More on Ron Paul and Martin Luther King

Was Ron Paul in favor of Martin Luther King Day?
If there's one thing that Paulbots love, it's spreading rumors to the point where they are accepted as irrefutable truth, even if there is no real evidence to support it. From Ameros to staff firings to to the idea that Ron Paul voted in favor of Martin Luther King Day. Unfortunately for them, they always seem to be short on actual evidence. Even more unfortunate, Andrew Austin, Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, has dug up at least one example to the contrary. The scan on the right comes from The Paris News (11/21/79).

Ron Paul and LewRockwell.com
LewRockwell.com currently features several pieces of Anti-MLK propaganda and other criticisms. For instance, Michael Epstein's Myths of Martin Luther King accuses King of being a plagiarist, a communist, and an adulterer. Despite this, not only does Ron Paul freely choose to associate with Lew Rockwell and write regular columns for him, but Lew Rockwell boasts that his website has received Ron Paul's first Freedom Website Award. The Paultards will likely respond by talking about freedom of speech even if you disagree with the content, but that's irrelevant. I have the freedom of speech as well, but I don't that Ron Paul will award me with a Freedom Website Award anytime soon.

Does Ron Paul support Martin Luther King's actual policies?
The following excerpts were pulled from The Right Has a Dream by Paul Rockwell (No relation to Lew as far as I know) and Misreading the Dream by Tim Wise:

"Whenever this issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but he should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up." -MLK, "Why We Can't Wait"

"...for two centuries the Negro was enslaved and robbed of any wages — potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America's wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation." -MLK, 1965 interview

Wise also presents the following real life example of how republicans had come to distort Dr. King's message, until protested by the King family estate:

For example, during the ultimately successful campaign in California to eliminate racial "preferences," supporters of Proposition 209 conjured the image of King repeatedly and, until criticized by the King family, had been planning to air a TV spot showing the "content of their character" segment of King's "Dream" speech.

Ron Paul insists that he considers Martin Luther King to be a hero. Does that mean that he actually supports and respect Dr. King's real policies? Is Ron Paul even familiar with Martin Luther King's real policies? Ron Paul's FreeAtLast2008 campaign appears to be making the same mistake as the Prop 209 campaign, attempting to capitalize on Dr. King's image to promote a platform that he would have opposed.

FreeAtLast2008's Disclaimer
When FreeAtLast2008 first went public at DailyPaul.com, even some of their own supporters cried foul. One of them wrote the following:

On December 21st, 2007 cactus1010 says:
THIS IS NOT LEGAL ACCORDING TO THE KING FAMILY LINK...NOT WITHOUT PERMISSION. YOU CANNOT USE HIS NAME FOR PUBLICITY WITHOUT PERMISSION. AND I WOULD THINK THAT WOULD GO FOR USING IT TO RAISE MONEY AS WELL.

The website founder, Vijay Boyapati thinks that it's important to create a disclaimer disassociating the website from Ron Paul's campaign, but he doesn't think to provide the same courtesy and respect to the family of Doctor King Family Estate. This, despite the fact that all of the graphics and banners rely entirely on the use of Dr. King's image, rather than Ron Paul's. This, despite the fact that Ron Paul has publicly endorsed the campaign in the national media and referred to it as "our" campaign, where as the King Family has not.

Ron Paul to be honored as America’s Civil Rights leader?
It just keeps getting worse and worse. Apparently the Paultards are using this event, not just to absolve Ron Paul of racism, but to try to prop him up as the next great civil rights leader. Check out the article here, which writes that freeatlast2008 is "designed to honor both Dr. Paul and Dr. King as Civil Rights leaders," and will "generate a 10 million dollar plus cash infusion for Paul’s campaign along with nationwide marches to honor Dr. Paul and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."

In other words, just like a dog can be programmed to associate the idea of a ringing bell with salivation, the Paultards are trying to program their followers to associate the idea of "Dr. Paul" to "Dr. King." When you think Ron Paul, think "Nobel Prize Winner." You may think you're donating to Ron Paul, but you're really donating to civil rights. You may think you see people marching for Dr. King, but they're really marching for Ron Paul. Success! I'm surprised I haven't seen any youtube videos of Paul morphing into King and vice verse, but maybe that's only because I haven't looked

Ron Paul and his "Language"
In yesterday's post, I mentioned the January 1991 edition of Paul's newsletter. Here's an excerpt:

The official line among some conservatives and libertarians is that the civil rights movement started out well, but went astray after King’s death. In fact, it was bad from the beginning, never seeking the mere removal of Jim Crow laws, which would have been legitimate, but forced integration and wealth redistribution.

In 1988 when I ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, I was berated for hours by LP members because I had refused to vote, while in Congress, for a Martin Luther King national holiday.

The Paultards will claim that this was a ghostwriter. If this was a ghostwriter, then why bring up Ron Paul's personal experience from the 1988 campaign for Libertarian Presidential candidate? Why would he refer to his past congressional votes? The Paultards will claim that this is not Ron Paul's language. Note Paul's criticism of the civil rights movement as "forced integration," a term her would use to justify his vote against the civil rights act in 2004. But is it really Ron Paul's language? Lots of people could use that phrase? Well, maybe. But I found something on google just now.

• "forced integration" yields 26,600 results.
• "forced integration" +"Ron Paul" yields 4,230 results.
• "forced integration" -"Ron Paul" yields 22,100 results.

In other words, if you find a page with the phrase "forced integration" on it, then there's a 1 in 6 chance that the page will somehow be related to Ron Paul. And that's just a general use of the phrase -- rather than in the specific context of an opinion column protesting the civil rights act.

Similarly, when Wolf Blitzer ran the newsletter segment, the first quotation he provided was "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks." Later, Ron Paul attempted to defended himself by claiming that he didn't "participate in that type of language," only to use that same phrase several more times during the interview.