Ron Paul's useful idiots on the left

Last night I listened to self-proclaimed libertarian Bill Maher once again state how he supports Ron Paul. This time Rob Reiner called him on it saying it was only because Ron Paul wants to legalize pot.

I've listened to other left wing men blow off women and their concerns about his anti-abortion positions by claiming women should STFU because Ron Paul was anti-war and that was more important.

Ron Paul is also homophobic and racist. His philosophical political core ideology is based on Ayn Rand's blitherings and the extreme right wing ideology called "Objectivitism" in Rand speak. It is an ideology I first encountered when investigating the ultra right wing extremist group, the John Birch Society.

From The Guardian UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/06/ron-paul-useful-idiots-on-the-left

Progressives who make common cause with Paul on US foreign policy ignore his stunningly reactionary views on everything else

Megan Carpentier
guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 January 2012

If you told a liberal in 2008 that progressives ought to give Republican Texas Congressman Ron Paul a chance because he was the most anti-war candidate on the ballot, you would have been laughed out of the room – or, more likely, the bar. But in 2012, some prominent (and white, male) progressives are arguing exactly that. What's changed? Not Ron Paul, that's for certain.

He's still the same guy who thinks the US should withdraw from the WTO and the United Nations, and who wants to eliminate foreign aid and the Department of Commerce and all its trade regulation and promotion activities. But, we are told, since he advocates for a complete, immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan (which military intervention, notably, he voted for), he's a better foreign policy candidate than President Obama.

And, if his newest converts are to be believed, his support for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, his impassioned pleas for a return of Americans' civil liberties from an overreaching government and his opposition to the drug war are reason enough to give the man a chance. After all, they say, President Obama has not delivered on his promises and supporters' expectations in those areas, either. But to the women, minorities and LGBT people (and their supporters) who have paid attention to Paul's record, it comes as little surprise that his most vociferous supporters on the left are pale and male … and their arguments stale.

This is the man who, to trumpet his pro-life agenda in Iowa to social conservatives, released an ad that questions whether repealing Roe v Wade would eliminate women's abortion rights in enough states, since it would create "abortion tourism" (a situation with which the Irish and the British are already familiar). He opposed the Obama administration's decision to declare birth control a preventative medicine, which pressures insurance companies to cover it without co-pays. He has said he would allow states to decide same-sex marriage rights for their citizens but keep the Defense of Marriage Act intact – which restricts federal rights, including immigration and social security survivor benefits (among others) to opposite-sex married couples.

He also opposes the US supreme court decision in Lawrence v Texas that decriminalised consensual sodomy in the United States. He opposes the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He wants to restrict birthright citizenship, denying the children of immigrants legal status in the United States if they are born here, voted to force doctors and hospitals to report undocumented immigrants who seek medical treatment, and sponsored bills to declare English the official language of the United States and restrict government communications to English. And that's just for starters.

Continue reading at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/06/ron-paul-useful-idiots-on-the-left