Despicable Scum of the Week is a weekly look at a despicable scum.  This week…

Texas Congressman Ron Paul

 When it come to bald-faced lying, hypocrisy, corporate whoring, contrarianism, Pied Piper populism and sheer weaselness, your first Google search result would have to be Ron Paul.  He says that drug laws “destroy liberty—destroy important areas like freedom of choice,” but he’s stridently anti-choice on abortion.  He calls himself an “anti-corporatist,” which, coming from a Libertarian, may be the most blatantly bullshit statement of the entire 2012 presidential campaign.  He is currently floating the idea of impeaching the president over the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki but remained remarkably quiet about the countless war crimes committed during the entire George Fucking W Bush presidency.  Jon Stewart may call him one of the most consistent politicians in Washington but that’s easy when Ron refuses to answer any questions about his Libertarian corporatism.  Try to pin him down on any position regarding market regulation, the corporate-induced financial collapse or the Slimebucketocracy of Wall Street and (if he’s in a public forum) he’ll immediately divert the conversation towards one of his populist positions and away from his extremist free market, regulation-free ultra-capitalism.  The man will trip over himself in his determined efforts to not answer a question directly.  A whackjob among whackjobs, Ron Paul is a babbling, frequently incoherent, pseudo-religious zealot who proves decisively that Libertarianism is political Scientology. 

A quick perusal of Ron’s 2012 campaign website shows enough back-swill bilge to make any Left-leaning potential Paul supporter cringe.  One writer on the site claims that foreign policy spending is “most of [the] annual deficit,” by using the happy math of including the entire Department of Defense budget as foreign policy spending.  The site also touts Paul’s belief that life begins at conception and calls for “effectively repealing Roe v Wade,” and “removing abortion from federal court jurisdiction.”  Another section calls for “ending the {Obamacare] unconstitutional mandate that all Americans must carry only government approved health insurance or answer to the IRS”–a blatant lie.  The “Economy” section touts repealing the income tax, the inheritance tax and capital gains taxes.  Not enough, yet?  How about “A zero-percent tax rate for all Americans”?  In BIG BLOCK LETTERS one section shouts “FORCED UNIONISM VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTION,” and goes on to boast that as President Paul would “continue to lead the fight to free Americans from the shackles of compulsory unionism.”  How’s that for “anti-corporatist”?  Oh, and by the way, that part is under a section called “Worker’s Rights.”  Here’s some more anti-corporatism from the “Energy Independence” section:  He blames “misguided federal action” for high fuel prices.  He calls for removing restrictions on oil drilling, lifting “government roadblocks to the use of coal and nuclear power,” and eliminating the EPA.  One more Ron Paul 2012 campaign website fun fact:  The word “Libertarian” does not appear once on the entire site.

Even the whiney cries that Paul is being ignored in the press are pure hyperbolic bullshit.  Does anyone else find it funny that a Google search of Ron Paul will reveal 20 articles in the first 10 search pages, all from the mainstream press and all with the subject, “Is Ron Paul being ignored by the mainstream media?”  To be fair, some of these articles were published after Ron’s recent Daily Show appearance but also include a 6-page interview in the National Review, a Time cover story, an Esquire interview, a bunch of fawning praise pieces from the Huffington Post and countless others.  You gotta wonder what Rick “santorum” Santorum and Jon Huntsman think of Paul’s lack of press coverage.

The Republican Presidential campaign field is full of loony cult figures with fanatical followers and Ron is certainly no exception.  He has a devious knack for putridly folksy charm and a populist message that appeals to many on either side of the divide while avoiding the quicksand of his Libertarian underpinnings.  Wanting to get the US out of war, legalizing drugs and abolishing taxes make great Siren songs but there’s a rotting, fetid corpse in the basement.  Libertarianism at its core stands for the unfettered, unrestrained, unregulated, self-policed, untaxed and full-on, balls to the wall, rampaging pillage of the country by corporate interests.  Period.  And no amount of decriminalized pot smoke can cover the stench of that carnage.  Wanna see the gates of Hell swing open and the legions of the Pits swarm the planet?  Elect a Libertarian President.  Whenever Paul starts blathering on about how financial collapse, rampant pollution, job losses and massive government debt are all the fault of regulations and government interference and how it will all get better when the free market starts overseeing itself without all those pesky rules to hold it back, a hedge fund manager gets his wings.  He’s a loathsome, conniving, corporate hellhound and Dick Cheney clone with an aw-shucks grin and a kindly grandfather demeanor. 

I’ll leave the final word on Dr. Ron Paul to David Catron in American Spectator: “Ron Paul is a fraud of the first order.”

QUOTES

From a single interview on The Daily Show:

• “A free market system is the only true humanitarian system.”
• “I think the environment would be better protected by strict property rights.”
• “The regulations are much tougher in a free market because you cannot commit fraud, you cannot steal, you cannot hurt people … in a true free market, in a Libertarian society you cannot do that, you have to be responsible.”
• “A little bit of income tax, one percent, and soon you have a monster out there.”

Ron demonstrates his ability to count to one:  “I have one goal in life politically and the goal is to make this a better country, change economic policy, change foreign policy, change the monetary policy and explain to people why we have booms and busts.” (Washington Post)

“Personally, I wish the United States would de-recognize the United Nations.  …in every Congress I introduce legislation to end our membership in that organization.  The UN is a threat to our sovereignty.” (Paul’s Congressional website)

What kind of gun did Jesus carry?  “It has never been more important that our President be 100% committed to defending our God-given right to keep and bear arms.”  (Paul’s 2012 campaign website)

Some seriously scary bullshit:  “[I]n abortion, the statists have found a most effective method of obliterating freedom: obliterating the individual.  Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law.  The State protects the ‘right’ of some people to kill others, just as courts protected the ‘property rights’ of slave masters in their slaves. […] Unlike Nazi Germany, which forcibly sent millions to the gas chambers…the new regime has enlisted the assistance of millions of people to act as its agents in carrying out a program of mass murder.” (A Ron-penned article from Libertarians for Life, circa 1981.)

You’re doing a heck of a job, Ronny:

• “True compassion would be to get FEMA out of the way.” (Chron.com)
• “I don’t think that somebody in New York or New Hampshire or Iowa has to pay for my flood on the Gulf Coast.” (Talking Points Memo)
• “Well, if you want to live in a free society, if you want to pay attention to the Constitution, why not [end FEMA]?  I think it’s bad economics.  I think it’s bad morality.  And it’s bad Constitutional law.” (CNN Press Room)
• “I haven’t called for the immediate abolishment of FEMA.” (Fox‘News’.com)

Socialism causes famine:  “All I know is if you look at history and if you compare good medical care and you compare famine, the countries that are more socialistic have more famines.  If you look at Africa, they don’t have any free market systems and property rights and they have famines and no medical care.  So the freer the system, the better the health care.” (Crooks and Liars)

Ron Paul’s happy, magical, Christian fantasyland:   “The founding fathers envisioned a robustly Christian yet religiously tolerant America, with churches serving as vital institutions that would eclipse the State in importance.  Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no nation can ever do, namely teach morality and civility.  Moral and civil individuals are largely governed by their own sense of right and wrong, and hence have little need for external government.  This is the real reason the collectivist Left hates religion. […] The secularists wage an ongoing war against religion, chipping away bit by bit at our Christian heritage.” (Atheism.About.com)

GO FURTHER

Watch this interview from the Daily Show carefully to see multiple examples of Paul’s remarkable ability to convolute any question into an insane non-answer.

This blog post from The Hill explains Paul’s zombie master influence on Republican policy and how that influence is driving us all into the dirt.

This excellent analysis from Mother Jones exposes the utter crapness that is Ron’s non-health care policy.

Former Reagan administration douchebag Jack Kerwick in American Spectator calls Paul a bottom-feeding dung beetle.  (Okay, Kerwick doesn’t actually call him that…)

Even this high school student in Albany, NY has Paul figured out.

Think Progress on Ron’s claim that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional. 

A blogger on the excellent website Addicting Info spells out “10 Reasons Not to Vote for Ron Paul” far better than I ever could.  If you don’t check out any of the other resources in this column, at least read this one.

National Review Online’s extensive interview with Paul.

The Washington Blade’s great summary of how Ron’s “be responsible for yourself” position on health care worked so well for his campaign manager.

About.com’s Atheism section has this detailed article on Paul’s bizarro views on church and state.

Next week:  Loonbucket Congresswoman Sue Myrick!