Ron Paul: Friends among the John Birch Society

clipmarks on July 23rd, 2007 filed in Politics

The NYTimes Sunday Magazine piece about Dr. Ron Paul which is referred to, below, in Editor & Publisher is here. Between the two articles, this bit caught my eye:

Asked about the John Birch Society Society by the author, Paul responds, “Is that BAD? I have a lot of friends in the John Birch Society. They’re generally well-educated and they understand the Constitution. I don’t know how many positions they would have that I don’t agree with.”

Clipped from www.editorandpublisher.com

I’m not sure whether to be more worried that he claims he doesn’t know what his friends among the John Birch Society believe, or the fact that he said that he doesn’t know how many positions they would have that he doesn’t agree with. FWIW, he also had no idea who Jon Stewart was nor what The Daily Show was about.

Radical rightwing isolationism, anyone?

Technorati Tags: John Birch Society, neocons, Politics, rightwingers, Ron Paul

13 Responses to “Ron Paul: Friends among the John Birch Society”

Paul Eres Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:52 am
He’s 71, of course he doesn’t know what the Daily Show is. And the John Birch Society is worse in popular culture than it actually is, according to its Wikipedia page it seems like just another libertarian group with some bad eggs in the past giving it a bad name.
steve Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:12 am
what’s wrong with John Birch society? never heard of them.
r.w.dean Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:14 am
I’ll be checking back to see how/if you answer that question, Aine.
Áine Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Heh. Wikipedia is edited by… everyone. And, of course, you realize that conservatives have already been caught _multiple times_ editing anything unflattering out of the pages of politicians, groups, and organizations there… right? If not, you should know that that’s been a bone of contention since at least 2004. As it is, the wikipedia page for John Birch Society has this right at the top of the page: “The neutrality of this article is disputed.” And in the Discussion part of the page: “…this page faces constant attempts to insert bias that favors the group.” Any questions?

…

The link above for JBS at SourceWatch gives you some substantial clues about that organization. The John Birch Society has its roots in the precursor to McCarthyism and the rabid anti-Communist witchhunts that occurred in that era. Ron Paul is old enough to know all about that and what the John Birch Society advocates, then and now.

According to the link above at SourceWatch:

JBS advocates the abolition of income tax, and the repeal of civil rights legislation, which it sees as being Communist in inspiration. For this reason, its opponents characterise it as a white citizens’ society dedicated to preventing minorities from gaining political power.

That isn’t referring to the past but the present.

Here’s a chart showing the degree to which members of congress vote on matters favorable to the John Birch Society. If you scroll down to Ron Paul’s name, you’ll note that he has a 100% rating. If you click on his name there, it will take you to his page and show you that he’s had that rating for several years.

Here’s an excerpt from Publiceye:

In a sense, the Birch society pioneered the encoding of implicit cultural forms of ethnocentric White racism and Christian nationalist antisemitism rather than relying on the White supremacist biological determinism and open loathing of Jews that had typified the old right prior to WWII. Throughout its existence, however, the Society has promoted open homophobia and sexism.

And yes, there may be blacks who were or are members of JBS, but (from the same source above):

Despite its opposition to civil rights, throughout this period the JBS had a handful of black conservative members who supported this position on philosophical grounds involving states rights, economic libertarianism, and opposition to alleged communist subversion of the civil rights movement.

For interested parties, the FBI HQ main file on the JBS is 62-104401 and consists of about 12,000 pages. J. Edgar Hoover or his top subordinates referred to the JBS in FBI memos and reports as “extremist”, “irrational”, “irresponsible” and “lunatic fringe”.
Áine Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Oh, and I forgot to address this bit: “He’s 71, of course he doesn’t know what the Daily Show is.”

Does age have anything to do with being aware of media, or even informed about the demographics he’s hoping to persuade to vote for him? The man is running for _president_, it’s his business to know all about that, as well as the media and the shows he’s going to make an appearance on. Well-informed audiences come from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, as well as late-night TV in general.

Age doesn’t have anything to do with being (or pretending to be) uninformed. And he’s the same age as John McCain, btw.
Marden Seavey Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I’m 78 years old and have been watching the Daily Show for several years, and I also like the Colbert Report. Give me a break? Also, the JBS sucks and always has.
Áine Says:
July 23rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Hear, hear, Mardé! Age has nothing to do with it whatsoever.
r.w.dean Says:
July 24th, 2007 at 11:40 am
No it doesn’t, as I can attest.
Aine, (and this is NOT an age related statement) you are a breath of fresh air over a sometimes stagnant pond.
Áine Says:
July 24th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Thank you, Bob.
Marden Seavey Says:
July 26th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Yes, I’ll second that Bob! Way to go, Áine, and I love that Celtic script Á! I tried to learn Irish once, then gave up….
Yuriy Bilokonsky Says:
October 5th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
My grandfather is seventy-nine, bent, decrepit, and watches Fox News all day with the volume turned up so he can hear. He also fled Stalin in Ukraine, and served in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. He’s got no clue what’s going on the world these days, but you can be damn sure Stalin was far worse than anyone in the JBS. People simply age at different rates. And Ron Paul probably doesn’t spend much time watching TV.

Aine, what you have is academic information. When it comes right down to it it simply doesn’t factor in the human condition.
Áine Says:
October 5th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Not knowing about Jon Stewart and the Daily Show was the least of my criticism about Ron Paul, which is why it only got one line.

BTW, I know you’re a big Ron Paul supporter, Yuriy, and I admire you for coming here to my blog to defend him where the NV CoH doesn’t apply. I’m not sure what your grandfather or Joseph Stalin have to do with Ron Paul, or why you keep making that association. Paul says socialism doesn’t work… but has he ever heard of Scandinavia where it works just fine?

There’s other criticism of his views out there on the Internet too. This was some interesting reading.
Max in WA Says:
December 28th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Well, I’m only 39, but I gave up TV in the early 90s. I don’t know what the Daily Show is either. It seems almost laudable to me for a candidate to NOT be sucked into the black hole of TV anyway. And when you listen to Ron Paul talk, it’s plain he’s actually done some reading and thinking — probably because he doesn’t spend his whole day watching the pop-culture pap du jour.