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Tucker Carlson Pimps Out Ron Paul’s Ride

December 21st, 2007 by Steve

MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson wrote a rather insightful article about the Ron Paul campaign over at The New Republic.  In addition to providing additional insight about Dr. Paul, it was cleverly written, as well.  Here are some of the gems I picked out of the article:

• The crowds at Ron Paul rallies aren’t coming to be entertained. Stylistically, a Paul speech is about as colorful as a tax return. He is the only politician I’ve ever seen who doesn’t draw energy from the audience; his tone is as flat at the conclusion as it was at the beginning. There are no jokes. There’s no warm-up, no shout-out to local luminaries in the room, no inspiring vignettes about ordinary Americans doing their best in the face of this or that bad thing. In fact, there are virtually none of the usual political clichés in a Paul speech. Children may be our future, but Ron Paul isn’t admitting it in public.
• “I like to be unnoticed,” he says, a claim not typically made by presidential candidates. “That’s my personality. I see all the excitement and sometimes I say to myself, ‘Why do they do that?’ I don’t see myself as a big deal.” Ordinarily you’d have to dismiss a line like that out of hand–if he’s so humble, why is he running for president?–but, in Paul’s case, it might be true. In fact, it might be the key to his relative success. His fans don’t read his awkwardness as a social phobia, but as a sign of authenticity.
• But only Paul has introduced a bill to legalize unpasteurized milk. Give yourself five minutes and see if you can think of a more countercultural idea than that. Most people assume that the whole reason we have a government is to make sure the milk gets pasteurized. It takes some stones to argue otherwise, especially if nobody’s paying you to do it. (The raw-milk lobby basically consists of about eight goat-cheese enthusiasts in Manhattan, and possibly the Amish.) Paul is pro-choice on pasteurization entirely for reasons of principle. “I support the right of people to drink whatever they want,” he says.
• Caught in traffic in downtown Vegas on the way to an event, Paul looked out the window at the casinos and mused aloud: “Can you imagine when all those slot machines used real silver dollars? All that silver … ” His words trailed off, as in a pleasant daydream.
• In its affidavit for a search warrant, the FBI accused NORFED of trying to “undermine the United States government’s financial systems by the issuance of a non-governmental competing currency for the purpose of repealing the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code.” That may be a crime, but it’s also pretty close to Ron Paul’s stump speech.
• He seems like someone’s grandfather. I first met up with Paul after a rally at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He apparently hadn’t known I was coming but accepted my arrival with Zen-like calm, welcoming me into the seat next to him in the minivan and offering me baked goods from a plate on his lap. We were both finishing our brownies when he mentioned they’d been baked by a supporter. I stopped chewing. Where I work, this is a major taboo (Rule One: Never eat food sent by viewers), and my concern must have shown. Paul grinned. “Maybe they’re spiked with marijuana,” he said.
• Ron Paul is deeply square, and every bit as deeply committed to your right not to be. “I don’t gamble, but I’m the gambler’s best friend,” he says, boasting of his support for online casinos. He is a Second Amendment absolutist who doesn’t own a gun. “I’ve only fired one a couple of times in my life. I’ve never gotten around to killing anything.”
• The first time I heard Paul talk about monetary policy, I’d felt like a hostage, the only person in the room who didn’t buy into the program. Then, slowly, like so many hostages, I started to open my mind and listen. By the time we got to Reno, unfamiliar thoughts were beginning to occur: Why shouldn’t we worry about the soundness of the currency? What exactly is the dollar backed by anyway? And, if the gold standard is crazy, is it really any crazier than hedge funds? I’d become Patty Hearst, ready to take up arms for the cause, or at least call my accountant and tell him to buy Krugerrands.

Additionally, boobies and prostitutes play a role in the article, too.

Posted in Sex and Politics, Ron Paul, National Politics, Libertarian Movement

5 Responses to “Tucker Carlson Pimps Out Ron Paul’s Ride”

1. Best Jokes For You! » Tucker Carlson Pimps Out Ron Paul’s Ride wrote on 12/21/07 at 7:06 pm :

   […] Steve placed an interesting blog post on Tucker Carlson Pimps Out Ron Paulâ??s RideHere’s a brief overviewThere are no jokes. There’s no warm-up, no shout-out to local luminaries in the room, no inspiring vignettes about ordinary Americans doing their best in the face of this or that bad thing. In fact, there are virtually none of the usual … […]

2. rhys wrote on 12/21/07 at 7:26 pm :

   “Most people assume that the whole reason we have a government is to make sure the milk gets pasteurized.”

   LMFAO!!! Idiots!!!

   Vote Ron Paul!

3. Pimpin Turtle Dot Com wrote on 12/21/07 at 8:26 pm :

   I read the whole thing this morning, it is absolutely great!

4. L.Step wrote on 12/21/07 at 9:37 pm :

   As to prostitution… I wonder how many people know that both St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine have supported prostitution? This not that is is a good, per se, but because, human nature being what it is, prostitution is to be tolerated. Here’s the citation:

   St. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas Ethicus: or, the Moral Teaching of St. Thomas, vol. 1 (Summa Theologica - Prima Secundae, Secunda Secundae Pt.1) > QUESTION X.: OF UNBELIEF IN GENERAL. > paragraph 1012

   “Human government is derived from divine government, and ought to imitate it. But God, almighty and supremely good as He is, nevertheless permits sundry evils to happen in the universe that He might prevent; lest if they were taken away, greater good might be taken away, or even still greater evils ensue. So then also they who preside over human government, do right in tolerating sundry evils lest sundry good things be hindered, or even worse evils be incurred, as Augustine says: “Take away prostitutes from human society, and you disorder the world with lustful intrigues.” So then, though unbelievers sin over their rites, they may be tolerated, either for some good that comes of them, or for some evil that is avoided thereby”.

   There is another translation of this in which St. Thomas, in agreeing with St. Augustine, sees prostitutution as a means to avoid “the deflowering of virgins and the cultivation of unnatural vices”. Well, best to have your young daughter’s boyfriend’s ashes hauled and one cannot wonder if all of the predators might have been a lot better if they had had opportunity to have regular sex? Besides, legalized prostitution would be a good way to see to it that the ladies are protected, rather than prosecuted, and that their health might be checked before going into business. But this sort of rationale cannot make it in our be-jesused world, led by such as Swaggert and Hagee.

5. paul wrote on 12/22/07 at 5:16 am :

   Mitt Romney comes clean

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43ZQQzp93eA

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