Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Redstate, Ron Paul, and President Hillary An open letter to Redstate on its recent banning of all things Ron Paul, whose name is now verboten in blogs on the site.by Colette von Hessen
(libertarian)
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Dear Redstate:
I have never been a member of your website, but have been reading some of your members' postings recently. The favored sentiment seems to be "Ron Paul and all his spamming supporters are liberals pretending to be Republicans" à la Pajamas Media.
I am 33 years old and have voted in every presidential election since I was 18. I have been Republican the whole time. I have also voted Republican the whole time, except when the party ran candidates who weren't conservative enough, in which case I voted for Harry Browne in '96 instead of Dole. George Bush the Elder got my vote because I was 18, naïve, and assumed he was conservative since he served with President Reagan. He wasn't conservative, but his son makes him look like he is. I didn't want to vote for W, but my pain limit for Al Gore had reached the maximum threshold.
I have always been a strong supporter of Israel, and for very limited government, and pro-life above all else. However, your members seem to blindly follow Jorge Bush with an eery lack of reality -- have you not noticed what he has done to the Republican party? I love George Bush's personality -- therefore I'm constantly defending him to those who would attack the man rather than his policies. I think he means well, but he is not a conservative and never has been. I had reservations about him from day one and did not vote for him in the primaries.
If people like you are what the Republican party has turned into, I am leaving it. You are not conservative. You want big government and endless wars. I'm a Reagan/Goldwater Republican, and there are only two conservatives running this year: Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul. After having uttered those words, I'm sure you will instantly trash my letter. You really should pay attention, though, because the Republicans like you who have hijacked what was once the party of conservatism is going to lose the next election unless you nominate a real conservative. Since Tancredo doesn't have much money, and still supports leaving the troops in Iraq, that leaves us with Ron Paul (not that I'm complaining). You are the ones who will be forcing the United States to swallow the very bitter pill of Hillary Rodham Clinton, cackle and all, in the White House.
I just want to thank you guys for amnesty for illegals, No Child Left Behind, out-of-control, big-government spending, and a reckless foreign policy. If you knew your history you would check out a guy named Robert Taft. Oh, and maybe those crazy liberals called the Founding Fathers.
Have fun watching all the real conservatives leave the party while you are left alone, all 24% of you. Say hello to President Rodham Clinton while you're at it.
Colette von Hessen
New York
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Red State has every right to control their "private property" as they see fit... but when they shut down conversation that isn't directly in line with their ideas, they only promote the image that they are cowards. They've stated pretty plainly that Red State is a site for people who are pro-war. One of the posts regarding the blocking of RP supporters actually said exactly that. They don't have the guts to engage others in conversation unless it's to pat each other on the backs. I suppose we should just let them live in their little Pleasantville.
I couldn't have said it better. Red State is going to drive us to a Red/ Communist state by supporting a policy that will guarantee a Clinton win. Perhaps it is a site run by the Clintons. You never know. Only Ron Paul has any chance against Hillary.
Either the GOP is so out of touch with reality that they are going to slit their own wrists protesting against their only hope, or the GOP and the Dems are now the same party.
No matter what, Red State is doing a great job of supporting Hillary Clinton. It must be run by the Clintons, no one else could be that stupid! This has to be done on purpose. I mean it is called RED State, right? Hillary care seems to fit right into a Red agenda.
I absolutely enjoyed your letter and 100% agree. I am a 30 yr voting conservative republican who will remain so until after I place my vote for the only conservative republican running in the presidential election. That honorable conservative candidate is none other than Ron Paul of Tx.
Posted By: Kevin Houston
Date: 2007-10-24 02:47:59
Amen Sister!
If they are going to behave this way, then I say we should honor their request and not give them any more traffic. "We don't read Wredstate!" should be our motto.
I never did understand this distinction between "real" Republicans and Libertarians pretending to be. The secretary of state makes no such distinction. If I register Republican, which I have, my vote will count every bit as much as theirs.
Hopefully every Ron Paul supporter has already changed their registration and we can swarm the primary polls with just as much energy as we have swarmed Faux Snooze's text poll.
It's funny, for years the Republican party has been asking, begging, scaring, and pleading with libertarians to please join the Republican party and support Republicans. But when we do, we get told to sit down, shut up, and support someone like Giuliani, who is more liberal than George Bush Jr. (and that's saying something)
I think you are on to something. I have been a Republican for 20 years. This party must be pushing Paul behind the scenes. It is really the only thing that makes any sense at this point.
William and Jim, I donot believe that they are pushing Ron Paul behind the scenes by just their sheer determination to keep him and his message from being heard. Remember when the GOP were attempting to get him ousted from being able to even participate in future debates?The MSM have blacked him out, given him less time to answer debate questions, and have just generally attempted to dismiss him. One thing that they didn't count on is that Ron Pauls message would be heard without oversight online. No, there is no agenda for them to get him elected that is for certain. You may have one point and that is that the MSM have actually made people wish to hear Dr. Pauls constitutional message of freedom due to their attempt to black him out. I know that when my government and media donot want me to hear a message, then that will be the exact message that i will seek out for myself.
Posted By: Darryl Schmitz, St. Johns, MI
Date: 2007-10-24 07:25:24
Very well-put Colette. I am a generation older than you and agree completely. Unfortunately, the Republican Party powerbrokers apparently would rather ignore the large number of its members who respect the Constitution and the freedoms it defends, and instead steer itself straight into the iceberg.
Our nation's founders were treated with the same arrogant display of contempt by the British Crown, taunted, and marginalized. History repeats itself as the powerful elite casually tread on us.
i agree, red state has every right to do that, but they are doing exactly what the republican party is doing to newcomers that support ron paul: alienating them and ultimately turning them away from the party. honestly, i don't care. i judge candidates by their positions, and principles, not their party affiliation.
You can just about make Colette's story my own, I am also a registered voting Republican since the age of 18. I was old enough to vote for Ronald Reagan. In fact Reagan was my C & C as I was enlisted with the U.S. Army Airborne. I have been a member of REDSTATE, only briefely as my support for The United States Constitution was not appreciated by those people. I will be voting for the only real conservative running in 2008. Ron Paul!
My complaint with Redstate is not that they want to censor their site, but that they are listed with googlenews so their private rants show up as News. I have written to GoogleNews to complain about the inclusion of a private site that actively practices censorship being included in a list of News Sources. They aren't News and shouldn't be listed everyday as new Ron Paul News. They probably wanted to promote more traffic via googlenews but then they ought to be news-worthy. Maybe more of us should point this out to Google. Let Redstate run their blog as they want, but don't call it news.
Great article. 80% of the people in this country aren't "left" or "right" but in the center. We have more in common than most people realize. The thought of having to vote for Hillary or Rudy makes me sick.
I agree. The party has left me. I am 47 and I too am a republican, not a neocon. The party has left me and it has left its values. It is more left than right in its platform these days. They seem to have no regard for our precious soldiers, our constitution or our financial well being.
I come from a long line of fine Americans, every generation of which has served our country to defend our way of life and our freedoms under a constitutional republic. The senseless disregard for what sacrafice for your country really should mean is destroying our country. Our military is meant to defend us from all threats foreign and domestic. Our military was never intended to be sent into harms way to protect the dollar over the euro, to steal resources from other countries, and to build nations overseas while ours is going bankrupt. It was not meant to be used as a tool for big business to break things so contractors can bleed the taxpayer dry to rebuild them.
If we do not pull together and support the only candidate who is uniting people across all political spectrums we are doomed to 8 years of 'the hildabeast' and socialism. No other candidate has a principled and well thought out stance on a WIDE range of issues.
You may not agree with everything Ron Paul stands for. But if you look at his record you will understand that he would never stand in the way of the constitutional checks and balances that would protect us from any program we felt was way too radical. Ron Paul is a man of ideas. This country need to hear those ideas and work together to solve our problems at home as well as 'over there'.
Posted By: Robert Johnson
Date: 2007-10-24 09:47:15
I've been a republican for over 15 years and I want to say this is a great article! You just spoke for millions!
What happened to my party? It may be time to create a new true "Conservative" party. A party that is truly Pro-Life, Anti-Big-Government, Anti-Big-Spending, and promotes a strong defense with NO NATION BULDING and POLICING THE DAMN WORLD!
It's crazy, the Democrats are big spenders with Social programs and the Republicans are big spenders on nation building and policing the world. Combined they are ruining this country and pushing us into bankruptcy!
As a follow-up note to my previous post, right now Google News is listing 3 RedState "articles" as Ron Paul news. They are not a news site and their anti Paul rants are just rants. This is not acceptable. We cannot allow personal tirades to be considered News or we will end up with far more biased coverage than we already have.
RedState "bans" any comments supporting Ron Paul, but still continues to franticly publish articles slamming Paul and making juvenile insults about those who believe in his positions. Oh yeah, they have better things to talk about, all right. Can't you tell?
Reading this I thought I was reading my own story but I have to admit I didn't bother voting in 2004 (I had finally given up). I voted for Bush I for the same reason, young and thinking he served with Reagan so he must be good enough. Unfortunately for the Republican faithful the message of Freedom has started reaching many that aren't on the Net. My parents have heard me talk about Dr. Paul for years and after hearing him Sunday night, they're planning on voting for him in the primary.
It's quite amusing how redstate is now posting lots of articles with "Ron Paul" in the title so that they show up on Google! They want us to come there so they can taunt us but we can't reply. What a bunch of babies.
This whole episode has turned out to be a great advertisement for Ron Paul. Nobody holds it against him, and every bit of name recognition he can get is a positive thing. Red State now looks like crap. Don't click their link!
Excellent article Colette. I had the same experience as well. I no longer visit that site.
I find it amazing that a group that pretends to support the Republican Party puts so much effort into quelling this groundswell of new members. Republicans lost a congressional majority last year, mostly due to support for the war in Iraq. Polls show 70% of Americans want us out of Iraq as soon as possible. Ron Paul is the only Republican candidate who wants to focus on a strong defense, not empire. He pulls in large groups of that 70%. And this makes the people at that site establish a ban? What party are they supporting again?
I am in my 40’s, and I find that Paul’s big tent of constitutionalism seems to bring in many Democrats and Independents (much like Reagan’s did). He also attracts many younger voters. What is the most effective way for the Republican Party to prevail? Should it embrace those new younger voters who find passion in liberty, or should it berate them because of their enthusiasm? What party are they supporting again?
I no longer visit that site, no matter who they’re shilling for. They are welcome to ban discussion about Ron Paul, while hypocritically riding on the coattails of his popularity, but soon they’ll fall back into the rightful obscurity from which they goose-stepped.
Haha! That is absolutely too true! Noticed their Alexa stats started jumping up around the beginning of October. This was right about the time they started on their Ron Paul defamation, followed by a fascist act of banning the mention of his name, while hypocritically placing their insipid psuedo-news in caps and bold to redicule him -- they can do whatever they want with their private forum, and have every right to voice their opinnions and enforce their rules, but to stiffle an opposing view with banning is something a Totalitarian Despot would smile about no matter how you look at it.
Fact remains that they're riding on the coat-tails of a real American hero, sadly they're more specifically parasites who blindly support the Remanent Neo-Conservative Republic and not the Traditional Conservative Republic a lot of us thought we voted for in 2002-2008.
To be fair, Red State is NOT shutting down ALL Ron Paul Supporters. Instead, anyone who created an account in the last six months is on a sort of Ron-Paul-probation. Older members are free to post about Ron Paul. I think their problem was that they had some Ron Paul supporters showing up and being belligerent, which naturally irritated some of the older members. I'll grant that SOME of these older members might not be as conservative as I would like, but they have also contributed more to Red State's community than many of my fellow Ron Paul supporters.
Let's not harsh on them too much, guys. If we show some respect, I expect they'll come around.
There already is a 3rd Party that is worthy of our attention. The Constitution Party. Ron Paul, a former Libertarian, had to change to Republican because of the lock out of all '3rd' party candidates. The R & D 'parties' run mostly CFR candidates. They are One Worlders & would keep the seelout of the USA going at full speed.
Only Ron Paul has the most comprehensive understanding of the desperate need for the US to be returned to original intent Constitutional Gov.& the sound advice of the Founders.
Ron Paul is a lib one worlder nightmare. But he is the answer to prayer for those of us asking God for an answer to what has been happening in the USA since at least 1913.
I appreciate your sentiment Jonny. I usually try to post respectfully, and feel I always did so at their site. Almost every “regular poster” seemed to feel no need to return respectful comments to respectful posts or questions. By the time I started reading and posting, they had apparently decided to paint all Ron Paul supporters with the same brush, no matter what the next Paul supporter posted. The regular poster’s tone had exactly the same sound as the racist, myopic, intolerant organizations they claim to oppose.
Respect is earned, not demanded.
I gave them respect-on-credit for a few posts, and saw them demonstrate that they’d be deadbeats on the debt. It didn’t matter how many weeks, months, or years I might choose to continue to give. If a poster’s view on foreign policy was different than their official stance, then the poster was attacked personally with unthinking sophomoric abandon.
There may well be some small segment of their membership that refrains from the mob mentality I witnessed, but it’s very well hidden. For the one or two reasonable “regular” posters that dared to write balanced or even positive Ron Paul topics, I do extend my appreciation. The other gleeful bullies merit no further attention – based directly on their own behavior.
I recognize that the site is a private blog, and that it does indeed represent the view of some Republicans…just not THIS Republican.
I just wanted to say that I was pretty much a hardcore liberal since the age of fourteen, I am now twenty seven, and then I heard the message of Ron Paul, which somehow brought me to my senses, remembering that what I really believed in was the constitution and the rights it gave. I had just become so jaded by the lack of respect for it that I was quickly becoming an anarchist/socialist, losing all faith in everything. Luckily I had an adult in my life through my teenage and young adult years who didn't berate my views but was supportive and ready to offer a positive perspective when I was finally open to it.
This is sort of how I view Ron Paul and I think this is why so many young people are drawn to him. After they have pursued ideals for which turned out to be false and were led down a path of nihilism, they finally found out that this led nowhere except negativity and self hatred. Thank god for Ron Paul and his message, even if he doesn't win, he made me able to believe in somebody or at least something, again.
Good one, Collette, but please stay in the Republican Party long enough to vote for Dr.Paul in the Primaries.
After seeing the Republican Debate in Florida, how can they call us rude. They boo'd him and yelled out "We want war!"
They call us crazy?
Redstate is strictly for the 'chickenhawk' branch of the Republican party. All for sending others over to Iraq to fight their ill-begotten wars for them. Saddam is dead already, so why leave our troops in Iraq any longer?
Ron Paul is the only hope the GOP has! Sorry to say, it's going to be Obama, or the Bi*ch, if not Ron Paul. What is wrong with America? There was a time when American's banded together against the central banks of England and taxation to fight for freedom! The time for real freedom is now. Supporting idiot candidates like Clinton, or Bush or puppets like that only keeps us stupid slaves, nothing but consumers, who care only for themselves, as we dig our own graves, and drag the rest of the world down with us. The GOP has more brains and heart than that, and I think theirs two kinds of GOP followers, the ones who think for themselves, and the sheaple who fall in line.
Redstate has banned many people in the past who haven't posted any ridiculous spam or nasty comments. Google around the web and you will find thousands and thousands of people who have been banned by Redstate just because they disagree with your view point. That site is worse than Russia or Chavez.
I've voted for Bush in the last two elections. However, I think the only hope for the Republican Party is Ron Paul. The entire establishment seems to be threatened by Ron Paul and is doing everything in their power to keep him down. It is really amazing, really. Ron Paul has raised more money than John McCain yet Ron Paul is called a long shot by all of the pundits and McCain is not? How can that be?
If Ron Paul doesn't get the nomination ( and he won't due to the mass media and the Republican Party nitwits) I will not be voting Republican. I will vote Democrat to punish the Republican Party. Most of the people I know are planning to do the same thing too. It is the only way to wake them up from their stupor.
The funny thing is they think someone other than Ron Paul can beat Hillary or Obama. Believe me, they don't have a chance because many Republicans who support Ron Paul are going to be so upset that we will vote for Democrats.
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