Ron Paul and Red State Wrap Up

DWSUWF shows that the number of Hits to Ron Paul's website totally trashes Red States. He even offers us this nice graph:

Proof that Dr. Paul's brand of conservatism is drawing more interest than Red State's brand of authoritarian social conservatism? Maybe.

Over at Eunomia Daniel Larison sums it up this way:

"It is a great irony this year that it is the purists who are actually swelling Republican ranks, while the pragmatists and big-tent folks are doing their best to empty that tent.
...
Rather than translating the energy and excitement that Paul generates into an advantage for the GOP and the movement, the response is to recoil in horror and send Paul’s people packing. ... it seems to me that the impulse to ban newly arrived Paul supporters is much more representative of the state of the movement and the GOP these days."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Ron Paul Talk Banned at Redstate

From Redstate

Effective immediately, new users may *not* shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion. Not in comments, not in diaries, nada. If your account is less than 6 months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul. Those with accounts more than six months old may proceed as normal.

Now, I could offer a long-winded explanation for *why* this new policy is being instituted, but I'm guessing that most of you can probably guess. Unless you lack the self-awareness to understand just how annoying, time-consuming, and bandwidth-wasting responding to the same idiotic arguments from a bunch of liberals pretending to be Republicans can be. Which, judging by your comment history, you really don't understand, so allow me to offer an alternate explanation: we are a bunch of fascists and we're upset that you've discovered where we keep the black helicopters, so we're silencing you in an attempt to keep you from warning the rest of your brethren so we can round you all up and send you to re-education camps all at once.

Hey, we're sure *some* of Ron Paul's supporters really are Republicans. They can post at any one of a zillion Ron Paul online forums. Those who have *earned* our respect by contributing usefully for a substantial period of time will be listened to with appropriate respect. Those who have not will have to *earn* that respect by contributing usefully in the other threads... and not mentioning Ron Paul. Given a month of solid contributing, send one of us an email and we'll consider lifting the restriction on your account.

Given that fact that some Ron Paul supporters just comment spam blogs that mention Ron Paul with pro Ron Paul posts I can see where one might get the urge to put a stop to that. However by banning all talk of Ron Paul by new members also cuts out those who genuinely wish to debate his ideas. Whats more troubling is this is a continuation of a trend of GOP members that are tuning and shutting out anyone who doesn't meet their litmus test of what a Republican is (that normally being a social conservative). Its just that kind of divisive behavior that, in part, cost the GOP the majority.

As for Ron Paul supporters you don't need Redstate. What you may need however is to start policing your own. By that I mean letting the spammers know that they aren't helping the cause and if you see a supporter go ballistic on someone call BS on them.

In the meantime, feel free to go support Ron Paul at Powerline.com Tell them Dyre sent ya.

Others blogging about this:

Buck Naked Politics
Donklephant

I'm Calling BS...

On Erick and Jeff Emanuel over at Red State:

So I'm looking at Memeorandum this morning to see what's being blogged about today and I see the article below over at Redstate and I go over to see what all the fuss is about:

"For the Legacy of These Men, You Should Call Congress and Stop This Bill.
These are the heros of Guam. The men of the United States military who rescued Guam from the Imperial Japanese. These men shed their blood that Guam might be free.

And yet, the House Majority Leader thinks this is not enough. Steny Hoyer thinks we should also have to pay Guam reparations for what Imperial Japan did to Guam.

(snipped out call congress at this no. part )

You can stop this madness. You can call your Congressman and tell him to vote against this bill. Call right now and tell your Congressman to oppose H.R. 1595." whole thing


Followed by a list of every serviceman who died liberating Guam. And at the bottom of that post is a link to the original post of which I am only posting the pertinent parts of here some parts of which I am putting in bold as I'll be talking about them specifically in a minute:

"Are you wondering what the heck I'm talking about? I mean, seriously - what in the world does the US have to do with this anyway, and why in the world would we owe reparations to a country for an action that we had no part of?

That's a question for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and his eight compatriots, all of whom have co-sponsored a bill that would require that America pay reparations to the people of Guam for - get this - the actions of the Japanese in World War II.

According to the bill (HR.1595, the "Guam World War II Loyalty Recognition Act"), the people of Guam:

suffered unspeakable harm as a result of the occupation of Guam by Imperial Japanese military forces during World War II , by being subjected to death, rape, severe personal injury, personal injury, forced labor, forced march, or internment.

For this reason (?), "the Secretary of the Treasury shall make payments" to WWII survivors and their descendants on Guam for the brutal actions of a third party.

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? After all, the US is the largest aid donor on the planet; it's only logical that we should rebuild, repatriate, and reparate every country that has been hurt by every war that we can find. Let's not stop with Guam - let's include everybody from Carthage on up to the present. Should we pay reparations to the Koreans for the Mongol invasions of the 14th century, and to the Spanish for the loss of their Armada in 1588? Why not?

And while this bill holds up $126,000,000.00 for the repayment of the people of Guam for what the Japanese did (as well as $5,000,000.00 for "the Secretary of the Interior [to] establish a grants program [to]...award grants for research, educational, and media activities that memorialize the events surrounding the occupation of Guam during World War II, honor the loyalty of the people of Guam during such occupation, or both, for purposes of appropriately illuminating and interpreting the causes and circumstances of such occupation and other similar occupations during a war"), our soldiers can't even get a dime in supplemental appropriations.

Way to go, Democrats. Your "blame America first" (even for things we have nothing to do with), anti-US soldier attitudes, actions, and mindsets have just been taken to a new level. " whole thing

So I decide to read the actual bill itself as it would appear from the post that there is a provision in it to pour salt on the graves of our honored dead. And I'll darned if I couldn't find that clause anywhere. So allow me via The Pacific Daily to boil the bill down for you:


"The bill is based on recommendations from the Guam War Claims Review Commission, which found that Guamanian Chamorros, were not treated the same as other Americans on war claims matters.

The compensation would be limited to an estimated 9,000 Chamorros who survived the occupation or their direct survivors.

The bill is based on recommendations from the Guam War Claims Review Commission, which found that Guamanian Chamorros, were not treated the same as other Americans on war claims matters."

The compensation would be limited to an estimated 9,000 Chamorros who survived the occupation or their direct survivors.

The bill includes a $5 million grant program for research, education and other activities to memorialize the events surrounding the occupation."


And after reading the bill I discover it has 28 co-sponsors including 6 Republicans: Rep. Elton Gallegly [R-CA], Rep. Jeff Miller [R-FL], Rep. Dennis Rehberg [R-MT], Rep. James Sensenbrenner [R-WI], Rep. Dan Burton [R-IN], Rep. Donald Young [R-AK]. see here


That left me with the question of who created the Guam War Claims Review Commission when?


That was H.R. 308 (in the 107th Congress) see here

Jan 30, 2001		Introduced
Jun 24, 2002		Scheduled for Debate
Mar 13, 2001		Passed House
Nov 20, 2002		Passed Senate
Dec 16, 2002		Signed by President

Hey, wasn't the House and the Senate run by a Republican majority then? Wasn't it signed into law by a Republican President? So essentially the Democrats and Republicans that sponsored and cosponsored the bill were just finishing up work that the previous congress started?
So if this is a bad bill then its a bad bipartisan bill.

Mr. Emmanuel, either you didn't do your homework or lied about the facts in the name of partisanship.

Erick, you didn't double check the facts and proceeded to invoke the names of almost every serviceman that gave their lives to free Guam (in order to mobilize your readers). That is never to be done lightly and by doing so under false or erroneous pretenses you did them a great disservice and that is unforgivable.

Update
So I check my little traffic meter and see a few hits from Red State and wander over to see whats going on but there's no link in the comments thread or anything and then I see comments 5,6, and 7 and considering that one of those hits was from a secure section of Red State it's likely that came from Kowalski's email to Erick to which this is his response:

"Thank you Kowalski. I appreciate it. I do, however, want to leave the names on the front page a while longer. I think you understand the point and I'm pleased by the reaction it has gotten."

Since when did things like truth and integrity become of less value than reaction? And what does it that say about you that you do? It's that type of thinking that cost the GOP the House and the Senate in the first place. And if the DNC starts heading down that slippery slope it'll put them out of power too.

Midtopia linked back with Ripping Redstate