Given that Rep Ron Paul is now the dubious recipient of a CPAC straw poll for White House hopefuls, this essay by David Harsanyi at Reason magazine would appear to be a definitive libertarian rebuke of a crackpot fringe figure on the American right who has managed to capture the hot minds of so many graveyard shift AM disc jockeys and von Misesian economists:
Paul isn't a traditional conservative. His obsession with long-decided monetary policy and isolationism are not his only half-baked crusades. Paul's newsletters of the '80s and '90s were filled with anti-Semitic and racist rants, proving his slumming in the ugliest corners of conspiracyland today is no mistake.
Let us be clear: Paul is the honorary chairman of a group called Campaign for Liberty, whose website carries dossiers on "The History of Satanic World Banking" (any guess to what ethno-religious minority are the designated Satanists?), "The Bolshevik-Zionist Axis"and "Was Hitler was an Illuminati agent?" There's also a rich trove of 9/11 conspiracism and claims that the Rothschild family assassinated Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and Kennedy. For more on this delightful website, consult the excellent anti-racist blogger Adam Holland.
As Jamie Kirchick of the New Republic exposed during the 2008 primaries, there is hardly a lunatic cause to which the Congressman has not, in some way and at some time in his political career, had his name attached. And yet Paul's defenders have included Andrew Sullivan and Geoffrey Wheatcroft, both eccentric Brits and self-proclaimed conservatives.
Some have downplayed the significance of the CPAC straw poll by pointing out that it was the result of a voter turnout of a mere 30% of 10,000. But this just means that the unhinged and sinister elements are the most "mobilized." William F. Buckley's finest hour was cleaving the John Birch Society -- still, I'm sorry to say, a prominent invitee at these CPAC confabs -- from the mainstream of the conservative movement. We have reached another crucial crossroads in extremist politics, yet there is nary a Buckley in sight.
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