Ron Paul Believed That The Federal Government Should Have Paid Off Slave Masters To Free The Slaves

[Galraedia]

Ron Paul is currently surging in the polls, especially in Iowa. So, let the dirt be dug up and the skeletons unearthed. The good folks over at Mediaite discovered this little Ron Paul gem from 2007. During an appearance on Meet The Press with the late Tim Russert, Paul said that he would have favored a federal slaveholder bailout over the Civil War. Such a bailout would have required the government to buy 4 million slaves and then set them free. Russert asked about Paul’s comments to The Washington Post regarding Abraham Lincoln, slavery, and the Civil War.




RUSSERT: “I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. ‘According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery.’”

PAUL: “Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn’t have gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was that iron fist…”

RUSSERT: “We’d still have slavery.”

PAUL: “Oh, come on. Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I’m advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where the hatred lingered for 100 years? Every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn’t sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.”

Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/12/23/flashback-ron-paul-believed-that-the-federal-government-should-have-paid-off-slave-masters-to-free-the-slaves/

O_o So he's not for govt subsidies- except to pay slaveholders for their 'losses'?

[William769]

1. Antigay Statements Turn Up in Ron Paul Literature

Having already disavowed racist rhetoric in newsletters sent out under his name, Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul is now having to explain a warning about a “federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS.”

The statement came in a direct-mail advertisement for Paul’s political and investment newsletters in the 1990s, Reuters reports. The ad, in the form of a letter signed by Paul, also predicted that a “race war” would break out in U.S. cities and that the federal government planned to redesign currency so it could be used to track Americans’ activities.

Paul has already said he did not write or endorse the racist passages in his newsletters and had no knowledge of them, and a spokesman for his campaign today told Talking Points Memo that the candidate “did not write that mail piece and disavows its content.” Paul also told reporters this week that various statements in the newsletters are at odds with his political positions, such as supporting open service by gay people in the military.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/12/23/Antigay_Statements_Turn_Up_in_Ron_Paul_Literature/

[MADem]

2. Ron Paul is such an asshole! Your point about subsidies is most salient. nt

[JoePhilly]

3. Ron Paul supports a SLAVE OWNER BAILOUT ... Bwahahahahaaha!!!!

Some one should ask him if we should find the ancestors of the slave owners and pay them REPARATIONS!!!!

[aquart]

5. Exactly! RON PAUL SUPPORTS A SLAVE OWNER BAILOUT!

[DirkGently]

4. Guy's a racist, period. Rachel had his greatest hits last night. Just implicitly believes in it.

My "favorite" quote from his newsletter was advice from a supposed retired cop on how to kill a "young black" trying to carjack you (it's the "hip-hop thing to do." )(PARAPHRASED): Flee the scene, and dispose of your unregistered handgun (from the 'Classifieds') after wiping it down to remove fingerprints.

Paul's excuse? He didn't write such things, doesn't know who did, and didn't read his own newsletter. So, apparently he's just so incredibly stupid that he didn't notice newsletters printed in his name, specialized in eye-popping racist content, often with his byline.

[Galraedia]

11. In 1996 when the newsletters were brought up......

Ron Paul told the Houston Chronicle that he opposed racism and his commentaries about blacks came in the context of "current events and statistical reports of the time." In other words, he didn't deny writing the Ron Paul column in the Ron Paul newsletter, profits of which go to Ron Paul, until many years later. Then he claimed that his campaign aides thought it would be "too confusing" to tell the truth, so he had to lie and accept responsibility.

[gratuitous]

13. And the follow-up questions to Dr. Paul write themselves

So, Dr. Paul, you're saying that you didn't write the newsletter with your name on it. You didn't read it. You just put it out there. For what - some altruistic effort to get young writers a publishing history? If the word "altruistic" doesn't cause him to faint dead away, you can then ask, How much money did you make off this little newsletter you didn't read and didn't write, and barely had anything to do with? Do you think it's proper or fair to make that much money off of someone else's work? Do you consider yourself a leech then? Why or why not?

[DirkGently]

19. He got so mad at CNN for even bringing it up he tore off his lapel mike & stormed out.

Buh. Bye.

[WingDinger]

6. They make great pets.

Letum eat Jim Crow.

[CanonRay]

7. I thought Lincoln initially offered to do that,

and the idea was rejected by Southern congressional representatives.

[LeftinOH]

8. An idiotic "solution" that would have caused...A CIVIL WAR!:

The peoples' taxes used to pay slaveowners? Was the the free-labor-based economy of the South supposed to just grin and bear it? There would have been war anyways, but instead of nominally being about "states rights", it would have been most definitely about slavery (and taxes).

[Galraedia]

14. CORRECT: Money can't buy out racism.

In 1861, Lincoln dangled the carrot of federal dollars in front of the slaveowners in the Border States. He'd pay them $400 per slave to free them. There were no takers. The next year, Lincoln, even arm twisted Congress to pass a resolution providing for payment to the slaveowners in the Border States and elsewhere. That went nowhere too.
The slave masters understood something that Paul doesn't. Slavery was not an aberrant, patchwork system that consigned a few million luckless blacks to hard, unpaid labor. Slavery was a cornerstone of the Southern economy. It wove personal lifestyle, custom, and comfort together for the benefit of the slave owners. The rebels never indicated they were willing to sell off their slaves. The "peculiar institution" of owning human beings dominated the political and economic culture of the states that seceded. In March 1861, a few weeks before Lincoln's inauguration, the newly-minted Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens explained that the new government rested "upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."
Also, keep in mind that there was no federal income tax until 1861, when it was implemented to fund the war.

[Boston_Chemist]

9. BUYING THE SLAVES WOULD HAVE CREATED DEMAND FOR SLAVES

This guy is a real piece of work.

He uses the British Empire as a good example of how to do these things. I find this to be subtly unpatriotic, and also dangerous: The English were experimenting with strict mercantilism at the time, egged on by the bastards at The Economist, which resulted in the famine conditions in Ireland.

[derby378]

16. Didn't Quakers buy some slaves just so they could free them?

Not condoning Paul's remarks, but sometimes, if you get rid of the supply, the demand will take care of itself.

[coalition_unwilling]

18. The British also have the dubious honor of having invented

the concentration camp (during the Boer War in South Africa).

[former9thward]

22. No it would not.

The Constitution allowed slave trade up until 1808. After that Congress prohibited slave importation into the U.S. By the time of the Civil War almost all slaves had been born in the U.S. The federal government could have bought out the slaves, saved 600,000 lives and endless generations of hatred. There would be no demand because there would be no way of supplying it.

[Starry Messenger]

10. I thought everyone knew what a complete racist bastard he is.

I'm glad this is all going viral, since that doesn't seem to be the case.

[hobbit709]

12. I wonder how much he thinks he would have gotten?

[Courtesy Flush]

15. I guess he'd balk at reparations, though. nt

[fishwax]

21. no doubt n/t

[coalition_unwilling]

17. Paul also ignores the salient fact of exactly who fired on Fort Sumter. When P.G.T. Beaugregard's

cannonade compelled surrender of the fort, was Lincoln supposed to just pretend that insurrection had not happened?

[CreekDog]

20. this is like saying the USA shouldn't have started the war with Japan

[Odin2005]

23. Libertarians think property is more important than people.

[stillwaiting]

24. Yes, property rights reign supreme.

Which, of course, is to benefit those who own all of the property.

Such little regard for those who don't own much, or any, property.

They are afterthoughts, and not worthy of much of anything (certainly not respect or love according to Ayn Rand).

[no_hypocrisy]

25. Meaning that Northern taxpayers would pay a ransom to "free" slaves while

the South would continue buying new slaves.

Yeah, that would've worked . . . .

[FarLeftFist]

26. Ron Paul is ALL hypotheticals with his "Oh, come on". Mr. Paul, "Oh, come on" doesn't change history

[provis99]

27. actually, we should have just shot the slave owners.

oh wait, we did!

[Galraedia]

28. Ron Paul on the 1964 Civil Rights Act:

However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society. ~Ron Paul, June 4, 2004


Ron Paul's position, taken to its logical conclusion, means that liberty gives personal property owners the right to deny liberty to others.