Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas), a former libertarian candidate for President, has gotten some plaudits from folks on the left for opposing the war; his articles are regularly featured on the web site antiwar.com. There are a few people here at DailyKos that like him too. This bothers me, because Paul is actually even more conservative than the average Republican congressman, and his dislike of the war is rooted (like that of Pat Buchanan) in a mistrust of almost all US involvement with other countries. I put a lot of research into my response to a pro-Paul comment, so I thought I should repost it as a diary.
First of all, if you think that Ron Paul is a social libertarian (wants the government out of the bedroom, pro-choice, pro-gay, etc.), think again--here's his recent record on gay rights, courtesy of the Human Rights Campaign:
http://www.hrc.org/Content/NavigationMenu/HRC/Get_Informed/Congress_and_Scorecard/Index.htm (note his record on page 23 of the PDF report; I note that he's not the worst Republican on the issue, but 25% isn't great, either)
Note the dismissive and arguably racist attitude towards the "inner city" in the 24th paragraph of this article, not to mention the rather illiberal opposition to foreign aid (and also not to mention his lies about how unsuccessful it has been):
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=2372
I'm not sure how Paul's opposition to the United Nations is any different from any other right-winger's opposition to the United Nations (note the second paragraph, and the insistence that the small amount of money we pay to the UN is somehow "unfair"):
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/paul62.html
Paul can't even write a Veterans' Day editorial without picking on, and lying about, the UN:
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/paul52.html
Here, Paul calls the UN and NATO (NATO!) "unholy alliances," which makes me wonder if I'm being too generous when I call him sane (and note the angry rhetoric directed at people only because they were-GASP!-involved in "government"):
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=3435
And then there's this article, where he supports profiling of young Muslim men (what a great civil libertarian this man is!):
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=4607
It just gets worse and worse; Paul opposes spending $350 million (a tiny pittance) of federal money to help victims of the tsunami:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst011005.htm
It's good that Paul doesn't support the gay marriage amendment, but he certainly doesn't support gay marriage (and you've got to love this quote: "Why should Washington dictate education, abortion, environment, and labor rules to the states?" )
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2004/tst030104.htm
Here's Rep. Paul aping the worst Religious Right rhetoric about Christmas:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2003/tst122903.htm
Paul isn't content to lie about the UN, gun control, and foreign aid; he also lies about the inheritance tax (there's not a word in here about how the tax affects a TINY portion of estates-Paul makes it sound as if every last dead person pays the tax):
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2000/tst061200.htm
Last but not least, Paul and Bush agree about the Kyoto treaty (and note Paul's stabs at the "left"):
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst97/tst121597.htm
This guy is certainly not a liberal; in fact, he's worse than many Republican conservatives. I think that associations with people like Paul and Buchanan will hurt the antiwar movement in the long term.