The Ron Paul Newsletter Controversy ignited a media firestorm in late December. It resulted in many claiming that these racist and homophobic articles from the newsletters show that Ron Paul is a bigot. Let’s take a better look at the controversy, examined through the his official stance, his actual policies, and the newsletters themselves.
1) Ron Paul’s official stance is that he did not write the newsletters that contained controversial messages and that he completely disavows them. Nonetheless, he has taken responsibility for their publishing and has apologized for being negligent. From that point alone, it is already shaky grounds to claim he is a racist over controversial newsletters that he said he didn’t write and has disavowed. A better representation of Ron Paul’s view would be his actual voting record and his actual policy stances dealing with race and homosexuality.
2) On issues of race, Ron Paul has repeatedly rallied against the War on Drugs, pointing out that it unfairly targets minorities. Furthermore, he has also advocated reform in the judicial system, and has said that it unfairly and disproportionately targets minorities. Finally, he has argued against the death penalty, his main reason being it is unevenly applied and disproportionately applied to black men.
In terms of his views on homosexuality – he believes the Federal government has no rights to regulate it or ban gay marriage. He has supported states that legalize gay marriage and has repeatedly championed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
So if Ron Paul is a homophobe racist as some would claim, he certainly acts the exact opposite in terms of governmental policies.
3) Furthermore, the newsletters mostly dealt with economic issues, and only a fraction dealt with other issues – and a small fraction of that contained the controversial articles. Ron Paul did contribute to and support some of the economic articles in the newsletters. He himself had supported the newsletters and their economic message in past interviews.
Now the question deals with whether Ron Paul is competent, since he was negligent in letting racist newsletters be published under his name. What needs to be taken into account is that Ron Paul was working as a full time doctor during this time. Doctors often work 60+ hours a week. A logical possibility can be that he simply didn’t have time to read the every single article in the newsletters, thus causing him to miss the controversial segments.
So, is Ron Paul a racist and homophobe who inexplicably championed anti-racist and pro-gay rights political views due to some obscure split personality disorder?
OR
Is he a former-doctor who was simply overworked and neglected to read every single article in his newsletters?
You decide.