{"id":5395,"date":"2011-12-24T12:40:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T17:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2011-12-24T12:42:36","modified_gmt":"2011-12-24T17:42:36","slug":"the-animals-are-coming-so-drive-up-the-price-of-ron-pauls-investments-in-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2011\/12\/24\/the-animals-are-coming-so-drive-up-the-price-of-ron-pauls-investments-in-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The animals are coming,’ so drive up the price of Ron Paul’s investments in gold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, presents himself as a libertarian who believes in smaller, limited government and a strict adherence to the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Hogwash.<\/p>\n

For decades, Ron Paul churned out vile newsletters peddling unfiltered racism, anti-gay hysteria, and anti-Semitic, John Birch Society \u201ctrilateral\u201d insanity.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got the stomach for it, you can peruse dozens of these at Mr. Destructo<\/a>. It\u2019s the kind of old-school, flagrant racism you only see inside a closed circle of angry white people certain that only other angry white people are listening. This is how white racists talk when they\u2019re confident that no one who isn\u2019t a white racist \u2014 no one black or brown and\/or smart \u2014 might overhear what they\u2019re saying. It\u2019s despicable stuff.<\/p>\n

Here are Ron Paul\u2019s suggestions for renaming New York City: \u201cWelfaria. Zooville. Rapetown. Dirtburg. Lazyopolis.\u201d<\/p>\n

And here is his advice for his readers who live in \u201ca major city\u201d:<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably already heard about the newest threat to your life and limb, and your family: carjacking.<\/p>\n

It is the hip-hop thing to do among the urban youth who play unsuspecting whites like pianos. \u2026 In the old days, average people could avoid such youth by staying out of bad neighborhoods. Empowered by media, police and political complicity, however, the youth now roam everywhere looking for cars to steal and people to rob.<\/p>\n

What can you do? More and more Americans are carrying a gun in the car. An ex-cop I know advises that if you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposed of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example).<\/p>\n

I frankly don\u2019t know what to make of such advice, but even in my little town of Lake Jackson, Texas, I\u2019ve urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self defense. For the animals are coming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That, in essence, is the recurring theme of these Ron Paul newsletters: \u201cThe animals are coming.\u201d Watch out for \u201cthe coming race war in our big cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civilization is under attack, Paul\u2019s newsletters warned. So arm yourself. And invest in gold. Not stocks and bonds, not bank deposits, just gold.<\/p>\n

Ron Paul is invested in gold. The value of those investments is ultimately based on just one thing: Getting lots of other people to invest in the same thing. As Joshua Brown<\/a> puts it, gold is \u201cthe ultimate supply-demand trend bet.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Ron Paul, like everyone else who\u2019s ever used the word \u201ctrilateralist\u201d unironically, is all-in on that bet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Observe any far-right fringe organization, publication, website or radio show and you\u2019ll find ads urging you to put all your savings into gold. Those ads will be juxtaposed with non-advertising content urging the same thing. From Ron Paul to Rush Limbaugh to Glenn Beck to Brannon Howse, this is how these guys make a living. It\u2019s a racket, a scam, a long con \u2014 and a lucrative one, apparently.<\/p>\n

Now, just because Ron Paul is up to his ears in this invest-in-gold scam doesn\u2019t mean he isn\u2019t also<\/em> a true believer in the nasty \u201cthe animals are coming\u201d racist filth he\u2019s promoted for years to push up demand for gold.<\/p>\n

Maybe he believes this garbage, or maybe it\u2019s nothing more than a cynical scam. But those are the only options. As Ta-Nehisi Coates notes<\/a>, the best<\/em> we can say about Ron Paul is that he might not be a bigot, \u201csimply part of a coalition who saw bigotry as a potent political force \u2026 the ugly tradition of non-racist demagogues\u201d:<\/p>\n

It is comforting to think of racism as species of misanthropy, or akin to child molestation, thus exonerating all those who bear no real hatred in their heart. It\u2019s much more troubling to think of it as its always been \u2014 a means of political organization and power distribution. Such a definition makes the \u201cI\u2019m a good person\u201d defense irrelevant.<\/p>\n

I could easily believe that Ron Paul holds no more particular disdain for blacks than George Wallace or John Patterson. These were not evil men. They were good people, who consented to evil in the pursuit of power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that is why Ron Paul, whatever else he may be, is not a libertarian or an advocate of smaller government or a friend to the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Because when power is attained by such means it becomes power in service of<\/em> those means.<\/p>\n

If you want to know what Ron Paul\u2019s \u201csmall-government\u201d utopia of personal liberty looks like, just read the following.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nicholas K. Peart, \u201cYoung, Black and Frisked by the NYPD<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last May, I was outside my apartment building on my way to the store when two police officers jumped out of an unmarked car and told me to stop and put my hands up against the wall. I complied. Without my permission, they removed my cellphone from my hand, and one of the officers reached into my pockets, and removed my wallet and keys. He looked through my wallet, then handcuffed me. The officers wanted to know if I had just come out of a particular building. No, I told them, I lived next door.<\/p>\n

One of the officers asked which of the keys they had removed from my pocket opened my apartment door. Then he entered my building and tried to get into my apartment with my key. My 18-year-old sister was inside with two of our younger siblings; later she told me she had no idea why the police were trying to get into our apartment and was terrified. She tried to call me, but because they had confiscated my phone, I couldn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a white officer put me in the back of the police car. I was still handcuffed. The officer asked if I had any marijuana, and I said no. He removed and searched my shoes and patted down my socks. I asked why they were searching me, and he told me someone in my building complained that a person they believed fit my description had been ringing their bell. After the other officer returned from inside my apartment building, they opened the door to the police car, told me to get out, removed the handcuffs and simply drove off. I was deeply shaken.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Radley Balko: \u201cKafka Surrenders<\/a>\u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n

The trial court, the appellate court, and the prosecution all concluded that these two cops broke the law, yet still,<\/em> all three have deemed that the cops\u2019 testimony is more credible than the testimony of Crossland, his cousin, and the other witnesses \u2014 none of whom was doing anything wrong before the confrontation. \u2026 Only one party broke the law before the confrontation. But because that party sports a badge and works for the government, they still get the presumption of credibility over the guy who was minding his own business, his cousin, and the other witnesses. \u2026<\/p>\n

Police need only the flimsiest of suspicions to stop you on the street, detain you, and search you. But even if they don\u2019t even have that,<\/em> they aren\u2019t likely to suffer any serious sanction for an illegal search. Nor is a court likely to believe you should you try to complain. If you resist \u2014 physically or verbally, whether the search was legal or illegal \u2014 they can bring the hammer down, with damn-near impunity. And after the violence, you\u2019ll be the one going to jail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, presents himself as a libertarian who believes in smaller, limited government and a strict adherence to the Constitution. Hogwash. For decades, Ron Paul churned out vile newsletters peddling unfiltered racism, anti-gay hysteria, and anti-Semitic, John Birch Society \u201ctrilateral\u201d insanity. If you\u2019ve got the stomach for it, you can peruse dozens of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n'The animals are coming,' so drive up the price of Ron Paul's investments in gold<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Rep. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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