The Volokh Conspiracy - Ron Paul's Defenders:

You can find defenses of Ron Paul from my criticisms here, here, here, here, and here. Unfortunately, the authors mostly engage in juvenile rhetorical antics, and none of them manage to address my central point: why does Rep. Paul's campaign find it so difficult to simply issue a statement in Paul's name that he neither solicits nor welcomes the support of the likes of Stormfront? And why do so many of his supporters think it's such an imposition to ask this of him? Then again, given that Paul's blog defenders come from antiwar.com, lewrockwell.com, and conservativetimes.org, the question may answer itself--not that these groups are "Nazi" in ideology, but they're not going to be winning any awards from the ADL or NAACP any time soon, either.

OTOH, a friend of mine, who is decidedly liberal (in the broad sense) on race, writes:

In my personal experience here in the hear Old Confederacy, I see no evidence of Nazi participation on the ground in the Paul campaign. By the same token, I have a lot of young, thoughtful, and highly energized supporters. This is the best thing to happen to libertarianism in generations. Frankly before Paul came along, I thought that our movement was dying off.

I wish you paid more attention to his central role in our revival as a movement. Can you imagine that Newsweek, Time, New York Times, etc. would have written so many positive and serious articles about the rise of libertarianism without Paul? Paul is now getting 8 percent in New Hampshire. Compare that with Ed Clark's 1 percent.

Also, it bears repeating here that Paul has been extremely forthright in his condemnation of racism and, unlike any other candidate, has explicitly condemned the racist aspects of the drug war, police brutality, and capital punishment. Where are Thompson and Giuliani on those issues? Neither bothered to attend the Tavis Smiley debate organized debate while Paul did and even got a positive a response from the crowd. Shouldn't that count in Paul's favor that he has the courage to address these issues and just as equally count against his opponents?

Let me also note that the poll data indicates that Paul is far more likely to get black support than any other GOP candidate, quite a significant accomplishment given the resistance of blacks to the GOP.... If you look at the Paul youtubes you will see a fair amount of black faces.

Paul certainly has the potential to be the best thing that has happened to libertarianism as a political movement in a long time. He also has the potential to be the worst thing, if, as he gets more public exposure libertarianism gets associated in the public mind with 9/11 truther, southern irredentists, "white nationalists," and so forth.

	[David Bernstein, November 19, 2007 at 7:45pm] Trackbacks Ron Paul's Defenders: You can find defenses of Ron Paul from my criticisms here, here, here, here, and here. Unfortunately, the authors mostly engage in juvenile rhetorical antics, and none of them manage to address my central point: why does Rep. Paul's campaign find it so difficult to simply issue a statement in Paul's name that he neither solicits nor welcomes the support of the likes of Stormfront? And why do so many of his supporters think it's such an imposition to ask this of him? Then again, given that Paul's blog defenders come from antiwar.com, lewrockwell.com, and conservativetimes.org, the question may answer itself--not that these groups are "Nazi" in ideology, but they're not going to be winning any awards from the ADL or NAACP any time soon, either. OTOH, a friend of mine, who is decidedly liberal (in the broad sense) on race, writes: In my personal experience here in the hear Old Confederacy, I see no evidence of Nazi participation on the ground in the Paul campaign. By the same token, I have a lot of young, thoughtful, and highly energized supporters. This is the best thing to happen to libertarianism in generations. Frankly before Paul came along, I thought that our movement was dying off. I wish you paid more attention to his central role in our revival as a movement. Can you imagine that Newsweek, Time, New York Times, etc. would have written so many positive and serious articles about the rise of libertarianism without Paul? Paul is now getting 8 percent in New Hampshire. Compare that with Ed Clark's 1 percent. Also, it bears repeating here that Paul has been extremely forthright in his condemnation of racism and, unlike any other candidate, has explicitly condemned the racist aspects of the drug war, police brutality, and capital punishment. Where are Thompson and Giuliani on those issues? Neither bothered to attend the Tavis Smiley debate organized debate while Paul did and even got a positive a response from the crowd. Shouldn't that count in Paul's favor that he has the courage to address these issues and just as equally count against his opponents? Let me also note that the poll data indicates that Paul is far more likely to get black support than any other GOP candidate, quite a significant accomplishment given the resistance of blacks to the GOP.... If you look at the Paul youtubes you will see a fair amount of black faces. Paul certainly has the potential to be the best thing that has happened to libertarianism as a political movement in a long time. He also has the potential to be the worst thing, if, as he gets more public exposure libertarianism gets associated in the public mind with 9/11 truther, southern irredentists, "white nationalists," and so forth.