Larison At Taki’s Top Drawer

For me the chief difficulties with this situation are as follows:

1. The writer of the newsletter did not do his ghosting in a subdued third person, but clearly puts himself forward as actually being Ron Paul. He refers to “my experience as a physician,” “my sucessor in Congress,” and “when I ran for president in 1988.” He sends Christmas greetings that mention “my wife Carol” and “my children and grandchildren.” Either the author was extraordinarily reckless in claiming to be Paul, or (more likely, alas) was sufficiently in Paul’s confidence that he knew he could get away with such first-person writing. Less likely, but not out of the question, is the possibility that the writer really was Paul himself.

2. The most disturbing of the pieces is probably this one, which contains no racial bigotry but was clearly written by someone who was a bit (or more) unhinged. We learn that the introduction of slightly redesigned currency will lead to “welfare riots” and “massive unemployment.” The letter is not merely written in Paul’s name, but over his signature.

http://www.tnr.com/downloads/solicitation.pdf

Either the author was extraordinarily reckless in claiming to be Paul, or (more likely, alas) was sufficiently in Paul’s confidence that he knew he could get away with such first-person writing.

Actually, it may be that the editor(s) of the newsletter were in Dr. Paul’s confidence and that while it was understood that people would be writing in his name, it is the editors who delegated this responsibility to those whom they selected and hired.

Maybe. I get the impression, though, that this newsletter was a small thing about four to eight pages long; I doubt that it had substantial layers of bureaucracy on the same level as a major political magazine like National Review, the Nation, the New Republic, etc.

As a practical matter this is all irrelevant. There was never going to be any President Paul. But whole thing just reinforces my beef with his campaign, which doesn’t have much to do with RP himself actually as his supporters. Ron’s fans have allowed themselves to create Ron Paul as the vehicle to carry all their frustrations with mainstream American politics, like he’s the real-life version of that chick who throws the hammer at Big Brother in that first Macintosh ad. Who RP really is, what he thinks, and what he would do if he were President don’t matter very much at all. I wish politics were as simple as that, but unfortunately it’s just not so.

“We learn that the introduction of slightly redesigned currency will lead to “welfare riots” and “massive unemployment.” The letter is not merely written in Paul’s name, but over his signature.”

I remember that was kind of a weird underground issue at the time. Looking back at it now, obviously the disaster scenario didn’t play, but even more than that let’s remember that the Treasury was attempting to protect the integrity of the currency by preventing counterfeiting, so why should RP have opposed it in the first place?

off topic Daniel.
i would really like to see your take on the latest Jonah’s opus and historical revisionism.
Also, some are trying to compare his work to Hayek’s “Road to serfdom” ( I haven’t read that ) .How true that is, and where the fault line lies?

Congrats on the Top Drawer piece. Now that you are hanging out with Taki et al, I suppose it will be summers on the yacht at St. Tropez, and winters at the chalet in Gstaad?