Iowa Occupiers disrupt Ron Paul's campaign headquarters, along with other Democratic and Republican campaign sites:

Occupy the Caucuses spokeswoman Danielle Ryun, who was among those arrested at the state Democratic Party headquarters, said the goal is not to be arrested. But since campaign officials won't listen to them, protesters are willing to be arrested to get their message across, she said.

"It would be great if we could show up, issue our concerns and have the candidates acknowledge us and change their platform," she said.

Let's see what parts of the Ron Paul platform needed work to make them acceptable to the Occupy movement:

1. Abolish the Federal Reserve Bank – oops, already on the platform
2. End federal payouts to banks - oops, already on the platform
3. End federal payouts to large corporations that aren't banks - oops, already on the platform
4. End foreign aid to Israel (and for that matter every other country) - oops, already on the platform
5. End the war in Afghanistan - oops, already on the platform
6. Withdraw American troops from Kuwait, South Korea, and Germany - oops, already on the platform
7. Abolish the Transportation Security Administration, along with a number of other federal departments and agencies - oops, already on the platform
8. End the War on Terror - oops, already on the platform
9. End the War on Drugs - oops, already on the platform
10. Establish a National Drum Circle on top of Mount Rushmore – not on the Ron Paul platform

That the occupiers would demonstrate against Paul, who so perfectly embodies their professed principles, shows them to be liars, idiots, or attention whores.

Or perhaps some combination of the above.

Dear Iowa Democrat, have I got a proposition for you:

As you probably know, Ron Paul is currently leading the polls for the Republican caucus in your fair state.  Now we at Popehat are not especial fans of Ron Paul.  We've written more about the many flaws of Paul more than those of any other politician.  But I at least am compelled to criticize Paul because he's about as close to what I want from an elected representative as anything I'm likely to get in this life: consistently against government, and consistently for individual freedom.  I'm compelled to criticize Paul because I think he can do better.

In the next two weeks, the Republican establishment is going to join the fuckers at Wonkette, and for that matter Rush Limbaugh and NPR, in portraying Paul as some weird hybrid of Klansman and Trotskyite, for the ostensible reason that he said something pretty awful twenty years ago (but nothing worse than I've said in private conversation myself).

Did I mention that one of the things I like about Ron Paul is that he says awful things?  That and the blimp.

But the awful (and it was awful, and Paul should be ashamed and address it rather than pulling off the mike) thing Paul said isn't nearly as awful as what well-spoken politicians, who'd never say awful things, do to this country every day behind closed doors: selling out the middle class to Goldman Sachs, General Electric, the Service Employees International Union, and the prison-industrial complex.

It's also awful, I'll add, to say that the Emperor has no clothes, or that there is a man behind that curtain, and that we should pay attention to him.

So anyway, you're a Democrat.  I was once a Democrat, but I've gotten over it.  Now I'm an Independent, because I can't register as a Libertarian in North Carolina.  You love your government, and I fear it.

But I can vote in an election that matters to you.

Here's the deal: If you'll re-register as a Republican next week, and vote for Ron Paul in the Iowa caucus, I promise that I'll drag my ass out of the office on May 8, and vote against North Carolina's proposed constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage.  The Republican race will be decided by then, and I'll have no other reason to vote unless I care who wins the non-partisan primary for my county's Water and Sewer Commissioner.  I promise that I'll schedule no trials, depositions, or other work that would prevent me from voting against that amendment on May 8, if you'll brave the cold and vote for Paul at the Iowa caucus.

Mind you, North Carolina is a weird state.  We're the only southern state that hasn't amended its constitution on same sex marriage yet,  we were the last southern state to sign on to the federal constitution, and we had more deaths on both sides of the Civil War than any other southern state. We're weird, we're independent, and my vote may count.

You probably imagine Paul as your dream Republican candidate, the candidate Obama's most likely to beat so he can continue ruining this country for another four years anyway…

So you have nothing to lose.

Rand Paul is different than his father Ron Paul in the usual ways that younger men are different than older ones. Dr. Paul Sr. is blunt; Dr. Paul Jr. is hyperbolic. This week he's making headlines with hyperbole, comparing a recognized right to health care to slavery:

"With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to healthcare, you have to realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me," Paul said recently in a Senate subcommittee hearing.

"It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses," Paul said, adding that there is "an implied use of force."

"If I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to healthcare, you have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free healthcare would be," Paul said.

Dr. Paul's errors are several. The first is one of red-meat hyperbole, certain to please the Tea Party rank and file but few others. Even Reason thinks this is over the top and ridiculous. Just as only Hitler is Hitler, only slavery is slavery; it takes a deft touch to make such a comparison without seeming a blustering fool, and Paul lacks that deft touch.

The second error is one of focus. Paul chooses to focus on the poor doctors, probably because he is one. But the government's not forcing anyone to be a doctor. The government is, however, forcing us to be taxpayers. Even under the most Clintonian, Canuk-scented scheme, there will be no jackbooted thugs marching doctors to the hospital at gunpoint to perform procedures on beneficiaries of government largesse. The jack-booted thugs will show up, however, if the mechanics and waitresses and cabbies and accountants and hairstylists and every other working citizen fails to pay taxes to support said largesse.

The core problem with envisioning heath care as a right — as opposed to (much more honestly) a public expenditure democratically decided and paid by forcible taxation — is that it fundamentally alters the nature of "rights." Our Constitution gives us rights to be free of government interference with specified activities. Even our "civil rights" statutes give us the right to be free of certain types of conduct by our fellow citizens. Rights are thus negative — they are the privilege to be left alone from certain types of conduct, like censorship and discrimination. Even the few rights that impose financial burdens on the state — like the right to counsel, and the right to conditions of imprisonment that do not fall to the level of cruel and unusual punishment — are ultimately negative. If the state — and our fellow taxpayers — don't want to pay, they don't have to try to put us in jail in the first place.

By contrast, the "right" to health care represents a positive right — an obligation imposed upon our fellow citizens. It is the "right" to demand that others work and sacrifice for our benefit. It confuses "freedom from" with entitlement.

Calling that "slavery", as Paul did, is an unnecessary rhetorical flourish that distracts from the point. But the point remains: we may agree as a society to force our citizens to work to fund agreed-upon benefits, but calling that resulting benefits a "right" dangerously blurs and erodes the meaning of that term.

I have just one question:

Is the blimp making a comeback?

[Okay, two questions. Will HWMNBN's minions be scouring the internet for negative comments again? Will their capacity to do so have improved in the last few years?]

Ron Paul made a statement about the NYC mosque hullaballo, and to his credit it was pretty consistent with his long standing beliefs. Unfortunately, it also seems to describe his son Rand to a tee.

Sayeth the Father: "Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians?"

Sayeth the Son: "I think reconciliation is best promoted by — instead of having a multi-million dollar mosque — maybe having a multi-million dollar donation to the memorial site, would be better for all.."

Hmm, I wonder if Ron has read any of his son's comments on the mosque? Luckily, they both agree that civil liberties don't apply to those icky gays, or people who want abortions, so all is not Shakespearean drama in the family Paul.

We're not exactly huge fans of Ron Paul here. We've made fun of his blimp and decried his connection to Birchers and his nasty racist newsletters.

But you have to give the guy this: he's stalwart in his beliefs, even when those beliefs are inconsistent. He's much closer to a faithful devote of small-government libertarianism (in the style of a federalist, rather than in the style of a civil libertarian) than nearly any other visible politician out there. And hes got an extremely devoted and effective following. Hence, his victory in the CPAC straw poll of potential 2012 presidential contenders.

The reaction from the more mainstream Republicans is about what you would expect — outrage and horror. The Village Voice has a round-up of conservative blogger reactions that is every bit as biased, mean-spirited, and gleeful as you would expect. My favorite part:

Some leaned on the angle that Paul's people had organized effectively, thereby rendering his victory invalid.

It's funny because it's true.

I wish I could believe that the Paul victory at CPAC indicates that the Republican pendulum is swinging away from socially conservative authoritarianism and towards libertarian principles. But I suspect that it doesn't. "Security" and "values" just draw too many votes.

We frequently make fun of the supporters of Dr. Ron Paul, but it's fun born out of love.  We appreciate their emphasis on individual liberty in an ordered society, but wish they could do it without so much goldbuggery, blimpitude, and racism.

That said, we wholeheartedly endorse the lawsuit filed by Steven Bierfeldt, a director for Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty, against the Transportation Security Administration, whose agents thuggishly detained, arrested, and threatened Bierfeldt at a Saint Louis airport for the crime of … carrying a large amount of cash from a fundraiser.

Except that carrying a large amount of cash is not a crime.  It's not evidence of criminal activity, and it's certainly not capable of being used as a weapon or an explosive.  Unless one assumes Mr. Bierfeldt intended to bring down an airliner by burning money within it.

(On that note, I suspect that in today's economy a passenger pulling out a matchbook and massive pile of hundreds, twenties, tens, and fives aboard an airliner would be mobbed faster than Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, not because passengers wanted to save the plane, but to save the money.)

Key points of Mr. Bierfeldt's suit:

• The TSA is not statutorily authorized to search for evidence of any crime, only for evidence of weapons or explosives which constitute a danger to airflight;
• The TSA nevertheless routinely threatens air travelers with arrest, or actually arrests them, for allegedly suspicious activity outside its jurisdiction.  TSA is not the IRS.  It's not the DEA;
• In Bierfeldt's case, in response to being asked a few simple questions which any citizen would be very well-advised to ask on being confronted by federal agents, TSA officers threatened him with a workout from the DEA or the FBI;
• The TSA agents refused to answer Beirfeldt's questions, and told him he was under arrest;
• The TSA agents knew Bierfeldt was affiliated with a political campaign (and any idiot could have guessed that would explain the cash);
• Bierfeldt wisely recorded his entire interaction with the TSA.  While it's a wonder his phone wasn't seized, he has the entire ordeal recorded;
• Bierfeldt isn't asking for money damages.  He isn't asking for a penny.  He's asking, simply, for a declaration from the Court that the TSA's conduct was illegal, in violation of its authority of the Fourth Amendment, and for an injunction prohibiting TSA from engaging in "fishing expeditions" against passengers whose activities pose no risk of danger at all to air safety, but have been deemed suspicious by the federal equivalent of a mall cop.

We've downloaded Bierfeldt's suit, and urge you to read it, here: bierfeldt-napolitano-complaint

We salute Bierfeldt's courage, because he's going to have to fly again and again, through TSA screeners who will remember his name and may not understand it's unwise to harass people who've filed suit against their agency for illegal conduct.

But it's also worth noting that Bierfeldt is represented in this suit, pro bono, by the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization which many on Bierfeldt's end of the libertarian fringe feel doesn't actually defend individual liberties.  This is a nice merger of the left and right sides of the libertarian divide.

Like peanut butter and chocolate.

Update:  See Simple Justice for another view on this suit, in particular an apparent flaw in the ACLU's legal allegations concerning the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unwarranted search and seizure.  While there may be tactical reasons for the ACLU's decision to make a concession, in favor of the government, about the Fourth Amendment that it didn't have to make, it is surprising for an organization that generally takes absolutist stances on civil liberties.

Read the whole thing.

It's nice to have a hobby, I guess.

But some people have something that goes beyond a hobby. Batman, for instance. Running around Gotham at night putting the hurt on bad guys isn't really a hobby. It's a dysfunction. Even in the campy TV series, before all the dark Frank Miller stuff.

So it is for some of the fans of our old pal Ron Paul.

When the blog Wonkette — which is to poseur beret-wearing belabored ironic detachment what Glenn Gould is to the piano — made a rude stray comment about Ron Paul, it prompted a world-weary call to arms from a fan at the Daily Paul encouraging Paulites to retaliate against Wonkette. The Paulites have since sent the exceptional post down the memory hole, and as far as I can tell did so before Google could cache it (and before I thought to take a screenshot), but the deathless opening line remains in Wonkette's quote:

As someone who can’t help but google news search Ron Paul everyday for almost two years, I keep running into the same foul mouthed liberals slandering the Good Doctor under the guise of Satire.

As they say, that's some weapons-grade crazy there, my friends. There's a guy who is going to get raptured up by the celestial blimp when Ron sounds the trump and call.

Ron Paul, who may have inhaled a little too much helium from his blimp, has retreated to 90s-nostalgia militia tropes to rally his troops in the wake of Obama's election and the financial crisis.

“I think it’s going to be an announcement of a new monetary order, and they’ll probably make it sound very limited, they’re not going to say this is world government, even though it is if you control the world’s money and you control the military, which they do indirectly.”

“A world central bank, worldwide regulation and world control of the whole system, of all the commodities and all the natural resources, what else can you call it other than world government?”

“Obama wouldn’t be there if he didn’t toe the line, and when the meeting starts on November 15th for the new monetary system, this could be the beginning of the end of what’s left of our national sovereignty.” Paul said, also warning that the global media are already hailing Obama as the world’s leader.

"Just think about it, ladies and gentlemen: black president, black helicopters. Am I right?"

It's good to see him getting speeches, because I feared there was no joy in Paulville after he struck out. Say, has he gotten around to starting a new newsletter?

Popehat is likely to remain a small blog forever.  We'll never have a medium-sized blog, for which we're grateful.  But we're a largeish small blog now, whereas last year we were a hypertext signature line at a once-proud gaming forum which is dying it has no front page.

Our first "big" posts, in the days when we could only dream of an instalanche (yeah, it was sweet), or a direct link on the Daily Kos front page (which tragically fell on the fourth of July so no one read it, and I agree that it was a brilliant post, describing an experience I wish I'd had, so I'm linking it here), concerned hotbutton issues likely to draw uptight, angry internet-people who email links to their friends, over and over: interracial adoption, and Ron Paul.

In memory of those distant days, I present what may be our final Ron Paul post.  It's just an image, an utterly priceless image.  We're going back to our roots:

Image, and much laughter, courtesy of Wonkette.

As I go to cast my vote this morning against a white supremacist running for Superior Court judge, I am warmed by Libertarian candidate Bob Barr's correct response to an issue that Ron Paul screwed up.

When he learned that he had received a donation from Ron Black, who operates the white supremacist site Stormfront, Ron Paul kept it, saying that he'd use the money for good.

Compare and contrast Bob Barr's response to a Stormfront endorsement yesterday:

The Barr campaign is not going to be a vehicle for every fringe and hate group to promote itself. We do not want and will not accept the support of haters. Anyone with love in their heart for our country and for every resident of our country regardless of race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation is welcome with open arms.

Tell the haters I said don't let the door hit you on the backside on your way out!

Barr consultant Steve Gordon sent me the statement and added: "We denounce anybody who doesn't want to treat everybody equally under the law."

That's the way to handle the racist vermin. Short, to the point, calm, but plain and contemptuous. Why couldn't Paul's campaign have sent a signal about its position on racial issues through a similar response? One wonders.

Ron Paul doesn't believe in a national standard of beauty; he believes that the several states reserve unto themselves the right to determine pulchritude. No "Miss America" for him. Ron Paul and his followers live by their own standards, as demonstrated in the monthly Miss Ron Paul contest. Miss Ron Paul must believe in limited government, wariness of foreign entanglements, freedom to publish frank newsletters without irresponsible criticism, and be able to kill and skin a bear with her hands.

Ron Paul, as you might recall, has demonstrated questionable judgment on matters relating to racism before. Perhaps that's why he was so quick to send in the damage control teams this time.

You may remember that earlier this week I blogged about Bill Johnson aka Danial Johnson aka James O. Pace, who is running for Superior Court Judge in Los Angeles. Some of us think that his qualifications for that office are suspect, given the recent discovery by the MetNews that in the 1980s under the name James O. Pace, he published a book calling for the repeal of the Fourteen and Fifteenth Amendments (those are good ones, let me assure you) and the ratification of the Pace Amendment, which would limit American citizenship to people of pure Northern European descent.

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Say you're a Court Commissioner (a sort of judge-lite, only able to preside over matters when parties stipulate) running for Superior Court judge, but you've got some problems. You've been tagged as "impatient" and "arrogant," and the Public Defender's office won't stipulate to you hearing trials any more. How can you hope to win under those circumstances?

Well, it helps to run against a racist lunatic.

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If I suggested rounding up all the Ron Paul supporters and putting them into isolated rural compounds, I'd be called a fascist. But somehow when they want to do it to themselves, it's OK?

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