Ron Paul from the perspective of a former supporter

If you cruise the internet a lot, there’s little doubt that you’ve heard about Ron Paul.

I saw his name on a big ad on someone’s blog that said, “WHO IS RON PAUL?” which, of course, drove me to click on the ad, as I thought Ron Paul had retired. I didn’t know much about Ron Paul other than the fact that he was a former US congressman and a doctor, two positions I hold in great esteem.

I read Ron Paul’s website---it was the same as any other website. Then I listened to him a few times on youtube. Everything he said made sense to me. Nevermind that I didn’t agree with him about abortion, and nevermind that I didn’t agree with him on a few economic issues. I said to myself, “here is an honest politician telling it how it is.” I was swept up in Ron Paul mania for some six odd months, sporting a gigantic VOTE FOR RON PAUL banner in my signature over at AbsoluteWrite.com, telling all of my friends about him—the works. I hadn’t been this worked up over a politician since Cthulhu.

And then a writer that I deeply respect, William Haskins, started pointing me towards some of the things Ron Paul had written in the 90’s. White supremacy, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-gay rantings and psychotic theories about an evil US government filled pages upon pages of scanned PDF files of something called The Ron Paul Political Report.

At first, I believed that it was false. That someone had made the whole thing up to incriminate the beloved Doctor and hurt his election chances. Then I remembered that I don’t do the whole conspiracy theory thing, so I said, “Maybe Ron Paul wasn’t the author.” I tried to rationalize what I was reading.

After two days of solid thinking, I realized that it didn’t matter if Ron Paul had written those articles or not. He had his name on them, they were written in the first person, and they made homey references to his family, especially around holidays. Ron Paul is completely responsible for the content of those newsletters.

He lied to me, and he is lying to every single member of the “Ron Paul Revolution.” Ron Paul, I am pissed at you, and I will be until you accept responsibility for what you wrote, issue a public retraction and apology, and, oh, what else? Stop taking campaign funds from freak'n Nazis?

Needless to say, Ron Paul has forever lost my vote and earned my deep disgust.

For those of you who support Ron Paul in spite of his previous writings---it is very possible that he’s a changed man, after all---please take a closer look at Ron Paul’s message.

He wants to dismantle large portions of the government. That is one of his major platforms! He talked about getting rid of the IRS and a bunch of other federal departments on the Colbert Report. I’m no fan of the IRS, but I know damn good and well that it would take an act of congress to do something like that, and Ron Paul does not have a mandate from congress.

Ron Paul, like all the other candidates, is promoting the 2008 keyword: change. Everyone wants to give us change when they step into the Oval Office. I’m OK with change. But it has to be good change, it has to be realistic change, and it has to be change that represents what the majority want. Most Ron Paul supporters support him because of what they don’t want. They don’t want to be taxed, they don’t want liars in office, and they don’t want a weak economy. There are other people supporting Ron Paul for the same reasons, I’m pretty sure most of you won’t like them. That link goes to a white supremacist group’s news page. You’ve been warned.

If you support Ron Paul and you’re reading this, ask yourself what it is out of his campaign that you do want. And maybe, just maybe, ask yourself why Neo Nazis are embracing Ron Paul’s message.