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THE CABAL
| In Defense of Ron Paul | |
 by Daniel Koffler, November 13, 2007
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There's been rather a lot of Ron Paul bashing here and in nearby environs recently. I have to demur, both on the substantive case against Paul, and the way that case has been framed.
Daniel Sieradski inveighs against Ron Paul's "willingness to accept money from neo-Nazis," and concludes that this willingness should disqualify Paul from the presidential race. The antecedent is a grossly unfair characterization, as even a whiff of collegiality with neo-Nazis can be sufficient warrant to exile someone from polite society, and Daniel's phrasing makes it sound as if Paul either deliberately courted contributions from neo-Nazis, or at the very least is specifically disposed to accepting their dollars. In fact, Paul's blanket policy is to accept donations from any source, and let donors whose views Paul does not support swallow the economic cost of their wasted contributions (a rudimentary lesson in personal fiduciary responsibility, no?).
So, the agreed-upon fact is that white nationalists did indeed contribute money to Ron Paul. Perhaps a candidate who receives money from such unsavory figures has a moral obligation to return it, and perhaps not --- I think not, more on that in a bit --- but scrutinizing Paul's views on such a purported obligation is an extraordinarily oblique and unhelpful way of assessing whether or not he personally harbors sympathy of any kind for neo-Nazi views. Which is, after all, precisely what this kerfuffle is all about, and since the direct evidence that Ron Paul is objectively pro-neo-Nazi (if you will) is somewhere between scant and nonexistent, those wishing to level such an indictment are left to proceed via innuendo.
Thus, Daniel writes of Paul's refusal to return contributions from white nationalist groups that it "echoes...Europe's re-embracement [pardon?---DK] of right-wing extremism, the attendant resurrection of ethnic nationalism, and the growing success of far-right parties, many of which have taken over large swaths of European parliaments." And while dark intonations about the truly frightening revival of quasi-fascist nationalist movements in Europe at the end of the 90s (which seems to have quieted down somewhat in the last few years) make for incriminating rhetoric, the trouble with this analogy is that the situations are not in any relevant sense analogous.
For example, Jorg Haider* is a son and pupil of fervent Nazis, publicly associated himself with the Waffen SS, and transformed the vaguely pan-Germanicist Austrian Freedom Party into an expressly xenophobic, racist bloc. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting contributions from anyone. Jean-Marie Le Pen cut his teeth in the monarchist and clerico-fascist movement Accion Francaise, became a nationally-recognized figure in France during his 1960s campaigning for the rehabilitation of Vichy leaders, founded his Front National party with neo-Nazis as part of the coalition, and is a recidivist Holocaust revisionist. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting contributions from anyone. The Hungarian Justice and Life Party merged with the Movement for a Better Hungary to form the MIEP-Jobbik alliance (‘Jobbik' is an acronym, coming from the Magyar words for ‘right-wing youth community'), which stood as Hungary's semi-official anti-Semitic greenshirt party until the most recent legislative elections. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting contributions from anyone. The Flemish Bloc of Belgium, whose raison d'etre (after Flanders secessionism) seems to be to promote Flemish supremacism, has included Holocaust revisionists and deniers in its leadership positions. Ron Paul, on the other hand, adhered to a policy of accepting c ontributions from anyone. And on and on. But for a record of never having espoused a racialist or neo-Nazi ideology, Ron Paul is just like racialists and neo-Nazis in the European far right.
In other words, once we clear away the hyperbole inflating the argument against Paul, the leftover detritus consists almost entirely in a transparently circular logic. To wit, Ron Paul is a Nazi symp, as demonstrated by his campaign contributions from white nationalists, who gave to him because he is a Nazi symp. There remains, to be sure, an interesting question of why some white nationalists find Paul's views congenial, though the answer is so banal and unmysterious that those determined to find some sinister machinations undergirding the Paul movement might be forgiven for overlooking it. Namely, a strict logical entailment of Paul's position against federal government foreign aid programs is that he be against foreign aid to Israel. And since supporting foreign aid to Israel is a sine qua non for any candidate looking for recognition as a Washington Establishment Approved mainstream candidate, Ron Paul, being the only candidate to combine small-government conservatism with a lack of concern for what a buffoon like Tim Russert thinks of him, emerges as the only candidate to oppose foreign aid to Israel. Well, naturally, some elements within the anti-Semitic far right have glommed onto Paul for that reason, but the salient point is that the neo-Nazis who support Paul do so simply because of an accidental intersection of views stemming from wildly disparate ideologies with wildly disparate motivations.
The final ground for criticism of Paul is the notion that, even if he does not share their ideology, Paul should not have accepted donations from white supremacists and is obligated to return their contributions. And here, I'll admit that Paul's policy of taking donations from anyone has led to a situation that is genuinely unsettling. But if we strip away the raw emotionality and consider the general moral imperative regarding monetary donations and their refusal, I don't see any reason to think there is an obligation to refuse a donation from any given source, no matter how unsavory, outside of specific exceptionalcases.
My initial premise, which I'll regard as uncontroversial unless someone shows me otherwise, is that anyone collecting money for a charity, political campaign, etc., operates on the presumption that he can accept contributions from any source, and that a positive case has to be made against a specific source to rule it out. And I see no reason to believe that ideology alone can be a disqualifying factor. After all, if neo-Nazis had donated en masse to, say, a mainstream breast cancer charity, there is no coherent sense in which such donations would have a corrosive effect on the work of the charity purely in virtue of the beliefs of the donors. And to refuse that money would be to incur a quantifiable cost in medical research and treatment to the beneficiaries of the charity's work that is hardly worth whatever moral aggrandizement one could derive from refusing a donation. Likewise, I think, with political campaigns, although the case is a bit more tricky because of the vague conceptual divide between campaign donations and bribes. In Paul's case, there is no intrinsic connection between Paul's views and those of his most repugnant donors, so there is similarly no sense in which such dollars will bend Paul toward a neo-Nazi platform. The exceptional cases are those of outright bribes, as well as cases in which donated funds are derived from an illegitimate infringement on the rights of a third party (the paradigm instance, clearly, is theft, although any number of criminal enterprises would fit the bill), which, again, is not true of Paul's donations.
Furthermore, to do a bit of empirical ethics for a moment, the history of donation refusal is not a history of principled stands, but a history of cynical posturing in order to signal one's sympathies by winks and nods. It is behavior roughly akin to Bill Clinton's 1992 vintage Sistah-Souljah and Ricky Ray Rector episodes ("outdo[ing] Willie Horton by every definition of racist grandstanding" as
Christopher Hitchens described the latter case), an act not intended to cause any distress to the individuals whose donation is refused (though it can have that effect accidentally), but rather to pander to select interest groups. Do you think Bob Dole refused money from the Log Cabin Republicans in order to set back their cause, or to ingratiate himself among gay-haters on the right?
The upshot is that the whole business of trying to descry from campaign contributions where a particular candidate stands on issues is an effort of sisyphian futility, especially when candidates are actually on the record stating their views. (So, pace Jamie, one need not resort to leafing through the financial records of the Giuliani campaign in order to impugn it. The evidence that Rudy Giuliani is a fascist is Rudy Giuliani's fascist ideology.)
One last point. Although I doubt many anti-Semitic right wingers would listen to my advice even if I weren't writing for a website called Jewcy, if their ultimate goal is to do harm to Jews and to Israel, and if they are disposed to giving to Paul on the grounds that cutting off support for Israel will weaken the Jewish state, they are making a tactical mistake. There is another candidate in the race whose policy preferences are a sure bet to cause widespread violence, death and suffering in Israel, and he has a better shot to win than Ron Paul.
*A bleg to Jewcy's readers: Can someone set me straight on how to get umlauts and other diacritical marks either in html or in Word for Mac?
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Daniel Koffler is a Clarendon Scholar and graduate student in philosophy at the University of Oxford. More... |
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AlmightyJB
well said
The candidates have little time to discuss the actual issues
right now because they spend it all defending the fact that their not are
perfect beings as the media implies that we should expect then to be. Do
they now have to spend the rest of their time explaining the moral
imperfections of their contributors? Has anyone "investigated" ALL of Rudy's and Hillary's contributors to make sure none of them ever said
any thing anti-Semitic or ever used the n-word or whatever? Is that where we want to
take our political process? Isn't it screwed up enough already? I
suppose when you have 24 hour news and a zillion bloggers you have to find
something to investigate. Most smart people don't want to run for office because they don't want their skeletons dragged through the public square. Maybe we can frighten people people from contributing as well. After all the corporations don't really want the competition anyways. Would make their contributions buy that much more.
Anonymous
Totally Agree
We don't have to invent reasons to dislike Ron Paul. The guy is batguano insane. He'll accept contributions from anyone for the same reason he wants to do away with Social Security: He doesn't believe that politics should support moral ends. He's never going to be president, but he's outrageous enough to make good copy. Let's talk about the real issue, which is the way that anti-globalization forces are becoming increasingly anti-semitic. Ron Paul's support for an end to aid for Israel just attracts the isolationists who believe that Jews started the war, control the media, kidnapped the Lindburgh baby, etc. Let's save our protest of anti-semitism for people who actually matter. Giving Paul this recognition just makes him more of a hero to the wingnuts who think he's the only congressman willing to stand up to AIPAC.
Ron Lewenberg
Flemish Bloc
Mr. Koffler,
Vlaams Blok / Flemish Bloc does not exist anymore having disbanded in November 2004. Vlaams Belung / Flemish Interest is the new party. It is not anti-Semitic. Vlaams Blok dissociated itself with anti-Semitism and Neo-Nazis in the 1990's. Although some anti-Semites remain, the party itself considers Jews to be part of history of the area. Moreover, VB is one of the most ardently pro-Israel parties in Europe.
This isn't 1940. The Nationalists in the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are friendly towards Jew and take either pro-Israel or anti-islamist isolationist positions.
Anonymous
Blanket policies
In fact, Paul's blanket policy is to accept donations from any source, and let donors whose views Paul does not support swallow the economic cost of their wasted contributions (a rudimentary lesson in personal fiduciary responsibility, no?).
Well it is my 'blanket policy' to reject outright any candidate who blindly accepts money from donors, no matter how reprehensible. And I wholeheartedly support those who also follow this 'blanket policy'. I also reject commentators who excuse candidates who follow this 'blanket policy'.
Anonymous
Perfectly moral reason to hate Social Security
I give you three:
The Social Security tax which applies to both employer and employee is in effect borne by the employee for a total of 12% and is capped after a certain income and only applies to wages. It is the large regressive tax in the country and the most damaging to the welfare of American workers. To harm American workers like that and then claim that Social Security is for their benefit is absolutely immoral.
The Social Security Trust Fund consists entirely of US Treasury Bills, which are no more than a promise to tax the posterity for that given amount. To say that the government should give a massive debt to the future generation is absolutely immoral.
Finally, the Social Security policy has become a sort of retirement savings for lots of people, and that perception has lead to fewer people saving adequately for retirement. But the Federal Government has not saved for us. Washington DC has perhaps the most myopic bunch of people in the country. Congressmen, for the most part, only care for what happens in the next few months and how it will impact their re-election. How we came to count on them to plan 40 years into the future is beyond me. To deceive the American people like this is absolutely immoral.
While I do find Dr. Paul's acceptance of the money disturbing, I have to say that the other candidates have contribution on the FEC report that are far more disturbing. Millions of dollars from corporation, special interests, and well-organized minorities. They might not be as reprehensible as a neo-nazi, but dollar amount of that magnitude is more likely to influence policy. $500 is completely insignificant.
Anonymous
Open Dialog and Free Market of Ideas
I actually am of the opposite opinion. It's better to accept these donations if it can open up a dialog between two groups that hate one another. We make neo-nazis more likely to hate others and less likely to reform by isolating them.
If tolerance is superior to prejudice - and it is - tolerance will win out over prejudice when they are allowed to compete. As long as Ron Paul doesn't provide a platform for the ideology of hate and challenges these neo-nazis where they do profess their hate, then accepting the donation has no negative effects and may produce positive outcomes.
I'll end by saying it's the ideas are abhorrent. As long as they do not resort to violence, the people that espouse them are not. They are only human.
Anonymous
Superb writing Mike
Superb writing
Mike UK
Andy
HTML character references
"Can someone set me straight on how to get umlauts and other diacritical marks in HTML?"
I use the following page myself:
http://www.natural-innovations.com/wa/doc-charset.html
A small unlauted ü would be coded ü
A small é with an acute accent would be coded é
(don't forget the semicolon at the end), etc.
More formally, all this stuff is in Chapter 24 of the HTML 4.01 Specification:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html
Anonymous
Ron Paul's message is clear:
Ron Paul's message is clear: amongst other issues, his platform clearly states that we should withdraw financial support for Israel and every other nation that currently receives our welfare.
If that message resonates with anti-Jewish bigots then so be it. It also resonates with people who don't want their taxpayer dollars going to an odious nation like Israel, and people who harbor no opinion towards Israel either way but who adhere to the wisdom of the founders of this nation to avoid entangling alliances. And who's to say a neo-nazi donor isn't also interested in ending these entangling alliances?
FREE PALESTINE
Anonymous
http://www.dragonwinds.com/r
http://www.dragonwinds.com/resources/html-codes.shtml
for html 'escapes' for a bunch of characters
On mac try the character pallete, which you can get to by system preferences -> international , show keyboards or imput or some such
Anonymous
Just the facts that is all
If one looks at the facts, it becomes abundently clear, if one has his ears and eyes open, that it is what it is and no measure of sod will cover it up. Bury all you want, but the facts will tell it like it is. It may take more time when control is evident at all outlets but one day, maybe too late, but some day, it will be absolutely clear who is the culprit. The cow has been milked to death. Anywaym God bless America.
Anonymous
Ya know what, I was neutral
Ya know what, I was neutral in principle to the whole thing before but now I'm actually glad he kept that money.
Your article now exists because of it, even if it made no mention of RP, it's concrete thought provoking criticism of the politics behind campaign contributions and it's relation to perceived influence and racism/nationality.
+1
For however minutely in the grand scheme of thing, moving that tiny little needle of political discourse forward for a change.
Dan D.
Diacriticals in Word
Option-`, [letter] for grave marks, option-e, [letter] for acute marks, option-u, [letter] for umlauts, option-i, [letter] for circumflex marks. option-n, n for ñ, option-c (nothing following) for a ç.
àáäâèéëêìíïîòóöôùúüûçñ
Schuyler
Smarter than the rest of the field
I'm a Ron Paul supporter, and contributor (and not a neo-anything!) and have been fine with the "If bigots donate, it's their own loss" line. I still am.
However, your article was revelatory, in the way you suddenly get a pun a year later, in the motivations behind campaign contribution refusals.
Such a simple point, but something that had never occurred to me.
I'm proud of Dr. Paul. I'm very sorry for what this has done to the opinions of some individuals, but I think he continues to follow the right path. There is no reason to nod wink and refuse a campaign contribution when it comes from White Supremacists, far better to be clear in your words and actions that you are not of them.
Ohio
"if their ultimate goal is
"if their ultimate goal is to do harm to Jews and to Israel, and if they
are disposed to giving to Paul on the grounds that cutting off support
for Israel will weaken the Jewish state, they are making a tactical
mistake."
This is also disproven by the fact that he would also like to remove subsidies to the Arab states around Israel. These subsidies being 3 times as much as is given to Israel, therefore a net gain for Israel in the "why are you giving money to people that hate me" category.
Anonymous
Yeah,
there is, of course, nothing anti-Jewish in opposing the aid to Israel, or even, for that matter, in supporting anti-Israel boycotts and economic sanctions.
But I'm not at all convinced that Israel is the reason why neo-Nazis contribute to the Ron Paul's campaign; not everything is about the Jews, you know. What about his absolutist position on the property rights, his insistence that a business owner should be able to discriminate against minorities (and anyone else)? I imagine this is much more appealing to the neo-Nazis than the aid thing.
I imagine the neo-Nazis don't really mind helping one group of Semites to keep crushing and killing another group of Semites.