Ron Paul, The John Birch Society, and Individual Liberty

Debating with JBS supporters is not as fun as it looks.

Of course JBS and everything it stands for is a joke and offensive to the principles of the US. Ron Paul's support of their positions is just another reason he need not be taken seriously as a Presidential candidate.

Without all the racist and JBS garbage, support of racists and Truthers, RP would be at 10%. He overshadows his own best qualities with his fringe positions.

I am curious when someone is going to post a thread asking why all the non-citizens seem to have such a vested interest in Ron Paul.

 

I simply don't care. The fact that John Birch wasn't ideal is about as relevant as the fact that Reagan wasn't. The John Birch Society has been less harmful to this world than the republican party has--by far.

The US has bases in how many countries?

 

That is apparent.

I'll recap. You apparently don't care if Mr. Paul supports the philosophies, goals and methods of the John Birch Society; don't care whether the John Birch Society is inimical to true liberty; don't care whether Mr. Paul's support, or not, of JBS says something about his convictions regarding personal liberty. It seems your views are what they are, and good faith questions to these questions are untenable.

I, however, do care, which is why, although my views have been made clear several times now, I nevertheless responded to your questions made in non-reply to every question made in this thread.

I don't know - maybe it's age. I'm old enough to have seen the hotbed of the HUAC and its aftermath, and the birth and wane of JBS as a political force. I am old enough to know people whose lives were ruined by the travesty - of justice, liberty, freedom, all those other great words that mean nothing unless they are embraced - they made.

And you do realize that it isn't "John Birch" we're talking about, but an organization? That "John Birch" isn't "was," but "is?"

 

You don't even know what the JBS is, which is appearent. That you think RP is some sellout for stating that they have been helpful to the goals of freedom demonstrates this. This whole thread is, as I said, nothing but a distractor. If you think the JBS is the problem today, you deserve George Bush. And if you think Ron Paul's saying something positive about them means he agrees with everything John Birch ever said or did, you deserve Hillary Clinton.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/26/beck-john-birch-society-makes-more-and-more-sense/

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1213driverslicense1213.html

 

You keep referring to John Birch as a person, Briant. Much like your ignorantly labelling me as a supporter of this Administration, a "neo-con," or an RP apostate, you are speaking volumes about your ignorance. (NOTE: Ignorant - I'm not calling you stupid; I'm calling you ignorant, as in lacking knowledge. As in, calling me something before you had the first clue as to what I am, and what I believe).

You may want to do a bit of reading to realize RP's pronouncements regarding JBS are not about "John Birch," and "what he ever said or did," not about the missionary for whom the organization was posthumously named; but the organization itself, what it stands for, what organizations it has spawned, and what activities it has undertaken, before making the claim that I do not know what JBS is, and you do.

Man, nothing like informed debate. So enlivening, so helpful to the establishment of truth.

 

What really astounds me is the air of religious provenance surrounding all this. It's a QUESTION. You know, the liberty to, uh, think, ask a question, speak.

Like any other numbers of questions raised when looking at a candidate. If a question is itself taboo, what the hell would one do should RP gain the presidency, and decisions have to be made? Smoke incense on the altar of the unassailable?

 

Where did I call you a neocon?

You don't seem to know what the JBS is since you make statments that imply they are a bunch of McCarthy shills and nothing else. This JBS crap, used to smear Libertarians and anyone else who dares to go off the reservation, is older than you likely are. McCarthy, Black helicopters, John Birch, etc.: Distractors.

And yes John Birch had his issues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_(missionary)

But this doesn't negate everything else people have done in his name anymore than George Bush negates everything the United States is supposed to stand for.

 

I apologize if I have misconstrued your tacit labelling me as a supporter of this administration, and my raising this question as to RP and his beliefs, as determinaive of me being a neo-con, if this isn't what you meant. Let's just say you started by naming this a "six degrees" attack, when it is RP's views itself I am basing everything on, guess I'd call it a "first degree question." Went to my intents behind a simple question, with "something fishy," etc. In other words, everything under the sun, but addressing the questions at hand.

Now that you are at least approaching the questions I've raised, again, you continue to discuss John Birch, the person. IT ISN'T A GUY NAMED JOHN BIRCH THAT CONCERNS ME. HE DIED IN 1945, years prior to the establishment of the John Birch Society, and decades before the founding of the Western Goals Foundation.

Again, I care about the Society, and this is what we are, or should be, talking about, since it is the subject of this thread. Please refer again to my first post, which discusses one relationship between HUAC, JBS, Western Goals Foundation. It's just one, for now, but I think it's a start.

 

And you go on without a word quoting Ron Paul about McCarthy. So because Ron Paul says the JBS helped in defending freedoms, he supports all they say and all orginizations they are affiliated with? This is again a distractor. Meant to do nothing but take attention from Ron Paul's arguments and go down some rabbit hole. This is useful to the status quo but to no one else. This is why most people were smart enought to avoid this thread.

 

Hahaha - OK, Briant. I've already said this, but the thread is a sincere series of questions about Ron Paul, the John Birch Society, and a discussion of his views on personal liberty, relative to JBS. I have seen nothing to suggest RP was or wasn't "into" McCarthysm, and this has not now, nor has it ever been, the question I raised. I have seen things suggesting that JBS is a beacon of Liberty in our land, and RP supports the JBS, and so the questions asked are very much germane.

But if you need this, hope it brings you a good sleep. Thank you for the fascinating lesson in fearing questions put to your candidate.

Now, anyone else care to actually deal with the subject of the thread?

 

Sounds like he is just praising the JBS work in supporting the issues that he espouses. I don't see where Ron Paul is praising McCarthyism or anything extreme there. It appears that there is some overlap between the things Ron Paul supports and what the JBS supports. It doesn't mean (at least from the quote provided) that Ron Paul supports *everything* the JBS supports, does or did.

McCarthyism is going to see a rebirth here in the USA (IMO), but it isn't coming from Ron Paul. The foundation for it is being constructed right now and Ron Paul is one of the few politicians trying to stop it.

suspension of habeas corpus - check
criminalizing political dissent - on the way

So if a member of Homeland Security's commission of "Joe McCarthy"s decides you are a terrorist (for whatever reason), they can lock you up and throw away the key. The potential for abuse here is huge. Couple this with the "REAL ID act" and our civil liberties are under real threat.

My grandfather was in Austria when Hitler rose to power. My father was in Argentina during Peron's dirty war. I may see things a bit more jaded than most of you.

 

I didn't see where Ron Paul supported HUAC or the Western Goals Foundation or anything they have done or support.

 

Bernard, I'm grateful to you for your reply - I very much appreciate the clear airing of views.

It is in the "Privacy" aspect that I am most concerned. JBS, framed from its inception in the belief of a global communist conspiracy, and enemies at home (see the above comments by Mr. Welch, to include President Eisenhower as a "traitor" and "communist," for example), would later frame the intellectual basis for the Western Goals Foundation, birthed by John Rees and Congressman Larry McDonald, both JBS affiliates (McDonald, in fact, was President of the JBS, and many described him as the more fervent successor to Sen. McCarthy in his belief of a global communist conspiracy). It was the Western Goals Foundation that put in place an incredible structure for the gathering and dissemination of intelligence on private citizens, and it is this that troubles me when I hear of Mr. Paul's supporting JBS's stand on privacy or, indeed, on this forum, reading Guerilla's comment:

I totally agree with you regarding this Administration's practices. Which is largely why I was puzzled by Briant's comments re: same, since I have long been in deep disagreement with its policies.

I am sorry your father and grandfather lived through what they lived through. My wife's granddad, Estonian, lived through Hitler and Stalin's little deal, spent the first several years of his child's (my wife's mom's) life as a P.O.W., and the next 50 unable to visit his homeland for fear of being swept up by Soviet authorities. Freedom is, or it isn't, and no prettiness ascribed to these kinds of words can hide when it isn't.

 

Hopefully my above post deals with this. He lauded JBS's support of privacy, and it is in JBS's practices respecting privacy that my question was largely raised.

 

I haven't seen any evidence where Ron Paul supports "the gathering and dissemination of intelligence on private citizens". In fact, there are years and years of writings and speeches on the House floor where Ron Paul argues against legislation that invades privacy (see link I posted above about the REAL ID act for example). I think Ron Paul's position on privacy is well established.

Do you have any evidence that Ron Paul supported the Western Goals Foundation? Or should his quote be taken at face value as supporting educational activities of the JBS proper in promoting the issues mentioned?

 

Bernard, this is what I see in his quote that raises the flag it raises for me. (Emphasis is mine, on the things that stick out for me). If I'm seeing something you're not, or missing something you do see, please let me know:

Since the Western Goals foundation was framed by and is an outgrowth of JBS, and since in my mind its activities were wholly about the invasion of privacy, and, subsumed in this invasion, damage to the sanctity of the freedom of thought, association and speech, it is troubling to me. I also read the following, in a NY Times article, which led me to ask again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22Paul-t.html?pagewanted=4&_r=4

I just don't see the activities of the JBS as being pro-constitutionalist at all. Its inception was rooted in a global conspiracy theory, with communism as its avowed enemy, and it grew, in its activities, to the Western Goals Foundation. Nothing in these suggests what one member here once wrote: "Privacy means, to me, the right to be left alone." (I paraphrase).

This is from the JBS website:

This anti-communist theory of conspiracy, here at home, flowered in the invasion of privacy as took place with the WGF's intelligence operations.

Since Mr. Paul has said it is on JBS's constitutional stand (among others) that he supports them, these are my concerns.

 

The reason you here very little comment is because hypocrisy is easier to defend if you pretend it does not exist to begin with.

You see similar hypocrisy in the Ron Paul platform with regard to smaller government and reduced pork vs. actual pork that RP has supported over the years. Dr. No, does not always say No..

I guess what I am saying is, none of this surprises me.

 

@northpointaiki -> A couple of questions for you:

JBS = WGF?

education = violating civil liberties?

I really think you have glossed over the first 4 words of RP's quote. The quote is directed specifically to them.

If you are really concerned with what Ron Paul believes, why not check what he has written/said specifically about the subject over the years:

Privacy/surveillance

Freedom and Personal Liberty

 

Bernard,

JBS was founded on the principle of a communist conspiracy reaching to the highest levels of government. By definition, it enshrined the principle of guilt by association, which was the spine of McCarthysm.

JBS isn't the same organization as the Western Goals Foundation (WGF). As I say above, the WGF was founded in 1979 by the President of JBS, Congressman McDonald. It was principally funded by Nelson Bunker Hunt, Board Member of JBS and strong proponent of eugenics. As I also said, Roy Cohn, McCarthy's lead counsel during the Senate anti-communist investigations, was a principle framer of WGF. John Reese, also JBS, really kicked it up a notch:

So, draw your conclusions.


To your second point, it isn't "education" that troubles me; I have said what I do find troubling is the notion of JBS as a "beacon of liberty," in so many words. If one accepts, as I do, that JBS is not a "defender of liberty," to put it mildly, then to ignore:

Is the deal breaker for me. You say I "glossed over" the education/outreach aspects of the organization, and again, I repeat it isn't these, but what I emphasized, that I find troubling.

I think a good example would be the following:

"A remarkable leader, who had the foresight to put the national economy as a top priority first, and who provided an incredible rise in mobility to groups previously shunned from better prospects by centuries-old, stale barriers to entry....lots of people talk about love for their country, but this man exemplied it. He and his organization devote their entire existence to it, from the waking moment to the close of day. A true patriot, defender of liberty and freedom."

I am talking, perhaps too obviously, of Hitler. The part before can be said with a straight face. The part afterward, not so much.

In other words, to say that JBS is great at proffering the word doesn't mean they are at the same time the Knights Exemplar of individual liberty. I conclude they are anything but that, and I stand by my concerns regarding Mr. Paul's saying so. If he finds the gathering of intelligence on private citizens reprehensible, then I do not know how he can make the statements he has regarding JBS.

Thank you for the links. I will look into them.

 

I will have to say I didn't know much about the JBS. What you are telling me (maybe not directly) is that they were like their own CIA gathering info on private citizens in order to control an outcome by either force or by the courts.

The couple of people that I knew that were heavy into JBS were always complaining about 'Big Brother' watching, about the files gov't kept on individuals, etc.. In other words, quite the opposite attitude was seen. Still the whole paranoia, they are coming to get me part was there, which I am seeing is a large portion of those pushing for Ron Paul. Now with the price of real tin (not aluminum) going up, the tin foil hat club is getting desperate.