Surprise, Surprise! David Sirota Misses the Point Entirely about Ron Paul

Concern troll EmoProg Ninja Salon writer and head boy at the Glenn Greenwald School of Sock Puppetry and Scream-Infested Bullying, David Sirota has discovered Ron Paul.

Like the rest of the EmoProg Left, whose tactics and emotions play closer and closer every day to the Tea Party fringe.

Politics are circular; thus if one moves further to the Left, he risks coming out on the Right, and Sirota's probably at a hat shop in downtown Denver right now being measured up for his tinfoil one.

Sirota's little love piece about Paul told me something I already knew - that Paul draws huge support from voters aged between 18 and 29. That's been obvious from disclosures that Ron Paul is the only politician in whom any of the young people participating in the Occupy movement are interested.

That's not only oxymoronic, it's scary and ignorant.

Here I thought OWS was all about the interests of the 99% - all of us plebs together, universal health coverage, peace and all that caring for your fellow man an kumbayah moments. The stuff of hippies.

Well, Ron Paul is Libertarian to the core, the most selfish of any political philosophy, and caring for your fellow man at the government's expense is not on Ron Paul's agenda. Neither is "taxing the shit out of the rich" as one fervent Paul supporter at Zuccotti Park stated.

Libertarians hate taxes. They hate government. In fact, if Libertarians were British, the motto of their party would be, "I'm all right, Jack, fuck you."

No, indeedy, David Sirota fluffs past all that. Commenting on the fact that the oldest candidate for President appeals to the youngest (and most fickle, inept and intellectually bereft) tranche of voter, Sirota dispels as myth one of the things that makes youngsters cleave so closely to Paul's politics: the fact that he wants all drugs legalised.

That's undoubtedly one of Paul's attractions to young voters - ne'mind the fact that Paul's attitude to drug use is that if a person makes himself deathly ill over drug use or addiction, the outcome is down to him. Don't expect the government to pay for any medical care.

"I'm all right, Jack, fuck you."

They never think to look at the other side of the equation; but then, neither does Sirota:-

This degrading mythology ignores the possibility that young people support Paul’s libertarianism for its overall critique of our government’s civil liberties transgressions (transgressions, by the way, now being openly waged against young people), nor does the narrative address the possibility that young people support Paul’s drug stance not because they want to smoke weed, but because they see the War on Drugs as a colossal waste of resources.

Well, you know, I understand the mystique of turning forty. I understand the mystique of turning fifty. You are no longer young, and so here we have not only Sirota, who's a graying, middle-aged, fortysomething man, who joins the pathetic throngs of fiftysomethings (yes, I'm looking at you, Bill Maher, Joan Walsh and Michael Moore, who pimp your brand and tout for relevance amongst people young enough to be your children and grandchildren). Sirota's just another in a long line of affluent, white privilegist, borderline racist ueber Progressives, who've suddenly discovered a police brutality that's existed for decades as experienced by the African American and Latino communities, but who have only bothered to speak out about this injustice when it affects a movement that's over 90% white and very middle class in make up.

Why didn't he speak out before, one wonders?

As for the War on Drugs draining our resources - a point on which I agree, by the way - Ron Paul never seemed to mention this at all when asked about his support for legalising drugs an prostitution by Chris Wallace in a recent GOP Candidates' Debate, which you can view here.

Instead, Sirota, showing his minions that - hey -he's cool and he's on the side of youth, reckons that most people credit youth's support of Ron Paul because young people are "just dumb idealists, hedonistic pot smokers or both."

Probably both. Because I cannot figure how anyone who professes support of Ron Paul as a candidate, would be so totally repulsed by his son, Senator Rand Paul, as most of these people are. After all, Rand is a carbon copy, politically, of his father.

In point of fact, Sirota points to Ron Paul's foreign policy as being the defining factor in attracting so many young voters, and Sirota makes no secret of the fact that he admires this also:-

Paul, of course, is one of the only presidential candidates in contemporary American history in either party to overtly question our nation’s invade-bomb-and-occupy first, ask-questions later doctrine and to admit what the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledges: namely, that our military actions can result in anti-Americanism fervor and terrorist blowback.

This is true. Ron Paul calls for all American military personnel to be withdrawn from all foreign territory. Ne'mind the fact that the majority of these personnel will be summarily discharged upon return - taxes, which Paul hates, would still have to pay for the upkeep of a military too large for our needs, if that be the case. But don't expect Paul's government to look after the scores of recently redundant ex-military people.

"I'm all right, Jack, fuck you."

And, lest he sound too excited and wet-knickery over Ron Paul, Sirota hastens to assure you that he is in no way endorsing Ron Paul. Why?

Because Sirota has some "serious problems" with Paul's economic policies.

Really, David? Is that all? Sirota's uneasy with Paul's fiscal philosophy, but what about his social and domestic policies? On that front, Ron Paul lets rip with a choice few stinkbombs there, as Gail Collins points out in her Times article.

As Sirota doesn't mention Paul's social doctrines, one has to assume that Mr Denver EmoProg agrees with the following positions endorsed by Candidate Paul:-

- that global warming is a myth, and even if it wasn't the government shouldn't do anything about it.

- that there should be no gun control.

- that hate crime legislation is unconstitutional.

- that there should be no campaign finance reform.

- that Roe v Wade should be repealed. (In fact, Paul agrees with personhood).

- that FEMA should be disbanded. Anyone living in a place at risk from inclement weather should have sufficient insurance.

- that the Department of Education should be disbanded. (Odd, that, for Sirota, considering the little conflict of interest and smear campaign with which he was involved recently in a particular school board campaign).

Oh, and there's this little observation Gail Collins makes. (It's a gem!)

Paul is the only person running for president in either party who seems determined to be consistent, come hell or high water. The only time I ever saw him dodge a question was when somebody asked him if he preferred letting people die in a ditch to government-financed health care. But, even then, you could tell that he really did prefer the ditch.

So, in the words of another Leftwing icon, you'd better not get sick under a Paul Presidency; but if you do, you'd better die quickly.

"I'm all right, Jack, fuck you."

But the worst of all omissions by David Sirota, is the one which is systematically ignored by all the Paulists on the Left - the fact that Ron Paul thinks the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional. Quite succinctly, Ron Paul thinks private enterprises should be allowed to serve/employ/minister to only those people they wish and deny service/employment/ministration to those whom they do not want. Jim Crow, by any other name. You can watch Paul defend his stance to Chris Matthews (when Matthews was enjoying a sane moment) here.

And to prove the point that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, you can watch Rand Paul reiterate that same point to Rachel Maddow here and here.

The term that both Pauls use to justify their disagreement with the Act is "property rights."

In case David Sirota or the kids he champions as Paulbots aren't aware, "property rights" is a phrase that got thrown around a lot in the decade before the Civil War. It was the euphemism Southern orators and politicians used as a rationale for secession. "Property" didn't just mean pots, pans and horses. "Property" meant people. People of the darker hue who gained freedom as a result of that war.

"Property rights" is the clarion call, not only of Libertarians today, but also of neo-Confederates as well, and Ron Paul has a long association with neo-Confederates and a history of racism, himself. Ron Paul, Sirota - being Jewish - should note, is endorsed by Stormfront, the American Nazi Party.

Sirota should be suitably horrified by that.

But he's not.

Here is the man (Sirota) who openly referred to the President's supporters as comparable to the KKK. Here is a man who dripped venom and condescension, laced with subtly racist remarks when Professor Melissa Harris Perry wrote an opinion piece for The Nation, wondering if a subtle veneer of racism was the root of white liberal abandonment of the President.

Of course, amidst the snark and hateful attitude, Sirota's retort was the same old same old soundbyte the Professional Left always use when confronted with evidence that their dislike and distrust of this President is everything to do with his melanin (as well as his obvious intellect) and nothing to do with his political beliefs. "Policy" has entered into the lexicon of the Lee Atwater Thesaurus of Euphemistic Dog Whistling.

As the PragProg blogger, Amptoons,observes, sometimes the EmoProg Left can be extremely erudite in their messaging, saying:-

Obama’s a corporatist lackey who really doesn’t want to improve things for anyone, and who harbors a very-well-hidden authoritarian streak. He’s to the right of Reagan, and anyone who doubts that just hasn’t read enough articles on FDL and Truthout.

Because they're just too cowardly to say, "Obama is black."

Or they could just start discussing "property rights," like their hero, Ron Paul.