All this from a man who's favourite catch-phase for presidential election is "i will bring Liberty & Freedom to America". For Who?.

I understand where Cenk is coming from and I agree that Ron Paul made a fatal error in attaching his name to these news letters. And you can agree with me or not on what I'm about to say but the fact of the matter is this.

These news letters weren't WRITTEN by Ron Paul himself they just had his name on them. If you ever have really listened to his debates or his speeches he is about freedom for all people regardless or race or sex. So I have a hard time believing he read these letters before they were printed and said "ya sure print that it's fine". What I think happened is he employed a racist, sexist, idiot to be editor for this news letter and then trusted the guy way too much.

If you want to fault him for that go ahead I know I do. Mainly because it gives people ammo to shoot down the one hope we have for a good honest man to be President.

>> ^truth-is-the-nemesis:

All this from a man who's favourite catch-phase for presidential election is "i will bring Liberty & Freedom to America". For Who?.

"Witch-Lesbo-Feminists"? I want to see that movie.

My feeling on the matter is that under the presumption of innocence, we should give Paul the benefit of the doubt and attribute the publication of such idiocy to incompetence rather than malice on his part. Now, that's still not a great attribute for a presidential candidate ("Hello, Mr Putin? Hi, I just wanted to say that it wasn't me who sent you that letter declaring war, it was an aide. Hope that clears things up, sorry about the mishap"), but hey, we've all made mistakes, and fair enough Ron Paul's a busy man.

Unfortunately there's still a whole host of other damn good reasons not to vote for him and this is just the straw that broke the camels back.

I very much doubt he'll get the nomination anyway.

How many Iranians will die so that Cenk can avoid having very indirectly supported offensive newsletters? How many more will die in the continued drug wars so his hands can be clean? He disgusts me.

I truly wonder if these exact same articles were published under the name of other politicians if we'd find such a forgiving audience....

I think Cenk's missed the boat on this one. He's blinded by the almighty "Racist" trump card.

As horrible as racism and homophobia and sexism are, IMO, corruption is worse. Why? Because if the corruption reduces the value of your vote, and your freedoms of speech and assembly are legislated away, then it doesn't matter what you think about bigotry because if Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Time Warner want to make it worse, they will do so with their campaign contributions.

I'd vote for an openly racist president who acknowledges his biases and shows he understands the difference between his biases and his duty to the country, if he is going to deal a serious blow to corruption.

I can already hear people saying this is a ridiculous statement, that it's impossible. So to you, consider your own biases: if you're on VS, you probably vote liberal and are anti-religion. If you were in power, and openly acknowledged these biases, would you use your power to make laws unequal for conservatives and the religious? Would you ignore problems they had?

To bring it back to Ron Paul, to my limited knowledge, he has never shown that racism or homophobia are politically motivating factors for him.

So yeah, Cenk's missing the forest for the trees.

I wish he'd just come out and endorse someone else, or give an honest alternative solution. The system is fucked, the country is fucked. Even if Paul is the most racist piece of shit in the US, can you seriously name an alternative for office that will fix anything in the country?

Even if information came to light about the guy raping his own grandmother, the only other alternative for any serious change for the US is to not vote at all, and to continue to protest. I seriously don't know what to make of any of it. There really are no other options.

(Would love to hear some!)

If everyone who thinks the current system is broken just withdraws from the process entirely, then surely nothing changes... well unless you get the armed forces on-side, but then things get really ugly.

Wouldn't it be better to choose your candidates (remember you have many representatives, not just one president) and then make sure they actually represent your views? Otherwise you are just leaving the special interest groups and lobbyists as the only people talking to them.

Or am I missing something here?
>> ^artician:

I wish he'd just come out and endorse someone else, or give an honest alternative solution. The system is fucked, the country is fucked. Even if Paul is the most racist piece of shit in the US, can you seriously name an alternative for office that will fix anything in the country?
Even if information came to light about the guy raping his own grandmother, the only other alternative for any serious change for the US is to not vote at all, and to continue to protest. I seriously don't know what to make of any of it. There really are no other options.
(Would love to hear some!)

/me disengaged.