***Official Ron Paul video thread***

[Josem]

[ QUOTE ]
Talking about returning donations is one thing, but saying that Ron Paul's beliefs are the same as Nazis is way over the line.

[/ QUOTE ]

But I'm not saying that Ron Paul's beliefs are the same as Nazis - that's the whole point.

I don't even know what Ron Paul's beliefs/policies are. If he's quoting from von Mises and Hayek, I'd probably agree with those aspects.


My point is purely about political donations.


Here in Australia, if a group that you fundamentally disagree with donates to your political campaign, you return the money. You return the money because there is a fundamental disagreement between the donor and the recipient. If there is a fundamental disagreement between the donor and the recipient, there is no reason for the donor to give the money.

Let me give you the hot tip that every other significant Presidential candidate would return money donated by Stormfront leaders as soon as the source was identified - because there is a fundamental disagreement between what the candidates believe and what the Stormfront leaders believe.


Of course, if there is no fundamental disagreement, you can keep the money. If there is no fundamental disagreement between Stormfront and Ron Paul, he can keep the $500. He certainly won't receive my support if he does.


I have a personal interest in this, primarily because:
a) I strongly believe in advancing the cause of freedom;
b) I am descended from holocaust survivors;
c) I've received crap personally targeted at me by fruitloop holocaust denying groups here in Australia

[ QUOTE ]
BTW, Hitler was a vegetarian, so all vegetarians are Nazis too!

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course this is self-evidently absurd. There is no causal relationship between the two issues.

[Borodog]

Of course, given that it is literally almost impossible to return the money because it wasn't some lump sum given by "Stormfront", but rather made in small donations by a few of their posters, it makes it easy for you to then passive aggressively claim that if Dr. Paul doesn't return the money so that it can be used to further white supremicism, as you would prefer, but rather uses it to further peace, liberty and limited government, which you seem to have a problem with, that Dr. Paul's "positions must be most closely aligned with Nazis."

Troll elsewhere.

[Josem]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, given that it is literally almost impossible to return the money because it wasn't some lump sum given by "Stormfront", but rather made in small donations by a few of their posters,

[/ QUOTE ]

1) No, it is not almost impossible to return the money. I assume that campaigns in the US are required to record the names and addresses of donors. So you send those people a cheque.

2) It included a donation from at least one member of their leadership group - not random anonymous "posters"

3) Of course donations that are not identifiable as being from the Stormfront group should not be returned. There is obviously no way of identifying unknown donations.

[ QUOTE ]
that Dr. Paul's "positions must be the most closely aligned with Nazis out of the candidates standing."

[/ QUOTE ]

4) Deliberately fiddling with my comments is a sign of someone who can't address them on an intellectually fair basis.

It is extraordinary that you <u>create</u> quotes, and then bring out the next line.

[ QUOTE ]
Troll elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

5) I do not think that presenting commonsense view points is "trolling." Simply because I hold a view that is in the minority in this thread does not make me a troll.

I am hardly being offensive about other posters, and there is nothing trollish about politely and intelligently responding to posters who respond to an issue that I care about, and which largely respond to my posts.

I also note that I'm not the poster in this thread who claimed someone else would "prefer" to "further white supremacism." I'm not the one who accused others of having a "problem" with "peace, liberty and limited government." Remove the log from your own eye before you try to remove the splinter from someone else's.

[Taso]

[ QUOTE ]
Remove the log from your own eye before you try to remove the splinter from someone else's.

[/ QUOTE ]


Zing.

But seriously, I do agree somewhat, that word "troll" has been used far too frequently over the past week in this forum, especially when it does not apply, which I believe to be the case with josem. Check out the forum rules, I say.

[AWoodside]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Not sure why socialists' views are most similar to Ron Paul's.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, Stormfront thinks that they are.

If Stormfront are wrong, obviously they've been misled, so Ron Paul should do the gentlemanly thing and return the money that wasn't intended for him.

Of course, if they're right, and Ron Paul is the candidate closest to the neo-nazis, he should keep the money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is it your position that the Ron Paul campaign should research all the extremely diverse and nuanced views of its (almost exclusively individual) donors and then return the donations of people with views that don't meet some arbitrarily determined similarity threshold? Really? Is this a reasonable demand in any sense?

[Josem]

[ QUOTE ]
Is it your position that the Ron Paul campaign should research all the extremely diverse and nuanced views of its (almost exclusively individual) donors and then return the donations of people with views that don't meet some arbitrarily determined similarity threshold?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, that is not my position.

[ QUOTE ]
Really?

[/ QUOTE ]

Really.

[ QUOTE ]
Is this a reasonable demand in any sense?

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course not. No one demanded it.



My position is quite clear: If a donation is brought to a candidate's attention, and they fundamentally disagree with the well-known views of that donor, they should return it.

That, incidentally, I assume, is the position of almost every political candidate in the Western world. It is certainly very standard in Australia, where I work in the political system.

[Borodog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Of course, given that it is literally almost impossible to return the money because it wasn't some lump sum given by "Stormfront", but rather made in small donations by a few of their posters,

[/ QUOTE ]

1) No, it is not almost impossible to return the money. I assume that campaigns in the US are required to record the names and addresses of donors. So you send those people a cheque.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, because I'm sure they included "Stormfront poster" in their donation.

[ QUOTE ]

2) It included a donation from at least one member of their leadership group - not random anonymous "posters"

3) Of course donations that are not identifiable as being from the Stormfront group should not be returned. There is obviously no way of identifying unknown donations.

[ QUOTE ]
that Dr. Paul's "positions must be the most closely aligned with Nazis out of the candidates standing."

[/ QUOTE ]

4) Deliberately fiddling with my comments is a sign of someone who can't address them on an intellectually fair basis.

It is extraordinary that you <u>create</u> quotes, and then bring out the next line.

[/ QUOTE ]

I paraphrased. I did not attribute what was in the quotes directly to you; I didn't bother to scroll back up. It is representative of what you said, as your cosmetic FYP in bold indicates. If that is supposed to make you look less like a troll, lol. In fact, that pretty much says it all.

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Troll elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

5) I do not think that presenting commonsense view points is "trolling." Simply because I hold a view that is in the minority in this thread does not make me a troll.

I am hardly being offensive about other posters, and there is nothing trollish about politely and intelligently responding to posters who respond to an issue that I care about, and which largely respond to my posts.

[/ QUOTE ]

What is trollish is continuing to insinuate that Ron Paul's positions "must most closely represent those of Nazis of the candidates standing" because he refuses to give money to Nazis.

Fine. You think he should give money back to unidentifiable anonymous donors. We get it. Perhaps you think its a bad PR move to do otherwise. You probably have an argument there. But to continue to repeatedly insinuate that if he sticks to his previous statement and principled position, that anybody dumb enough to give money to his campaign without knowing what he stands for doesn't deserve to get the money back, well then he must be a white supremacist, which is *exactly* what you are insinuating, THAT is pathetic. THAT is trolling. Your professions of innocence and high-mindedness are transparent.

[ QUOTE ]
I also note that I'm not the poster in this thread who claimed someone else would "prefer" to "further white supremacism." I'm not the one who accused others of having a "problem" with "peace, liberty and limited government." Remove the log from your own eye before you try to remove the splinter from someone else's.

[/ QUOTE ]

It isn't my fault that you want money to be channeled to members of white supremist groups instead of to someone working for peace, liberty and limited government. That is what *you* are *literally* calling for.

See how your principled position can be portrayed as evil and nazi-supporting? Annoying, isn't it?

[Josem]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, because I'm sure they included "Stormfront poster" in their donation.

[/ QUOTE ]
You and I both know that the argument "it is too hard" is rubbish.

Just refund those that have been brought to your attention. It's not hard. It's not difficult.


And if it is too hard for Ron Paul to reject the support of neo-Nazis, I can only shudder how he will navigate the role of President of the USA.

[ QUOTE ]
I paraphrased.

[/ QUOTE ]
Then don't enclose it in quotation marks.

Quotation marks are marks to denote quotations. It's not rocket science.

[ QUOTE ]
I did not attribute what was in the quotes directly to you;

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, you did. You responded to me, and used the word "you" (to refer to me directly) three times in that one sentence.

The beauty of the internet is that people can say stuff and seemingly always have a straight face.

[ QUOTE ]
It is representative of what you said, as your cosmetic FYP in bold indicates.

[/ QUOTE ]
There is a pretty big difference between saying someone is most closely aligned with the Nazis, and not saying someone is most closely aligned with the Nazis.

[ QUOTE ]
What is trollish is continuing to insinuate that Ron Paul's positions "must most closely represent those of Nazis of the candidates standing" because he refuses to give money to Nazis.

[/ QUOTE ]

While I respect your sophistry to reverse the issue at hand (from 'refusing support from Nazis' to 'funding Nazis') it's actually not credible.

Of course, the logical next step from your point of view appears to me to suggest that candidates should more actively fundraise from amongst the Nazi community - failing to take their money is functionally equivalent to giving them money.

[ QUOTE ]
Fine. You think he should give money back to unidentifiable anonymous donors.

[/ QUOTE ]
You create the straw man repeatedly, in quite a clear contravention of the post that you quoted - when I specificly said that this was absurd.

[ QUOTE ]
We get it. Perhaps you think its a bad PR move to do otherwise. You probably have an argument there. But to continue to repeatedly insinuate that if he sticks to his previous statement and principled position,

[/ QUOTE ]

It is not principled to take money from anyone and everyone. That's quite the opposite of principled - it is very unprincipled.

[ QUOTE ]
It isn't my fault that you want money to be channeled to members of white supremist groups instead of to someone working for peace, liberty and limited government. That is what *you* are *literally* calling for.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, I'm not literally calling for that.

[ QUOTE ]
See how your principled position can be portrayed as evil and nazi-supporting? Annoying, isn't it?

[/ QUOTE ]
While your linguistic gymnastics are quite impressive from a purely technical viewpoint, they're not the least bit impressive in any substantial way - because my view is not Nazi supporting.

Claiming that the rejection of Nazi-support is in itself Nazi-supporting is self-evidently absurd.

[Phil153]

Are Stormfront actually Nazis? I know that various pansies think they are, but I was always under the impression that they were a lose collection of people believing in white pride (which tends to attract a few nazi types as well, obviously). I've only briefly read their forums but I didn't see systematic genocide, global empire building or dictatorship on the menu. To be balanced here - is Obama refusing donations from black pride groups? Because some of their members undeniably belong to dangerous groups that hate whites and seek black empire, such as the Nation of Islam and The Black Panthers

I'm struggling to see the difference to be honest.

[Josem]

[ QUOTE ]
Are Stormfront actually Nazis?

[/ QUOTE ]
I assume that if even Bill O'Reilly thinks they're neo-nazis then they probably are.

I had a look at their website, and if they're not neo-Nazis, then they're awfully close to it.

Just browsing through they're website to figure it out for myself, I came across Ron Paul for President "Donate Now" banner advertisements:



You click on those banner ads and they take you to the official Ron Paul for President website.


[ QUOTE ]
To be balanced here - is Obama refusing donations from black pride groups? Because some of their members undeniably belong to dangerous groups that hate whites and seek black empire.

[/ QUOTE ]
Good question. Of course, my view is that candidates should reject donations from all groups they have fundamental disagreements with.