Over at Knoxviews, metulj notes that Red State is giving Ron Paul supporters the Knoxviews treatment. Seems Red State doesn’t like Ron Paul.
Ok, brief interlude because, as is typical, even when metulj is interesting, he’s still usually substantially off the mark. Such as:
While a blog host can allow or disallow any speech they want on their site, the quashing of Ron Paul supporters at Red State is probably the perfect representation of how the Right eats its own.
and:
What makes this different from Democratic problems with iconoclastic leftists like Nader is that this is coming within the GOP, not from without.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
He’s big with the Shoot Cans Crowd too
Ron Paul isn’t really burning up the gun blog crowd in a big way. He is, however, appealing to the GOA sorts. The NRA ranked Ron Paul a B and his Democrat opponent an A, even though I know of no politico more pro-gun than Paul.
a former poster* is now actively promoting the GOP iconoclast . . . *who took his ball and left when our estimable host reminded him that this blog is the host’s private property.
Not so on both counts. I am not actively promoting Paul. Paul’s campaign bought an ad here. My posting at Knoxviews was forbidden and I stopped commenting there.
Any way, on Ron Paul: I like the guy. I think the significance of Ron Paul is that he’s saying things that need to be said and that often are not said in politics. He’s the only presidential candidate ever I’ve heard address the harm caused by the drug war, for example. And that’s a good thing.
But his foreign policy scares people. And his talk about the drug war probably scares the Hell out of Susie Soccer Mom who finds Paul’s message conflicts with the things she learned in DARE and SADD in the late 80s. And, you know, a lot of people still think we’re on the gold standard (my dad, for instance, and I argued about this recently) and don’t like being told otherwise. And abolishing the federal reserve, IRS, ATF, DEA, DOE, etc., and other things he wants or implies he’d get rid of scares white people too.
But, generally, Ron Paul’s not so scary. His supporters are. And they’ll be here soon to comment on this post. Mark it. Look here, for instance. 40 comments on me noting an ad? As bitter noted: I’m just saying that because it’s funny how traffic spikes when I mention Ron Paul. Ron Paul! Ron Paul! Ron Paul! (Is that like saying Beetlejuice three times?)
Like I said, I like Paul and I’ll probably waste my vote for him in the primary.
I don’t think his supporters are liberals pretending to be Republicans (speaking of, why are Republicans pretending to be conservative?). I think some of his supporters (particularly, the vocal ones) are of the space cadet variety, though. You know, the black helicopter types, Zionist conspiracy types, only Ron Paul can save us types, new world order types, and *gasp* the truthers. These folks are active on the internet and are getting their messages out. And that’s the problem with Ron Paul: the baggage.
He’s the Republican’s Kucinich.