

Aaah, les néocons ne peuvent que venir donner un petit coup de main à leurs copains socialauds, évidemment !

On parle d'une question factuelle. Qu'a écrit ou repris à son compte Ron Paul?

Pointer du doigt les sympathies idéologiques de ceux qui sortent les casseroles ne nous dit rien sur la validité des accusations. Il est clair que logiquement, ce sont deux choses séparées. Tout au plus peut-on supposer qu'ils ont une incitation à déformer la réalité. Ton appel à l'hostilité que la plupart des intervenants ici ont envers les "socialos" ou les "néocons" n'y changera rien. Dans le contexte politique français, ça me fait penser à l'hystérie anti-Le Pen, à savoir la règle selon laquelle le simple fait de dire une chose que Le Pen avait dite disqualifiait automatiquement la proposition.

[xara]

L'article de Kirchick:

Et quelques extraits choisis de la newsletter paulienne:

En réponse à l'article de Kirnich, voir la réponse suivante de Steven Horwitz. Horwitz n'est pas un fan de Paul, comme un débat précédent entre libertariens l'a montré (cf. aussi les commentaires), mais il n'est pas du genre non plus à monter en épingle le moindre truc pour lui taper dessus. Je suis d'accord avec ce qu'il dit là sur l'article, au moins en ce qui concerne les points que j'ai surlignés, alors je me contente de le citer:

Steven Horwitz

TNR Hit Piece on Ron Paul

Well the long-awaited Jamie Kirchick hit piece on RP is up at The New Republic. The Paulites are already drilling him a new one in the comments. Kirchick argues that all of RP's old newsletters show he's a racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, cranky loon. We've been down this road before of course, and Paul and the campaign has responded to some of this stuff.

Just a few reactions of my own:

1. Like many of the RP supporting commenters, I'd like to see scans of the actual newsletters so the full context can be seen. UPDATE: the scans are here. (HT: Jason Briggeman.)

2. Some of what those newsletters say I would call racist etc., but certainly not all of it and perhaps not even the majority of it. Criticism of Israel is not ipso facto anti-Semitic and I see nothing in the piece that I would call anti-Semitic. Name calling isn't the same thing as racism - Barbara Jordan frequently did play the victim and was, arguably, a socialist. Some of what Kirchick sees as ugly is also just policy disagreement. Some of it is bad though.

3. I found it interesting that Kirchick made an explicit connection to the Mises Institute and distinguished their "brand" of libertarianism from the more "urbane" of Cato or Reason. That will increase the fund raising at the Mises Institute for sure! As someone more sympathetic to the Cato/Reason brand, I do think differentiating those products is important and I'm glad Kirchick did so.

4. Kirchick's attempt to turn the Mises Institute's work on secession into ipso facto evidence of racism is really pathetic. In and of itself, of course, secession is very much a noble libertarian tradition. I guess it's naive to think that journalists are not so simple-minded as to be unable to separate the general principle of secession from the particulars of the Civil War. A smear job is a smear job. Of course the charge he's leveled here is an obvious risk when the same organization talks about secession and then also engages in Civil War revisionism and Lincoln bashing, and offers kind words about the Confederacy and the culture of the South.

In general, this is a mostly recycled set of charges that the campaign has dealt with before. My own view is that RP is not nearly as guilty as Kirchick would have it but he's also not innocent either. If you have a newsletter with your name on it and you have byline-free commentaries, some of which say some nasty stuff, you best be prepared to be called to account for it. As I said in my earlier series of posts, RP has walked the line with this stuff for a long time, so it's no surprise that it would be fodder for smear job that mixes unfair charges with accurate ones.

Addendum: at some level, the very fact that Paul has a background such that these newsletters and their comments exist is the real problem here. Imagine what a libertarian candidacy without his baggage might have done.

[A.B.]

Pour les positions du Mises institute sur la secession, attirons l'attention que c'etait aussi la position de Lysander Spooner, au dessus de toute soupcon de ce niveau la et en particulier partisan chevronné ablitioniste.

[John Loque]

Pour les positions du Mises institute sur la secession, attirons l'attention que c'etait aussi la position de Lysander Spooner, au dessus de toute soupcon de ce niveau la et en particulier partisan chevronné ablitioniste.

Pas besoin de se justifier, c'est juste que les américains lie la sécéssion et l'esclavagisme du fait de leur Histoire - et en fait d'une conception totalement biaisée de celle-ci.

[Ronnie Hayek]

[Prend un grand souffle, laisse la rage passer, et écrit en pesant ses mots]

Ne parle pas des absents pour en dire du mal. Jamais. Je suppose que tu connaissais cette règle ; n'étant pas un ignorant, tu es donc une "canaille".

[Reprend une activité normale]

Pète un coup, ça te détendra. Tu es fort à cran, ces derniers jours. Un coup, on "insulte ta famille" (et au passage, avant de te répandre ici en indignations morales, tu aurais mieux fait de présenter publiquement des excuses à Melo que tu avais injustement accusé), un coup "on dit du mal de toi" (alors qu'en l'espèce, je ne faisais que relever de manière amusée un de tes tics forumesques : modifier le contenu des messages auxquels tu réponds).

On parle d'une question factuelle. Qu'a écrit ou repris à son compte Ron Paul?

Pointer du doigt les sympathies idéologiques de ceux qui sortent les casseroles ne nous dit rien sur la validité des accusations. Il est clair que logiquement, ce sont deux choses séparées. Tout au plus peut-on supposer qu'ils ont une incitation à déformer la réalité. Ton appel à l'hostilité que la plupart des intervenants ici ont envers les "socialos" ou les "néocons" n'y changera rien. Dans le contexte politique français, ça me fait penser à l'hystérie anti-Le Pen, à savoir la règle selon laquelle le simple fait de dire une chose que Le Pen avait dite disqualifiait automatiquement la proposition.

Zorro est arrivéééé, sans se presseeeeer !

En l'occurrence, l'hystérie est plutôt dans le chef des anti-Paul ; les rois du politiquement correct étant les néoconnards.

Toujours à propos de comportement hargneux, ce serait bien de ne pas attendre chaque post de Melo ou de moi dans l'espoir de venir administrer ta petite leçon de morale dont, pour ma part, je n'ai que faire.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Trouvé encore cette défense de R. Paul :

http://gays-for-ron.blogspot.com/2008/01/k…f-ron-paul.html

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The Kirchicking of Ron Paul

The Smear Piece. Jamie Kirchick's smear piece went live on The New Republic's website earlier today. The substance of the piece is simple:

* A series of different newsletters published using Ron Paul's name (many by a company in which Ron owned only a minority stake) included statements that Kirchick finds offensive.

* Some of these statements are truly odious.

* Some are merely politically incorrect (but accurate) and/or contradict Kirchick's ignorant, knee-jerk misconceptions of American history.

* Not a single one of these statements is actually attributed to Ron Paul himself.

* All the stylistic evidence suggests just the contrary: that these statements were written by someone other than Dr. Paul.

In a meandering 3700+ word piece resembling a book report written by a very precious middle-schooler dying to display his budding genius to the world, Kirchick bombards the reader with series of "offensive" newsletter quotations and anecdotes about Paul and people with whom Paul has associated over the years. Without a shred of evidence that Paul himself believes any of these things, Kirchick leaps to the gestalt conclusion that Paul must be "a man filled with hate" against gays, blacks and Jews--and asks his readers to trust him in making the same leap.

But Why Should We Trust Kirchick's Gut Instinct? Indeed, why should anyone trust him at all ever again? As I mentioned in my post last night, when I asked Kirchick weeks ago whether he actually thought Paul was a homophobe, he responded (by email):

I don’t think Ron Paul is a homophobe; I’m just cynical and enjoy getting supporters of political candidates riled up. If you were a Giuliani guy I’d have called him a fascist.

Kirchick's jaunty candor about his true motives makes him resemble a caricature of the classic Shakespearean villain who proudly confesses his depravity in an aside to the audience.

Lest one doubt Kirchick's utter lack of journalistic scruples, consider again the timing of this piece: having gloated publicly for weeks, Kirchick delivered the thrust of his attack the night before the New Hampshire primary, then waited till noon on the Paul Campaign's big day to show his cards. This was a transparent, shameless attempt by Kirchick to sabotage Paul's campaign--which seems to have accomplished its goal, given current voter returns in New Hampshire. No doubt Kirchick will delight if his piece saves his cherished Rudy Giuliani from once again finishing behind Paul--and ensure himself a lofty place in the history of American journalism.

In a written response released earlier today, Paul denied writing any of these statements but took full "moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name." He said much the same today in an interview with Reason Magazine. But these statements are not the real issue.

The Bait-and-Switch. When Tucker Carlson asked Kirchick last night whether he had any evidence that Paul had himself ever said anything racist or offensive, Kirchick pulled a classic bait-and-switch, accusing Paul of "speaking in code" to bigots:

You mean, said it out loud, or in person?…. I haven't seen that…. No, we do know however, I have found out that [Paul] spoke at a pro-secession conference in 1995. This was a neo-Confederate organization putting this on…. Just this last week on MSNBC, he touted a book called The Real Lincoln, by Thomas DiLorenzo, who is a neo-Confederate…. And what does, Tucker, is he speaks in code. He's a transmitter. He'll say certain things that might not, at first, appear to be overtly racist, but to certain audiences, they know what he's talking about. So when he talks about secession, he says it in a way that isn't exactly neo-Confederate, or it isn't exactly explicitly neo-Confederate, but to people who are in the know and to people who are a part of those neo-Confederate communities, know exactly what he's talking about.

Suddenly, the issue is not who wrote any of Paul's newsletters, but Paul's flirtation with the dangerous notion of "secession." But here, it is really Kirchick who speaks in code. Rather than engage those with whom he disagrees on history and political philosophy (read Tom DiLorenzo's excellent response on response to Kirchick's attack), Kirchick simply brands his opponents with the "neo-Confederate" label to imply that anyone who believes in the decentralization of power wants to re-enslave African-Americans (and probably gays and Jews, as well). You see, Tucker, that's just what those Neo-Confederates really want--but they dare not say it!

The allegedly "neo-Confederate" organization he attacks at greater length in his article is the Mises Institute, which for twenty-five years has been dedicated to advancing the intellectual legacy of the great Austrian Jewish economist Ludwig von Mises, whose recent biography aptly dubbed him the Last Knight of Liberalism. For Mises, the history of liberalism was a struggle against the consolidation of power. He supported secession down to the lowest level practical as a vital check against the centralizing tendencies of the State. Mises' work was continued by Murray Rothbard, another libertarian Jew committed to the principle of secession.

Given Kirchick's equation of decentralization and secession with some grand "neo-Confederate" axis of hate, one can only assume that, back in 1991, he would have cheered alongside Prof. Eric Foner of Columbia University (a former president of the American Historical Association) in urging Gorbachev to "Save the Union!"--the Soviet Union, that is--by preventing the secession of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. You see, Tucker, those damnable little Baltics wanted to enslave blacks, gays and Jews, but they had to speak in code using words like "Freedom" and "Independence."

Two Libertarianisms. Here, finally, we "strike at the root" of the issue, as Thoreau said. While Kirchick currently describes his political views on Facebook as "Other," he until recently used the word "libertarian." So it's hardly surprising that Kirchick is careful to distinguish the Baltic-loving neo-Confederate Paul/Mises secessionist "libertarians" from the "urbane libertarians who staff the Cato Institute." The split between these two organizations has never been more public than it is today. In a recent profile in the Nation, Cato Vice President for Research Brink Lindsey said, of Paul, "He doesn't strike me as the kind of person that's tapping into those elements of American public opinion that might lead towards a sustainable move in the libertarian direction."

For some at Cato (though certainly not all) and perhaps for Kirchick, libertarianism is simply about maximizing personal autonomy for the individual on any and every issue. This "libertarianism of autonomy" (if you will) holds a natural and powerful appeal for those who, like gays and lesbians, have been victimized (however recently) by the state and by private actors. Thus, someone like Kirchick might genuinely believe that Giuliani would be a "libertarian" president because of his record as mayor on "gay issues" like marriage or adoption. (Never mind his recent pandering to social traditionalists.) It also becomes easy to marry such a focus on social policy issues with a foreign policy that attempts to promote personal autonomy by invading countries like Iraq and "teaching them to elect good men," as President Wilson put it. One can even see how those who question heavy U.S. subsidies for Israel--a bastion of personal autonomy surrounded by people who probably don't like the Jews, gays, blacks or the Baltic states--could only seem like anti-semites "speaking in code."

The libertarianism of Ron Paul and the Mises Institute is different. While Ron has always been outspoken in defense of personal autonomy (see, for example, this terrific 1988 clip of him defending drug legalization), he is as concerned about the liberties of the individual as he is about the institutional structure that protects liberty. When he describes himself as a "constitutionalist," he is not "speaking in code" to express some kind of bigotry, but to defend the liberalism for which the American Revolution was fought: the restraint and diffusion of power through constitutionally limited government.

The Ongoing Battle. Kirchick's attacks on Paul begin by attempting to attribute to him statements that no one can reasonably believe Paul actually wrote and--which is more--that are completely antithetical to the principles of individual liberty consistently expressed by Paul throughout his career. When pressed, Kirchick reveals his true colors: as he told me, he doesn't seriously believe that Paul is a homophobe (or, presumably, any other sort of bigot). If one assumes that anything other than personal advancement motivates his attack, it is genuine and fundamental disagreement about the nature of political power.

For Kirchick and those like him, it seems that the State could be a powerful instrument for good--if only it would spend less time picking on gays and more time picking on those gay/Israeli/Baltic-hating Muslims. To such persons, Cato's personal autonomy libertarianism makes sense--even if it might go a bit too far. But for Paul and the Mises Institute, our Constitution is our first line of defense against the natural centralizing tendencies of political power. For them, the essential struggle of liberalism in American history has been fought against the "consolidationists"--starting with Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and, yes, Tucker… Abraham Lincoln (and the list goes on). Secession is merely the natural extension of Jefferson's battle with Hamilton over the proper role and size of the Federal government--which continues to this day. Without the possibility of secession, the strongest check on the consolidation of power in Washington disappears.

As gays and lesbians, we should be able to see through the smear tactics of people like Kirchick to appreciate the true friends of freedom. Yes, Ron Paul should have exercised much closer scrutiny of things written in his name. One might fairly question his managerial skills--but he is no bigot. Paul articulates a consistent and coherent philosophy of politics that is deeply rooted in the liberal tradition. Those gays and lesbians who reject Paul's Constitutionalism in favor of candidates who might promise greater personal autonomy do themselves a great disservice. Institutions, constitutions and decentralization matter profoundly to sustainability of personal autonomy, as the doomed liberals of 1920s Weimer Germany would learn at the expense of Germany's gays, Jews and other minorities.

Sinon, pour revenir au fil :

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/loca…ory/308330.html

Six candidates to appear at GOP debate

By Robert Morris - The Sun News

Following the New Hampshire primary, six Republican candidates will attend Thursday night's debate in Myrtle Beach, state party officials said today.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, former Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee have all accepted their invitations, said Rob Godfrey, spokesman for the state Republican Party.

"The stakes couldn't be higher this election, and we couldn't be more excited to extend a warm South Carolina welcome to six White House hopefuls who are seeking the Republican nomination," said Katon Dawson, chairman of the state GOP.

To be invited, candidates must have placed in the top 5 positions in the New Hampshire poll -- McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani and Paul -- or be polling at least 5 percent nationally, such as Thompson.

Several of the candidates already have early-state wins under their belts heading into Thursday's debate, leaving the competition wide open. Huckabee won the Iowa caucus, Romney won a primary in Wyoming and McCain won in New Hampshire. Giuliani is campaigning on a national strategy that relies on his wide name-recognition, while Thompson is staking his campaign on Southern conservatives and Paul has an ardent base of supporters and very succesful fundraising.

Meanwhile, Thompson has several Horry County stops scheduled today on his bus tour across the state. Other candidates have planned events Thursday.

The debate will be broadcast live at 9 p.m. by FOX News from the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. Brit Hume, the channel's Washington managing editor, will moderate the debate. Anchor Chris Wallace and White House correspondent Wendell Goler will ask questions.

[José]

Why Ron Lost

A week with the freedom movement in New Hampshire comes to a bitter end

David Weigel | January 9, 2008

MANCHESTER, NH - I have seen more goddamn tears than I need to in a 48-hour period. On Monday I watched, again and again and again via the magic of cable news, Hillary Clinton choke up at the audacity of Barack Obama trying to take her nomination. On Tuesday night I saw Ron Paul voters and volunteers, men and women, pinching their eyelids and daubing their tears in both joy and crushing disappointment. As torture devices go, the New Hampshire primary is better than the iron maiden. But not by much.

It was a good night for last night's Democratic and Republican winners, and for the politics of emotional manipulation. (Next time this state holds a primary, perhaps we can offer the "he served in Vietnam" McCain voters and "she cried like a carbon-based life form" Clinton voters on a cruise together.) It was a weird and bad night for Barack Obama, but one he can recover from — those black voters in South Carolina aren't going to double back to Clinton after one narrow loss in a white state. It was a lousy night for Mitt Romney, and a terrible night for Ron Paul. The theory that Paul could perform well in New Hampshire has been shredded, as has the theory that an amorphous Ron Paul vote was not being counted by polls, and it's not clear where he or the "freedom movement" will go from here. And that's not all bad.

But first, the bad parts. It had become an article of faith that Paul would make his best early showing in the Granite State. It once had the country's largest number of elected Libertarian legislators. It has resisted smoking bans, income taxes, sales taxes, and Real ID. Its motto, "Live Free or Die," sounds like a Paul slogan. Pollster John Zogby predicted Paul could get up to 17 percent of the vote here, and though Zogby's final poll on the Democratic race was a stunning 15 points off, he has a generally good record on this stuff. As the McCain-Romney race was tightening it became clear that a showing of 14 or 15 percent could assure a headline-grabbing third-place finish. Campaign manager Lew Moore said last night that that's where he was hoping to place.

He fell short, and heartbreakingly so. The consolation prize for Paul supporters was supposed to be his narrow defeat of Rudy Giuliani, who'd fallen sharply in the state after the McCain surge and the failure of his goofy commercials (Giuliani refuses to read a script, so aides interview him on camera and cut his responses into commercials, and the results sound like the methed-up ramblings of an Italian Jackie Mason impersonator). Supporters cheered at first as Paul stayed 100 or 200 votes behind Giuliani -- it seemed possible for him to surge when early results from the Vermont border and depopulated northern counties started coming in.

Yet Paul stayed stubbornly in fifth place, and supporters booed CNN as the network cut him out of its top-four-candidate pie charts. Some cried censorship, others cried vote-rigging. While I talked to Lew Moore, some Paulites who recognized the man shouted questions about precincts that showed zero votes for Paul ("I personally know three people who voted for him there!") and electronic voting machines. "This thing with Hillary and Obama just shows that you can't trust the vote," I overheard a twentysomething volunteer say to his gal-pal.

Actually, you can trust it. Paul simply underperformed. The problems were threefold: a late start in actual campaigning, a strange ad campaign, and a waste of energy among novice volunteers who should have been getting out the vote.

The late start was the most obvious (and reassuring) reason for the disappointing finish. It had been widely known, for months, that New Hampshire could become Paul country. But not until December did Paul volunteers really start to flood the state and do the dullest grunt work of politics: phonebanking, door-to-door canvassing. Some of the work had been done earlier, but there wasn't the kind of critical mass that can rack up votes until the arrival of Vijay Boyapati's Operation Live Free or Die, a third-party effort to bring in Paul volunteers and put them up in houses so they could learn the art of the campaign. Most came too late to prune down the voter lists the campaign had and create a truly effective, Bush 2004-style turnout list that could have maxed out the totals on election day. There is no such thing as a perfect list – indeed, the Obama campaign probably turned out female voters who'd been committed on Monday and Judas'd him on Tuesday. But I found plenty of grumbling about how tepidly the Paul forces were organized before the grassroots arrived.

I found even more grumbling about the ad campaign. Paul spent more than $1.5 million on TV and radio ads in this state, and from the get-go, Paul supporters responded to them with an ire unseen in any other campaign. Obviously, the Pauloverse has always been more communicative than the base of any other campaign: There are no RudyGiulianiForums, there are no multi-thousand-post YouTube threads for Fred Thompson's country-fried web videos. Get that many online fans and you'll get some nasty feedback.

In this case, though, the feedback was right. Paul's numbers spiked after he ran a simple ad slamming the government for invading Americans' privacy, but then the campaign moved on to media that stressed his army record, his pro-life views, and especially his yen for closing the border. The ads got slicker and slicker, and the numbers didn't move. The slickest ad, a Tancredoean cry against birthright citizenship and visas for terrorists, was a total flop. The 50 percent of Republicans who told exit pollsters they want to deport illegal aliens voted for Romney, McCain, Huckabee, and Rudy, in that order. A volunteer who went by the name of Ball griped that the ads made Paul look like a generic Republican, not a solution-spouting maverick libertarian. The evidence supports him.

The third factor – the work of the volunteer rEVOLutionaries – is the hardest to gauge. Paul volunteers and signs were eye-poppingly visible across the state, and the week of the primary they turned downtown Manchester into their own bottle city of Kandor. Painted Ron Paul vans drove up and down the Elm Street drag as Tom Sheehan, the Ron Paul Patriot, donned revolutionary war clothes and a backpack that supported as many as four giant-sized Paul signs. Paul people crashed other candidates' publicity stunts and waved signs on corners. When Fox News expelled Paul from the final pre-primary debate, 36 hours before the polls opened, more than 200 Paul fans flooded the city to protest and march and disrupt Fox's programming. Could they have spent that time scrounging up enough votes to beat Giuliani and win some headlines?

Maybe that's not a fair question. The Paul people figured out a while ago that their candidate is hated by most of the GOP and ridiculed by the media. Some of the loudest cheers in Paul's concession speech came not when he hit his applause lines but when CNN cut live to the room, and the crowd's eyes could turn to a big screen of their own celebration. There, for about a minute, Anderson Cooper had to watch as a 10-term congressman discussed the folly of paper money.

I think supporters are right to say that free media is doing more to spread Paul's message than a stack of lawn signs or TV ads. But I also think many of the Paul people underrated how credulous the media was about Paul's New Hampshire chances. I was asked by fellow journalists at candidate events, repeatedly, how I thought Paul would do and whether he could clip Huckabee and Giuliani. Burned once during his greatest opportunity, reporters now might stop bothering with him. And on the day of the primary, The New Republic released a thorough spelunking of Paul's old newsletters containing statements that would destroy a frontrunner politician. "It's this same story that comes up every month or so," said D.C. Paulite Bradley Jansen, "but this stuff comes up when you google 'Ron Paul.'"

The tears ended not long into Paul's speech; the last ones I saw came from one of the older volunteers I met, an exuberant man who yelled "No!" when Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) told a room of 1,000 other Republicans to vote for John McCain. When Paul smiled and said the message of the Federal Reserve overprinting currency was finally getting out, I saw the one-time heckler on the verge of a full-on blubbering.

Throughout the evening, I heard a common theme: that the freedom movement has to be bigger than one congressman with a past that keeps climbing up out of the mud to drag him down. Days before the votes came in I hung around outside Murphy's Taproom, the de facto Ron Paul bar in Manchester, and heard college kids and just-out-of college types excitedly talking about what would happen when… Paul didn't win. "Dr. Paul wouldn't want us to give up if we lose this election," said Drew Rushford, excitedly talking with two other out-of-state supporters. "If we give up, then we never supported him at all." So Lew Moore was right -- The Paul party was as exuberant as most victory parties. We just don't know yet what they're celebrating, and neither do they.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/124295.html

[Sous-Commandant Marco]

Et encore un peu de bashing anti Ron Paul :

http://pajamasmedia.com/2008/01/ron_paul.php

Je vois que les méthodes staliniennesnéo-libertariennes de citations tronquées, sans référence et sorties de leur contexte, n'ont pas varié.

A vue de nez, au moins la moitié de ces citations ne présentent aucun caractère choquant, à moins d'être la vierge effarouchée du "politically correct". Les statistiques indiquent très clairement que les Noirs américains sont plus violents et plus criminels que le reste de la population. Est-ce raciste de le faire remarquer? Au moins, une explication est fournie, à savoir que les Noirs bénéficient plus du welfare.

Quant aux fameuses "théories du complot" dont on nous rebat les oreilles si complaisamment, c'est un amalgame grotesque. Leur seul intérêt est de révéler chez l'auteur une certaine révérence voire l'annihilation de son esprit critique envers l'état fédéral américain et d'autres organisations transnationales dont l'actualité récente a pourtant montré la nocivité.

[Taranne]

Mékeskifopalir…

It Takes a Family (to Break a Glass Ceiling)

By KERRY HOWLEY

Washington

SOME women, even progressive ones, are surely celebrating Hillary Clinton’s third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses. Those of us who think 43 male presidents in a row is quite enough, thank you, still sometimes question whether a woman whose greatest political move was her marriage deserves to be the first woman in the White House.

But while there are plenty of reasons not to vote for Mrs. Clinton (as an antiwar libertarian, I could happily list them for you at length), her marital journey to power is not one of them. The uncomfortable truth is that political nepotism has often served feminism’s cause well.

In 1924, Miriam A. Ferguson, a Texas Democrat known as Ma, became the first woman elected to a full term as a governor. Her husband, James Edward Ferguson, had been elected, impeached and removed from the same office. Mrs. Ferguson ran on a platform of “two governors for the price of one” — a package that included a convicted extortionist and an untested woman.

Like it or not, the road to female advancement often begins at the altar. History books are thick with examples of women who broke political barriers because their family connections afforded them the opportunity.

If you’ve ever wondered why India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan and the Philippines seem readier to elect women than does the United States, here’s your answer: Societies that value a candidate’s family affiliation, and therefore have a history of nepotistic succession, are often open to female leadership so long as it bears the right brand. Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, among many others, slashed through gender barriers on the strength of their family names.

In the United States, where a poll last year found that 14 percent of people still admit they would not vote for a woman, nepotistic advancement for women in politics was most common early in the 20th century. As Jo Freeman, the feminist political scientist, has pointed out, six of the first 14 women elected to Congress were widows of incumbents. Three more were the daughters of politicians.

The first three women to serve full Senate terms all succeeded their husbands. Only with the 1978 election of Nancy Kassebaum, a Kansas Republican, did a woman finally achieve a full Senate term without first following her husband into office. (And Ms. Kassebaum was the daughter of Alf Landon, the former Kansas governor.)

To some voters, Hillary Clinton’s husband provides reassurance that the “calculating” senator from New York won’t degenerate into a feminine hysteric if she is elected to the White House. Yet Mrs. Clinton, the first woman who is a serious contender for the presidential nomination of one of the nation’s two major political parties, still has to work overtime to prove herself non-threatening. She clings to the political center like a life raft and rarely ventures from the shallow waters of establishment predictability.

Social psychologists have found that women in leadership roles are typically seen as either warm, likable and incompetent, or cold, distant and competent. To be a strong, competent woman is to be something culturally unattractive, which probably says something about why few American women even aspire to political office. Worldwide, even popular female politicians — Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Angela Merkel — are slapped with the moniker “iron lady.”

Granted, women who rely on their last names to ascend to power are not especially likely to pursue explicitly feminist policies. They may even be less likely to do so, in order to seem worthy of office.

But their chief function to the cause is outside of policy. By their very existence, these women attack the norms and assumptions that bar other women from ascending to power on their own.

Women like Lindy Boggs of Louisiana, who lost her husband in a plane crash in 1972 and then assumed his vacant office in the House of Representatives, showed us they could lead as well as their husbands did — even if they never would have been given the chance otherwise.

The best way to convince voters that women leaders are fully human — likable and competent at times, unlikable and incompetent at others — is to fill the world with more of them.

No mother wants to tell her daughter that she can aspire to the presidency only if she snags the most gifted politician of her generation. But Hillary Clinton’s rise to power, unsettling as it is, follows a time-tested pattern for the breaking of gender barriers.

The great feminist promise of a Hillary Clinton presidency amounts to this: If we elect a political wife now, perhaps we won’t have to later.

Kerry Howley is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

[Invité jabial]

Il a un côté sympa, comme W du reste, mais c'est en effet un fou furieux.

A choisir parmi les autres candidats républicains, j'aime autant Huckabee alors.

+1

Mauvais résultat pour Ron Paul.

Qu'a-t-il fait de son argent?

Il n'en a pas assez pour acheter un groupe de presse, et c'est ça qu'il lui faudrait. Ceci dit, si aujourd'hui il ne touche que les jeunes via internet, d'ici 20 ou 30 ans un futur Ron Paul fera un sacré score. Ce que je crains, par contre, c'est qu'il doive batailler dur pour revenir au niveau de liberté… actuel.

C'est surtout la démonstration du fait que le NH n'est plus ce qu'il était, suite notamment à l'immigration massive depuis le Taxachussets.

+1

Ces socialauds de New Republic sont vraiment de fieffés hypocrites. Si la malhonnêteté intellectuelle était mesurable, ils serviraient de mètre-étalon; en France, ils travailleraient au Monde.

+1

[melodius]

http://www.reason.com/news/show/124295.html

Excellent article.

[Invité jabial]

Mékeskifopalir…

Howley, trahison!

Mais qu'est-ce qu'ils attendent pour la jeter de Reason par la fenêtre?

[Nick de Cusa]

18% chez les républicains de moins de 30 ans:

By MICHAEL FALCONE

Published: January 10, 2008

CONCORD, N.H. — In a state that many people considered his best opportunity to match his strong fund-raising with enough votes to shake up the Republican race, Representative Ron Paul came up short on Tuesday.

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Despite what seemed like a solid pairing of Mr. Paul’s libertarian leanings and New Hampshire’s “live free or die” ideals embodied in its independent voting bloc, he placed fifth, the same as in Iowa, and 2,000 votes behind Rudolph W. Giuliani.

In his speech on Tuesday night, Mr. Paul, of Texas, indicated that his unorthodox Internet-driven campaign would continue.

“There’s really no reason for us to be letting up,” he told several hundred supporters. “It’s really only the beginning.”

Exit polls showed that Mr. Paul took 18 percent of the Republican votes from people younger than 30 in New Hampshire, a demographic reflected in the crowd on Tuesday night. It included many college students and others in their 20s.

Mr. Paul’s supporters were nothing if not visible this week, waving signs along the main street of Manchester and outshouting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s backers at a polling place in Concord that she visited Tuesday.

Since October, the Paul campaign spent $3 million on television, radio and direct-mail advertising in New Hampshire, said a spokesman, Jesse Benton. Even so, Mr. Benton said, Mr. Paul spent 19 days campaigning in the state, fewer than some rivals.

“New Hampshire citizens really want to see the candidates on the ground,” he said. “That put us at a disadvantage.”

Mr. Paul, who raised nearly $20 million in the last quarter, has enough money to propel him into the Feb. 5 primary states where he intends to compete.

His campaign has spent $1 million on advertising in South Carolina and Nevada, which vote on Jan. 19, and plans to buy air time in large and expensive media markets. His commercials are already running in Florida, which votes on Jan. 29.

Mr. Paul can also draw on thousands of volunteers. In New Hampshire, a flock, many from out of state and even from overseas, knocked on doors, wrote letters and made telephone calls.

Ryan West and his wife, Amelia, flew from Indiana on Friday to volunteer for Mr. Paul. At the election night party, Mr. West said he was attracted to Mr. Paul’s message of personal responsibility.

“The core of what Dr. Paul is about is peace, freedom and prosperity,” Mr. West said. “Who could be against that?”

Violet Zharov, a student at Carnegie Mellon, also traveled here this week to volunteer. Ms. Zharov is active in a MeetUp group for Mr. Paul that has grown from a couple of dozen supporters to more than 1,000.

In conversations with undecided voters this week, she said, she found herself explaining to some why a vote for Mr. Paul would not be wasted.

“I tell them that you’re not the only one who is asking yourself that question,” Ms. Zharov said. “If everybody just voted with their conscience, we’d have Ron Paul in front of candidates like McCain, Giuliani and Romney right now.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/us/polit…ml?ref=politics

[Ash]

Ron Paul at the New Hampshire Debate 1-5-08 :

Toujours aussi bon

Le premier lien est vraiment à voir.

[Bob]

Entendu sur BFM ce matin (verbatim très approximatif): "suite aux menaces de Didier (de Bruxelles) qui nous inonde de mails tous les jours nous allons parler de Ron Paul".

Didier, si tu nous lis, bravo mais il faudra persister encore, Ron Paul n'ayant été mentionné que très brièvement.

[Apollon]

loool

Apollon.

4 ans oui mais pas 8.

Entendu sur BFM ce matin (verbatim très approximatif): "suite aux menaces de Didier (de Bruxelles) qui nous inonde de mails tous les jours nous allons parler de Ron Paul".

Didier, si tu nous lis, bravo mais il faudra persister encore, Ron Paul n'ayant été mentionné que très brièvement.

[xara]

Zorro est arrivéééé, sans se presseeeeer !

En l'occurrence, l'hystérie est plutôt dans le chef des anti-Paul ; les rois du politiquement correct étant les néoconnards.

Toujours à propos de comportement hargneux, ce serait bien de ne pas attendre chaque post de Melo ou de moi dans l'espoir de venir administrer ta petite leçon de morale dont, pour ma part, je n'ai que faire.

Pour le coup, il n'y a que toi qui donne une "leçon de morale" ici. La seule chose que j'ai faite, c'est de dire que pointer du doigt que machin est néo-con ou socialo, comme tu le fais souvent, en suggérant que donc, il raconte des conneries, ça ne tient pas. C'est juste un outil rhétorique qui, je parie, ne passerait pas ici s'il venait d'un socialo justement. Un outil d'ailleurs utilisé par Kirchick et justement dénoncé dans l'excellent texte "gays for Ron" que tu postes:

The Bait-and-Switch. When Tucker Carlson asked Kirchick last night whether he had any evidence that Paul had himself ever said anything racist or offensive, Kirchick pulled a classic bait-and-switch, accusing Paul of "speaking in code" to bigots:

You mean, said it out loud, or in person?…. I haven't seen that…. No, we do know however, I have found out that [Paul] spoke at a pro-secession conference in 1995. This was a neo-Confederate organization putting this on…. Just this last week on MSNBC, he touted a book called The Real Lincoln, by Thomas DiLorenzo, who is a neo-Confederate…. And what does, Tucker, is he speaks in code. He's a transmitter. He'll say certain things that might not, at first, appear to be overtly racist, but to certain audiences, they know what he's talking about. So when he talks about secession, he says it in a way that isn't exactly neo-Confederate, or it isn't exactly explicitly neo-Confederate, but to people who are in the know and to people who are a part of those neo-Confederate communities, know exactly what he's talking about.

Suddenly, the issue is not who wrote any of Paul's newsletters, but Paul's flirtation with the dangerous notion of "secession." But here, it is really Kirchick who speaks in code. Rather than engage those with whom he disagrees on history and political philosophy (read Tom DiLorenzo's excellent response on response to Kirchick's attack), Kirchick simply brands his opponents with the "neo-Confederate" label to imply that anyone who believes in the decentralization of power wants to re-enslave African-Americans (and probably gays and Jews, as well)

Faire appel à l'hostilité de son public anti- "neo-confederate"+ associer Paul à l'étiquette "neo-confederate", voilà le truc. Maintenant dire Kirchick= "néo-con" face à un public généralement anti- néo-con, je vois que c'est le même truc. C'est ce que j'ai relevé. John Loque a parfaitement raison. Tout n'est pas bon contre ses adversaires.

Pour ce qui est des "leçons de morale", c'est-à-dire en réalité de mes réactions consistant en substance à dire occasionnellement (et non à chaque post de Melo ou de toi) qu'il y a des propos et comportements hargneux, méprisants voire insultants, des propos et attitudes qui empêchent d'avoir une discussion normale, que ça fait chier et qu'il serait temps de s'en rendre compte et de s'abstenir, je posterai dorénavant dans le fil approprié pour cela, histoire de na pas faire dévier plus les discussions de fond : http://www.liberaux.org/index.php?showtopi…mp;#entry370964

Fil d'ailleurs lancé par Melo. Apparemment, il est normal que lui seul -pas moi- fasse des "leçons de morale".

[Ash]

Pour le coup, il n'y a que toi qui donne une "leçon de morale" ici. La seule chose que j'ai faite, c'est de dire que pointer du doigt que machin est néo-con ou socialo, comme tu le fais souvent, en suggérant que donc, il raconte des conneries, ça ne tient pas. C'est juste un outil rhétorique qui, je parie, ne passerait pas ici s'il venait d'un socialo justement. Un outil d'ailleurs utilisé par Kirchick et justement dénoncé dans l'excellent texte "gays for Ron" que tu postes:

Encore faut-il y voir une suggestion.

[xara]

A vue de nez, au moins la moitié de ces citations ne présentent aucun caractère choquant, à moins d'être la vierge effarouchée du "politically correct". Les statistiques indiquent très clairement que les Noirs américains sont plus violents et plus criminels que le reste de la population. Est-ce raciste de le faire remarquer? Au moins, une explication est fournie, à savoir que les Noirs bénéficient plus du welfare.

Quant aux fameuses "théories du complot" dont on nous rebat les oreilles si complaisamment, c'est un amalgame grotesque. Leur seul intérêt est de révéler chez l'auteur une certaine révérence voire l'annihilation de son esprit critique envers l'état fédéral américain et d'autres organisations transnationales dont l'actualité récente a pourtant montré la nocivité.

Tout à fait d'accord. D'ailleurs, l'idée qu'une thèse relevant de la théorie du "complot" ou de la "conspiration" doit de ce fait être automatiquement discréditée est manifestement erronée. Une recherche rapide des définitions usitées du mot "conspiration" me donne ceci:

-Accord secret entre plusieurs personnes en vue de renverser le pouvoir établi ou ses représentants. Conspiration royaliste; conspiration contre l'État, le gouvernement, la République; conspiration pour renverser le Roi, le gouvernement, le régime. Synon. complot, conjuration

-Entente secrète entre plusieurs personnes ou choses personnifiées, contre quelqu'un ou quelque chose. Tramer une conspiration contre qqn. Synon. cabale, intrigue, machination

-Entente secrète entre plusieurs personnes ou choses personnifiées, en vue de renverser un ordre (qu'il soit représenté par une personne ou un savoir, une valeur). Conspiration contre un chef hiérarchique, contre les dogmes, la discipline.

-Série d'actions secrètes entreprises au profit de quelqu'un ou quelque chose. La noble conspiration du jeune homme pour la vie de Schumacker a réussi (Hugo, Han d'Islande, 1823, p. 491).

-Réunion, action commune, hostile ou non, de forces conjuguées en vue d'un même effet. La conspiration de plusieurs facteurs, de mille forces cachées. L'intérêt français rejoint l'intérêt européen par la conspiration millénaire de l'histoire et de la géographie (L'Œuvre, 12 avr. 1941)

-Entente secrète ou tacite entre plusieurs personnes pour étouffer un fait, les opinions ou les droits de quelqu'un. Conspiration du silence.

Si on prend les définitions les plus larges, n'impliquant pas le secret, il faut bien voir que même une théorie de la firme ou de quelque organisation consciente, est une théorie de la conspiration. Mais sans doute ne s'agit-il pas de cela dans le contexte présent, mais plutôt d'entente secrète, consciente et malveillante. Même là, on aimerait bien savoir pourquoi une théorie prétendant découvrir le secret, une théorie du complot, devrait a priori être considérée comme bidon. Des ententes secrètes et malveillantes à l'égard d'untel, de ceci ou de cela, sont-elles impossibles?

Prenons un exemple. On parle souvent des théories de la conspiration à propos du 11/9. En général, on désigne par là les théories selon lesquelles le gouvernement US y a participé d'une manière ou d'une autre et elles sont balayées parce que ce ne sont que des "théories du complot". Mais la version officielle est elle aussi une théorie de la conspiration ! Alors, si la théorie officielle est vraie et les autres fausses, ce n'est pas parce que les autres sont des théories du complot. Quelle que soit la véritable explication, elle relève de la conspiration tant qu'on parle d'organisation secrète.

Ma conclusion: on ne devrait pas rejeter une explication sous prétexte qu'elle relève de la théorie du complot, ce que semble pourtant faire Kirchick (serait-il prêt à nier l'existence des attentats du 11/9, comme sa position devrait logiquement l'y obliger?). Ce qu'il nous demande manifestement est de croire sans examen, ce qui est mainstream, officiel, etc.

Conséquence annexe: je suis emmerdé parce que:

2. Les messages au contenu particulièrement "indésirable" seront supprimés IMMEDIATEMENT par un modérateur, qui en fera au préalable une copie sur le forum des modérateurs, et qui fera un rapport aux autres. Les messages suivants sont particulièrement concernés :

…

* les délires paranoïaques, affabulations, propos sexuellement explicites ou pornographiques (par exemple complot international, complot sioniste, etc)

[Sekonda]

Peut-être encore des problèmes avec les machines à voter Diebold dans le NH.

"Multiple indications of vote fraud are beginning to pop up regarding the New Hampshire primary elections. Roughly 80% of New Hampshire precincts use Diebold machines, while the remaining 20% are hand counted. A Black Box Voting contributor has compiled a chart of results from hand counted precincts vs. results from machine counted precincts. In machine counted precincts, Clinton beat Obama by almost 5%. In hand counted precincts, Obama beat Clinton by over 4%, which closely matches the scientific polls that were conducted leading up to the election. Another issue is the Republican results from Sutton precinct. The final results showed Ron Paul with 0 votes in Sutton. The next day a Ron Paul supporter came forward claiming that both she and several of her family members had voted for Ron Paul in Sutton. Black Box Voting reports that after being asked about the discrepancy Sutton officials decided that Ron Paul actually received 31 votes in Sutton, but they were left off of the tally sheet due to 'human error.'"

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/10/1635225

[tienouchou]

RH, t'es toujours obligé d'être malaimable avec tes interlocuteurs et d'aller envoyer les autres.

Ta réponse à Rincevent me fait tout simplement vomir.

[Ronnie Hayek]

Pour le coup, il n'y a que toi qui donne une "leçon de morale" ici. La seule chose que j'ai faite, c'est de dire que pointer du doigt que machin est néo-con ou socialo, comme tu le fais souvent, en suggérant que donc, il raconte des conneries, ça ne tient pas. C'est juste un outil rhétorique qui, je parie, ne passerait pas ici s'il venait d'un socialo justement. Un outil d'ailleurs utilisé par Kirchick et justement dénoncé dans l'excellent texte "gays for Ron" que tu postes:

Faire appel à l'hostilité de son public anti- "neo-confederate"+ associer Paul à l'étiquette "neo-confederate", voilà le truc. Maintenant dire Kirchick= "néo-con" face à un public généralement anti- néo-con, je vois que c'est le même truc. C'est ce que j'ai relevé. John Loque a parfaitement raison. Tout n'est pas bon contre ses adversaires.

Pour ce qui est des "leçons de morale", c'est-à-dire en réalité de mes réactions consistant en substance à dire occasionnellement (et non à chaque post de Melo ou de toi) qu'il y a des propos et comportements hargneux, méprisants voire insultants, des propos et attitudes qui empêchent d'avoir une discussion normale, que ça fait chier et qu'il serait temps de s'en rendre compte et de s'abstenir, je posterai dorénavant dans le fil approprié pour cela, histoire de na pas faire dévier plus les discussions de fond : http://www.liberaux.org/index.php?showtopi…mp;#entry370964

Fil d'ailleurs lancé par Melo. Apparemment, il est normal que lui seul -pas moi- fasse des "leçons de morale".

Tout n'est pas bon contre ses adversaires, c'est certain. Il s'agit ici simplement de rappeler pourquoi il ne faut pas nécessairement perdre de temps avec leurs élucubrations. Ce n'est pas plus compliqué que cela.

[Ash]

RH, t'es toujours obligé d'être malaimable avec tes interlocuteurs et d'aller envoyer les autres.

Ta réponse à Rincevent me fait tout simplement vomir.

On s'enfout !

En revanche tip top le "malaimable"

[Ronnie Hayek]

RH, t'es toujours obligé d'être malaimable avec tes interlocuteurs et d'aller envoyer les autres.

Ta réponse à Rincevent me fait tout simplement vomir.

Ce n'est pas toi qui avais été éjecté du forum pour ton comportement grossier il y a plus d'un an ?

Qui se sent morveux se mouche.

[roubachov]

La vérité peut être parfois prévisible. Et puis, rien ne t'obligeait à poster ce torchon bien-pensant (qui, lui, ne surprend pas non plus, malheureusement).

Un spécialiste qui parle.

Cependant, tu as oublié "Eglise catholique", "Bible", "Fraternité Saint-Pie-X" et "Charles Maurras" dans ton message. Tu peux mieux faire.

Dommage qu'il ne soit pas belge, il aurait alors pu rajouter "rexiste" …