Tuesday, November 13, 2007

....This Is Why People Don't Take Ron Paul Seriously Enough

Who needs enemies accusing you of associating with neo-Nazis when you have friends at Lew Rockwell that make statements like this, referring to coverage of Ron Paul by that oh-so-respected commentator Glen Beck:

It is amusing to see Beck having to resort to the likes of David Horowitz - whose political views have been more a reflection of fashion than intellectual
conviction - and the great-grandson of the war-mongering Winston Churchill....


(my emphasis)

So, apparently Neville Chamberlain was a hero, and Churchill- who orchestrated one of the greatest truly defensive campaigns in history and was largely responsible for stopping the spread of the Nazi menace- was a war-monger? I sincerely hope this doesn't mean LewRockwell.com thinks that Hitler was a peacenik who was just responding to "aggression" by the rest of the European continent. This isn't to say Churchill was a non-interventionist libertarian, and his initial support of Mussolini is a bit disturbing- but a war-monger?

Whether or not you can interpret Churchill's post-WWII actions as war-mongering, the context of this accusation would lead the average observer to believe that the writer is arguing in Hitler's favor. With Ron Paul's supporters under increasingly close scrutiny, statements like this are nothing short of careless and it is pretty easy to see why they would give off the impression (rightly or wrongly) that Ron Paul is closely linked with neo-Nazis.

Maybe I'm just misinterpreting the statement, but the way in which the ad hominem against Churchill is made makes my interpretation very easy to reach. How many people predisposed against Ron Paul would make the same interpretation?