Box Turtle Bulletin

More of Ron Paul’s “Bad Stuff” Revealed

A few weeks ago, GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul sought to defend himself in the controversy over the newsletters which he promoted and published under his name for nearly a decade. In his latest defense, he said that he only acted as publisher of the newsletters, and said that there were only “a total of about eight or ten sentences” of “bad stuff.”

The New Republic, which released the original newsletters, has responded to that last statement by releasing several dozen more — far more than the “eight or ten sentences” of “bad stuff.” The latest dumpcovers much of the same ground as before: blatant racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, praise for tax evaders, defense of anti-government militias, and whacked-out conspiracy theories. Under the anti-gay/AIDS-hysteria banner, TNR released the following (all links PDFs):

• A Survival Report (no date given) which calls the Americans With Disabilities Act a “totalitarian law” because “dentists can no longer refuse to work on the bloody mouths of AIDS carriers.”
• A March 1987 Investment Letter which cites a mysterious “Dr. Arnold” to claim that “AIDS can be transmitted through means other than sexual intercourse and blood transfusion, specifically saliva, tears, sweat, feces and urine.”
• A November 1987 Political Report saying “we must also allow local school boards to ban AIDS carriers from the public schools.”
• A March 1988 Political Report suggesting that AIDS was being transmitted through the mails.
• A March 1990 Political Reportclaiming that AIDs could be spread “through sneezes, breath, etc. through the air.”
• A December 1991 Political Report saying, “[Magic] Johnson may be a sports star, but he is dying because he violated moral laws.”
• A January 1993 Survival Report saying, “Homosexuals, if admitted (in the military), should be put in a special category and not allowed in close physical contact with heterosexuals.”
• A June 1993 Survival Report, on claims that Texas cult leader David Koresh molested a young girl, responding, “How dare the Clinton administration talk about sexual deviance? Its officials could have had their own float in the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Parade.”
• A November 1993 Survival Report referring to people with AIDS, saying “the criminal ‘Justice’ Department wants to force dentists to treat these Darth Vader types under the vicious Americans With Disabilities Act.” In a echo of Ron Paul’s more recently-stated libertarian opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the newsletter goes on: “We all have the right to discriminate, which is what freedom of association is all about, especially against killers.”
• A March 1994 Survival Report saying “the purpose of ‘AIDS education'” is “to keep the truth about AIDS from getting out. And this goes way back. Scientists originally named it GRIDS – Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome – until the homosexual lobby succeeded in getting the origins of this disease disguised.”

That, combined with previous releases, is way, way more than the “eight or ten sentences” of “bad stuff — just counting the anti-gay/AIDS-hysteria pieces alone. And the AIDS-hysteria pieces are especially troubling given that Paul is a medical doctor. Surely, he knew better, didn’t he?

We still have no explanation from him about how these newsletters came to be and why he promoted them so strongly under his name, evengoing so far as to give the impression that he wrote them when he was selling them. Maybe he really was just a “publisher.” Maybe he really didn’t write this stuff. But the fact that he allowed it to go out for eight years under his name, I believe, disqualifies him for any serious public office. If he’s willing to show such an appalling carelessness with his own good name, how can we be assured he would be any better with America’s?