Fascist alert

[fpb]

As my friends know, I do not call everyone who disagrees with me a Fascist. On the other hand, I do believe that Fascism does exist, that it is mortally dangerous (witness the butchery of helpless Christians by Indian Fascists in Orissa recently), and that it must be fought wherever it is met.

I used to regard Chuck Norris as a folkloric, colourful, not very relevant American phenomenon. However, today he endorsed the Ron Paul cult as the forebear of a coming American conservative revolution. Ron Paul, if you remember, is the extremist, isolationist, America-first, supposed constitutional purist, who has long since been outed as a white supremacist and friend of fringe militias and conspiracy theorists. As we say in Italy, tell me who you walk with and I will tell you who you are.

Comments

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I'd always thought Paul was a little bit "off" (the man seems to lack some basic social skills), but indeed it doesn't take long with Google to turn up stuff like this.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

(I'm not sure whether my prior ignorance says more about me, or the state of US media...)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Many conservative blogs had in fact denounced Paul. Charles JOhnson of Little Green Footballs, who is a rigorous opponent of every kind of Fascism, actually drew the hatred of the Paulists on himself for his repeated criticisms, and ended up making a joke of the whole thing.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I guess me, then -- I'd largely stopped reading political blogs out of fatigue after the last election cycle.

[becomethesea.livejournal.com]

White supremacist? Give me a source, please. I love Ron Paul. :(

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am afraid that it is well proven. You can have a look at mentalguy's link, for a start. It features the scum of the Earth quarrelling among themselves, not about whether RP is or is not a supremacist and worse, but about whether it was right to say so in public.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Two impeccably Libertarian sources, with links:
http://reason.com/blog/show/124339.html
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/01/11/ron-pauls-ugly-newsletters/

[fpb.livejournal.com]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/the_ron_paul_campaign_and_its.html

[phyrry.livejournal.com]

I will be voting for Obama, I like McCain, and Ron Paul scares me. A lot. Whatta nutjob...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I expected you might. One reason why I sought your friendship - though minor as compared with your charm and likeability - is that I hoped your presence might bring some balance to my f-page, which has a lot of conservatives. I like every single one of them, but their number gives a misleading impression.

By the same token, though, could you be careful of your language? One of my oldest online friends, and a perfectly lovely person, is becomethesea who is - or, I hope, used to be - a Paulista. Ron Paul's public ideas were certainly impractical, and his supporters' attitude has been cultish, but until the revelation of his links to supremacists and militias, that was the worst I felt willing to say about it. It is a bad feature of modern politics that the sanity of opponents is attacked far too often.

[phyrry.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that.