Huhn?
Posted: January 11, 2012 Filed under: Surreality, Teddy Roosevelt | Tags: progressives, Ron Paul 19 Comments
There seems to be a set of “progressive” bloggers who are arguing that democratic voters need to sort and rank their values and decide which ones to “overlook”. There’s also this accusation of hypocrisy and selling out. The discussion started with Matt Stoller and Glenn Greenwald and started expanding from there. They argue that Ron Paul is way more “progressive” than Obama. They argue that liberals sell out all kinds of things to support him. They supposedly do this without endorsing Paul. It’s just to point out liberal hypocrisy. It’s also to further some imaginary conversation in the media happening because of Paul’s bottom line on the war and certain civil liberties. (I’m still trying to find any links to that.) I first stepped into it when I posted this Ian Welsh blog post with the comment that Welsh had decided women’s rights, autonomy, privacy, and moral personhood weren’t as important as middle east war issues (i.e. abortion vs dead Pakistani wedding guests). I was accused of being a single issue voter who didn’t care about dead brown people. Check out the exchange in the comments on this post.
To me, it’s deeper than that. It’s saying that all kinds of other things aren’t as important as their specific pet prog issues. It’s also saying that it makes no difference how you morally or conceptually arrive at those positions. This just doesn’t pass the smell test for me. So, I’m stepping in it again fully aware of the stank.
Our Quixote already noted that women’s rights–and I might add the rights of minorities in general–were never on any of these guys’ radars. Cannonfire took up the argument against admiring any Paul position today based on the incoherence of how those positions developed and what the underlying arguments represent. I do not have to be an insufferable Obot to figure out that Ron Paul’s rationale for ending US military adventurism abroad and stopping certain civil liberty violations domestically come under the heading of two old cautionary tales. One is the blind squirrel who trips across a nut now and then. The other one is about the stopped clock being right two times a day. The deal is that the same intellectual concepts that bring him to not supporting the 1964 civil rights act are the same arguments that he makes against presidential overstep. His reasoning leads to far more bad positions than good and the reasoning should be morally objectionable to progressives, liberals, or for that matter empathetic, caring people. There’s more to a joke than the punch line.
I’d like to say a few things about all these folks suddenly looking at Ron Paul with less than jaundiced eyes. First, they are all white males. Second, what they suggest every one downgrade to not important (e.g. abortion, civil rights, the entire new deal agenda) aren’t things they need to care about. It certainly is easy to scold others about being single issue voters or being concerned about unimportant things when you have no dog in the hunt.
Stoller’s latest and Sirota’s opportunistic foray into the discussion today makes me realize how much I really hate the “progressive” moniker. I’ve always thought these guys were poseurs of some kind. Get this thesis from Sirota.
At the same time, though, when it comes to war, surveillance, police power, bank bailouts, cutting the defense budget, eliminating corporate welfare and civil liberties, Paul is more in line with progressive goals than any candidate running in 2012 (or almost any Democrat who has held a federal office in the last 30 years). This, too, is indisputable.
Evidently, how you arrive at those positions intellectually and conceptually are less important than just having a similar goal. Again, note the appalling oversight of civil rights which tends to be an easy thing to overlook when you’re young, straight, white and sport that extra, dangly appendage of privilege. Stoller demonizes liberals as being the grease of the war machine. I’d like to note that Stoller does in fact share the same bizarre notions about the Federal Reserve Bank held by Ron Paul. I admit to getting the creeps every time I read him. It’s the same creeps I get when Ron Paul says “We’re all Austrians now” and waves the Von Mises Institute Flag. Stoller snidely suggests liberal sell out to the war machine while holding up the idea of selling out everything else to stop the war machine. Sirota jumps on the band wagon to take it to the point where it becomes a multiple choice question. Which of your deeply held values do you believe is worthy frittering away to a fascist to achieve one or two policies in the agenda that I really care about?
In seeing Paul’s economic views, positions on a woman’s right to choose, regulatory ideas and ties to racist newsletters as disqualifying factors for their electoral support, many self-identified liberal Obama supporters are essentially deciding that, for purposes of voting, those set of issues are simply more important to them than the issues of war, foreign policy, militarism, Wall Street bailouts, surveillance, police power and civil liberties — that is, issues in which Paul is far more progressive than the sitting president.
There’s certainly a logic to that position, and that logic fits within the conventionally accepted rubric of progressivism. But let’s not pretend here: Holding this position about what is and is not a disqualifying factor is a clear statement of priorities — more specifically, a statement that Paul’s odious economics, regulatory ideas, position on reproductive rights and ties to bigotry should be more electorally disqualifying than President Obama’s odious escalation of wars, drone killing of innocents, due-process-free assassinations, expansion of surveillance, increases in the defense budget, massive ongoing bank bailouts and continuation of the racist drug war.
By contrast, Paul’s progressive-minded supporters are simply taking the other position — they are basically saying that, for purposes of voting, President Obama’s record on militarism, civil liberties, foreign policy, defense budgets and bailouts are more disqualifying than Paul’s newsletter, economics, abortion and regulatory positions. Again, there’s an obvious logic to this position — one that also fits well within the conventional definition of progressivism. And just as Obama supporters shouldn’t pretend they aren’t expressing their preferences, Paul’s supporters shouldn’t do that either. Their support of the Republican congressman is a statement of personal priorities within the larger progressive agenda.
Hence, we reach one of those impossible questions: From a progressive perspective, which is a more legitimate camp to be in?
Again, I’d just like to toss that “progressive” label out with the rest of the trash just because people like the intellectually incoherent Sirota overuse it. I’ve never seen it applied to any one with a cohesive set of values. I’ve started associating it with facile vapidity. It’s like those folks that scream they are conservative will trying to pass some of the most radical laws the country’s ever seen. Oh, like Ron Paul. Political labels have become a meaningless blob of mushiness which is why I can’t figure out how none of these folks challenge how Paul got THESE positions instead of where they fit. Paul came to his positions through the back door of Fascism. He’s heir to arguments made by Von Mises, Pinochet, Mussolini and Jefferson Davis.
Which brings me to ask why do they keep prolonging this conversation? Why is this flirtation with the neoconfederate Paul coming from reformed Obots? I know, they’re all saying they’re not endorsing him. But, isn’t this all just an intellectual exercise to get people to make some kind of Hobson’s choice based on their criteria and/or beat themselves for not prioritizing the prog list correctly? These guys remind me of the anti-war protestors that quit protesting the war the minute the draft ended. I keep smelling self interest in all of this which is the same smell that comes off of Ron Paul and his libertarians. If it doesn’t directly benefit them, they don’t want to pay for it, die for it, fiddle with it. I think how you arrive at a position is as important as the position itself. I think your motivation for a position is as important as the position itself. I think that’s just another door into the hypocrite’s club. They are accusing every one of selling out without fully exploring the implications of how Ron Paul arrives at is positions. It is just an appalling ego exercise.
It reminds me of the Von Mises apologia for Mussolini and Hitler. They saved European civilization since they blocked the spread of “communism”. Ignore everything else.
It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aimed at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has for the moment saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.
Who cares about everything else? The trains ran on time in Italy and the hyperinflation created by the Weimar Republican ended. Right? And GEE, we’re getting so many conversations on CNN and FOX News about the horrors of war and the patriot act, what’s a little snuggle with Ron Paul?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
I just don’t see what you’re seeing here, Kat. People like Stoller, Greenwald and Welsh are simply pointing out the hypocrisy of Democrats who desperately try to support Obama by saying he represents a party that is more “progressive” than the Repubs. You can argue that the reasoning behind Ron Paul’s positions is based on bizarre premises, or not, depending on the issue, but it’s difficult to argue that Paul isn’t the only one of the traditional party candidates opposed to endless empire building, endless war, a congressional stranglehold by AIPAC, a costly and useless “war on drugs”, and several other issues supposedly important to “progressives”. Stoller and Welsh are asking why so-called progressives aren’t coming down hard on Obama for pursuing endless war, for horrific abuses of civil liberties, for always supporting the FIRE corporations over real people. Greenwald is simply saying that Paul represents a golden opportunity to elevate the level of debate on these issues, regardless of how Paul came to his conclusions. I think that all three gentlemen are correct to point out the hypocrisy, but then I’ve come to expect hypocrisy from anyone who claims to support one of our two traditional parties. Occupy has it exactly right–both parties are totally corrupt.
As for these views coming from white males, well, how many high profile female bloggers–or even traditional journalists–are out there? Sky Dancing, The Confluence, FDL, Digby are the only liberal political blogs with any following. As for the Democrats being better on women’s issues, the only Democrats who really understood that women’s issues are economic issues were John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. How many female–or male–Democrats went to the mat for us on key women’s issues recently?
So no, I don’t see this as some white male blogger conspiracy–they just happen to be the ones to step forward and say listen, if you people who call yourselves progressives aren’t marching on the White House demanding that Obama stop the endless wars, the endless corporate favoritism, the endless civil liberties abuses, then you’re really just tribalists, not progressives.
Actually they, and apparently you, don’t understand what Paul really stands for at all. He has no problem with civil rights being violated to the extremes, so long as it’s done by the states. All gurantees of equal rights and treatment disappear.
These asshat libertarians are anything but constitutional conservatives or progressives, like there is a difference. When they speak of the constitution, I get the distinct idea they mean the Articles of Confederation. For myself, I think that means get your ass to the back of the bus, now.
Joseph Cannon and Kat’s post here and dead on. Those cranky Obots made a disastrous mess of things in 2008 and can take it straight to hell with them.
(Hey, I’m starting to feel like chopped liver. What about my post? Huh? Huh? 😀 Zeroes Don’t Count. All of three days ago. I linked it in my other comment.)
Hey, I linked to it, yes? And most of my argument here is that you can’t separate Ron Paul’s positions from his warped way of arriving at them. His warped way of arriving at them brings in all that other stuff and that’s why it’s not comparable or equivalent.
oh, and quixote the sirota post at slate sent me straight over the edge as well as the second stoller post …
straight over the edge …
with good reason!
(That’s why I get my news about that stuff from Skydancing. Filtered. Requires less brain bleach afterward.)
quixote, I’m sorry but I must have missed your post on this subject. I’ll do better in future 🙂
What Dak is objecting to, and rightly so, is that they’re saying some people’s rights are more important than others.
That’s a dead giveaway that they’re talking about privileges (theirs), not rights. I was arguing this same point in an earlier post (also on Skydancing). Justice is kind of like pregnancy in that you can’t be just a bit pregnant. Nor can you be just a little bit fair.
Either everyone’s rights are respected, or nobody’s are.
There’s nothing wrong with Greenwald arguing for free speech or against surveillance or the war machine. He does all that, and he does it very well. But when he says those things are more important than your rights, he’s dropped the ball. Even if he was successful at stopping the war machine, he wouldn’t reach the goal he hoped for because he wasn’t actually aiming for it. It would still be a nasty brutish world, even for him, but I doubt he’d ever see it until he reached it and was standing knee-deep in the Big Muddy.
So the point is that people telling you to get over your own rights and worry about theirs are actually showing that they’re limited little selfish jerks, not the broadminded visionaries of the big picture that they imagine themselves. And they do need to be called out on it.
I totally agree, Quixote!! You and Dak both said it well. This isn’t about choosing which policies to prioritize, it’s about a bunch of young privileged white males who don’t give a shit about anyone elses rights but their own. It’s really sickening.
Ron Paul’s positions aren’t progressive because you can’t separate the way he’s arrived at his positions from the positions. If you would vote for him, based on those positions, you’d get the thinking that comes with how those decisions evolved. I know Sirota voted for Obama because he announced it on his radio program. Greenwald, Sirota and Stoller paid attention 4 years ago. Sirota wrote about his cipher record and how he didn’t really stand up for anything during his period in the senate. Didn’t stop him from supporting him though or get him writing anything about the Obot tactics back then. Some of them were even critical of Obama. They knew what he was. He started out being who he was right from the get go by filling up his cabinet and his white house with the same people that he hung with during his campaign which was basically a bunch of war mongering, financial engineering jerks. I have no idea why this conversation now should involve Ron Paul or trying to equate Ron Paul’s positions with what Obama isn’t, wasn’t, never has been. Ron Paul is beyond a flawed messenger with a flawed message. I have no idea why they continue to say look at these positions and why doesn’t Obama support them and drag Ron Paul into it. I have no idea why they weren’t holding the Democratic Party responsible 4 years ago or 8 years ago for that matter. But to use Ron Paul’s twisted sister thinking as a reflection on what the Democratic Party or Obama isn’t doing is not a cogent argument imho. It’s odious. I’m sorry they have buyer’s remorse or whatever it is they have. I don’t like them downgrading civil rights to a less than important category and I cannot separate Ron Paul’s positions from his addled old confederate brain. They are way late too the game. Also, all the Republicans in this election–including Ron Paul–are the absolute worst I’ve seen ever. Hell, I’d take Ronald Reagan or Dubya Bush over each and every one of them, including Ron Paul. I was irritated when handed John Kerry as an option. This ain’t anything new. Why start now, why start with Ron Paul, and why start when there seriously is NO choice? We couldn’t have this conversation when Gore lost and actually done something before it got to this point? Also, it’s likely there will be at least one of not two houses in the Republican domain now. That would end the gridlock in a most unpleasant way.
I don’t even think that Ron Paul’s position on wars can be trusted — he has back peddled already. 0boma seemed to be advocating the “just War” concept when he was running 4 years ago — claimed that he gave a great/wonderful anti war speech which NO ONE can remember. No proof that 0bama was where he claimed to be.
Ron Paul is listed as one of the supporters of the “just War”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory
But I don’t believe him — any more than I believed 0bama.
The thing for me is that keeping the Government out personal private matters — also means my decisions related to my body — and that means NO forced use of my body by the state for child birth etc.
All of the GOP candidates want to protect the right to guns — and in several cases the right to carry concealed weapons just about anywhere. Yet these same idiots want to ban abortion & birth control.
IF these GOP jerks want to control women — then why not find a reason to regulate/control/inspect/legislate any other aspect of our bodies our minds?
DAK is correct — it is not the anti war position and so called “progressive” positions that excites the ex-0bots — but rather how Ron Paul arrives at his positions.
Slavery is slavery,
While abortion and birth control was illegal in the US — thousands of Native Americans were sterilized. There was one commissioner of Health in one of the Southern States who made it his mission to “fix” as many Native Americans (which he called unprintable names).
Once the state takes control of women’s uteri — then the state can also decide if the uterus can be uses or not. This is one of the arguments one of my psychology profs used ages ago. He was in the battle for women’s rights — he was more of a feminist than many of the female university instructors were. Many of these women were busy keeping other women in their place.
http://tinyurl.com/749eohl
The link is about the forced sterilization in North Carolina. In the same google search I found links to Bush Sr. administration and forced sterilization. It wasn’t so long ago that this happened.
Which must be quite surprising to the citizens of Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the former Yugoslavia, the former East Germany, Hungary, etc., etc. – all of whom were subjected to the Soviet Empire as a direct result of WW II.
yup, that certainly was a short term effect wasn’t it?
The Fantastical Crackpot Cult of Ron Paul
Today (January 11) was Alice Paul’s birthday. I’m sticking with her. Not voting for anybody who doesn’t respect me or my rights.
Oh and if these guys really cared about peace and not war, they’d put women’s rights first. Stability, peace, and civil progress only comes to societies where women’s rights and issues (reproductive rights, political rights, voices, literacy, economics, etc.) are well-established, maintained, and built further upon.
IMHO
hmmmmmmmmm. My earlier comment disappeared. Weird.
It’s on a different thread. I read it and noticed it was on the evening reads instead of here.
I think this is it, yes?