More Ron Paul stuff

Glaivester, a blogger who has posted amiably and frequently for years at VFR under another name, and whom I’ve always treated respectfully, attacks me for supporting Romney for the Republican nomination. At Google, the item appears this way:

When it Comes to Presidential Elections, Lawrence Auster is ridiculous

Lawrence Auster of VFR often has good ideas, but when it comes to presidential elections, he is nuts.

However, at Glaivester’s site, “ridiculous” has been changed to “No Different from the Mainstream,” and “nuts” has been changed to “not very useful.” I’m glad for that. In any case, in the familiar manner of Ron Paul supporters, Glaivester seems to see any failure to support Paul as not just a mistake, but as the expression of a deep moral and intellectual flaw that throws into question everything else about a person.

Glaivester also hasn’t read me carefully. I have not supported Romney for the presidency; I’ve left open what I’m going to do in November. I have supported Romney for the GOP nomination, as strongly as I could (while also acknowledging his flaws), because that is only way to stop the catastrophe of a Giuliani or McCain nomination, because Romney is the only viable candidate who has presented himself to the country as a conservative leader, and because Romney is a good and impressively capable man. But for the Paul supporters, all politicians who are not Ron Paul are equally egregious and vile.

Glaivester mangles and casts in a negative light other statements of mine as well, but the points are not worth correcting.

- end of initial entry -

Scott N. writes:

Thanks for continuing the discussion on what appears to be a painful issue (with the buzzing mosquitoes and all).

Please explain why “Romney is the only viable candidate”. I have read your explanation of why he can defeat those candidates of greater concern in the Republican party, but why is he the “only viable” candidate in a national presidential race?

What is it about Ron Paul’s positions/policies that cause a complete oversight of the fact that Ron Paul has a greater ability than any other Republican candidate to bring in support from across party lines, as well as from the rather large majority of American voters with an anti Iraq war opinion? If anyone wishes to debate the assertion of Paul’s crossover ability, please first state his positions/policies with which you are in disagreement. Thank you.

LA replies:

“Ron Paul has a greater ability than any other Republican candidate to bring in support from across party lines, as well as from the rather large majority of American voters with an anti Iraq war opinion”

I don’t wish to be disrespectful, but are you serious ? Or is this e-mail perhaps a piece of agitprop sent from anti-Paul people intended to convince me that Paul people have left the planet earth?

Paul comes across as a plaintive, whining crackpot. And he’s very weird looking. As a literary friend put it to me, he looks like an obsessed figure out of a Hawthorne tale. Seriously, what do you think his electoral appeal is? How many people do you think would look at him and see this whiner as a president of the United States?

Paul got 3.2 percent of the vote in Florida. Do you see him suddenly breaking into the 20s, if only more writers would come to his support? Usually, when an ideologically minority candidate runs, his supporters recognize that he has no chance to be president, that he’s running to advance a position, not to be president. But the unique madness of the Paul supporters is that they seriously believe their guy would win, if only conservative opinion writers like me started to praise him. And having that belief, they never let go.

As for his positions, I’ve discussed that sufficiently and I’m not going to revisit that. A hallmark of Paul supporters is that they never take no for an answer.

I say in all seriousness to you, Scott: come back to the planet earth.

Gintas writes:

You’re right about the Ron Paul supporters:

“…in the familiar manner of Ron Paul supporters, Glaivester seems to see any failure to support Paul as not just a mistake, but as the expression of a deep moral and intellectual flaw that throws into question everything else about a person.”

“But for the Paul supporters, all politicians who are not Ron Paul are equally egregious and vile.”

“A hallmark of Paul supporters is that they never take no for an answer.”

These are hallmarks of a political cult.

LA replies:

And one thing in particular. The Paul supporters keep telling me that Paul is good on illegal immigration. But since he believes in essentially open borders for legal immigration, limited only by the economy’s ability to absorb more people (which is in principle the same as the Bush plan of 2006, which said that immigration would be allowed for all people who could underbid an American for a job), the increase in legal immigration he would allow would be far vaster than the reduction of illegal immigration he would supposedly bring about. But this simple fact never gets through to the Paul supporters. They remain displeased with me because I, an immigration restrictionist, will not support Paul.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 30, 2008 08:24 PM | Send