The Crossed Pond

So, here’s a case where we got linked by a blog, and I went back and read the link (a response to Roja’s post about Ron Paul’s race problem), and found just as much worth looking at in the response than in our original post (no offense Rojas). I agree with Scott Horton’s one-liner that “Ron Paul is not a racist. He is an individualist. An individualist with a PR problem.”

But also interestingly, the first commentator (Mike in St. Lucia) quotes a recent “Texas Straight Talk”, the same newsletter from which the out of context racist quotes come, and he finds this worth quoting:

Bigotry at its essence is a sin of the heart, and we can’t change people’s hearts by passing more laws and regulations. In fact it is the federal government more than anything else that divides us along race, class, religion, and gender lines. Government, through taxes, restrictive regulations, corporate subsidies, racial set-asides, and welfare programs, plays far too large a role in determining who succeeds and who fails in our society. This government “benevolence” crowds out genuine goodwill between men by institutionalizing group thinking, thus making each group suspicious that others are receiving more of the government loot. This leads to resentment and hostility between us. The political left argues that stringent federal laws are needed to combat racism, even as they advocate incredibly divisive collectivist policies.

Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms or groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist. The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.

I don’t know if that answer will help Ron Paul in a debate (if he gets asked about the racist quote, it won’t), but it sure is provocative, intriguing, and has the benefit of being right.