“Now if someone is a racist it’s not insane to claim that their racism probably has an effect on what they view as justified or unjustified violence,”
Maybe. Lots of people might be racist but it’s merely a belief with barely any negative effect in the material world, perhaps because of social pressure to maintain order.
I don’t care if someone holds a foolish/erroneous belief like racism. In the case of Paul it doesn’t pop up in any of his policies or outward behavior so I’m not going to lose sleep over it.
I have never seen anything in his congress voting record that would back up him being a racist. In reality he has always voted to protect individual’s rights. I don’t think that three or four short statements over thirty years of several newsletters being written in his name is enough proof to call him a racist. I watched a video of him saying that he voted against the government giving Rosa Parks a medal was racist. But what he said was that he would personally pay for it because we already have way too many elected leaders creating ways of spending tax dollars. Things like that should be paid for voluntary instead of paid for by money that was taken from people.
People will point to things like the We The People Act and the Sanctity of Life Act, his opposition to portions of the Civil Rights act, and his opposition to mainstream interpretation of the 14th Amendment and a constitutional right to privacy.
They focus on these specific peices of legislation, but ignore the larger context of WHY he supports them. If someone who comes across the newsletters and some of his supported legislation/opinions without getting the entirity of his message, it’s easy to see how they’re mislead to think he’s some kind of extreme closeted white supremacist. It doesn’t help that most of the time the articles are linked in really biased hit peices, with titles like “Ron Paul is a Reactionary Racist Lepracaun”. Unfortunately that’s a real title from a recent article I’ve seen thrown around on facebook and a few other boards.