Talk:Ron Paul/Archive 7

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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Archive 7
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Ron Paul Picture

Could someone add a newer and better picture of Ron Paul like the one on his campaign site? :

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/uploads/image/48.jpg

There may be copyright issues. ~ UBeR 22:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to get permission from the official Campaign... But you could change the Picture on top with the one at "Political Positions", which is this one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Ronpaul1.jpg
Wär das okay?
Photos submitted to Wikicommons must fall under the GNU license. The problem is that once a photo or other visual is posted to Wikipedia there is nothing to prevent the image from being copied and used elsewhere. This, in turn, would open wikipedia up to copyright infringement suits. Not good. BingoDingo 19:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
But the author of this article could switch the photos that are ALREADY within the article. My suggestion is to use the Picture from "8 Political positions" and put it on top of the page - and the one on top down to "8 Political positions". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.169.123.179 (talk) 19:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I finally reached someone from the official campaign. They added a disclaimer so Wikipedia can use the Photo from the campaign-site: "© Ron Paul 2008 PCC. (Unaltered use permitted)" :
New Main-Photo: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/uploads/image/48.jpg
Disclaimer: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/get-involved/downloads/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.169.99.187 (talk • contribs)
I have uploaded it and added it to the article. Someone might want to double check if I put enough information on the image page though, not entirely sure about it. ~Rangeley (talk) 04:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Awesome! Thank you very, very much. :)
Sorry, 'unaltered use' is not enough- images used on wikipedia have to be freely editable- this is why we don't allow the creative commons-no derivatives license for example, even though it's free in all other respects. Wikipedia:Image use policy says that Images which are listed as for non-commercial use only, by permission, or which restrict derivatives are unsuitable for Wikipedia and will be deleted on sight. Borisblue 03:27, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
To clarify, the only problem with that image was the 'unaltered use only' clause. To be considered free, people have to be able to make derivatives and alterations to the original image. See if you can get the campaign to release the image under one of these licenses: Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags/Free_licenses. THanks! Borisblue 13:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
English isn't my Mother tongue: What exactly SHOULD the disclaimer say to be legal??? I really wonder what this fair-use is about I read all the time at Wiki-Images. Tell me what the disclaimer should say and I will pass it on to the campaign. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.169.85.138 (talk) 13:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
It should say this: specifically, that we are allowed to edit the image as well. Borisblue 14:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
It should say: >>> "to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work, to Remix — to adapt the work Under the following conditions: Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.Your fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license)."<<< ?
That's a lot of text for one Picture, isn`t it?
Could you just formulate the disclaimer so I can copy and send it? I'm no lawyer. :D
You just have to say that this image is under the creative commons attribution 3.0 license and then link to that page. One possible way to formulate it can be found here; just tell them to stick that html code on the bottom of the image. If you prefer, just give me their contact information and I'll ask them for you. Borisblue (talk) 00:54, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
The person from the official campaign I spoke to is Mr. Lam (eCampaign Director). His Email-address is |removed| - (I will delete the address as soon you replied in here). It would be great if you could contact him since this is the fastest and less complicated way. :)
Done. Borisblue (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Woohoo! :D Awesome, Boris! Thanks for your help! :) [Oliver]

Not synchronizing main and positions articles

OK, I have decided to give up on selling the obvious benefits of automating the synchronization I have espoused; I will settle for the obviously inferior method of permitting a fork between the positions summary in this article and the positions summary in the positions article. I am doing this on the following proviso: that the vast majority of footnotes in the main article be deleted since it is a summary and the footnotes are repeated in the positions article. Otherwise, the synchronization of the same 40+ footnotes in both articles would be ridiculous busywork. Therefore, when I next condense the summary here, and copy it to the positions article (reviewers rejected the two-sentence lead), besides moving the less notable information to that article, I will also move most footnotes. Though I'm disappointed in the WP audience in this respect, and a dismal response to an RFC on the question at WP:SUMMARY, it is no issue for me to bow for now. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought this was settled weeks ago. Anyway, I think removing the footnotes is going to be a very bad idea as we won't know what is sourced and what isn't. As this is one of the most heavily edited sections on this page, I believe that major problems will arise from the footnotes removal. There is no need to synchronize the footnotes between the two pages. I think it is best to just leave well enough alone as readers get no benefit from the synchronization or removal of the footnotes. Turtlescrubber (talk) 17:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
You nailed one of the problems-- this should not be a heavily edited section, because it's a summary. Anything new should consider going to the sub first; same reason the FNs should go to the sub. Anyone who wants the level of detail provided by the FNs should be in the sub anyway. Also a great bytesaver. If we trim this section and cull its FNs, it will become much less attractive to controversy-- this has, IMHO, already succeeded for the lead, which is very stable nowadays. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree, information should go to the sub first. However, I don't think the vast majority of people editing wikipedia understand how it should work. I also agree that the section should be reduced to the most important points. However, leaving the footnotes in is one way to reduce the editing of this section. People who hit and run this section don't seem to have the time to properly source their additions. But if you want to try the reduction with the removal of footnotes I would be okay with that. That is proper summary policy anyway. However, I see alot of reverting (of other editors) in our future. Turtlescrubber (talk) 00:16, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Ron Paul Liberty Dollar Political Raid

Thank you for your posts but the political Liberty Dollar Raid was carried out by the FBI to try to block the Dr. Ron Paul Revolution in the United States of America (USA). Dr. Ron Paul seems to be the strongest candidate for President of the USA according to a recent poll taken by: www.latinoronpaul.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.224.231.139 (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. I see by your edits that you're very interested in these topics, but I believe you will want to learn about how to create neutral info by reading this link: WP:NPOV. Edits that read like advertisements or are copied from other sites are discouraged. They are not acceptable in main articles and only a little useful in talk pages like this talk page. If you have reliable sources showing the connection between the FBI raid and the Ron Paul Revolution (more than a speculative connection), it might be worth adding to Liberty Dollar, or you have a reliable source for that poll (I couldn't find it at your site), it might be worth adding to 2008 straw polls. Please reply on this talk page, or open an account so you can have your own talk page. John J. Bulten (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Libertarian

This man has been called a libertarian? That makes my head spin. 83.248.138.49 10:08, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

  • What? Are you saying you you don't think he is one? Do you know what a libertarian is? 68.181.240.94 21:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


There are many politically-uninformed Americans who think that 'Libertarian' means 'Liberal', just because they both start with the same 5 letters. If you fall into that category, I suggest visiting Libertarian. In short, a 'Libertarian' is somebody who advocates Liberty. And in the United States (where many would claim that 'Liberty' is one of the primary principles on which this country was founded), a 'Libertarian' is almost indistinguishable from a 'Constitutionalist'. And it is entirely proper to label those who advocate strict adherence to a 200-year-old political system as 'conservatives'.
I hope these comments aren't viewed as some sort of libertarian proselytizing for the libertarian cause -- but "83.248.138.49" isn't the first person I've seen scratching their heads over the definition of this particular political label. There are many 'conservatives' in this country who have come to despise 'liberals'. And it causes them a great deal of confusion when they hear an ultra-conservative such as Paul described as a 'libertarian', because they simply cannot fathom how a 'conservative' can also be a liberal libertarian. I hope I've helped clear up that some of that confusion. - Big Brother 1984 02:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I believe, reading Dr. Paul's platform, that he adheres very closely to the issues near and dear to the Libertarian party. The only exception I see is his stand on abortion. Even then L.P. is somewhat "loose" on the abortion question. Click on Our Issues then Platform to get a summarized rundown of the typical libertarian stance on the issues. Hope this helps. BingoDingo 19:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, to be honest I haven't been closely following the LP's platform process recently, but I certainly hope they haven't taken anything close to Paul's position on immigration. The principled small-l libertarian position is that freedom of movement is a natural human right; you might go to your new country and starve if you can't find a job, but the country doesn't have the right to keep you from coming in and trying. --Trovatore 19:30, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I won't presume to speak for the original poster, but many hard-core libertarians I know think he is not a true libertarian, but rather a minimalist conservative Republican who has milked the libertarian movement for money, and who exploited their label to gratify his ego by running a nationwide race to build up his fundraising list. --Orange Mike 16:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Not sure what a "hardcore libertarian" is. A libertarian is simply someone who believes in liberty. Maybe a "hardcore" or "true libertarian" is an anarchist. Sure, yes, Paul is not an absolute libertarian, because he's not an anarchist. But, he never claimed to be a "hardcore libertarian," "true libertarian," or anarchist. Operation Spooner 17:42, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, let's not digress into a "No true Scotsman" argument. Political labels are often poorly defined, are constantly evolving, and are often misused by opponents and proponents alike for political gain. Paul describes himself as a constitutionalist. And as I said earlier, in the U.S. a constitutionalist is almost indistinguishable from a libertarian. Yes, there are a few things which Paul advocates which contradict the "official" Libertarian party platform -- the two main ones being Abortion and Immigration. As a constitutionalist, Paul sees the Abortion question to be one of criminal law, medical necessity, and personal choice -- all of which call for an answer at the State level. And when it comes to immigration, Paul sees protecting our borders as one of the things that the federal government should be doing. So yes, his "constitutionalist" viewpoint causes his opinions to be slightly different from the big-L Libertarians, but these differences are pretty minor and not enough to completely disqualify him from being called a "libertarian". -- Big Brother 1984 04:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not about the federal government or otherwise; it's much more basic than that. If you have a natural-rights based philosophy of liberty, then you can't make a distinction between Americans and non-Americans -- citizenship is plain irrelevant to the status of a person's natural liberties, including freedom of movement. For a small-l libertarian that comes before any questions about organization of the federal union or the constitution; however valued those may be, they are artifices of Man. For a big-L Libertarian it could be different. As I say I haven't paid much attention to what's been going on with the party in recent years. --Trovatore 04:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
But not all libertarianism is based in natural rights. Many libertarians are consequentialists. They don't subscribe to the non-aggression principle. They don't seek liberty as an end in itslef, but as a means to an end. If too much liberty is going to have bad consequences then they're not going to support liberty to an absolute extent. They simply think "liberty works," in most cases. So a consequentialist is going to support the existence of a state and minimal invasion, such as taxation, and other limitations on liberty. If you're really a natural rights based libertarian, then I think you have to be an anarchist. Operation Spooner 19:37, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
In fact there has been a movement to remove the opposition to "initiation of force" from the Libertarian Party platform, though that movement has not been successful. Operation Spooner 19:39, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying that I don't agree with you. But i think we need to be careful about restricting the use of the word "libertarian" only to those who agree with the particular viewpoint of a particular American political party. We certainly would not call a politician "undemocratic" just because he doesn't endorse the "official" Democratic party platform. Likewise, it is wrong to limit the term "libertarian" to those who endorse the official Libertarian party platform. The dictionary defines a "libertarian" as "a person who advocates liberty, esp. with regard to thought or conduct." [1] And I think it is fair to label Ron Paul as just such a person. But it all depends on how narrowly you wish to define the term. I'm sure there a many in the American Libertarian Party who would view the term "Libertarian socialism" as a contradiction. Yet, Noam Chomsky exists. Again, it all depends on how narrowly you wish to restrict the usage of the term 'libertarian'. In the US, the term 'libertarian' is often restricted to those who adhere to what is more properly called a 'libertarian-capitalist' philosophy. But to try to restrict its usage even further in the way you are suggesting is probably going a bit too far. -- Big Brother 1984 05:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, you do have a point about the fact that there are different notions of "libertarian" around. But I want to emphasize that the way I'm using it has nothing whatsoever to do with the LP or its platform per se. It's a philosophy (or related group of philosphies), not a party. What I'm saying is that I don't really see Paul in the philosophical tradition of Hospers or Nozick or Thoreau or Locke. --Trovatore 18:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

His values of states' rights over individual liberty as evidenced by the We the People Act certainly runs contrary to the principles of libertarianism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.22.53.24 (talk) 19:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I kinda thought WTPA was a valuation of states' rights over federal rights, bringing the rights back closer to the People. I don't see that Act as contradicting any individual liberty. John J. Bulten (talk) 04:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

1996 campaign controversy should be changed to controversies?

1996 campaign controversy could be a sub-heading under controversies, but there have been a few controversies in Dr. Paul's career, and to lump them all under 1996 is disingenuous. Thoughts?Ballbright 17:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I have agreed with creating a new section called "Criticisms" which would include both traditional controversies and objections to his positions. It would ideally be about one sentence per issue, including the 1996 newsletter item, where the fuller discussion can be linked in. However, some minor criticisms would be better in the Positions article or in the Legislation section and would not need repeating in a Criticisms section. This talk topic would be an excellent place to start making a trial list prior to creating the section cold: go ahead. (In keeping with section-title neutrality, I have added "?" to your section title.) John J. Bulten 17:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with USER:John J. Bulten. I have no time to work on this now, but perhaps tonight a rough beginner list could begin to be produced and discussed?Ballbright 19:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree with the inclusion of a "criticism" or "controversy" section. This would be setting the article back and reduce the overall quality and readability of this article. I have no problem with integrating criticisms and controversies into the text of the article but am adamantly opposed to a "dumping ground" criticism or controversy section. Articles like this, ones that have many concerned editors, have enough hands on deck to integrate any notable controversies or criticisms. Turtlescrubber 00:03, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

There's no "criticism" or "controversy" in Giuliani's page, so why should there be one here? We all know Giuliani is a piece of dirt. He's trying to ride 9/11 to the White House. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.115.196.213 (talk) 01:47, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! Please be advised that I find your statement non-neutral. It insults dirt. John J. Bulten (talk) 05:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

A criticism section is necessary. It is very POV to present something as fact, with out exploring the flip side of the coin. With respect to Guliani's page, if it doesn't have a criticism or controversies section, it should. The same goes for all issues or candidates, or entries that have criticisms or controversies levied against them. Now, those should not just be a laundry list of smears. -- Ballbright (talk) 20:45, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't make a blanket assessment like that: the Clinton editors decided her article would be better with controversies mentioned inline (I disagreed in that case); apparently Giuliani editors did the same. I will go with any arising consensus on this issue. My thinking was just that a controversy section would be notable for there being so little controversy in this case. In fact, you could probably even find a reliable source that says that (notably little controversy). See David Durbin's letter to the editor at American Daily. However, whatever we decide, we still need to make that list of controversies.... John J. Bulten (talk) 22:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I strongly recommend against separate controversy sections/articles named as such, both on articles about Republicans and Democrats - as I've said many times, they quickly become POV-dumping grounds for any real or imagined controversy, large or small. Integrate notable controversies into the articles, as we did here with the newsletter. Tvoz |talk 18:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
You may not know, John J., but the established project-wide consensus is very much against a "controversy" or "criticism" section. Be the subject John Edwards or Apple Inc., Tancredo or Microsoft, such sections attract nastiness, partisanship and POV-pushers on all sides. --Orange Mike 19:30, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm with Orangemike on this one. He seems unbiased because he trimmed the link farm but opposes a controversy. Unless all the '08 candidates have a "Controversy" section (because let's face it, all candidates always have some controvery), Ron Paul shouldn't have one. Apartcents (talk) 14:52, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Responses from real editors to a deleted sockpuppet disruption

There was no "POV pushing." I did it to save space because I saw it used that way in another article. My bad. Averyisland (talk) 14:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
No problem Avery. That works well in dry science texts, but this article has been notable for attracting many sticklers for proper footnotes at great length. Thanks for the tip though! John J. Bulten (talk) 19:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for these insights, which are unusually keen for your third edit. I also disagree with a scrolling footnote box, which I think has been undone. I haven't yet heard the concept "POV because both text footnotes are controversial and no text footnotes are not". Both footnotes were developed by careful consensus, and were placed there as agreeable weighting. The pro-life FN is not embarrassing, and the newsletter FN is not any more embarrassing than what appears in the text. Please feel free to get specific. John J. Bulten (talk) 04:25, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
And y'know I forgot something. That "controversial" abortion footnote was restored to the main text long before you got here. Anything you want to tell us, E.Meany? John J. Bulten (talk) 15:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
I really like your passive-aggressive way of calling E.Meany a sock. 199.246.40.54 (talk) 21:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

If I'm reading it correctly, this page has been semi-protected since September. How would I go about being allowed to edit? —This is part of a comment by Apartcents , which was interrupted by the following:

Wait four days and you can edit semiprotected articles. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to edit the first part from:

"Philosophically, Paul has been called conservative, Constitutionalist, and libertarian.[2] He advocates non-interventionist foreign policy, having voted against the Iraq War Resolution, but in favor of force against terrorists in Afghanistan. He favors withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN); supports free trade, rejecting NAFTA as "managed trade"; and opposes amnesty and birthright citizenship for illegal aliens."

To:

Ron Paul has been a conservative, a libertarian and a constitutionalist. He advocates non-interventionist foreign policy, having voted against the Iraq War Resolution, as well as previous military interventions such as the 1999 bombing of Serbia. He did, however, vote in favor of the use of force against terrorists in Afghanistan. He has also suggested issuing letters of marque against Osama bin Laden and members of Al-Qaeda. He favors withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN). He supports free trade but rejects NAFTA as "managed trade." He opposes amnesty for illegal immigration as well as birthright citizenship.

Basically, I think libertarian has precedence over 'Constitutionalist.' I think adding a bit of history by including the Congressman's previous opposition to military intervention (sourcing his book "Freedom Under Siege" we could take it all the way back to the bombing of Libya in the 1980s) adds more historical perspective. He has suggested the use of letters of marque on the campaign trail, which I think is worth mentioning. I separated the international organizations, trade and immigration points because they're not so related as to be crammed into one sentence. And I restructured the way the immigration line runs to make it more clear. I also believe the term 'illegal aliens' is not NPOV and 'illegal immigration' is more neutral. Let me know what you think. Apartcents (talk) 15:03, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll make the changes I think will stand scrutiny. However:
  • Generally, don't start with the leads: start by editing the positions, campaign, or legislation articles first, then their summaries, and then you might have consensus to add weight to the lead.
  • Paul is known as 100% Constitutionalist, but he has numerous differences with many Libertarians.
  • You'll have much more leeway to make the Serbia change and related noninterventionism to Political positions of Ron Paul, which is not semiprotected.
  • Dunno if marque is notable but will look at promoting it.
  • Per your talk page, I've corrected 4 spelling errors above. :D See Talk History for details. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Hah, so typical of me to be high-and-mighty on spelling and grammar and then foul up the first thing I touch. I will peruse the Political Positions page and see if there's anything worth to add or expand on. Thanks for your help! Apartcents (talk) 00:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

In popular culture

I would like to start a headline for Ron Paul references in popular culture (t.v. shows, books, movies) as there will probably be more of them in the coming months. I'm not quite sure how to add things correctly yet, so I don't want to try and mess up the page. I want to add: "Ron Paul is mentioned in William H. Cooke's book of short stories North Pole Lost[2] as being elected President in 2012. How can this be done? --Courtdog (talk) 16:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Until and unless substantial mentions in notable venues start appearing, you are jumping the gun. Wikipedia is not a place for an indiscriminate tally of every time Paul is the subject of a joke on Jay Leno, etc. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
In this one-off case, it would be much more suitable, based on your link, to add Bill Cooke to the list of endorsements in Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008. John J. Bulten (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

100 yard dash time is incorrect?

Probably a nit here but the 100-yard dash time would make Ron Paul the fastest man in history - the current record for 100 meters (which is approx 91 yards) is 10.74 seconds. Could someone with editing rights please correct this? Thanks!

Sundesh (talk) 14:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC) sundesh

Actually 100 yards would be around 91m so that time is possible. The source also confirms the 9.7s figure. 199.246.40.54 (talk) 15:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
See 100-yard dash for Jim Thorpe's and Eric Liddell's times. John J. Bulten (talk) 19:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Sanctity of Life Act representation disputed

I hit up Foofighter20x with this message so hopefully he'll go ahead and revert his change, since I am not allowed to do it, but he changed the wording on the SoLA to say it removed abortion from federal jurisdiction when it actually did much more than that. His explanation in edit summary was that resolutions, sense of the congress and declarations are non-binding, but the Sanctity of Life Act (HR 776) sought to revise US Code. The whole bill can be found here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-776. Apartcents (talk) 21:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, fixed. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:48, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I changed it back as the bill nowhere states that Title 1, United States Code, Section 8 is anywhere amended. Since that Section of code is law, a simple declaration will not change it. It has to be amended. The bill doesn't amend that code, but only changes the jurisdiction of the federal courts. You guys are obviously neither law students nor lawyers, else you'd know this. Even the Law Library of Congress says so:

“ Statutory construction can be rather complex and many court cases turn on it; the Law Library of Congress cannot interpret statutes for you, nor does there appear to be any simple guide online anywhere dealing with this subject.

As far as your specific question, normally the parts of the bill that you are referring to, the Findings/Declarations parts, are not considered parts of the substantive portion of the bill. In many bills "Declarations" is spelled out further, as "Declarations of Policy" or "Declarations of Purpose." The language in this section would normally be used by courts to understand legislative intent, and can be used to resolve ambiguities in the substantive portion of the bill, but not create ambiguities. It seems highly unlikely that a court would hold that the "Declarations" would have any legal effect of their own.

We examined the following resources but did not find any mention of the "Declarations" part of a bill having any legal effect other than as an aid in interpreting the substantive portion of the bill:

Norman J. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction, 6th Edition, Vol. 1A (West Group 2000), Library of Congress Call Number KF 425. S56 2000.
American Jurisprudence 2d, Vol. 73, "Statutes" (West Group 2001), Library of Congress Call No. KF 154 .A42 2001.
Hein Online, a database of legal periodicals, including the Harvard Journal on Legislation, 1964-.
American Law Reports Federal, 1st and 2d Series, Lawyers Co-operative Pub. Co., 1969-.

The Southerland set (9 volumes) is particularly useful if you wish to explore the subject of statutory construction further. You may be able to find it at a local academic law library, such as one associated with a law school. However, the sections on Policy are extremely short.

Hopefully this information is helpful.

Public Services Division Law Library of Congress

 ”

Foofighter20x (talk) 20:41, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

(For the non-Foo audience:) I'll grant that I misspoke the word "amend" which would more properly be "expand". 1 USC 8(c) says:
Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being "born alive" as defined in this section.
Therefore technically it doesn't need amendment. Now the proposed act actually says, "In the exercise of the powers of the Congress-- (1) the Congress declares that ... the term `person' shall include" preborns, effective upon enactment, and "apply[ing] to any case pending on such date of enactment." To me, that means that the 1 USC 8 definition is being expanded or broadened as of enactment, and in relation to any pending case upon enactment. But the solution is to find a more exact wording, which I've attempted. John J. Bulten (talk) 21:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah... So what? You still have yet to address the fact that the Law Library of Congress stated that the Finding and Declaration has ZERO legal weight. Until you address that, my point stands that the only effect of the bill is to limit the jurisdictions of the federal courts. Foofighter20x (talk) 13:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Source where the Law LoC says so; original research is not the Wikipedia way. Apartcents (talk) 18:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Is "pro-life" a slur?

I don't think it is accurate to call Ron Paul's position "pro-life." The real pro-life goal is to have the federal government force states to ban abortion, or to have federal laws against abortion. Paul is against that just as much as he is against the federal government intervening on the other side. 20.4.187.51 (talk) 15:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC) Dan Holdgreiwe 11/29/2007

He has described himself as pro-life many times. Here's one example, second paragraph. Also, his stance that Roe v Wade should be overturned is a de facto stance that abortion should be banned, as many states would do so in the absence of this federal law. Photouploaded (talk) 15:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
See, JJB, this is why I advocated having those refs in the lede. Photouploaded (talk) 15:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Um, the IP user's POV is not consistent with the article pro-life, which is a ref in the lede. Actually, this is why editors successfully advocated for semiprotection. John J. Bulten (talk) 21:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Question

I read that Ron Paul was for getting rid of the IRS, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, and the Federal Reserve. If this is true, wouldn't it be appropriate to post it under political positions? Brian Pearson (talk) 15:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Can you source it? --Orange Mike | Talk 15:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
We already have "would eliminate most federal government agencies" here and mention the Fed specifically. The article Political positions of Ron Paul has been found more suitable for a longer list. There that list currently includes IRS and DHS specifically, says "would severely reduce the role of the CIA" (sounds more accurate to me than "getting rid of"), and has no mention of FBI abolishment. Feel free to source and improve there. John J. Bulten (talk) 19:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Does this organizational chart [3] help? Also, here is a list from the Homeland Security site: [4] Brian Pearson (talk) 00:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Is there a list? I am particularly interested in the Food and Drug Administration. Does Paul want to abolish the FDA? I could not find this in the political positions article. 86.75.8.30 (talk) 06:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

We already sourced the best lists we had. Don't believe he is mentioning the FDA this year; his more nuanced position is here, but he definitely opposes them. If interested, consider editing Political positions of Ron Paul first. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Who are his counterparts in other countries?

I want to vote but live in Sweden. Many people on the internet talk about Ron Paul. But I'm not allowed to vote in the American elections. Can we make a list of what people are his counterparts in other countries so I can check that list out and see if there is a local guy I can vote for? Tommy 21:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

This isn't really what Wikipedia talk pages are for - but you may be interested in User:Lordmetroid/Libertarian Party (Sweden). Or not, depending on which aspects of Paul's platform are attractive to you. Haukur 21:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
See also Frihetsfronten in Sweden and Fridemokratene in Norway. Terjen 22:20, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Lead is too promotional

I'd recommend toning down the language in the article lead. Right now it sounds more like a campaign platform than a biographical summary. The first paragraph is okay, but after that it gets into what he "favors" and "advocates" and has some very speculative information that is leaning towards original research about his search engine placement. I'd recommend reducing the lead to a summary of the article as a whole, meaning Paul's entire life and actual notable accomplishments, without giving undue weight to the current campaign issues and poll standing. --Elonka 22:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The good news is that in a few weeks, search placements, straw polls, fundraising and all that can be replaced by hard numbers about caucus and primary results and placements. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I believe I am in an edit war with User:Elonka at Moneybomb. I would appreciate it if regular editors of Ron Paul, assuming they recognize that Elonka's view above or her other edit to this page have not been the consensus here for months, would comment at WP:COIN#Moneybomb about her related views in editing Moneybomb, as well as her decision to start editing Ron Paul out of the blue for no other apparent reason than that I was editing it. John J. Bulten 15:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I have reviewed the talkpage archives, and have not seen this consensus. If I missed it, I do apologize. Could you please provide a link to the specific discussion(s)? --Elonka 16:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to be late with this, I was sick. Aside from the several inline consensus comments already mentioned, here I achieve consensus with Photouploaded about the abortion language, perhaps the most controversial lead sentence; here several editors affirm (or decline to challenge) the importance of the stability of the then-current lead (though I presented this section poorly); and here I describe that consensus at that point for future reference (without challenge except for new edits from Vidor, with whom I obtained a separate consensus over a nonlead issue). I did mention a standing expressed discomfort of Gloriamarie's for Photouploaded's wording, but Gloriamarie has not commented lately. Those are good examples of how consensus is built by neutral discussion of all potential POVs. Now that there is a different group of editors with a stated disagreement, we must use consensus-building procedures again. So far (aside from the unprotection episode) I have not objected seriously to the editing of the lead, but if a specific textual disagreement should arise (you have not stated any) we will need to discuss here. (Oh, by the way, everything in the lead is thoroughly reliably sourced according to consensus, as you can tell when you find the expanded statements in the article. We also agreed to include only the most necessary footnotes in the lead.) John J. Bulten (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no desire to enter any Moneybomb war, but I can say that Elonka's comment above is quite relevant. The last paragraph of the lead section:

During his 2008 presidential campaign, Paul places in the top tier in Republican straw polls, but has substantially lower numbers in landline opinion polls. He has strong Internet support and had the largest one-day online fundraiser in political history.[4] Ron Paul is the top presidential candidate Web search term as measured by Hitwise, Alexa Internet, and Technorati; he has several times more YouTube subscribers than any other presidential candidate.

is a true classic of WP:Undue weight. It presents five metrics by which Paul appears to be the leader or a frontrunner for the nomination and only one metric by which Paul appears to be a second tier trailer with no hope of winning the nomination, and even that is spun with the 'landline' modifier. I pointed this out several times when the article was up for FAC. If there is a "consensus" in favor of the current lead section, it's only because editors have given up trying to argue the issue, a common reaction when dealing with Paulites. But again, the good news is that ultimately Paul's campaign can be measured by cold hard results: he finished nth in the Iowa caucus with x% of the support, he finished mth in the New Hampshire primary with y% of the vote, he gained z% of the total vote across the February 5 primaries, he has p total delegates so far, and so on. Wasted Time R 16:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Elonka raises a good point that I have also made on the articles of several politicians, and possibly here (who remembers) - that these are biographies of notable individuals who happen to be running for President - not biographies of Presidential candidates. The article, and therefore the lede, should reflect the individual's entire life and career, and not be unduly focused on this campaign. And Wasted's observation about what can appear to be consensus but is more indicative of exhaustion is quite apt - and not only here. (And I have never read Moneybomb - don't even know what it is.) Tvoz |talk 17:28, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been following this article for awhile and agree with Elonka that the lead should be revised. In particular, I'm amazed that the the implication that Paul is a frontrunner has been permitted to stand. The false equivalence between straw polls and "landline" polls is also clearly the work of committed supporters who edit here.

Myself included, based on the above I count four editors who support as yet unspecified changes to this lead. There is no consensus for keeping it in its present form. --Newsroom hierarchies 21:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's a lot to respond to, which I'll need to do more effectively later, and I don't mind that there's a different group of editors here than before. But please propose any revised text in talk rather than in the main article. For now, let me point out that Internet, fundraising, and straw-poll metrics will still be significant after we can add primary and delegate metrics. But do you have any other metrics that Paul is "second-tier" in? Further, both straw polls and landline polls (40% of US phones are cells) have many admitted flaws, and they have different importance. However, if you have reliable sources demonstrating the "false equivalence", they would be great for the general straw poll and opinion poll articles, which are also on my watchlist. John J. Bulten 21:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Uhh, the job of political candidates is to gain votes and win elections. That's what the lead needs to report. The other metrics will still be of some secondary importance, in that they indicate the level of supporter enthusiasm and commitment that a candidate had during a campaign, and should indeed go into the body of the article ... but electoral results are the bottom line and need to go at the top. I can just see your lead a few weeks from now — "... but had substantially lower numbers in a specific-date, fixed-locations electronic and paper preference indication process." Wasted Time R 22:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I have great respect for you, Wasted, but in this campaign Ron Paul has already won more than twenty "specific-date, fixed-locations electronic and paper preference indication process"es. They're called straw polls. Now about those "second-tier" metrics? How about ticket-line length for the Tonight Show (longest in years)? But you've given me an idea: Move some content to the notable Ron Paul Revolution. We'll see. John J. Bulten 22:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
It looks like we have a consensus to change the lead. Would someone like to go ahead and edit it to whatever you think is reasonable, and then we can go from there? Or if other editors want, I'm willing to take a shot at it. --Elonka 03:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Not to be too subtle, but per WP:CON what you have is a 4-1 "disagreement", not consensus, disagreement "resolved through polite reasoning, cooperation, and if necessary, negotiation on talk pages, in an attempt to develop and maintain a neutral point of view which consensus can agree upon"-- just as I suggested. We also have disagreement on how to proceed-- whether by direct editing or by talk. These disagreements were also initiated and solicited by an editor who I believe is edit warring against me, who followed me to this article, and whose interest in the lead is therefore open to question. Before I search the archives and edit history for what I know is there, I would direct each of you to the demonstrable consensus expressed by several inline comments in the lead and elsewhere which indicate that users should not edit the lead lightly. Please propose here. John J. Bulten 10:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
By the way, due to the history of this article with which Wasted and Tvoz are familiar, I've initiated RCU about User:Newsroom hierarchies. If the user is truly new to Wikipedia, there is nothing to fear and welcome. If not, it might suddenly be down to 3-1. John J. Bulten 12:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
John, I've seen you add a lot of good information to Wikipedia, but in this case, I'm sorry, it appears that you have a clear Conflict of Interest as regards Ron Paul (see WP:COIN#Moneybomb). As such, it's really not appropriate for you to be declaring whether or not there's consensus. It is also not appropriate for you to be insisting on "right of approval" for article edits. Based on your contribs John J. Bulten (talk · contribs), I also have to admit increasing concern about your tactics here: Editing other people's posts to change their meaning, making accusations of sockpuppetry, attempting to get WP:V changed to suit your needs, issuing personal attacks on other editors, expanding this dispute to off-wiki websites, and now you're disregarding the consensus of other editors in a tendentious manner. It is my recommendation that you cease work on anything related to Ron Paul or election-related topics on Wikipedia. On the flip side, I do think that you are a very good writer, and you clearly have a lot of energy and interest in researching various sources. I'd like to see you remain as an editor on Wikipedia. But please, could you find other topics to work on, where you're not quite so invested with the subject? --Elonka 18:11, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I posted a COI warning to his talk page. — Athaenara ✉ 20:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Re Internet polls: Since many of them are subject to manipulation from people with multiple votes, Internet polling should not be mentioned at all. Brian Pearson 03:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add that many of the mentioned straw polls I've seen are somewhat small, subject to error, and not representative of the population. These should also not be mentioned in the article. Brian Pearson (talk) 02:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
The straw polls are definitely notable and apparently given coverage in NPOV sources like major media. Please keep in mind that elections are determined through voting by self-selected individuals, not by representative polling of the population at large. Terjen (talk) 04:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
At the risk of repeating myself, this discussion is hopeless, you'll never convince some people that straw polls aren't the best thing since straw itself, but the good news is that in a few short weeks we can throw the straw out of the barn and the landlines out of the house, and just report actual caucus and primary election results, good bad or indifferent. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Error in information

"Military service and medical career Paul considered becoming a Lutheran minister like two of his brothers[12] (Jerrold has a doctorate in counseling and attended Princeton Seminary; David pastors Trinity Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan).[8][13] Instead he decided to pursue a medical doctorate at Duke University School of Medicine, attaining it in 1961. He interned and began residency training, both in internal medicine, at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit (1961–1962);[25] Carol also ran a dance school in their basement.[9]

The training was soon interrupted when he was drafted into the U.S. Air Force during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[26] He remained in the military during the early years of the Vietnam War.[27] He served active duty as a flight surgeon from 1963 to 1965, attending to the ear, nose, and throat problems of pilots in South Korea, Iran, Ethiopia, and Turkey, but was never sent to Vietnam. Based out of Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Paul achieved the rank of captain[10][28] and obtained his private pilot's license.[15] The experience of performing physicals on helicopter pilot candidates, at a time when he saw many copters being shot down, deeply affected Paul; he later considered his indirect association with the Vietnam War as a catalyst for his rejection of isolationist foreign policies and political intervention.[29]"

In specific regards to his "rejection of isolationism". If you look at the source given it states "As the years have gone by, I have become much more fascinated with foreign policy as a result of that experience and it has played a role in leading me to totally reject our insane foreign policy which causes us to get involved in places like Vietnam." Mr. Paul is an isolationist. He states his opinions about interfering in other wars in an interview on youtube by James Kotecki on <http://youtube.com/watch?v=umGpLGbWs9U>. If someone would please fix this it would be appreciated.

Zjwong01 (talk) 06:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

You haven't made the case that Paul is an Isolationist. Terjen (talk) 15:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

family

I like Ron Paul and everything, but the information under "Family" seems irrelevant and inappropriate for Wikipedia (wife's chocolate chip cookies, his telephone calls to her, etc) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.119.11.159 (talk) 00:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it is irrelevant for the article, but my main concern is how far up it is in the article. This information is not pertinent to the main areas of his public life. User:Noggaholic 06:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
on the other hand, it doesn't really violate WP:BLP, although I agree that family needs to be constrained to basic facts such as names of children and grandchildren, spouse, what she does, and marriage(s) information, and any relevant news that has affected the candidate's family life (i.e. divorces, domestic violence, marrying a cousin, etc.) I think the family section is useful, but BLP has really limited the negative information used, which ends up giving undue weight to seemingly innocuous yet potentially biased information. Calwatch 07:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Irrespective of whether or not I like Ron Paul, I think the family article seems to be a bit pathos-laden to be an encyclopedia entry; what his wife wore in their wedding is irrelevant to his viability as a candidate. Seijihyouronka (talk) 22:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, many previous editors, including FA reviewers, thought there had not been enough biographical info. This article is not about "his public life" alone (which hasn't yet merited a separate article other than Legislation sponsored by Ron Paul), nor about "his viability as a candidate" (see Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008). This is a biography and his private life ought to be weighted as fully as reliable sourcing and BLP permit; I have not seen consensus anywhere that anyone's family should be constrained to names and categories and dates. It is also properly placed in the article; where else would it go? Naturally a successful, vibrant 50-year marriage is an exceptional claim, fully sourced of course. No hard feelings, but I will probably revert much of this later under bold, revert, discuss, looking forward to an interesting discussion; I also have another source for additional of this. If, of course, you have any reliably sourced negative information, please state it neutrally here. John J. Bulten (talk) 23:20, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I found the Family section misplaced. The previous paragraph ends with him finishing collage (apparently for biology) and then jumps to kids who are "also doctors." If I had my zin, I'd move that paragraph down to somewhere after school and military. Isn't that how it is for most politicians' pages? First paragraph introduces, second starts Early Life, third school/military or early career, fourth current family life, rest of article more specific if needed.?? Anyway, it didn't seem to flow properly. It's good to read an article assuming zero knowledge of the subject.Gaviidae (talk) 14:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Please replace

Please replace [[Alex Jones]] with [[Alex Jones (radio)|Alex Jones]] in the article. It is locked or something. Swarm Internationale (talk) 05:42, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Done, my friend, done. Swarm Internationale (talk) 06:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Political positions POV problem

(paraphrasing)Paul believes in constitutional rights.... his concerns about civil liberties leads him to oppose laws restricting them, such as the Patriot Act, etc. ..... He believes regulation of medical decisions about maternal or fetal health is "best handled at the state level"

I realize this is a sensitive issue, but the way it is worded here is a political frame designed to confuse the issue by selectively leading out certain relevant facts (e.g. implication that "regulation of medical decisions" is obviously not in contradiction of "constitutional rights" or "civil liberties concerns"). Whether or not it is the case that government's right trump individual rights in one area but not in the next is a complicated issue - especially when there is a dispute over whether or not the individual's right in question is indeed constitutionally protected, or whether it is being weighed against another individual's right. Ron Paul obviously has a position on this, and it should be stated; but not in such a way that the issue is glossed over or that presents his opinion as a non-opinion while ignoring the controversy entirely.

Something should probably be mentioned about Paul's apparent disregard for constitutional limitations on some government establishments of religion as well. His position that the equal protection clause does not extend the bill of rights' protections of individual freedoms to states - such as the |prohibition on government establishment of religion - is a minority opinion and is in direct opposition to decades of Supreme Court precedent and reasoning. Lauding him as someone who believes all constitutional rights are to be protected while ignoring certain cases where he believes the contrary is POV and is not appropriate. Ofus (talk) 16:38, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps your exposition, Easter eggs included, is just too subtle or rarefied for me. The given phrases we used, particularly the last, are the result of careful consensus. Please provide the source for Paul's alleged ignorance of Constitutional rights or other allegedly problematic positions. John J. Bulten (talk) 21:04, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


It would probably be more accurate to say that Ron Paul is a "federalist" or a "Constitutionalist", and that he believes the Constitution strictly limits the powers of the Federal government, and that includes limiting the powers of the Federal government to impose its views of rights under the Constitution onto the states. This view means he may have a different view about whether a particular right under the Bill of Rights can be abridged by a state, even where he may not believe it can be abridged by the Federal Government.

69.181.184.38 (talk) 05:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Dr. Paul's picture

I figured his latest official picture from his Congressional office was the most appropriate. Help with the copyright would be most appreciated :)

Jackman333 (talk) 20:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)jackman333

On his campaign website, www.ronpaul2008.com, it states that anyone may syndicate that photo as long as it is not edited.72.213.128.243 (talk) 23:04, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
That's not good enough to be included in WP as free content -- free content must be modifiable. The picture could possibly be used under a fair use claim if no equivalent free image is available, but in that case the permission statement on the website is (as I understand it) irrelevant -- we might do the same thing, under the same circumstances, with a fully-copyrighted, unlicensed, all-rights-reserved image. --Trovatore (talk) 00:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Censoring Ron Paul

Many media networks have been censoring Ron Paul's progress in this current election. Can someone write NON-BIASED section on this in the article, stating that this is part of the reason that he has failed to receive broader attention? I'm sure there are many sources on this, for instance, even though it is almost heresy to wikipedia to cite youtube as a source, go to www.youtube.com and search Ron Paul censored. Thanks!72.213.128.243 (talk) 23:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

YouTube is not a reliable source; that's just common sense. If you have any actual reliable sources that make such a claim (not freep or other bloggers), please present them; I'm skeptical, but willing to be persuaded. Otherwise, you come across as part of the tinfoil-hat brigade. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
You'd have a hard time proving that the media conspire to keep second-tier candidates in their places, given the huge burst of media attention that Mike Huckabee is now getting. Wasted Time R (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
So the conspiracy theory, I suppose, would be that the media are promoting Huckabee as a nominatable-but-unelectable Republican, hoping to sew up the election for the eventual Democratic nominee in the Republican primaries. The kind of thing Garry South pulled with Bill Simon (fat lot of good it did Gray Davis, in the long run). It's not actually absurd on its face. I agree you'd have a hard time proving it though. --Trovatore (talk) 18:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
It is absurd on the face of it, because first Huckabee started rising in the polls, then the media started paying attention to him. Before that, Huckabee was relegated to Brownback-Hunter-Tancredo levels of media obscurity, well below Paul. Wasted Time R (talk) 18:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, the theory assumes that they need him to be nominatable, so the polls would have an effect on that, sure. --Trovatore (talk) 18:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, you convinced me. The all-powerful MSM conspire to elect Democrats as president. That explains why 5 of the last 7 presidents have been Democrats. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
The theory would also have to explain why the media has switched from promoting nominatable-but-unelectable Democrats, for the benefit of the Republicans (Dukakis, Mondale, Kerry, etc.) to doing the reverse for the benefit of the Dems. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Look, I don't think there's especially a "conspiracy" to ignore Ron Paul. I just don't think the Huckabee thing refutes it, not by itself. --Trovatore (talk) 20:50, 12 December 2007 (UTC)'
Media is not censoring anyone by deciding what they want to report. Censoring is the event of denying someone to speak his mind by the means of threats and coercion hence why the government is usually the culprit. If you have a magazine you wouldn't want everything to be published, you wouldn't have any obligation to anyone to publish anything in your magazine just because you happen to own a magazine brand. Bias it may be but that is anyone's right as part of property rights to decide how and not one want to run ones business. It is not censoring though because no one is stopping the person by threats or coercion from speaking his mind in another way, possibly through other magazines or his own. Lord Metroid (talk) 01:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Looking at all that from a French perspective is pretty funny I must say. The whole panel of arguments have been used during the French presidential election this year : one candidate claimed journalists ignored him and were obbeying orders of very bad powerful people that hated him. Others claimed someone had helped a candidate being designated for the election so that he be sure to win. Even if I pretty much support Ron Paul ideas, the whole idea of a conspiracy makes me lauch :) --Bombastus (talk) 22:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

General style and structure

Personal articles separate from political biography

I think all pages on Wikipedia named as a person must be simply biographies of persons. All other information such as political career need to be placed on separate pages, such as 'Politics of Ron Paul´. Thank you! Teemu Ruskeepää (talk) 08:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Being a politician is a large part of who he is. Do you want to go to Albert Einstein's page and seperate out "science of Albert Einstein" or perhaps "basketball playing of Michael Jordan"?SJMNY (talk) 06:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

"States' rights"

Libertarians like Dr. Paul believe that people have rights and states have powers. As a constitutionalist he believes that the state and federal governments have distinct and clearly defined powers. This article attributes a belief in "states' rights" to him, but has he ever used that term? If not I believe it seriously misrepresents his views. Nicmart (talk) 04:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

My friend, remember to do a quick search next time. "site:www.house.gov/paul "states' rights"" at ronpoogle.com turns up 9 times he has advocated states' rights in his Congressional papers alone. However, I will grant that his denial of collectivist rights in other cases, and the question of whether "states' rights" is a metonymy for "states' powers", might warrant a little discussion. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ron Paul advertising

FYI, I've been spending a good portion of today deleting Ron Paul advertising that's been showing up around Wikipedia. The ads are probably being placed because his supporters are trying to draw attention to an upcoming fundraiser. Some of the ads are being added in sneaky ways, for example they're putting ads into an article, by putting edit summaries like "punctuation tweak".[5] They're also expanding the ads to non-Paul-related articles, such as "List of rebellions."[6] If you see more, I recommend both reverting on sight, and also checking the editor's contribs, to see if they've been engaging in similar activities on other articles. On heavily-targeted articles, we also may wish to request page protection. --Elonka 04:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

  • I would strongly suggest including user banning in your arsenal, if something like that is coming from an account regularly. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a promotional tool for political candidates, is really not supposed to be a promotional tool for party nomination candidates, and totally should not be a tool for promotion generally. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, and even the Ron Paul and Political Positions of Ron Paul articles are a deeply embarassing violation of core Wikipedia principles. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 14:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

EDIT PROTECTED

{{editprotected}} Opensecrets.org is listed twice in the external links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.184.143.23 (talk • contribs) 07:01, 20 December 2007

Well, they are to different pages at opensecrets.org, though. I don't know that both are needed but I don't feel strongly enough about it to remove the link for you. If you do feel strongly about it, why not register an account? --Trovatore (talk) 08:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Religion

A fox news debate stated that Ron Paul was Protestant, not Baptist like the article says. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.238.92.179 (talk) 07:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Baptists are Protestants. ~ 199.17.28.56 (talk) 07:14, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Also Fox News isn't reliable.12.158.161.59 (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not in agreement that Fox News isn't as reliable as the next media conglomerate. I have found that the arrival of Fox has changed the dynamic of the news media (as did the Internet and Drudge). Outspoken advocates seem to continue to promote the myth that Fox has a monopoly on the misalignment of truth - perhaps due to changing political positions, discomfort to change, or other reason. Fox is no different than the other larger organizations (or individuals). I'm not promoting Fox over the others, I'm just trying to add perspective by reminding others how the world operated under the common rubric of network news (ABC, NBC, CBS) for most of the 20th century. Being conditioned since childhood, it's difficult for any one to change; even old guys like me :-) (Oxfordden (talk) 16:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC))

While this is very much a side note, I'd just like to point out that as I understand it, Baptists claim not to be Protestant -- that is, they say they have nothing to do with the Protestant reformation. --Trovatore (talk) 21:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Who on Earth told you that? I was raised Southern Baptist, and nobody I ever talked to said anything of the sort! --Orange Mike | Talk 21:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
See Baptist#Viewpoint: Baptist perpetuity. --Trovatore (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Perpetuity theory was not unheard of among Baptists where I grew up (although no such high-falutin' terminology was used); but the more serious preachers I encountered all dismissed it as a pious little fairy tale based on wishful thinking. That still didn't cause any of those I encountered who believed in it to describe Baptists as "not Protestant"! From their/our point of view, that would be tantamount to declaring oneself a Catholic. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
We have several choices among reliable sources for which one-word gloss to use. I think Baptist is best as I believe it most accurately reflects what church he attends regularly. (No I haven't sourced that.) John J. Bulten (talk) 16:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

New record

Ron Paul broke the record for most single-day donations during a primary (old holder was John Kerry), as well most online donations in a 24 hour period. This should be noted in the article. ~ 199.17.28.56 (talk) 07:15, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, a record of this magnitude deserves to be mentioned here. It should most likey have it's own article as well. Byates5637 (talk) 16:33, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
It's in the article already. But the idea that it should have it's own article[!] just reveals a strong lack of sense of proportion and a possible NPOV problem! --Orange Mike | Talk 17:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
As a die-hard Paul supporter myself, I concur entirely. Fractalchez (talk) 19:44, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. I'm a Paul backer as well, but a separate article would be unnecessary and over the top.--JayJasper (talk) 21:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
How about we get the AMOUNT of the one day donation drive corrected. It was 6.026 million; not the 6.4 million in the article. This is from the campaign website. 24.68.242.107 (talk) 10:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Which figure is from a reliable third-party source, rather than the campaign itself? That's the one we have to use as a reliable source, I'm thinking. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
The most reliable source is the campaign right now. We won't get solid figures from any independent source until the end of this fundraising quarter. (87.127.104.65 (talk) 22:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC))
If we don't have an impartial source, we cannot include the information. Verifiability trumps bragging rights. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Orangemike is correct. I'm concerned that there seems to be a misconception from some editors here, that in the absence of a reliable source, that we might be able to use the "best available" source. But sorry, no, that's not how it works. On Wikipedia, in the case of promotional or contentious information, we have to use a reliable source. If such a source is not available, the information does not go into the article. It's one of the core policies of Wikipedia. See WP:V. --Elonka 23:34, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Although not independent, the campaign has been reliable thus far. Furthermore, not including such a big event over overzealous enforcement of wikipedia guidelines is a bit stupid IMO. Include it, just mention that it won't be independently confirmed until the end of December. (87.127.104.65 (talk) 13:54, 19 December 2007 (UTC))

Question: Am I correct in thinking that we have no source claiming that Paul has the largest one-day total in history, that is, for both Republicans and Democrats.?--Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 02:32, 19 December 2007 (UTC)


The IHT reports it was bigger than the previous one-day record, which was held by John Kerry (a Democrat) in the 2004 cycle. [7] I think we consider the IHT a reputable source? --Golbez (talk) 02:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I was mostly concerned that people were posting things that the sources failed to confirm. But lest my Internet skillz be called into question, let it be known that I did find a NYT story that answered my question about 30 seconds after I posted that. (Next time, I'll) Google first, Wikipedia second... --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 03:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
The record has been broken. --Both Hilary's (unofficial) and Kerry's official. However we will not know the actual amount until the end of the 4Q (Dec. 31). But we know that 6 million is in "confirmed credit cards" and .4-.6 million is in sales from the merchandise and mail in donations.--Duchamps comb (talk) 20:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Why can't M.D. be in the opening sentence?

Other biographical articles like Henry Morgentaler (MD and LLD) and Richard Dawkins (FRS) contain titles in the opening sentence. Where is the Wikipedia policy against this?

--RucasHost (talk) 06:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty clear here. FRS is permitted as a nobility title. MD and LLD should be demoted in the other article. John J. Bulten (talk) 15:50, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
the style guide is indeed clear on that, thought i find it a silly rule, anyone care to join me in discussing it there?SJMNY (talk) 19:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Polling Numbers

Must the straw poll numbers be included? They aren't even remotely close to being scientific. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.191.124.3 (talk) 00:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You know that, and I know that, but the Paulites go bonkers on this subject ... it's not worth arguing, in a few days we'll have real results. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
straw poll numbers get cited by the national media so even if they aren't scientific they are worthy of mention. in the lead though? i'm not sure they need to be there in an article about the man's life (and not solely about his 2008 campaign.) SJMNY (talk) 08:18, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
PS. It's off the page since it was duplicated on the campaign page anyway. - CheshireKatz (talk) 21:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Oversized 2008 Presidential Campaign section

This section is much too large and almost entirely duplicated in various other articles. I took a glance at the other candidates' individual pages and their campaign sections have all been truncated down to three or four paragraphs. Considering the current length of this article as it is, compression is necessary. - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Criticism section

I've just finished going through the entire article and I must say there is a worrisome lack of criticism of Mr. Paul. A number of his political stances are very controversial and yet none of the criticism aimed at him appears in this article, particularly in comparison to the articles about his fellow candidates and congressmen. I'm very pleased to see how well-sourced his various stances are and compliments to many of the editors for giving the article a great flow. You clearly love your candidate and I think a splendid article has been composed. Yet, in the interest of preserving NPOV and producing a comprehensive article, I suggest we work on organizing a criticism section. I'm currently looking into some reliable sources. Thoughts or recommendations on some of the most contentious stances worth addressing? - CheshireKatz (talk) 19:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

You should know that "Criticism" sections, like "Controversies" sections, are poorly thought of for biographical articles; see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_United_States_presidential_elections#Status of "controversies" pages. The fact that his political stances are "very controversial" is unremarkable; that's the whole point of politics, to process competing philosophies and interests. The place to discuss the overall philosphy and arguments for and against is Libertarianism and its related articles, Conservatism in the United States and its related articles, etc. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
agree with WT. Controversies over a person's actions (say some who allegedly lied about military service) belong their page, but disagreements with their political beliefs, even if those beliefs are "fringe" beliefs, belong on the page about those beliefs. we shouldn't have a page that says "hillary clinton believes in government-run healthcare" and then launch into a diatribe against inefficient big government. likewise criticism of Paul's beliefs (abolishing the IRS for example) belong on another page. SJMNY (talk) 19:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for pointing me to the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_United_States_presidential_elections#Status of "controversies" pages. I clearly misunderstood some things. However, I think I'm still confused. So if Hillary Clinton takes a controversial position or votes in congress in a controversial way, that should be dealt with on what page? - CheshireKatz (talk) 20:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Senate career of Hillary Rodham Clinton describes many of her votes, and in some cases, brief reasons for her vote, such as why she voted against confirmation of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court. In some cases, her votes or her overall positions are further described in Political positions of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Major issues and votes will often have their own articles describing the pro's and con's associated with them, such as Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination or Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. But if you are looking for a place where we say, half of America thought Clinton was wrong for voting against Alito because he would make a fine strict constructionist judge and his and not her judicial philosophy is in conformance with the Constitution, no we don't have that; it would be redundant and pointless and double the size of everything. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
This is very interesting and seems intuitively like a real departure from WP:Criticism (citing Igor Stravinsky#Criticism). I don't particularly oppose that guideline, although, I'm still concerned over the uniformity. Consider Mitt Romney's political positions section with Paul's. There seems to be a gap in the criticism Romney receives in that section and the lack of criticism in Paul's. That seems troubling if such criticism really ought to be excluded from his individual page. - CheshireKatz (talk) 20:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Political positions sections and subarticles are the place to describe evolutions or contradictions in political figures' positions over time. Romney has had a lot of these, whereas Paul has probably been much more consistent, thus accounting for the difference you see. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
And do you really think that, when we list political figure X's position on abortion or global warming or the Iraq War on their political positions page, that we should digress into an extended description of the reasons for or against that position? Ugh. It would go on forever, end up in edit battles, generate heat without light. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Hrrrm, yes, you're right, I see that now. I'm still not sure I find Romney's treatment balanced, but that's a debate to take up on that article's talk page anyway. Thanks for setting me straight. - CheshireKatz (talk) 21:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

100 yard Dash

Re: "He ran the 100-yard dash in 9.7 seconds".

Wow, that's a truly amazing time. A world record by some distance, in fact. (The world record for 100m is 9.74 seconds, and 100 yards is a significantly longer distance.)--82.6.32.109 (talk) 18:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh, my mistake. 100 metres is longer than a 100 yards after all. Stupid imperial measurements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.6.32.109 (talk) 18:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I am going to call BS on this: In the 1952 Olympics Lindy Remigino of the US won the 100M dash with a time of 10.4. The typical conversion from meters to yards in the 100M dash is to deduct 0.9 seconds. Therefore, one would argue that the Olympic champ, the year before, was capable of a 9.5 second 100 yd dash, or a time 2/10ths of a second faster then Ron Paul? Sorry. This is a big false. Further, the footnote is questionable at best - who in fact wrote the article? The fact that it is in the Seattle Times does not equate with being true. Unless this can be verified, independently, I would strongly suggest it and the rest of Ron Paul's athletic achievements be looked at with a jaundiced eye.

Hilarious. Does any one here know the real time Ron Paul can run a 100-yard dash? --Armaetin (talk) 21:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

From 1933 (when the legendary Jesse Owens did it) through 1954 [8] through at least 1961 [9], the U.S. high school national record for the 100 yard dash was 9.4 seconds. The source says Paul was Pennsylvania state champion at 220 yards, so obviously he was top high school runner. Was he so good that he came within 0.3 seconds of the national H.S. record? It's certainly possible. The other thing to remember is that these races were all hand-timed back then, with a good deal of honest human error involved once you're into the tenths of seconds. So maybe his real time wasn't quite that good, but that's what it got recorded as. In any case, I don't see grounds to take it out of the article, unless further research comes up with a more definitive source. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah, here is a Gettysburg College page that shows Ron Paul ran a 100 yard dash in 9.9 seconds in 1957 for them, their third-fastest result ever at the time. He's also listed for a 21.64 time in the 200 meter run in 1957, still their T-5 best time ever today in that event. I don't see any reason to doubt his sprinter bona fides. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've now updated the article itself with the most precise times and cites I can find on the issue, with further explications in footnotes. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Wasted, I did my best to respect your hard work by moving content to 100 m, 100-yard dash, and 200 m. It seemed just a hair too many sentences on this topic for this article. His time is not controversial and the additional sourcing here and in the linked articles is sufficient to address ordinary confusion. IMHO, extraordinary confusion does not need extraordinary controversy resolution procedures, it just needs people to be referred (repeatedly) to the talk discussions. John J. Bulten (talk) 01:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I think some of your edits to the track articles are misguided, but I'll let the athletics editors sort that out. I restored one point to this article, the comparison to the national high school record for the 100 yard dash at the time. This kind of comparison is commonly done with junior athletes and high school sports to indicate how good someone really is, and has nothing to do with whether someone was questioning the 9.7 time or not. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

BTP

I think having an entire section of the Boston Tea Party reenactment is rather unnecessary in relationship to his campaign. I'm sensing WP:WEIGHT issues. ~ UBeR (talk) 04:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The Tea Party gets more coverage in the main article than it does in the Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 article; that's an inversion of how it should be. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Now we also have separate sections on the Ron Paul Blimp and the Ron Paul Revolution (he hired Prince's band?). The latter sets a new mark for the worst-written Paulite propaganda yet. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
imo the campaign page, not the biography page, is the right place for campaign stunts like the reenactmentSJMNY (talk) 00:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
I moved the BTP & Ron Paul Blimp events to the campaign page as suggested. I additionally truncated the '08 presidential campaign section with the exception of the Ron Paul Revolution section, acquiescing to a protest due to that page's potential future deletion. Ultimately, it also might be best moved to the campaign page. - CheshireKatz (talk) 21:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
You truncated about 20K. I trust you verified that everything notable appeared in the subarticle, my friend? When the 4 or 5 Paul deletion arguments run their course, I think major cleanup of the campaign article, and/or ensuring the campaign section here meets proper summary style, will be indicated and may require consulting the text you truncated. John J. Bulten (talk) 02:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Image source problem with Image:Ronpaulsignature.png

Image Copyright problem

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grass roots support section

Regarding this section:

The Ron Paul Revolution (also known as the Ron Paul: R[evol]ution, R-love-ution, and R-evol-ution) is a term coined to represent the grass roots supporters of 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul. When Dr. Paul delivers a speech, the audience members are often seen wearing "RON PAUL REVOLUTION" t-shirts.[111] "Paulites tend to be tech-savvy, tired of traditional politics and suspicious of their government and the mainstream media. Consisting of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and Constitution Party followers uniting behind some or all of the Paul libertarian agenda -- ending the war in Iraq, abolishing gun control laws, legalizing marijuana and dismantling big hunks of the U.S. government, especially the IRS and Federal Reserve system."[112] His supporters, comprising of over 100,000 friends on MySpace.com and over 82,000 supporters on Meetup.com, have collectively have planned or held nearly 21,000 offline events to rally support (and raise money) for their candidate.[113] When asked about the "Revolution" Ron Paul answered, "It’s an ideological revolution," that he opposed violence and esteemed the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King and Gandhi that civil disobedience should be used to bring about social change. On December 16th, 2007, the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, Ron Paul supporters made history by raising 6 million dollars in a 24 hour period- more money than any candidate has raised in a single day in U.S. political history.

I think this can be dealt with in the article without requiring its own subsection, but I was reverted when I tried to delete it. Personally, I feel that it is poorly written, uses quotes in odd ways (is the quote about MLK and Gandhi necessary? this would seem to imply that some people feel that the "Ron Paul Revolution" is a putsch of some sort, which I don't think is the case), and repeats information that appears elsewhere (Ron Paul has MySpace friends). --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 00:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I reverted you AGAIN. I feel you have a hard time dealing with this (as you tagged my page Ron Paul Revolution page for deletion), now this section. Also I guess it is hard to deal with since almost all of it is a direct quote from mainstream media... And YES some of the media (Glenn Beck) have brought up issues with the "Revolution" being violent or domestic terrorists, so it is perfect valid to have Dr. Paul’s response to such allegations. Please do not delete again with out others views, as yours are all to apparent.--Duchamps_comb MFA 16:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, please note that this topic is dealt with in the Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008‎ article (though that, like pretty much every other article connected to Ron Paul could use some trimming as well). There is little reason to keep this particular passage in an article about Ron Paul, the person. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 16:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I moved the section to RP 2008, took out the redundancy about myspace and meetup. Put in social networking, which I think is a better fit.--Duchamps_comb MFA 18:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
This is part of the Ron Paul interview with Glenn Beck.[10]

BECK: OK. Dr. Paul, I`m going to take a break. And in the break, I`m going to feed something down to your location that I`m not going to show on the air. My life has been threatened. I`ve had to wear a vest and have securities. I`ve had an S.W.A.T. team watch my family because of people who say they support you. I want to show you something that is out on the Internet about me and from people that say they support you. And I want to get your thoughts on this, and let`s set to rest some things when we come back. Shall we?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: We`re back with Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who is joining us tonight for a full hour. I want to make this very clear. I believe that Ron Paul, in general, the group of supporters, some of whom I`ve met while I was on the road, are amazing people. Without any help from the official campaign, Ron Paul supporters have coined the term "The Ron Paul Revolution." They developed the concept for the Guy Fawkes Day money bomb back on November 5th which raised over $4 million. They hired a blimp to fly over New Hampshire to promote the Ron Paul campaign. Last Sunday, they held a tea party, where they broke John Kerry`s single day primary fundraising record by collecting another $6 million. But the downside is, when you have rabid supporters, some of them believe they can speak to their own agendas using the candidate`s name. And I just in the break showed Dr. Paul just a clip, a very small part of a five- minute video that is on the Internet where I am named a traitor and traitors should be executed. Can you -- would you like to address that at all, sir?

---So YES, Newsroom hierarchies I'd say that my quotes about the Revolution being violen are valid. And yes You feel you can just do anything with section You want. With out coming to a Consensus, so STOP... Untill others voice their thoughts.--Duchamps_comb MFA 20:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

A discussion of this text is ongoing over here. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 20:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

So much for neutral point of view?

I challenge anyone here to find a Psalm in the Bible as worshipful of God as this entry is of Ron Paul. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hosiah (talk • contribs) 22:54, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

An article on Wikipedia with a conservative bias? Not likely, pal. Your problem is that any article that isn't as heavily biased towards liberalism as most on this "encyclopedia" (hardy har har) strikes you as being conservative. LOL! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.43 (talk) 00:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Dude...anything on the internet that's not Ron Paul biased? Not likely —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.151.42.134 (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia isn't biased towards liberalism, conservatives are simply wrong. Whent eh global warming page says global warming is real, it's not being biased, that's jsut the fucking fact —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.7.149.9 (talk) 13:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
This article is completely worshipful, horribly biased pap. I'm only in favour of it because anything that helps Ron Paul win the nomination for the Republicans is good for America - by giving the Democrats a pro-militias John Bircher to run against. If they can't beat one of those, they don't deserve to be a US politcal party. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 20:52, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Don't kid yourself, Glory; that's what some of us thought in 1980. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

To Hosiah and anyone else who feels this article is biased: If you feel like this article is biased, why not introduce a "Criticism" section? After all, Ron Paul's positions are highly controversial, and both the right and left wings should find plenty to criticize about in his ideology. You could even put in the fact that Ron Paul has requested earmarks for his congressional district despite his opposition to federal spending. That bit of information tarnishes his record as Dr. No, but don't forget to include his defense: although he requested the earmarks, he voted against them in the end. That makes me wonder what kind of logic Ron Paul operates on (is he crazy or does he have hidden agendas?), but Wikipedia must be as NPOV as possible. And Ron Paul also justified the request for earmarks by saying that he was only his congressional district their fair share of the federal tax money. Of course, if Ron Paul enjoys his share of the pork, what gives Ron Paul supporters the moral right to criticize other politicians for doing the same? Anyway, I'm not going to write a Criticism section because I'm too biased against Ron Paul (I find his ideology illogical and nonsensical), but you believe this article is biased, take steps to correct this NPOV. --Armaetin (talk) 20:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The article is locked. Only certain people are allowed to edit it. This further confirms the bias of the article and the bias of Wikipaedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.212.34.244 (talk) 02:14, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
That's nonsense. The article has been heavily vandalized; semi-protection just means that we know which editor makes changes. No bias is involved. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

To Armaetin-Congress is given the right to divy up funds. If he didn't ask for those funds they would have been given to the executive branch. They take their money and he feels that it is part of his responsibility as a representative from that district to ask for the money back. He is against tax breaks, but he will take them if they are given to him. Just wanted to clear that up. Tynews2001 (talk) 00:01, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

since we're getting technical, please note that congress has been granted the power to divy up funds; congress and the government in general does not have rights. Anastrophe (talk) 00:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Winners of caucus

Okay so since he came in 5th... does that mean he doesn't get to move on or does it mean he's just not as popular in that state and better luck in the next... Forgive my ignorance, i'm kinda new to this who politics thing >_< —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.174.135.188 (talk) 04:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

It means he better hope for a good run in New Hampshire. ~ UBeR (talk) 04:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
The RP articles should stay clear of whether his 10%, 5 out of 7 finish in Iowa is good or bad ... that's up to the pundits and spinners. The average such politico would probably say he did better in Iowa than you might expect, given the makeup of the Iowa Republicans, but given all the money he has, needs to do better than this in New Hampshire, home of the Free State Project. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

citation needed

Anyone got a source for the "opposes birthright citizenship and amnesty" bit in the political positions section? i'm putting a cite needed tag on it, as that seems to be a pretty big position to list without a source. Grandmartin11 (talk) 06:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Length

This article is just way too long for the subject. Ron Paul is still a relative fringe candidate, with minimal chances of winning the Republican nomination, and was only truly relevant on such a scale recently. This page reeks of recentism, among other things. I'm going to go through the article and try and remove as much useless information as I can, in order to trim down the article to a size more appropriate for the subject. Yes, I know a lot of the Ron Paul fanboys will be offended by this, but ultimately that's the problem in the first place. 24.83.107.213 (talk) 04:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with your statement. Article length should not be determined by relative importance of the article's subject. Less popular candidates should not be held to a different standard in the length of their articles than other candidates. Especially since this article is well written and researched, extraordinarily well sourced, organized, etc...obviously because there are many people who care about providing this information. Please refrain from removing information in an effort to "downsize" the article so it is "proportionate with the candidate's importance" unless a consensus can be established first. --smileyborg (talk) 18:27, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with the article's length. Even though Paul's chances of winning the nomination are extremely slim, he's become more than a fringe candidate. He clearly has represented and energized a segment of the electorate, somewhat similar to what primary campaigns of George Wallace, Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, Pat Buchanan and others have done in the past. Wasted Time R (talk) 19:10, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Would you mind telling us under what username you intend to edit this semiprotected article, so we can connect the two and amicably discuss changes toward consensus? Thanks. BTW I am on the verge of a major compression of the Campaign and Legislation sections, as I've adverted here before. John J. Bulten (talk) 22:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I forgot to login before writing that comment. I apologize for arrogantly declaring I would drastically change the article without first achieving some kind of consensus here. Also, I intend to add a brief sentence or two about Don Black (of stormfront.org infamy) and his donations to Ron Paul. I think being supported by the white nationalist/neo-nazi community bears some relevance.CloutierFan02 (talk) 06:00, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Ron Paul's chance of winning the election or even a nomination may be incredibly low, but I don't understand why a person's Wikipedia article length should be proportional to that person's probability of winning an election. If this was true, then logically, we should delete the Wikipedia article on Issac Newton because he has zero probability of winning a government election. --Armaetin (talk) 21:15, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

If you are going to mention that Don Black donated $500, be sure to mention the names of the people who donated the other 99.9975% of the $20M raised last year, along with brief biographical descriptions, and the reasons for their donations. --The Four Deuces (talk) 07:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

He could probably just be listed in the "endorsements" section along with the 200 others already there. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 00:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


Media bias?

Why is the media bias not mentioned on this wiki page? Most major media sources (Fox specifically) have ignored Ron Paul regarding the 2008 elections as much as possible. One only needs to google something like this http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=media+ignoring+ron+paul to find a large number of sources to prove it.

Yet I find that the wiki page hasn't had edits to clarify a possible conspiracy against the candidate. As a supposedly unbiased internet encyclopedia, wikipedia should have a section about this.

Also, in case some of you are refusing to click on a few links yourselves, CNN even criticized other media outlets for ignoring Ron Paul. http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/016716.html

71.215.220.196 (talk) 20:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Bias is very difficult to prove. Hunter beat Paul in Wyoming, do you see a lot of coverage on Hunter? They pretty much ignored Tancredo, Biden and Dodd too. Bottom line is that they are covering candidates they believe have a chance and unless he starts placing in the top 4 consistently, they probably won't cover him. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

It's common for lesser parties to remain ignored simply because they are, well, lesser. Yet as numerous links show, Ron Paul is not a lesser party. The fact he gathered over four million dollars in one day should prove that. Also, don't you think it strange that CNN would even attack other media outlets if there was not bias?
If you would kindly read the links from the google link, many of them compare achievements Paul made to the other candidates. While candidates like Obama are a media frenzy, similar achievements made by Paul have been ignored altogether.
There's also a quick and dirty method to show who is most popular at the moment. Merely google their names. Obama placed first, Hilary second, and Paul third. I think the fact Paul is third most popular on google searches shows how popular he is on the internet. Yet the media reports him less than a TENTH as much as the other popular candidates.
And, again, this man received a record-breaking amount of campaign funds in one day. Yet he was barely noticed by most TV media. I believe this is evidence for a heavy amount of bias. Comparing Paul (who is quite popular) to other (not-so-popular) candidates is like comparing apples to oranges. 71.215.220.196 (talk) 16:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
It's not about how much money was raised by each candidate; it's about what numbers a candidate has been polling, and Ron Paul hasn't been doing too well there. I guarantee you that if he gets a 4th or better spot in NH media outlets are going to mention him. A google search says nothing about a candidate except for their internet popularity, which as we've seen from online polls does not match reality. 199.246.40.54 (talk) 16:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Improper Editing

I'm noticing that someone is going about deleting past comments that are substantiative and noteworthy for whatever reason. Unless there is something outright unethical, NOTHING should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.191.124.3 (talk) 08:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

David Duke

I've heard something about David Duke supporting Ron Paul in his bid for the Republican nomination. That would be pretty significant, along with other support from white supremacists, and refusal to vote for the renewal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if someone wants to find and source... 72.66.248.17 (talk) 22:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Reverted to previous, pre TNR article version

- - The TNR article does not bring anything "new," into the debate in terms of race. They cite more articles, sure, and they are certainly politically correct. But all of the racist quotations with Paul's name on it are from "the newsletter," (involving the fired ghost writer) are not actually racist, but referring to Martin Luther King's philandering and plagiarism. (well documented, per his wikipedia page) - - Others praise David Duke for his views on the economy, yet criticize his racist past, though saying people can change. Remember, Duke (fraudulently) was claiming to have renounced racism at the time. (2) If anyone is interested in what he was saying when he ran, see this video. - - Paul also refers to segregation as "evil," in one of the newsletters. - - Please read the newsletters for yourselves, in their entiriety, before passing judgment on the matter. Especially in such a politically sensitive day as today, we cannot afford to put out inaccurate information. - - Also, read Lew Rockwell'ss link below for the secession thing. (3) - [- http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.ht...3-de262573a129 ] -

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fowCMENOeb0 ] - [- http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewr...es/018418.html]

SkepticMatt (talk) 23:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that Lew Rockwell is a neutral source, but the point is that the material should be organized together, not ignored as you seem to be doing. As long as we include what Ron Paul said in response - not Lew Rockwell - we are neutrally presenting material. The fact that TNR brings in more newsletters is exactly the point - it appears not to be an isolated item from 1996, and that is noteworthy. Tvoz |talk 23:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Of course Lew Rockwell isn't neutral. He worked for Paul and is endorsing him. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:23, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Well frankly, I'm not convinced you're a neutral source. How about we remove the update until we have all READ the articles. TNR piece was very dishonest in my mind, and it has receieved no mainstream traction... All I want to do is see a reasonable debate between wikipedians on this before we alter a presidential election.

SkepticMatt (talk) 23:44, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Uh, I'm not a source at all, I'm an editor interested in having a neutral, accessible article. And I did read the piece. As for mainstream traction, well, as I suspect you know, Ron Paul has to stand on his head to get any coverage at all, even negative, so that's hardly the criterion we need to use. TNR is considered a reliable source, and I for one would not have agreed to the addition if it did not prominently include Paul's reply, which it does. As for altering a presidential election - I wouldn't worry too much about the power of this article to do so. Tvoz |talk 23:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Given this link, I've upgraded it to full protection for a week. Veinor (talk to me) 00:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I believe the addition of the TNR article and Mr. Paul's response is appropriate. Months ago, I thought the newsletter controversy to be hardly notable, but it's renewed publicity has changed my mind. However, I believe we must include Mr. Paul's response to keep the section NPOV. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 00:07, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
This article is very complimentary to Ron Paul. The section about the newsletter is factual and NPOV. Paisan30 (talk) 00:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
He's agreeing, just saying we need to make sure to include Paul's response as well. Veinor (talk to me) 00:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I know... shouldn't have put my reply under his -- I was just commenting in general. And yes, when I added the new story, I had Paul's response in there as well. Paisan30 (talk) 00:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to point out, in case no one has, that the New Republic feature includes PDF copies of the actual newsletters. This is the first time that I know of that the newsletters themselves have been available on the internet, as opposed to quotes and excerpts in places like Salon.com and the Houston Chronicle. Vidor (talk) 00:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)


It doesn't deserve its own section simply because someone published a blatantly false attack and smear article against him. ~ UBeR (talk) 03:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It deserves its own section because it's one of the more significant events in Paul's candidacy (not to mention, there's no reason to think the article is "blatantly false" at all). --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 03:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Other than, of course, the fact he had nothing to do with the letters. ~ UBeR (talk) 04:28, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
This is neither a chatroom nor a platform. Please only discuss the content of the article here and not your own opinion on the reporting of others. Bartleby (talk) 05:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I am discussing the article. I said it didn't deserve its own section. ~ UBeR (talk) 08:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

While the page is protected, I made some edits in my userspace: User:Deleuze/Ron_Paul#.22Ron_Paul_Report.22_newsletter_controversy. Comments? Bartleby (talk) 06:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

This section should not be removed. These newsletters are real, valid, and important pieces of information people deserve to know about. Most importantly, they are an important subject relating to Mr.Paul's career as a politician. ♣DeathRattle101 AKA LUX♣ (verbalizegenerosity) 07:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Gee, I don't know! I believe Wikipedia has a duty to ignore the dubious activities of politicians just in case we somehow make people question the torrent of lies that their campaign is made out of. Politicians depend upon those lies to get elected! We'd be taking jobs! Ruining lives! If someone decides not to vote for a candidate because they found out he was actually a gigantic bigot via Wikipedia, could you live with yourself? Could you sleep at night, knowing that Wikipedia was used for the unbiased reporting of facts? I think we can all agree that the Ron Paul page isn't just for the cherry-picked plus points of the man's life and career - it's for outright fabrications and whitewashing, lest somehow the destined saviour of the free world is not elected as President - for life! --FuegoFish (talk) 08:01, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind this is still a biography of a living person, and must conform to WP:BLP. Specious attacks and smears from a political opinion magazine hardly pass muster. ~ UBeR (talk) 08:42, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The reports include the primary sources. The Paul campaign has not disputed these newsletter issues; in fact Paul has taken "moral responsibility" for them and his campaign apologized for them, most recently on the phone to Tucker Carlson, yesterday, according to his own statement on camera. An apology is an explicit acknowledgment of transgression. There are zero sources that disagree with the fact that the PDF files included in the TNR article are the real deal. Devpty01 (talk) 14:33, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
"Specious attacks and smears from a political opinion magazine hardly pass muster" I bet if the magazine was endorsing Paul, you'd think they were a "respected media outlet". Why attack the message when you can attack the messenger, right? Niteshift36 (talk) 20:21, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The venue is very much important. It's the basis of WP:RS. The message is specious. The venue is a political opinion magazine. Period. ~ UBeR (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear fellow editors: This is a bit of hair-splitting, but I can't help myself: With regard to discussions about whether a potential source for material for the article (e.g., Rockwell) is "neutral," I believe the Wikipedia rule on Neutral Point of View does not require that sources be neutral or unbiased. Odd as it may sound, I would argue that sources -- and source material -- are allowed to be blatantly non-neutral and blatantly biased.
Instead, the issue for a source (and, by extension, for source material to be used in an article) is whether that source is reliable.
I would argue that neutrality (i.e., Neutral Point of View) relates instead to how the source material (whether biased or not) is presented. For example: "John Smith says that Mary Jones is a bad person" would arguably be a neutral presentation (even assuming John is biased or "non-neutral" about Mary). However, "John Smith says that Mary Jones a bad person, and John Smith is right" would be non-neutral (i.e., this would be Wikipedia itself taking a stand on whether the source -- John Smith -- is right about Mary).
Merely using material from a source that is biased -- even grossly biased -- does not necessarily violate the Wikipedia rule on Neutral Point of View.
However, on Reliability, I would argue that the bias (if any) of a source might be relevant in evaluating whether that source is reliable for purposes of Wikipedia. I express no opinion pro or con on whether Rockwell is "reliable". That's my two cents worth. Yours, Famspear (talk) 20:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

From the rule on Neutral Point of View:

As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. The neutral point of view policy is often misunderstood. The acronym NPOV does not mean "no points of view". The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV". The neutral point of view is a point of view that is neutral, that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject. Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized, but not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular. Detailed articles might also contain the mutual evaluations of each viewpoint, but studiously refrain from asserting which is better. One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate, including the mutual perspectives and the published evidence. When editorial bias toward one particular point of view can be detected, the article needs to be fixed.

See: [11] (bolding added). Yours, Famspear (talk) 20:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

That of course is second to WP:BLP, which states,
poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,[12] talk pages, user pages, and project space.
Biographies of living persons (BLPs) must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm".
A political opinion magazine is a poor source to include smears and sensationalism about a living person. The actual newsletters are fine, as are neutral sources, such as the AP or NYT. Original research and attack articles in opinion magazines are not. ~ UBeR (talk) 21:10, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
How is this OR? There's 20 years of racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and conspiracy minded commentary ina newsletter with RP's name on it (his signature even in some cases). Not new, but the extent of it was not widely known. A magazine editor/journalist writes a piece on how far back these comments go and in the process lets the RP campaign make their case in the story. The story gets national attention. The RP campaign issues an public explanation. All of this has been noted in this article neutrally. For these reasons, WP:BLP is not an issue here either. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Dear editor UBeR: I believe your argument seems to be that a political opinion magazine such as The National Review would not be considered a reliable source for purposes of Wikipedia on background information about newsletters allegedy issued years ago by Ron Paul, a current candidate for the presidency.
"Titillating" is of course the present participle of the verb "titillate," which in turn means "to excite or stimulate pleasurably"; see Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, p. 1492 (2nd Coll. Ed. 1978). For example, a story about the history of the relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky might be considered "titillating."
I would argue that the term "titillating" does not apply very well here. For the report from The National Review, your term "sensationalism" -- in the sense of "the use of strongly emotional subject matter [ . . . ] that is intended to shock, startle, thrill, excite, etc."; see Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, p. 1296 (2nd Coll. Ed. 1978) -- seems more appropriate.
Political opinion magazines of all stripes, both left and right, liberal and conservative, may indeed engage in attacks or "hit pieces" in the form of strongly negative articles on political candidates, especially during a political campaign. Some of these articles may or may not be interpreted by a reader as "smears and sensationalism," depending in part on the bias of each reader. Using such sources would not necessarily violate Wikipedia policy.
I think you are correct that the rules on biographies of living persons may be useful here.
Privacy: There does not appear to be a "privacy" issue involved for Ron Paul in a story about a newsletter allegedy put out by Ron Paul.
On the "do no harm" concept, the Wikipedia concept of "do no harm" arguably should not be misinterpreted to mean "report absolutely nothing scandalous or sensationalistic" about a living person." Wikipedia is full of material about lots of living people that is scandalous, sensationalistic -- and properly sourced. We probably aren't going to be able to justify exclusion of material under the rubric of "do not harm" merely because the material is strongly negative toward a living person.
I don't believe we can support exclusion of the material merely because you feel it is "smears and sensationalism."
On your comment about original research, the Wikipedia rule against Original Research prohibits original research only by Wikipedia editors, not by the source (e.g., The National Review) someone is proposing to cite in a Wikipedia article. So, any discussion of "OR" should focus on whether the material constitutes the "OR" of a Wikipedia editor. Merely having a Wikipedia editor summarize and cite sources is not necessarily original research (in the narrow Wikipedia sense) by that Wikipedia editor.
However, that does not end the inquiry.
The issue is not whether The National Review is biased or neutral. We can assume for the sake of argument that it is both biased and unneutral; it's a political opinion magazine, after all.
Issue: Is The National Review considered to be a reliable source, for purposes of Wikipedia, in a story about allegedly bigoted statements in newsletters allegedly published many years ago by Ron Paul, a current candidate for the presidency? Famspear (talk) 22:11, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Quick note: TNR here refers to The New Republic, not the National Review. The New Republic, while considered center-left, is a far less openly partisan publication. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 22:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Note that when I mentioned "Original research," I was referring to people using the primary source to make assumptions and using synthesis--not to the TNR article. ~ UBeR (talk) 22:53, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

50 Most Effective Members of Congress Blurb

This seems to be spin by the Paul Campaign. The actual article seems to have been titled "50 Ways To Do the Job of Congress" as quoted from Paul's own press releases [13]. The article was complimentary to Paul for his "effective advocacy of a strict interpretation of the Constitution and his consistent application of that standard through his votes on the House floor". Being an "effective advocacy" is not the same as being an "effective member of Congress". In the end, there is no connection to the original publication from CQ, and the reference is to a Ron Paul campaign site. I would either delete the statement as poorly sourced or find someone to hike to their nearest library and read the actual statement [14]. I am looking into it at my local library (the Boston Public Library), but unless I can get there copy moved to my local branch, I won't be able to look it up for a while. Burzmali (talk) 17:04, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

"Ron Paul Report" material merged into a single section

Justification: 1. The writings in his newsletter have been discussed for 12 years now, not just 1996. 2. The heading "1996 campaign controversy" is misleading, as it gives no indication of what the controversy was about and implies that the incident took place in 1996 only. 3. It is better to have all the material, including the major "The New Republic" feature on Paul's newsletters, in one section rather than scattered piecemeal throughout the article. Vidor (talk) 22:45, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 23:31, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
I also agree with Vidor's edit and reverted to it. The logic is sound - the material needs to be together, lest it look like we're trying to hide it. Dr Paul's response is prominently included as well, as is appropriate. Breaking it up is obscuring it. (Thanks, N.h., for catching the header that I missed.) Tvoz |talk 23:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't deserve its own section simply because someone published an attack article against him. ~ UBeR (talk) 03:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

The TNR article isn't its own section - all of the newsletter controversy is, including the explanations. It's not just about the 1996 campaign. Tvoz |talk 06:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The issues is such and old and minor part of Paul's life, or even political life, or even his 2008 campaign, that the section raises serious WP:WEIGHT concerns, especially in the context of WP:BLP. ~ UBeR (talk) 20:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to explore this assertion, that a political newsletter written between congressional terms, by someone who is a politician, could be outdated or relatively insignificant. What makes you say that? Devpty01 (talk) 01:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Who is the "ghostwriter"?

Paul and his supporters say that they didn't write these disgusting articles over a couple decades, they say a ghostwriter did. Who is that ghostwriter supposed to be? Has he or she ever admitted to this? If so, that needs to be in the article. Why didn't Paul see what was being written under his own name and repudiate it? Devpty01 (talk) 14:35, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

"He did not indicate whether he knew who wrote the articles". He has never identified the writers, if he knows their identities. Paisan30 (talk) 15:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
The mastheads say "Ron Paul and Associates, Houston" so presumably he was at least financially involved with the company publishing things he supposedly wasn't reading, under his name, with his photo on the front page. Devpty01 (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm worried about WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. If there is a reliable source that says he was "financially involved" with the publisher, it's reasonable to add. Otherwise, it's not encyclopedic. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 16:19, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not saying to put it in the article, I'm just saying that if "Ron Paul and Associates" is not financially involved with Paul, I'll eat my hat. Devpty01 (talk) 17:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
From TNR: "During some periods, the newsletters were published by the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a nonprofit Paul founded in 1976; at other times, they were published by Ron Paul & Associates, a now-defunct entity in which Paul owned a minority stake, according to his campaign spokesman." Bartleby (talk) 03:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
This whole "prove it" thing is a dodge. Paul's own campaign manager admits he owned a "minority share" in Ron Paul and associates. If I published reports today saying "Paul said XYZ" and he did not, it wouldn't take YEARS for him and his supporters to deny it. In 1996, they claimed he wrote these things, but they were being taken out of context. Now he's saying he didn't write them at all. Was he lying then or lying now? Both can't be true. This tactic is the exact sort of dishonest crap that they claim Paul is above and the alternative to. In the end, he's turning out to be just another typical politician. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
We honestly don't care for your OR or soapboxing here. ~ UBeR (talk) 20:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
"If I published reports today saying Paul said XYZ and he did not, it wouldn't take YEARS for him and his supporters to deny it." True, but perhaps you don't remember how it was back in the late 80's and early 90's (assuming you lived back in those ancient times). It certainly wasn't like today when it comes to finding out who says what. These small production typewritten newsletters targeted to specific audiences were the blogs of their day, without search facilities and all the other goodies we're used to today. Let's be careful with our expectations. Terjen (talk) 04:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Being asked to believe that a politician was not reading the political newsletter with his name and face on it, and which included his personal family details, requires a suspension of disbelief of far greater magnitude than the disadvantages of the ancient "typewriter" can begin to explain. Devpty01 (talk) 22:03, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, but we shouldn't make assumptions then write as we know they are facts. This is easily resolved by sticking to WP policies.Terjen (talk) 00:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I was alive and had voted for at least 2 presidents. But what you are failing to either realize or acknowledge is that this came up in 1996 for Paul. He didn't deny them. He said they were taken out of context. He had every opportunity then to refute them and did not. For anyone to claim he didn't know about them makes them a fool. He knew then and answered the allegation. How can you now talk about him not knowing? It would have been smarter and easier to do it 10 years ago, during a local election than to wait until the middle of a presidential election and changing his story. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
And I honestly don't care that you want to complain about it. Just because you and a bunch of Paul fan-boi's want to write a campaign piece about your deity doesn't mean others forfeit the right to be critical or bring forth information that doesn't make him seem like the glowing angel you want to paint him as. The amount of effort the Paul sycophants are putting forth to excise the article of anything critical of him is very telling. It borders on obsessive. Put all the facts out, good and bad, and let people make their choice. Your oppression of dissenting voices smacks of the same bias Paul complained bout when excluded from the FNC debates. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:39, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
A few names have been suggested lately by people outside the campaign, so we may have something to say about it when the dust settles.Terjen (talk) 04:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

James Kirchick said in a blog entry today that Lew Rockwell denied writing the newsletters. Vidor (talk) 19:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

From CNN: "Benton maintains that the GOP presidential candidate doesn't know who wrote any of the newsletters. Asked if Paul would try to find out, his spokesman said, 'No, what's the point? ... It's time to move on.'"[15] ~ UBeR (talk) 21:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of stating the obvious, the point would clearly be to substantiate the claim that someone other than the person whose name, picture, company, and personal details were on the newsletter was the one who actually wrote it. In the absence of someone stepping forward, we have only a politician's word, and that is not worth a whole lot. Any suggestion that Paul did not write the thing should be clearly attributed to him alone. Devpty01 (talk) 22:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
And, of course, the rest of the press and alibis who have vouched for him. Any suggestion that he wrote them should be clearly attributed to the author of the attack article published in the political opinion magazine. ~ UBeR (talk) 22:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Why on Earth would that be? The burden of proof generally is on the person whose name, picture, company, and personal details were on the newsletter, if he claims that it wasn't him. (Does the NR article even actually say he wrote them, or merely that they were his newsletters?) I'm getting tired of the hagiography around here. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Why on Earth would that be? Because that is the basis behind WP:OR, WP:V, WP:ATT, and WP:BLP, of course. ~ UBeR (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Chief of Staff 1981-1985

I just wanted to add that John W. Robbins succeeded Lew Rockwell as Chief of Staff until 1985, but I can't because the page is locked. http://www.trinityfoundation.org/whoisjwr.php Brandonadams (talk) 22:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brandonadams (talk • contribs) 21:49, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Preceded. Devpty01 (talk) 22:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
According to my source he was chief of staff after Rockwell (1981-85) Brandonadams (talk) 22:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Full Protection?

Is there a need to block the article from editing by all editors? I didn't realize there had been a significant enough vandalism to justify a block on anon editors, but surely there isn't a reason for a block on all editors? Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Full protection seems excessive to me as well. Can we remove the block for registered editors please? Terjen (talk) 03:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Support Groups

Please add the Aspies for Ron Paul page to his list of supporters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TanquerayRangpur (talk • contribs) 05:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's not. It's mildly amusing satire (I have to admit, a few of the jokes I don't even get; presumably they meant something to the author). If this particular satire got a lot of attention and became notable in itself, it could conceivably be of interest in the article, but certainly not as a group in support of Paul. --Trovatore (talk) 08:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Where would this go?

I found this source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/10/paul.newsletters/index.html

Would it go here? or in the Prez campaign article? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It is covered in the campaign article. Terjen (talk) 07:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
No, it goes right here, since it doesn't pertain solely to his 2008 campaign. —msikma (user, talk) 19:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Ron Paul and Asperger's Syndrome

Paul has a substantial fan base with Aspies. It's been suggested he himself suffers from the disorder. Is this worthy enough to add to the article?

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2008/01/does-ron-paul-have-aspergers-syndrome.php

Speculative. Ignore. Terjen (talk) 05:05, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
No. It even says on the page that it's a rumor, and that the Aspies for Paul website is a joke. Paisan30 (talk) 05:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Correct. I didn't realize that this article has an anti-Paul slant to it, as they do refer to him as a racialist. This was before I found out about the controversy over his newsletter. Ignoring it would be a good thing. I just wanted to see what others had to think about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.105.40 (talk) 12:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Is someone deleting all the controversial stuff?

I like Ron Paul as much as everyone else, but this article seems to purposefully overlook certain controversial (divisive) aspects of Ron Paul's persona. It's very long, but it overlooks the fact that he does not believe in evolution (as he stated on several occasions), claims the Constitution is full of references to God (is he really a constitutionalist then, as the article claims), believes that the Fed is a conspiracy. The whole article reads like an ad. See the language it uses like "alarmed by what he saw...". Why not "misinformed by ..." or "confused by information outside his field of expertise". I'm just saying. This needs to be more informative and more NPOV. Ekonomics geek (talk) 10:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)


No he does not believe in evolution (He's a simple doctor, not a biologist). Does that change what his political views are? Not in the fucking least. He's for individual freedoms, as is evident to his belief that abortion is wrong but his stance that the individual states should decide. You're mistakingly correlating his personal views with his political ones. In no way will his disbelief in evolution make teaching it in schools illegal, for example.

Duh! Another nitwit for Paul. Of course his actions wouldn't make teaching evolution illegal, even he couldn't get away with that one. It WILL, however make it legal for states to decide that teaching 'Creationism' in public schools as an 'alternative theory' is required, as Georgia tried to do recently! Also, It is just unbelievably stupid to think his views on these topics won't affect his policy. Excatly what do you think Paul would do if a funding bill reached his desk as President that including funding for abortion, or funding for stem-cell research, or even funding for scientific study that would 'prove' some aspect of the bible incorrect? VETO! That's what he would do! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.73.199.69 (talk) 17:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

We have already covered the likelihood that he will veto such legislation. The introduction to Political positions of Ron Paul makes it very clear that Paul will "never vote for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution." Terjen (talk) 19:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
That's a good detail to capture if stem cell funding becomes a verifiable controversy or criticism of Paul. It does not, however, moot the criticism, just as his disapproval of the Civil Rights Act remains germane to the newsletter controversy, despite his valid explanation. Clearly, the article should weight towards the candidate's simple rationale for these positions, and away from skepticism --- but it should not whitewash the issue out. --- tqbf 20:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, I've not heard some of these other claims. Such as the "fed is a conspiracy". In fact the article itself clarifies that he beliefs in no such conspiracies, merely that it's a flawed system. Get your facts straight.

I see nothing controversial about his personal beliefs. Bush has far more worrying beliefs than he does. And since it's been proven his personal beliefs are not impacting his political ones, I do not see how it's controversial.

71.215.220.196 (talk) 14:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I am not voting for Paul, so I am unbiased on this... but you'll have to be more specific if you want something included. The "alarmed" thing is valid, because the cited article does not say he was "alarmed". However, your suggetions were equally NPOV (in the other direction). Paisan30 (talk) 15:03, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence of Paul's authorship

The problem here is that we only have evidence that he wrote some of the newsletters (check the "Criticism" section on Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 for a couple more places where he made similar admissions). We also have evidence that Lew Rockwell wrote other newsletters; the Economist also claims it's an "open secret" that Rockwell and another former Paul Chief of Staff wrote most of the newsletters. Even I don't think Paul wrote most of them.
What is relevant is that these admissions from old newspaper articles contradict Paul's current claim, that he wrote none of the racist material in his newsletters. It's especially relevant given Paul's insistence on not "outing" the ghostwriters. That there is verifiable evidence contracting the plain meaning of things Paul is currently saying on television and in print is something that deserves a space in the article. --- tqbf 07:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Agree, like we do on the Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008, although we should try to keep the redundancy down and perhaps mostly cover it there. Also, unless this becomes a major point in the press (beyond the Reason Hit & Run editors blog), we should be careful not to give it undue weight. We already mention "Paul's decision to protect the writer's confidence in 1996", which touches onto the issue. Terjen (talk) 08:03, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

"Criticism" section

This article lacks section that discusses criticism of Ron Paul. The "Ron Paul Report" newsletter controversy section is a start, but it details only one specific thing in a certain context; it's hardly the entire story. We must also discuss other criticisms, and mention the fact that he's been accused of racism before in notable publications. By all standards, this article goes quite easy on him, and for this reason I think we should:

  1. Denounce the article's A-status for now;
  2. Turn the full protection into semi-protection so that (somewhat) trusted editors can make modifications;
  3. Create a Criticism section under which the "Ron Paul Report" newsletter controversy section is moved;
  4. Use various sources ([16]) to write a solid account of the criticism that he endures.

I'm not saying we should do this because I'm an opponent of Ron Paul (I'm not even an American, actually), I'm saying this because I consider this article to be biased in his favor (despite the information given on his newsletter articles which certainly don't look good on him), and feel that an A-class article should not have such a serious issue. —msikma (user, talk) 08:53, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

So you don't even have any specific criticism? You just want to put in negative information to "balance" the article? If that's what you're suggesting, that's contrary to WP:NPOV. ~ UBeR (talk) 09:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that Paul supporters won't allow a NPOV. They only allow things that make Paul look good and delete, alter and argue everything that doesn't boost him up. I've looked at the pages of other candidates and don't see the same thing on nearly the same scale. One has to wonder why a candidate tracking at 5% in national polls and not having gotten 10% in any of the primaries yet has so much more disputing going on? Niteshift36 (talk) 17:39, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't want to add negative information to balance out the good information. I'm sorry if it appears like that; the truth is that this article isn't unreasonably positive about him, but there simply isn't any real criticism apart from the newsletter article section. He's been criticized very harshly, just like the other candidates, but places where this could logically be mentioned seem to be devoid of it. —msikma (user, talk) 21:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Biographies should include both the good and the bad (though the bad requires more careful sourcing). However I don't see any need for a "criticism" section per se. I haven't seen one in any of the other presidential-candidate bios. I would suggest that all the candidate bios should be kept to a reasonably similar format. --Trovatore (talk) 09:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with adding a criticism section. The newsletter controversy should be included (and it is). I do agree that full protection is unnecessary (and no other candidate has it). Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 15:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, whether you agree with Ron Paul or not, it's difficult to argue against the fact he has a massive fanbase that might make editing this article a bit difficult. So there might be a bit more reason to fully protect this page in comparison to the pages of the other candidates. But I too think that it's unnecessary, since almost all vandalism is removed with semi-protection already. Plus, the article is too positive about this candidate, so that's one very good reason why it should be unlocked. —msikma (user, talk) 21:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The criticism section is on Ron Paul 2008, I am merging this information there.--Duchamps_comb MFA 23:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

{tl|editprotected}} User: Jogurney said, "I disagree with adding a criticism section."

User: Trovatore "However I don't see any need for a "criticism" section per se. I haven't seen one in any of the other presidential-candidate bios. I would suggest that all the candidate bios should be kept to a reasonably similar format."

WE/I would like for the criticism section/newsletter controversy to be deleted on the main page, if you look at ALL of the other candidates have their criticism sections are on their 2008 pages, this info can be merged there.Duchamps_comb MFA 23:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note that as far as I can tell this does not indicate support for deleting the newsletter controversy from this page. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 00:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
My mistake--Jogurney specifically states that the newsletter controversy should be retained here. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 00:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
All of this information is in the Ron Paul 2008 page, merge in any useful there, all the other 2008 Candidates have no thing in their Bio.--Duchamps_comb MFA 01:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
No, YOU want to remove the newsletter text. No one else you've mentioned here has expressly supported that, to my knowledge. And please don't erase your earlier comments and replace them with other ones; it makes keeping track of the conversation difficult.--Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 01:04, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I think this biography page handles the controversy properly. The "Ron Paul newsletter controversy" does not ONLY relate to his presidential run. It was an issue in the past, and relates to Paul in general. Paisan30 (talk) 01:07, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
User Paisan30 is the one who added the section. [17]--Duchamps_comb MFA 02:21, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I added the section because it was a notable story that relates to Ron Paul. He appeared on CNN to address the story, so I think the notability is clear. Also, my comment above came five days after I originally added the information, so I was commenting on the work of others as much as my own. Paisan30 (talk) 07:07, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
It does seem that Paisan30 was the one who added the section. But why are you mentioning that, Duchamps_comb? Are you accusing him of COI? The reason why Paisan30 added that section, I would presume, is because this article needs it. He did the right thing by adding it because it's in the best interest of this article. Ron Paul, as with every other candidate, has received criticism for his actions, the newspaper letters being one particularly important issue. It also does not just relate to his 2008 run for presidency, so there is no reason not to have it. Deleting the newspaper section would be a highly biased mistake. —msikma (user, talk) 07:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I have disabled the {tl|editprotected}} template. The template was not accompanied by a specific description of an edit request. Sandstein (talk) 22:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

{tl|editprotected}} Delete the entire section "Ron Paul Report newsletter controversy".--Duchamps_comb MFA 04:20, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I would revert you in a heartbeat (if the page wasn't protected). Terjen (talk) 06:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
N Edit declined. The above discussion indicates that there is no consensus for this edit. Sandstein (talk) 07:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Now, what happened here? My request to be more critical of Ron Paul, since this article seems to be very biased in his favor, ends with someone proposing to remove the only criticism that's there at this moment? Maybe it would speed things up if I were to go out and actually find the sources that we could use, that would make this a lot easier. —msikma (user, talk) 07:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

That information is found here:[18] You can merge the information onto that page. This is the mans BIO, you want to add negative accusations that are unfounded to be more balanced? Besides no other presidential candidate has criticism on their biography page. I believe I can find a few wikipedia reasons to merge...I am not opposed to a redirect--Duchamps_comb MFA 16:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

???? "no other presidential candidate has criticism on their biography page"???? Say what?! Have you not read any other candidate's biography articles? --Orange Mike | Talk 16:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Other biographies obviously do include controversies-- otherwise they would not be neutral stories. The newsletter thing should probably be sub-heading number 8 under "Later Congressional career", though. Probably a little undue weight in its current state. Paisan30 (talk) 16:35, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

For the record: Criticism on bio page

Barack Obama=none

Hilary Clinton=Lewinsky scandal=nothing to do with her

John Edwards=none

Mitt Romney=none

John McCain=none

Mike Huckabee =Wayne DuMond case=makes him a forgiving Christian

correct me if I am wrong.--Duchamps_comb MFA 17:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I picked one of these at random --- Mitt Romney, and within 5 seconds found "The real Romney is clearly an extraordinarily ambitious man with no perceivable political principle whatsoever. He is the most intellectually dishonest human being in the history of politics". I don't think you've provided a trustworthy summary here. (sorry, not productive, poorly worded) --- tqbf 17:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I read the whole Romney page twice I could not find your quote. But even if it is there it's one line (and does not need to be there). Now QUIT wp:stalk Wikistalking me you FREAK!--Duchamps_comb MFA 17:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I agree with Duchamps_comb. I think this section should be slimmed down, to say the least. This is a bio. I looked at other candidate's bio and I did not see any on-campaign scandal/negative "news". It should site the issue briefly with the 2001 response. Anything else relating to the re-surfacing of this matter should be on: Ron Paul 2008 which is his presidential campaign page which must contain such materials.--Nyczhugo (talk) 19:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I already pointed out the Barney Frank criticism on Romney's page; now, go to Hillary Clinton and check out the entire section on Whitewater. I'm pretty sure you're not correct about criticism on the other candidates pages. --- tqbf 23:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
True there is a Whitewater section, that merely showed she has been investigated(many times). A criticism as inflammatory as some of Pauls would be, X said "Hillary had Vince Foster KILLED to protect her from going to jail."--Duchamps_comb MFA 23:32, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
So you think that quoting from Ron Paul's newsletters is comparable to an unsubstantiated charge of murder? Yikes. Paisan30 (talk) 02:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

dsb interwiki

Could somebody add this dsb:Ron Paul interwiki? Thank you, --Dezidor (talk) 22:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Done.-Wafulz (talk) 03:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations!

I guess some editors have reason to celebrate. Not only have you managed to stall for almost a week the use of more neutral language in our coverage of the Newsletter controversy (in the middle of a presidential election no less!). You have also earned the top spot in Conservapedia's Examples of Liberal Bias in Wikipedia. Perhaps Barnstars would be in place to commemorate the success? Terjen (talk) 01:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, rabid Paul supporters can be proud. Their inability to accept the posting of a single word that doesn't praise their guy is being quite effective. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
What's Conservapedia? --- tqbf 02:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Imagine a wiki run by Stephen Colbert (character). That's Conservapedia. Really though, being mentioned in Conservapedia's "Examples of bias" is like being mentioned in the Flat Earth Society's "Examples of round-earth bias". Anyway, back to the topic at hand....-Wafulz (talk) 03:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The assertion that the newsletters gave tactical advice to militias is not unsubstantiated. Below are some gems found in the January 1995 issue. Maybe we need to list all of these so nobody thinks the statement is unfounded?

Local militias called "one of the most encouraging developments in America"
"I want to share with you these rules from the Sons of Liberty, a militia in Northern Alabama..."
Small things are harder to find. Keep the group size down.
If you have more than one rifle, store it in a hideaway spot. Remember to store ammunition with it, enough ammo for at least one combat load.
Avoid the phone whenever possible, and never speak in plain English about club business.
Destroy any documents or discs that become unnecessary.
Most groups meet under cover of another activity: a gun club, Bible study, self-help group, even a bowling league. Paisan30 (talk) 02:44, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

How is this anything but inflammatory and in poor taste? Please rethink your priorities. Bartleby (talk) 09:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

They are quotes from the newsletters. Apparently some people thought that the newsletters did not give tactical advice to militias. Now that's cleared up. Paisan30 (talk) 14:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Paisan, I was referring to Terjan's initial comment and not yours. Sorry if that was unclear. Bartleby (talk) 21:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Gotcha-- sorry. Paisan30 (talk) 21:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess some editors have reason to celebrate. I know I am. I think that Wikipedia has done a fine job of providing information in a clear, accurate manner on the evolving story of the Ron Paul newsletters, presenting the issue in a neutral fashion while resisting the efforts of Ron Paul partisans to conceal the newsletters or obscure the issue. Kudos to all! By the way, the TNR list of Paul newsletters looks like its been expanded, and includes issues where Paul is listed by name as an editor. Vidor (talk) 15:53, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Vidor was the last to edit the newsletter section before it got protected, so I am not surprised he is padding himself on the back, he got his own POV pushed for a week without correction. Terjen (talk) 17:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I'll be glad if we can all agree that these newsletters are inflammatory and in poor taste. --- tqbf 15:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Much of the newsletter material is also politically incorrect. Terjen (talk) 19:10, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I still don't see why this article can't just be semi-protected instead. It's true that a lot of editing and reverting will take place, but in the end, it will be good for the article. I don't agree with this article at all; I think it's too much in favor of Ron Paul. And I'm willing to help fix it (and remain fair while doing it). Let's just unprotect this article, I'm sure it'll turn out alright in the end. Besides, better to edit the article furiously than sit here and complain about the fact that the article is biased and impossible to edit. —msikma (user, talk) 23:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC

Heritage Front

His name and address are included in a list of "Racialist Addresses and Phone Numbers". http://www.heritagefront.com/updates/lobbyhf.html Must have something to do with this article: http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.african.american/msg/c8668bd3662b0fa5 It is taken from the Ron Paul Report, surely Ron Paul must have known what he was publishing?220.246.109.181 (talk) 09:49, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

He says he wasn't aware of what was being written in his name and so far no one can prove he was. There are African Americans who have known him for decades and have defended him. The fact is that you hear him speak and you can't possibly say that guy's a racist. It goes against everything he is preaching and this guy practices what he preaches. Your "evidence" probes nothing.

The newsletters are covered in this article, and the Ron Paul Report issue you mention is specifically quoted. Paisan30 (talk) 05:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Racism

Why isn't racism included as one of his criticisms? source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/15/124912/740 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.167.31.236 (talk) 20:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC) Because the daily Kos is they most untrustworthy sites ever and is a hate site itself.Alex1996Ne (talk) 02:58, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Does a diary posting on a website constitute a reliable source? If a reliable source indicates that Paul is being criticized for racism (aside from the newsletter controversy which is already included in the article), please let us know. Jogurney (talk) 03:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Ron Paul is NOT racist. He explains the false claim here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pLUmfZWIZsc --Xach (talk) 00:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, when it comes to credibility nothing better than youtube, right guys? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.167.28.175 (talk) 02:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Is that really fair to accuse youtube of not being very credible? Wikipedia faces the exact same scrutiny. - Capt.Nero —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.64.105.40 (talk) 02:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

If it is a video of Ron Paul explaining himself I think that yes. You have no argument. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.202.27 (talk) 05:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The advantage of wikipedia is that we can cite reliable sources. The youtube video is just a politician defending himself, we cannot know if he's lying or saying the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.167.28.175 (talk) 18:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Within the scope of Wikipedia as a journalistic medium, you legally have to assume he is telling the truth--to do otherwise and "factually" accuse an individual of lying without credible evidence to support it is slander. And in the case of a subject such as this to tout one person's words over another does not constitute credible evidence as the naysayer's statements are considered hearsay. Gawain VIII (talk) 12:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

That paragraph doesn't really make sense. CNN does not "assume" Paul is telling the truth, or they wouldn't run a story about the allegations. --- tqbf 13:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.167.28.175 (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

They run the story because they are journalists and they are doing business. They have to make money somehow and their channel is on 24 hours a day. You run out of stories at some point. The fact that they run the story does not necessarily say if they agree or not with the accusations. The job of a reporter is to give the news, not give opinions. Maybe you have been watching too much Fox News and so you forgot what a reporter's job REALLY is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.202.27 (talk) 03:56, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

CORRECTION. The article should note that Ron Paul is being ACCUSED of racism by individuals (who exactly) and whether it is having any effect on his campaign.
It does. Paisan30 (talk) 06:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 05:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

""Ron Paul Report" newsletter controversy" biased and incomplete

The version I would expect to see:7

Newsletters published under Ron Paul’s name, which date back to 1978 and have been variously titled "Ron Paul's Freedom Report", "Ron Paul Political Report", "The Ron Paul Survival Report", and "The Ron Paul Investment Letter",[93] first became an issue in his 1996 run for Congress against Charles Morris. Morris ran numerous attack ads about Paul's newsletters, which included Paul’s alleged ghostwriter’s derogatory comments concerning race and other politicians.[94][95] Alluding to a 1992 study finding that "of black men in Washington ... about 85 percent are arrested at some point in their lives",[96][97] the newsletter proposed assuming that "95% of the black males in Washington DC are semi-criminal or entirely criminal", and stated that "the criminals who terrorize our cities ... largely are" young black males, who commit crimes "all out of proportion to their numbers".[98][99]

Until 2001, Paul had not contested his authorship of the newsletters. In 2001, Paul lowered his involvement in the newsletters to a state of "moral responsibility" for the comments printed in his newsletter under his name, telling Texas Monthly magazine that the comments were written by an unnamed ghostwriter and did not represent his views. He said newsletter remarks referring to U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan (calling her a "fraud" and a "half-educated victimologist") were "the saddest thing, because Barbara and I served together and actually she was a delightful lady."[100] He later remarked that “Several writers contributed to the product [his newsletters],” [102]. The magazine defended Paul's decision to protect the writer's confidence in 1996, concluding, "In four terms as a U.S. congressman and one presidential race, Paul had never uttered anything remotely like this."[35] In 2007, with the quotes resurfacing, New York Times Magazine writer Christopher Caldwell concurred that Paul denied the allegations "quite believably, since the style diverges widely from his own,"[10] but added that Paul's "response to the accusations was not transparent."[10] Caldwell noted that when Paul’s Democratic opponent in the 1996 general election, Charles Morris, called on him to release the rest of the newsletters, Paul refused. [10]

In January 2008, the contents of Paul's newsletters made news again when James Kirchick of The New Republic published a story detailing the contents of various Paul newsletters. Kirchick said that the writings showed "an obsession with conspiracies, sympathy for the right-wing militia movement, and deeply held bigotry".[101] A 1990 issue of the Ron Paul Political Report stated that "Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities". After the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the newsletter referred to African-American rioters as "barbarians" and suggested that the riots only stopped when it came time for "blacks to pick up their welfare checks". Other issues gave tactical advice to right-wing militia groups and advanced various conspiracy theories. Paul’s newsletter also included an opinion on the suggested response to the fall of the Soviet Union according to the Brandeis University Community Newspaper, asking “Why do we need the federal government? There’s no Cold War and no Communist threat. Many other nations are breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. The centralization of power in Washington occurred in a different time. Why not think about getting rid of the federal government, returning to the system of our Founders, and breaking up the United States into smaller government units?” [144] While the newsletters were published under Paul's name, he disavowed the writings in a response to the New Republic article. Paul said that the quotations do not represent his beliefs, and that "I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts." He has indicated that he does not know who wrote the articles[1], but again noted that he accepts "moral responsibility" for not paying closer attention to writings published under his name.[102]” His campaign’s official response did not discuss why, with a political background and future political intentions, he allowed statements to be made under his name that so starkly contrasted with his beliefs. [102]

[144] http://thehoot.net/?p=41

Askpeeves1 (talk) 23:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Way too long. Wrad (talk) 23:34, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Hardly longer than the original, and much less softening in favor of Ron Paul. Askpeeves1 23:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, in my opinion the original is too long, so... I think it's too long. It reads like an article about the newsletters, not like part of an article about Ron Paul. Wrad (talk) 01:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

If James Kirchick's opinions are quoted in the article, there should at least be some mention of who he is. There is no article in Wikipedia about him. In another of his articles, "The Anti-Neocon Fervor", he accuses people who use the term "neo-con" of being anti-Semites and "McCarthyite", and otherwise defends Bush's Middle East policy. http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-11-06jk.html --The Four Deuces (talk) 02:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a neutral source to me. Wrad (talk) 02:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
He isn't a neutral source. Wikipedia does not require that sources be neutral, only reliable. Bartleby (talk) 02:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Bartleby: the article shows quotes from James Kirchick as well as his opinion about the letter for which he provides no evidence whatsoever. While I accept that his quotes are acceptable, his opinions should not be presented as fact. If they are presented, the article should also point out his political views. If James Kirchick's opinions are shown in the article, why should we not know anything about him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by The Four Deuces (talk • contribs) 07:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think his opinions are presented as fact. It's mostly quotes from the newsletters. This article should probably mention that 1) Kirchick made more newsletters public than Morris did in 1996, and 2) the NR story was written during the presidential campaign. Paisan30 (talk) 07:52, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
James Kirchick is the one who brought the articles to the attention of the public again, and thus we should report on the way he did it. He was critical of them, and thus we should mention that he was. There's all the space in the world to use for Ron Paul's response to the accusations, but they must exist alongside the criticism. And I must note that, as of yet, we've seen no substantial proof that acquits Ron Paul. —msikma (user, talk) 08:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
And The New Republic made pdfs available for the first time that I'm aware of, which allows readers to see the material in context. I note that neither Ron Paul nor anyone from his campaign or congressional staff to my knowledge has suggested that the pdf files were not legitimate copies of his newsletters. So Kirchick's political views are beside the point- it is ROn Paul's views, and things that went out over his name, often in the first person so that they look to all the world that he is the one writing them, that this biography is concerned with. I don't think it's too long. Tvoz |talk 08:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree on any responsibility to pass on Kirchick's interpretations and opinions - this isn't a page about Kirchick, nor is he particularly notable. We have better sources for secondary views of the newsletters.Terjen (talk) 08:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
We're not talking about Kirchick, we're talking about The New Republic, which is extremely notable. You've made it sound as if this is something Kirchick blogged; it in fact resides on the front page of NRO right now. TNR may not be The Atlantic --- Mark Twain never wrote for them --- but it has a comparable reputation for editorial integrity. --- tqbf 05:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we should not be talking about Kirchick, which is what I argue above. The New Republic is a liberal opinion magazine. Kirchick's article has an obvious bias, starting with the title "Angry White Man - The bigoted past of Ron Paul". Of course, that doesn't mean it isn't a reliable source, but we should take care not to pass along its opinions as if they are facts. Currently the section quote and paraphrase Kirchick without making clear that the article may not be an objective source. Terjen (talk) 07:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
TNR isn't Mother Jones, and Kirchick's wasn't an opinion piece. You're trying to convince editors here that TNR would sacrifice its editorial integrity and reputation to fabricate (or poorly fact-check) a takedown of a candidate polling below the margin of error nationally. Also, what aspect of the Kirchick piece seems likely to have been biased? You obviously read it. What is there to it, other than citations to newsletters, which clearly exist? --- tqbf 08:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Let's start with the first three words of the Kirchick's piece, claiming that Paul is an "angry white man". Is this a fact? Terjen (talk) 19:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
It's an opinion piece. There's no other way to look at it. Wrad (talk) 19:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Careful; there are definitely elements of opinion in it, which we have to be careful about --- but there is original reporting in the story. The citations to the uncovered newsletters aren't opinions. There's a valid presumption that TNR fact-checked the piece, as well. --- tqbf 19:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
The article is a mix of investigative, analysis, and opinion. And the citations to the newsletters aren't in question. Where we need to thread carefully is when the article paraphrase and summarize content from the newsletter, as well as when making obvious statements of opinion. Terjen (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
i agree with you. --- tqbf 01:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

newsletter

article is protected, so someone with privileges can also add this:

"What else do we need to know about the political establishment than that it refuses to discuss the crimes that terrify Americans on grounds that doing so is racist? Why isn't that true of complex embezzling, which is 100 percent white and Asian?" he wrote. [19]

Lakinekaki (talk) 10:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

True author and a note on ownership

Added "Reason" magazine piece detailing Lew Rockwell's involvement with the Report. Vidor (talk) 18:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

As for the notion that it is "POV" to refer to the newsletters as "Paul's newsletters", here is something interesting. The president of "Ron Paul and Associates", the publisher of the various forms of the Ron Paul Report? Ron Paul. The message board post is here, and documents listing Ron Paul as the president of "Ron Paul and Associates" are here and here. Vidor (talk) 18:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Just write a blurb about the company in the section when you get a secondary source. No need to add your "Paul's newsletter" POV just because you're convinced that he wrote or edited the newsletters. Terjen (talk) 23:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I have to say this is looking like one editor (ok, a couple, but one more than others), patrolling Paul articles constantly, battling to keep any unflattering thing out that can possibly be kept out. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Would you much rather violate Wikipedia policies? ~ UBeR (talk) 00:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
That's the beauty of opinion. Two people can read the same thing and have different opinions. Some things are blatant and obvious, but many more are not. It seems to be the opinion of Paul supporters that anything that doesn't glorify Paul is in violation of some wiki policy. I don't see this level of nitpicking on the articles for Mike Gravel, Fred Thompson or some of the other candidates. I would honestly expect it on Clinton, Obama, Romney, McCain or even Huckabee. Those are top tier candidates in a bitter fight. Paul isn't even making a real impact on any of the races thus far. He's the only guy in the primary to lose to Duncan Hunter. But every single word in a Paul article is guarded like it is scripture. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the Reason Magazine piece puts to rest any concerns about calling the newsletters Paul's. As I previously noted, the New York Times and Houston Chronicle have already done so. Paisan30 (talk) 01:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Rationale behind David Duke's support:Neo-Secessionism

The Bible Belt Southern States have the historical revanchism against the North, it is not lack of coincidence that David Duke would endorse a candidate that seeks State Rights or smaller Federal Government in order to reinstate racial segregation and enforce biblical teaching in public schools despite the doctrine of Secularism without the oversight from US Supreme Court and other Federal Agencies, simply like Libertarian economist Gary North's promotes smaller role for the Federal Government by way of Neo-Liberal economic policies upon which he is Framing (social sciences) his religious intentions. David Duke and on Storm Front's site endorse the closing of the border to Mexicans is welcomed and applauded by the owner of the site, an obvious appeal to the racialist bias of this audience. Please examine further --220.239.179.128 (talk) 05:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Newsletter racism controversy exploding

Jamie Kirchick of The New Republic found someone with 20 years worth of Ron Paul Survival Report (formerly Freedom Report) newsletter issues, and it's ugly as hell. Dozens of articles repeatedly published under Paul's name, and never retracted, engaged in lowbrow racist invective. Among many other things, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was called a "gay pedophile," blacks were repeatedly referred to as animals, and apparently Paul was once a featured speaker at a Confederate secessionist conference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWpADkP4QqY

http://reason.com/blog/show/124265.html

The newsletter archives and more details are coming out Tuesday afternoon at http://www.tnr.com/

How could he have imagined that this crap wouldn't catch up with him? Devpty01 (talk) 11:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is the actual article, "Angry White Man"

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca 3:56, 8 January 2008

more newsletter comments surface

A TNR writer did some digging and unearthed many more comments in the newsletters than were previously known. Highlights of the TNR article include:

  • "Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage.
  • "Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems."
  • South Africa's transition to multiracial democracy was portrayed as a "destruction of civilization" that was "the most tragic [to] ever occur on that continent, at least below the Sahara"
  • In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy
  • comments about gays and Jews

but

  • Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign spokesman... said that, over the years, Paul had granted "various levels of approval" to what appeared in his publications--ranging from "no approval" to instances where he "actually wrote it himself." After I read Benton some of the more offensive passages, he said, "A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."

I'd argue that some of this deserves a mention in one of the RP articles, probably this one and probably in the 1996 controversy section. Comments? --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 20:25, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. I totally failed to notice the comments on this subject directly above. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 20:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Paul's response; newsletter had personal details

Here is the response from the Paul campaign, and Paul also personally denied writing the articles in this interview with Reason magazine.

However, it turns out that the newsletter issue in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is said to have "seduced underage girls and boys," closes with this paragraph:

My wife Carol and I, and our children and grandchildren, join me in wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. May we start to confound the plans of the Trilateralists and other big-government types, making America freer and thus truer to her own heritage, in 1991.

If Paul was not indeed the writer, whoever was knew a lot about his family. Devpty01 (talk) 18:17, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you suppose the odds are that the unknown "ghostwriter" is just happened to be a grandfather married to a woman named Carol too? Niteshift36 (talk) 01:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)


There are other details that he mentions about his life in the newsletters. In other issues of the newsletter, he mentions he was a flight surgeon for the air force, what part of texas he lives in, that he is currently a physician, etc.

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

http://dl1.upload.ws/image-2726043.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.239.204.81 (talk) 21:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

You are so biased. Anyone could find that out, it's no secret info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.202.27 (talk) 16:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Newsletters

The current version of the Newsletter Controversy section opens with the phrase "Paul's newsletters". I think this might be misleading as the extent to which Paul was involved in the newsletters still is in question beyond that a campaign spokesman has stated that they were published by an entity in which Paul owned a minority stake. I suggest the opening sentence is changed to "Newsletters, which date back to 1978 and has been variously titled..." and that the phrase "Paul's newsletters" is changed to "the newsletters" elsewhere. Terjen (talk) 17:41, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

They had his name in the title and they were owned and published by him. Zero debate over whether they were his newsletters. The uncertainty, which the article reflects, is who wrote the words on the page. Vidor (talk) 19:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
We have learned he owned a "minority stake" in the newsletter publishing company. If somebody owns a minority stake in say Fox, I don't think we should say Fox is "their" company. Likewise in this case. Furthermore, having somebody's name in the title doesn't imply ownership. Case in point, there are currently plenty of websites and activities going on in the name of Ron Paul that are independent of him. Note that I am not claiming proof that the newsletters were not "his", but rather that the entry should stay neutral and avoid implying his ownership unless it is positively proven.Terjen (talk) 20:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
That's absurd. They were newsletters with his name on them, often written in the first person. Ron Paul has accepted moral responsibility for what was written in his name; I wish his partisans would have the dignity to do the same, instead of lawyering. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
The conclusion that it is correct to label the newsletters as "his" doesn't follow from the stated facts. Let's avoid putting a spin on the story by presenting them as "Paul's".Terjen (talk) 21:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
What more do you want? Are they not Paul's if they weren't handwritten by him in his blood and signed with ink made from his tears? We're approaching theater of the absurd here. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
If the newsletters were written by Paul, sure, I would be fine with labeling them "Paul's". You have a source for that? Note that I don't deny the facts, but rather dispute it follows logically that these are "his newsletters". It is also a question of semiotics: when I hear "Paul's newsletters" I picture him sitting over his typewriter cranking out the latest issue, or at least Paul actively editing and overseeing the publication. I do not picture an operation sixty miles away with ghostwriters publishing a newsletter under his name while Paul is busy delivering babies elsewhere. Claiming we know it is "Paul's newsletter" is misleading.Terjen (talk) 22:04, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there any corroboration that the latter was the case? Devpty01 (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
"I do not picture an operation sixty miles away with ghostwriters publishing a newsletter under his name while Paul is busy delivering babies elsewhere. Claiming we know it is "Paul's newsletter" is misleading" Really? Funny, I dont picture you splitting that hair when someone says something like "Bush let the dikes in New Orleans break". Niteshift36 (talk) 23:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
(That's an ignorable Ad hominem attack.)Terjen (talk) 01:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
That is not an ad hominem. I simply stated that I can't imagine you doing it. I didn't say you don't. I didn't say you were right, wrong, stupid, brilliant, attack or insult you in any way. I simply said I can't picture you making that fine distinction. If you'd like to prove me wrong and show me where you have split that fine hair before, please feel free to educate me. Be someone else's victim. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I haven't seen any sufficient corroboration yet, only the official statements from Paul and postings on the web from proclaimed insiders in the know. So we shouldn't make reference to "ghostwritten newsletters" as if this was a fact, just as we should avoid claiming the newsletters were "his". Terjen (talk) 22:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
You have a different interpretation of the meaning of "Paul's newsletters" than I do, Terjen. They were Paul's, in the possessive sense: belonging in part to him, written in his name and persona, credited to him. That is not an assertion of sole authorship, but of ownership (fiduciary and/or moral), as a book ghostwritten for and published in the name of Donald Trump is "Trump's book" (for good or ill). --Orange Mike | Talk 22:38, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
The semantics of the possessive is apparently ambiguous. Your suggested interpretations are just a subset of the possible meanings, and the more obvious ones are misleading. Hence, it should be dropped.Terjen (talk) 01:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Taking "moral responsibility" means no more than he failed to act duly to oversee that such things did not happen. If someone were to take "moral responsibility" for a death, it does not follow that the person physically killed him. Either which way, you cannot construe "moral responsibility" to "he wrote them." To do so would fly in the face of WP:OR and WP:BLP, policies that cannot be taken lightly. ~ UBeR (talk) 21:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
It also means responsibility for the fact that there were never any retractions, even long after some of the offensive passages were brought to light, does it not? Devpty01 (talk) 22:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Ridiculous. Published by Paul. HIS NAME ON THEM. Responsibility admitted by Paul. Thus, his newsletters. Vidor (talk) 23:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Why all this fuss to keep the claim that these were "Paul's newsletters"? It is not like removing the possessive denies the possibility that the newsletters were written by Paul. Let's keep the language neutral instead of spinning. The readers can make up their own mind about who wrote the newsletters and the extent to which the content should be attributed to Paul. Terjen (talk) 01:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Because they were Paul's newsletters, this is an absolute known fact, and attempting to obscure or deny this absolute known fact shows a pro-Paul POV and a desire to hide the facts in order to protect Paul's reputation. They were his newsletters. Who wrote the content cannot be proved, and the article reflects that. But suggesting they were not his newsletters is willful denial of fact. Vidor (talk) 18:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
No, stating that these were "Paul's newsletters" is to jump the gun. Note how at least some professional journalists are handling this issue by avoiding the possessive (CNN UPI). I think we should do likewise. I am of course not suggesting that we deny they were his newsletters, so that's a straw-man. Terjen (talk) 03:07, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I am of course not suggesting that we deny they were his newsletters Yes you are. You, as other Paul partisans have done, are trying to distance Paul from the newsletters as much as you can. Vidor (talk) 04:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I am not responsible for whatever "Paul partisans have done". I have neither said that we should deny nor affirm they were his newsletters. Instead, I have argued we should stick to similar language that you can find in the coverage in these CNN and UPI articles, which avoid the possessive. Are CNN and UPI "trying to distance Paul from the newsletters" as much as they can too? Of course not, so your argument is unreasonable. Terjen (talk) 05:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
You are responsible for what you are trying to do. And what you are trying to do is do anything you can to distance Paul from the newsletters. In any case, if we're going to compare links, "The New Republic" is not engaging in any hairsplitting on Paul's ownership of the newsletters, and neither is the Dallas Morning News. Vidor (talk) 02:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Not even the article you refer to above uses the possessives "Paul's" or "his" when discussing the newsletters, and that's an editorial. However, I would not be surprised about sensational press and opinion pieces using these possessives. I think we should stick to higher standards, with high end journalism as exemplified by CNN and UPI providing a role model.Terjen (talk) 07:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Looking through a couple reports on the newsletters, most journalists phrased things similarly. Seems pretty persuasive to me. Bartleby (talk) 02:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the section is fine by way of neutrality, though maybe a bit long. Don't know exactly what I would cut, though. Wrad (talk) 01:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

This talk is verging on OR, I think. Better to just report that Paul either founded or had a stake in the companies putting out the material and that it was published in his name, along with his denial that he was involved in the writing of them. Bartleby (talk) 02:39, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion we should just present the facts. Site a source of the accusation from a mainstream media source, then also post his reponse from similar source and let readers come up with their own conclusion if Ron Paul really did write, knew about the articles, or at least shared the articles view point. Never the less it should not be excluded and should be heavily quoted to avoid POV--Nyczhugo (talk) 07:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

{tl|editprotected}} Edit request: Per discussion above, in the section Ron_Paul#.22Ron_Paul_Report.22_newsletter_controversy, eliminate the disputed possessives. Specifically, the first sentence should start "Newsletters, which date back to 1978", and other instances of "Paul's newsletters" should be changed to "the newsletters", likewise "his newsletter" should be "the newsletter" and the one instance of "Paul newsletter" should be changed to "of the newsletters". Terjen (talk) 07:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The Ron Paul camp denies involvement in the newsletters, but there is no evidence whatsoever that suggests he isn't. It's only his word against the fact that the newsletters were published for 20 years, which is well before he became a person notable enough to be a potential target for a libel campaign. Is it really necessary at this point to remove all possessives? I don't think so. —msikma (user, talk) 07:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
We don't have proof to support use of the possessive. Your argument to keep the possessives is based on a Negative proof. Terjen (talk) 07:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

We should present the facts. We can say that he "took moral responsibility" for it, and claimed that he didn't write them during an interview on CNN. Those two things actually happened. But we must also discuss the facts that might lead people to believe that he did write them, even if some editors might not want to include that information. After all, it's also a fact that the newsletters were published not once or twice but continuously for 20 years. And I'm not trying to imply anything here, but it did go on for 20 years. It's a fact that it did. He let it happen for so long, and it's been mentioned in the various media that have ran a story on the newsletters that his claim is dubious. Those are things we can report on. Why should we not discuss the fact that the media has mostly responded negatively to the newsletters? —msikma (user, talk) 07:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a substantial difference between discussing the facts that might lead people to believe that he did write them and essentially suggest that he wrote them by using possessives. Terjen (talk) 07:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
The New York Times, New Republic and Houston Chronicle all refer to the newsletters as Paul's. I think we're safe. Paisan30 (talk) 07:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
We should stick to the highest standards in our presentation to avoid being misleading. WP:BLP applies. Terjen (talk) 07:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I think the fact that these newsletters were sent for 20 years with Ron Paul's name on them is sufficient reason to refer to them as Paul's newsletters. I was just noting the fact that three reputable publications, which also presumably do not want to collectively libel anyone, have used the terminology. Paisan30 (talk) 08:18, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree as well - and please remember that not only were they sent out with his name on them, they also were written in a manner to suggest that they were written by him - in the first person, including such things as "my wife Carol and our children and grandchildren, wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" in closing. Tvoz |talk 08:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Both of the "I agree" positions above boils down to that because the editor's point of view is that these were Ron Paul's newsletters, we should write they are his newsletters. Terjen (talk) 21:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
N Not done, no apparent consensus for this edit (and if sources refer to it in the same way, not a BLP issue.) —Random832 14:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are going to analyze how it was written in a manner to suggest that it was written by him, we should also analyze if the contents of the editorial are consistent to Ron Paul's speeches, votes, and other publications clearly written by him. Obviously we are not here to analyze the text itself, so we can't make that judgment. I agree with Mskima that we should present the facts, but I do question this user's intentions here. The fact that these newsletters were written for 20 years only solidifies the other camps position on how it would be impossible to monitor 20 years worth of newsletters. Also its not 20 years of newsletters articles that are in question, it only a few, which make them even harder to find amidst 20 years of publication. So the point is, let’s stop making judgment on the data. That is for the reader to decide. What is in question is the possessive term of the newsletter. So we should start off like: "A series of newsletters in the name of GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul contain several racist remarks -- including one that says order was restored to Los Angeles after the 1992 riots when blacks went "to pick up their welfare checks." this is how CNN starts the article. Notice the neutrality because the whole question is the authorship, which CNN is not deciding for us. If we say "Paul's newsletters", it sounds like it’s completely his; always written by him and the makes it sound like these newsletters were the main method of communication of his various campaigns. Also we should start this section citing that this controversy was already brought fourth in 2001 and is re-surfacing now.--Nyczhugo (talk) 19:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

{tl|editprotected}} bah, I don't want to be involved in this; someone else can review it. —Random832 19:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Edit request: Per discussion above, in the section Ron_Paul#.22Ron_Paul_Report.22_newsletter_controversy, eliminate the disputed possessives. Specifically, the first sentence should start "Newsletters, which date back to 1978", and other instances of "Paul's newsletters" should be changed to "the newsletters", likewise "his newsletter" should be "the newsletter" and the one instance of "Paul newsletter" should be changed to "of the newsletters". Terjen (talk) 07:25, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Terjen 100%.--Duchamps_comb MFA 23:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Look, I only want what's best for this article, but let's not make a big deal about the possessives. All of the major publications have referred to it as "Paul's newsletters". The reason is that, well, frankly, it's quite ludicrous to suggest that he did not write them. Him saying he didn't is damage control. Why else would he still employ the person who published the newsletters (Jean McIver), after he said he fired everyone involved? It isn't very hard to come to the conclusion that this sort of evidence outweighs Paul's statements, unless you have some reason to believe that everything he says is truth.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that the Wikipedia article should state that they were definitely his. But we should state the facts, which will help the reader draw some kind of conclusion. Either he believes it or he doesn't—it doesn't matter either way—but his opinion should be formulated based on the truth, and the truth is that there is little solid evidence that suggests the contrary. I know there are people here who want to avoid people from being able to look up this article and find the facts I speak of, but it really, really is inappropriate to not discuss the newspaper in full detail. If you truly believe that Paul did not write those letters, then by all means, let the article contain all of the arguments by either side and trust the reader to draw the same conclusion as you did. —msikma (user, talk) 19:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
You claim that "All of the major publications have referred to it as 'Paul's newsletters'". Do you have an NPOV source for that statement? If so, we may consider including it in the section with proper citation. But I hope you don't intend to prove your point by cherry-picking media coverage that actively uses the possessive. It is not hard to find examples, particularly from opinion articles and sensationalist press, as well as headlines and obviously blogs. Case in point, The New Republic, listed by another editor above as an example of "three reputable publications" that "have used the terminology", is a limited circulation liberal opinion magazine. No surprise their article "Angry White Man - The bigoted past of Ron Paul" repeatedly refers to "Paul's newsletters". But that doesn't give us a free pass to frame our section that way.
You emphasize that you are "not suggesting that the Wikipedia article should state that they were definitely his." That's my main point, so I am glad you concur. The controversy section should not suggest they were Paul's newsletters, like it currently does. You also say that "the truth is that there is little solid evidence that suggests the contrary". I am not arguing that we should make it look like he didn't write the newsletters either, so we shouldn't substitute "Paul's newsletters" with e.g. "the ghostwritten newsletters", but instead use a neutral term like "the newsletters". Terjen (talk) 20:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I also mentioned the New York Times and Houston Chronicle. Paisan30 (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I am certain that if we try hard, we can cherry-pick plenty of examples of sloppy journalism and opinion pieces that provide language we can use to frame the entry to our own POV. Like taking this article from the Chronicles as an argument for using the term "ghostwritten newsletters". But we shouldn't. This is not a question about facts and sourcing of facts, but about using neutral language that doesn't impose our own POV. Terjen (talk) 21:19, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The CNN article (from Jan. 11) does use the language "newsletters in the name of..." in attributing ownership. The Houston Chronicle published a "commentary" (from Jan. 10) which also uses "newsletters published under his name". The Capital Times (Madison, WI) published a letter to the editor (from Jan. 11) with "newsletters written...under the name of..." language. I'm having trouble finding other articles in reliable sources on the incident, but the concensus appears to match User:Terjen's assertion above that a more NPOV method is being used to describe the ownership of the newsletters in published newspapers. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 22:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

II agree with Jogurney. No one wants to hide what happened. But as we do not know for sure who wrote these articles, we shouldn't speculate and give the authorship to Ron Paul.--74.65.242.229 (talk) 22:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The authorship of many of the articles is verifiably attributable to Paul; he conceded to writing them to the Austin American Statesman and the Dallas Morning News in 1996. All of the articles went out under Ron Paul masthead. Many of the articles contained personal details of Paul's life, specifically intended to make the reader believe it was written in Paul's hand. Paul has admitted "moral responsibility" for the articles.
Clearly, we should not be asserting directly that Paul wrote them (the Economist seems to believe that Paul's friend, Lew Rockwell, is the primary author), but it is not reasonable or neutral to whitewash this important detail of Paul's biography simply because Paul denies it. It's a tricky editing problem, but not an intractable one. --- tqbf 22:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I found the DMN article on LexisNexis ("Candidate's comments on blacks questioned", Catalina Camia, 5/22/1996). It attributes authorship to Paul, and according to the article the author interviewed Paul that week and his comments were that the newsletter remarks were being taken out of context. I think based on that article, it would be acceptable to attribute authorship to Paul. Jogurney (talk) 23:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

To attributes authorship to Paul, is simply POV spin. Do the letters need to be address yes. Also it must be worded NPOV as he denies writing them. Any one can write anything in first person or give personal anecdotes. There is a huge divide between "moral responsibility" and authorship. Even the Head of the NAACP Texas, has stated Paul did not rite the letters.The section can be framed in a way of speculation, any thing else is just shameful.--Duchamps_comb MFA 23:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[outdent] How about we take a look at the PDF files of these newsletters when we are deciding if there should be a possessive "s" after "Ron Paul"? Take a look at some selections. Note the titles Ron Paul Political Report and another one, note the subscription box; The Ron Paul Survival Report. Here's an early one, Dr. Ron Paul's Freedom Report, with signature and photograph. And this one, which is called The Ron Paul Investment Letter, also with photo and clear indication that it's published by Ron Paul & Associates, INc. And this solicitation letter on what is designed to look like Ron Paul's congressional stationery, signed by him, claiming that the newsletters are his. Using the possessive "s" doesn't actually say that he wrote them, it says that they are "his" - as has been widely reported, and as these pdf files clearly show. It seems clear to me that this edit request should be rejected at this time, and the newsletters should continue to be called "Ron Paul's", which is somewhat different from saying that he wrote every - or any - word in them. Tvoz |talk 00:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You suggestion about going to the newsletters and reject the neutral language edit request based on what we find is in conflict with Wikipedia:No original research. We should not be pushing our own POV. Terjen (talk) 01:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The possessives claiming these were "Ron Paul's newsletters" were added by Paisan30 and expanded by Vidor late January 8, less than two hours before the page was protected against editing byVeinor. The possessives thus does not reflect a historical consensus. Terjen (talk) 01:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no POV on this, Terjen, and I'm not doing research. I merely am providing backup to the reliable sources already provided who refer to the newsletters as Ron Paul's, for editors to be aware of. I didn't say we should use these as citations in the article, I am suggesting we look at them for an understanding of what the RS's were talking about. We are concerned first and foremost with verifiability and reliable sources, and that's what gets into the articles, but we are also interested in accuracy, are we not? Tvoz |talk 06:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the 1996 DMN article is not free, but it contains a passage which strongly suggests that Paul was aware of the contents of the 1992 newsletter at the time of publishing. Here is the relevant passage:

He also said the comment about black men in the nation's capital was made while writing about a 1992 study produced by the National Center on Incarceration and Alternatives, a criminal justice think tank based in Virginia.

Citing statistics from the study, Dr. Paul then concluded in his column: Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the criminal justice system, I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."

"These aren't my figures," Dr. Paul said Tuesday. "That is the assumption you can gather from" the report." (Hopefully, that isn't a copyvio - I'll delete immediately if it is.) Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 05:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

It's fair use to excerpt small, commercially unusable portions of a copyrighted work for the purposes of commenting specifically on that work. =)

Finally the protection is off. I made the small change to eliminate the "Paul's newsletter" POV language as discussed extensively above. Terjen (talk) 00:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Whoa - "discussed extensively", absolutely. But we did not reach consensus on this point at all, so this "small change" was improper. But rather than edit war, I changed it to clarify that first sentence (and fixed the grammatical error and misleading statement that the newsletters "date back to 1978" as if the offending ones were all from that long ago, which they were not), and have made some other additions for balance. Tvoz |talk 08:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I changed to neutral language that does not make any claim whether these are "Paul's newsletters", "ghostwritten newsletters" or any other alternatives, instead just referring to "the newsletters". Note that the original claims that these were "Paul's newsletters" were not based on a historical consensus, but added to the entry less than two hours before the page was edit protected for a week. Maybe we should give some Paul fan the opportunity to edit the page and then protect it for editing for another week just to be fair, then discuss the matter here for "consensus"- although I am not in favor of it.
If anybody still opposes neutral language referring to "the newsletters" instead of "Paul's newsletters", let's hear the arguments. The main argument I have heard so far after several days (see above) is that since an editors point of view is that these were Paul's newsletters, we should write they were "Paul's newsletters" (Vidor). The other argument is that there are sources, such as the TNR article, that uses such language (Paisan30). I have addressed both arguments already. I suggest we keep the neutral language, and open the floor for anybody that think they have better reasons for explicitly proclaiming up front as fact that these were "Paul's newsletters" instead of simply leaving the ownership and authorship of the newsletters for the reader to determine based on the information we present. Terjen (talk) 18:56, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Vidor reverted again to get his original POV with "Paul's newsletters" as opening to the section, arguing "Paul's name in the title, Paul's name in the publishing company's title, Paul owned stock, Paul listed as editor. Facts are not POV." Another example of the argument that "I think it is Paul's newsletter, ergo we should write it is his newsletter". It is still misleading to insinuate that Paul wrote the newsletters. Let's have a higher standard in our writing. Terjen (talk) 20:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I agreed with your position until I read the 1996 DMN article by Camia Catalina. It is an objective, reliable source and asserts that Ron Paul wrote the 1992 newsletter with racial remarks about Barbara Jordan, etc. However, I concede that the contemporary discussion of the newsletters in objective, reliable sources (CNN and The Capital Times) is careful not to attribute ownership. My opinion is that the 1996 DMN article is probably a better source since the author interviewed Mr. Paul for the article while the CNN/CapTimes articles are simply reporting on the TNR article. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
We also have RS that others authored much of the content.[20] Both can of course be true, but if it the case that Paul only wrote some of the content, it does not follow that they were "Paul's newsletters". Terjen (talk) 02:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
There's a compromise lurking somewhere in here; I agree that a distinction needs to be drawn between what we know he wrote and what we're coming to know Lew Rockwell and other former Paul staffers wrote, but an article that Paul approved --- as Reason implies he did, even in the worst cases --- has some relation to Paul despite the actual authorship, in the same way as Murdoch and Schulzberg have some relationship between what comes out of the Post and the Times. There's some genetive construct we're looking for, but it's probably not "Paul's newsletters". --- tqbf 02:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
On one hand we can refer to them as "Paul's newsletters", and make those assuming Paul wrote them happy. On the other hand, we can refer to them as the "ghostwritten newsletters", and make the Paul fans happy. A compromise is to simply refer to them as "the newsletters" and leave out any insinuation about who wrote the newsletters, instead discussing this issue with proper sources in the text. Terjen (talk) 03:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[outdent] You don't seem to want to get the point that accurately calling them "Paul's newsletters" doesn't mean he wrote them, it means - as he has acknowledged many times - that they went out with his name all over them in the banner, in the masthead, as the publishing entity: they are Ron Paul's responsibility, and they should be identified as his newsletters. Tvoz |talk 06:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

No, what it means is not what you think when you write it, but what the readers think when they read it. I don't know what each reader will think when they read those two words that you insist should open the section, but I highly suspect most won't think what you had in mind when they read "Paul's newsletters". I know I picture Paul cranking out newsletters on his typewriter or alternatively actively working editing it. No need to open with an ambiguous phrase that can easily mislead the reader. We can just skip the Paul part and have a neutral beginning that we all should have no problem agreeing on. Terjen (talk) 07:08, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Good article reassessment

I'm submitting this article for reassessment, as it is neither neutral nor stable. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I would have to agree. Perhaps it's just because I'm tired but parts of this article seem to be a little too glowing to me, as if this is a PR rather then an encylopaedia. Of particular concern is the relationship with district section. Nil Einne (talk) 10:29, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
imo you're never going to have a "stable" article about a candidate in an ongoing presidential election. Why not assess where things are when this all dies down? SJMNY (talk) 11:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree about this claim in general; Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have both been stable during the election, for example, and are FA and GA respectively. They are biographical articles, of which the presidential campaign material is a small portion. It doesn't speak well of Wikipedia if its articles on political figures involved in campaigns cannot by definition be considered excellent or good. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Orange Mike. However, SJMNY has a point - maybe the Iowa caucus results will fizzle out the activity on this page. Anyway, I think the "good article" label was a sad joke. (Watch the army come and vandalize my page come Monday, again.) AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I think this article should be delisted because of POV issues. Right now, it reads like a press release.
  • "Paul is strongly pro-life, but opposes a Federal ban on abortion, advocating overturning Roe v. Wade to let states determine the legality of abortion." — We should avoid loaded and controversial terms like "pro-life," unless they are part of a direct quote or a discussion of the term itself. "Anti-abortion" is more neutral.
  • "On August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon closed the "gold window" by implementing the U.S. dollar's complete departure from the gold standard, he says he realized what the Austrian School economists wrote was coming true." — Replace this with a direct quote. Otherwise, it sounds like Wikipedia is agreeing with his claim that "what the Austrian School economists wrote was coming true."
  • "In 1974, alarmed at the turmoil he saw predicted by the Austrian school, Vietnam War funding, rampant inflation, and wholesale welfare[...]" — Again, this should be put as a quote. Say "what he described as..." and then recount it in his own words.
  • "In 1980, when a majority of Republicans favored President Jimmy Carter's proposal to reinstate draft registration, he pointed out their views as inconsistent, stating they were more interested in registering their children than they were their guns." — "Pointed out" is POV; it implies Paul was correct.
  • "On the House Banking Committee, Paul blamed the Federal Reserve for inflation,[34] and spoke against banking deregulation that allowed for the 1980s savings and loan crisis." — POV and original research.
  • "Paul entered the race hopeful that his Constitutionalist goals of tax cuts, closing agencies, and curbing the UN would have more influence" — describing his goals as Constitutionalist is POV.
This article is salvageable, but it needs work. It also needs a bigger criticism section, since Paul is really a fringe figure and this makes him look much more mainstream and popular than he really is. *** Crotalus *** 05:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

What makes him more "frindge" and less "mainstream"? I think that thepast couple of months has moved him from fringe to mainstream. Saying that it needs more critisism BECAUSE he is a frindge candidate is a bias issue. It should be constructed as any other candidate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.241.100.80 (talk) 08:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think Crotalus has pointed out some genuine flaws -- I don't agree with the second bullet point, because an indirect quote doesn't imply he's correct any more than a direct one, but the others have some validity. However. As far as I can tell all the candidate articles have a generally positive tone. It's not WP's function to decide who's "fringe" in an ongoing race. I think Crotalus's comments suggest that he himself may not be coming at this from an entirely neutral position. --Trovatore (talk) 00:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Crotalus is, imo, right about all but one of the things he lists as not NPOV. that one thing is "pro-life" vs. "anti-abortion", there is nothing POV about referring to his position as "pro-life" i would infact say that it would be pushing a pro-abortion point of view to call him "anti-abortion". SJMNY (talk) 06:45, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Pro-life is an inherently biased term. Saying "anti-abortion" doesn't take the point of view that an embryo is a human life. MilesAgain (talk) 21:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
"anti-abortion" takes the point of view that the removal of the embryo/fetus is whats important as opposed to the life of said embryo/fetus. SJMNY (talk) 04:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

There was no consensus to delist at GAR, so the article remains listed. The discussion will be added to the GAR archives shortly. Geometry guy 19:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal - Split Newsletter controvesy to separate article

Reasons:

1. The stability of Ron Paul and Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 has suffered significantly due to this controversy, to the point that I question whether or not this article should still be listed as GA. A separate article would contain the instability to a single, less important article.

2. Changes to one article don't reflect changes in the other. For ease of maintenance a single article on the controversy with short blurbs on the main articles would help keep the articles in synch.

3. There seems to be some precedence for splitting significant controversies to their own articles, see Whitewater (controversy). I would recommend creating the article Ron Paul newsletters, and merging the relevant information there.

4. If, after the election, everyone loses interest in the newsletters, the new article could be merged back into Ron Paul or Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 as appropriate.

In part, I believe that the newsletters have achieved enough notability in their own right to have an article. Burzmali (talk) 14:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Two words: POV FORK. ~ UBeR (talk) 16:02, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Try SPIN OUT instead, better 2 words. Burzmali (talk) 17:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I am also against forking out the Newsletter controversy into its own entry. I second Burzmali on that it may appear to be a pov fork. I don't think stability is an issue, it seems like mainstream media is mostly done covering the story anyway. Terjen (talk) 16:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, since this article came out from protection around 40 hours ago, it has had 131 revision. That's at least 1 revision every 20 minutes, and earning the number 22 spot on the most edited article list according to wikirage. That makes for about as unstable an article as you can get. I am more worried about WP:UNDUE because I do not believe the newsletter issue can be covered fully in this article without expanding it to the point that it takes the article over. Burzmali (talk) 17:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Consider that the recent revisions are a delayed response to the newsletter story making major news a few hours before the article got protected. Expect it to cool down. Terjen (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:42, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 has clocked one edit every 25 minutes over the last eight and a half days with well over half of the edits linked to the controversy in some way, and sometimes reads like a POV fork of the newsletter section in this article. Burzmali (talk) 18:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
It reads differently because I've been working on it there with Terjen and Buspar and about 3 more Paul skeptics, yourself included. I was unaware that the controversy was even mirrored onto this page until Duchamps_comb pointed it out. I object to the notion that is a "fork" of this article; I didn't start with the content here.
Agree that we should contemplate some kind of a merge. Strongly dispute that it has an editorial bias one way or the other. I've gagged down a lot of pro-Paul material there, and I'm sure Terjen feels like he's had to gag down a lot of dubious anti-Paul material, but everything in that section is sourced to first and second tier news sources. --- tqbf 19:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I have stepped in both on apparent pro-Paul and anti-Paul edits. The Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 section on the newsletters still has issues. Terjen (talk) 19:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Understood; my point was, the editing process for that article has been fairly rigorous, even if neither of us are satisfied with it. I think it's better than the section here. --- tqbf 19:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I oppose this too; I thought about it for the same reason you did, Burzmali, but article splits should happen for flow and size reasons, not because we can't resolve content disputes. The newsletters are an exceedingly important detail of Paul's political career, and if a dispute takes GA away from the article, it doesn't deserve to have GA. --- tqbf 18:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Here are a few examples:
Jesse Jackson#Remarks about Jews, his "hymietown" statement was a political scandal at least as big as this, and it is 1 paragraph, maybe 5 sentences.
Michael Richards#Laugh Factory incident is two paragraphs and represents an event that ruined someone's career.
Trent Lott#Resignation from Senate leadership is three paragraphs and documents an event that almost ruined a US senator.
Spiro Agnew#Resignation is one paragraph of details and 3 of aftermath, and it ranks in the top 10 political scandal in the 20th century.
Anyway you slice it or dice it, this section is 14 paragraphs long spread over 2 articles, and represents the largest section in both articles. That is a clear violation of WP:UNDUE. If the event is really that notable, 14 paragraphs would make a great article and each of the current articles could have a nice 1 paragraph synopsis with a link to a main article. Burzmali (talk) 20:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Remember, we're in the middle of the presidential primaries and in an election year, so the timing is perfect for making it look like these were Paul's newsletters, and make sure our readers get riled up about the wile, possibly hateful and racist quotes you can find in some of their issues. And this is also a chance to warn anti-war leftist against voting for Paul. We can't do that with less, and some of our readers may miss it if we don't cover the controversy widely even if the mainstream press seems to have lost interest. Terjen (talk) 21:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I hope that was supposed to be a joke, Terjen. None of that has anything to do with why I too am opposed to forking off the newsletter controversy. Burzmali, one of the reasons there were many edits was indeed that when the full protection expired, the semi-protection wasn't reinstated until early this morning when I requested it, after numerous vandalisms and POV edits by IPs. So I don't think it's indicative of lack of stability - this article, like the biographies of the other people who are candidates in this election, are high profile, frequent targets, and also victims of the rush to get every tiny detail in after a primary or debate or any other event. That settles down, and is usually substantially reduced by sprot being in place. I actually think that despite some clear differences in opinion, we've managed to keep the section pretty balanced, and like it or not, it appears to be a significant part of his story, as measured by the amount of press coverage it did get, for a person who has trouble getting any serious coverage at all, even when his campaign makes news. Tvoz |talk 23:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's almost balanced, now it breaks WP:UNDUE. If we trim, people shout WP:NPOV. If we split, people shout WP:POVFORK. What lovely options. If it wasn't for the crappy press that the article will attract for WP, I'd let the election pass and fix it then... Burzmali (talk) 00:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Reaction:
  • The newsletter section in the campaign article is 8 grafs long
  • It stands alone, without reference to any of the content in this article
  • It's far from the biggest section of the article (there's more converage of Internet and grassroots activism)
  • It's even further from the biggest section if you consider Moneybomb and the "Political Positions" article
  • The newsletters are a far bigger story, judged purely by press hits and venues, than moneybombs (for instance)
  • At least 3 of the grafs in the section are strict reporting --- the Kirchick article, the Reason article, and the campaign response --- and can't be removed or easily merged
There's no such thing as a "clear violation of WP:UNDUE". It's all subjective.
This content will eventually stabilize. When it does, then's the time to consider simplifying it. When Paul drops out of the race (or secedes from the Union), a more reasonable size for these articles is sure to suggest itself. --- tqbf 01:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

No, no, no, and also no. Vidor (talk) 03:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Split, Merge, trim, or delete WP:UNDUE. "If we trim, people shout WP:NPOV. If we split, people shout WP:POVFORK" -that's how they like it it's good to wp:GAME the system..."When Paul drops out of the race (or secedes from the Union)" The goal of the POV-warriors to put out as much disinformation as long as possible (to effect the election), besides some of them are getting paid for it!--Duchamps_comb MFA 14:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Accusing people of being part of some vague conspiracy or "POV-warriors" isn't conducive to the goals of wikipedia. Bartleby (talk) 00:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Removing information about extremely controversial involvements of a presidential candidate is also not very conductive of Wikipedia's goals. It's a ridiculous suggestion to move the single most fleshed out criticism section out of the article. This is most definitely an important aspect of who Ron Paul is. —msikma (user, talk) 21:10, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Clarification of Paul's Views in summary

Here is my revision to the opening paragraph. Please, suggest changes or clarify if or why you believe it is not NPOV to note the connection between Paul's beliefs and those of Washington. I can cite sources if you don't believe me about that link. He himself can be quoted in agreement.

And again, someone takes out my "the privacy violations codified in" the patriot act. Paul is against those. How is that fact not NPOV? Please enlighten me. 65.54.154.145 (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)Dragonnas 01/06/2008 11:00pm PST

Paul has been described as conservative, Constitutionalist, and libertarian.[2] He advocates a non-interventionist foreign policy, having voted against actions such as the Iraq War Resolution, but in favor of force against terrorists in Afghanistan. He is against partisan politics and favors withdrawal from NATO and the United Nations, instead supporting the idea of strong national sovereignty citing the dangers of "foreign entanglements" as expressed in the wishes of George Washington's farewell address. Having pledged never to raise taxes, he has long advocated ending the federal income tax and reducing government spending by abolishing most federal agencies; he favors hard money and opposes the Federal Reserve. He also opposes the violations of privacy codified in the Patriot Act, the federal War on Drugs, and gun control. Paul is pro-life, but opposes a Federal ban on abortion, advocating overturning Roe v. Wade to let states determine the legality of abortion.[3] 65.54.154.145 (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)dragonnas

Because "the violations of privacy codified in the Patriot Act, the federal War on Drugs, and gun control" (whether one agrees with part or all of the clause or not) is definitely not a neutral description of those matters. --Orange Mike | Talk 21:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I will make my change without the part about privacy violations. I Suppose if someone doesn't know that the patriot act causes privacy concerns, they wouldn't be at Ron Paul's page.Dragonnas (talk) 22:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)dragonnas
It should be noted that he voted in favor of a federal ban on late-term D&C abortions, HR 760. This is not consistent with opposing federal regulation of abortions. 71.145.152.70 (talk) 10:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
It should say "He advocates overturning Roe v.Wade claiming it will let states determine the legality of abortion."

Paul supports changing the constitution to define life as beginning at conception, which would effectively determine the legality of abortion on a state level. While I suppose states could make the newly-defined murder legal, much of the abortion debate centers around the question of whether the fetus is alive or not. It therefore strikes me as misleading to say that he believes states should determine the legality of abortion if he supports removing their right to determine when life begins. The wording as it stands makes it sound like Wikipedia is confirming that overturning Roe v. Wade would indeed allow states to determine the legality of abortion in the sense of abortion as it is now defined. Sorry if that's not clear, this is one of my first times trying to edit a page.

Also, I don't understand what that 2 citation is referring to. It directs to a page written by somebody else about Ron Paul; it is not something out of his office. [[[User:SheepFugue|SheepFugue]] (talk) 00:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)]

"affirms states' rights to determine the legality of abortion"

Even after creating an account, I can not edit this article, so I will ask someone else to...

When it says, "affirms states' rights to determine the legality of abortion" that doesn't really make sense.

I think it should say, "believes states should determine the legality of abortion" instead. Anyone agree? Paulin08 (talk) 07:08, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I made the change. Paulin08 (talk) 22:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think this sentence should clarify the connection between overturning Roe v. Wade and supporting states' rights to determine the legality of abortion. This can be achieved with minor changes to the sentence structure and wording. Terjen (talk) 22:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It is misleading when the intro labels Paul as "strongly pro-life", even if the candidate has described himself this way. Paul opposes a Federal ban on abortion[21], hardly a "strong pro-life" position. In addition, he has several times voted against legally restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions and against making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime. I suggest we drop the adjective/adverb and leave the label to just "pro-life". Terjen (talk) 16:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Um. Except that he voted in favor of a federal ban on D&C abortions, HR 760 [22]. He *is* a "strong pro-lifer," happy enough to vote for federal bans until the states can do the banning themselves. 71.145.152.70 (talk) 10:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Ron Paul is indeed "pro-life". See [www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/912300/posts]. There are also a bunch of other bills/resolutions that you could see besides 760, such as 1095 or 1003, or for example 380. There are more, I've got links if you want them. —msikma (user, talk) 19:52, 13 January 2008 (UTC)


I think a citation is needed for the sentence "Paul has also introduced a Constitutional amendment with similar intent." Or at least a name or identifier of what legislation it's referring to. [[[User:SheepFugue|SheepFugue]] (talk) 00:42, 22 January 2008 (UTC)}

If you listen to Ron Paul's interviews, he explains his ideas on abortion. Ron Paul is Pro-Life, but he says that the individual states, not the federal government, should take care of issues concerning abortion. Every question that anyone has is addressed in his numerous videos on You Tube. Nly8nchz (talk) 08:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

What is Ron Pauls position on 'lobbying'

Shouldn't it be banned since it's a form bribery. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.155.110.38 (talk) 07:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not a forum to discuss Ron Paul's positions - check his websites. Tvoz |talk 08:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
If the question is because there is no information about it in the article, it is clearly in support of improving the article and as such is encouraged here. Devpty01 (talk) 18:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
This is an issue for the Political positions of Ron Paul entry. A starting point might be his writings on Campaign Finance Reform. See e.g. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH MONEY IN POLITICS?. Terjen (talk) 19:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


--69.149.15.249 (talk) 20:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC) Thankyou!

Straw Polls

Madrigal is making an issue of the straw poll wording. Looking at the wiki article on it, it looks to me like Paul won 18 of them. He did not win in 19 of them. 1) Where is the proof he won "most" and not "some". 18 out of 37 is not "most" of them to me. and 2) Who cares? Paul won the SC straw poll, but got trounced in the actual primary. He won in FL, but if you watch the primary tomorrow, you'll most likely see the same result. He won 3 in NH and got beat handily in the actual primary. He won in PA, but is polling at about 2% right now. Straw polls are pretty meaningless, so why is there a push to say "most" without any supporting article? Niteshift36 (talk) 03:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

With the primaries/caucuses underway, the degree to which the intro emphasizes straw polls is inappropriate, not that it ever wasn't. According to this very talk page, straw polls measure candidate support even better than phone polls, which, after all, are "not scientific," which is why we had to highlight Paul's straw poll showing in the lead for so long. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 04:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Apparently they aren't better than phone polls. The phone polls have been much closer to the actual voting results than straw polls. Straw poll participants are usually much more politically active than the rest of the voters. Representing activists as the true measure is apparently not a that accurate when it comes to guaging support. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Newsroom hierarchies has deleted my statistics regarding the straw polls and second place finish in Nevada and Louisiana. "this falsely implies that he is a leading candidate. he's not." Falsely? How can a statement of fact be false? JLMadrigal (talk) 12:45, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
This is what you wrote with regard to Paul's campaign performance: So far, he has placed second in the primaries in Nevada and Louisiana. How about in Iowa, NH, SC, FL? Why'd you pick the best two to single out? That's exactly how a "statement of fact" can be misleading. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 15:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Singling out those two (and he only placed third in Louisiana, incidentally), constitutes undue emphasis of a classic sort. It is definitely biased. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, he may have placed first (among candidates). The Louisiana GOP still has not released the results, and changed the rules AFTER Paul won the most delagates by the deadline. How is singling out the two in which he placed second anything other than a statement of the two in which he placed second? JLMadrigal (talk) 00:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Just as Orange Mike said--doing so is undue emphasis. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 00:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
The "undue emphasis" claim doesn't hold water, since the disputed content is not a skewable viewpoint, but relevant facts. Readers want information in a nutshell. They want to know how well the candidate is doing in the election. Where did he place? They want to know how well he did in the straw polls (not meaningless abstracts like "some"). A fact is a fact. Not even the most sophisticated twist of logic can change that. Readers want and deserve unbiased information, not abstracts - and certainly not censorship.
"While Paul won won 18 out of 37 straw polls, he has seen substantially less support in traditional phone polls. Paul has placed second among GOP candidates in two early primaries - the Nevada and Louisiana caucuses."
Undue emphasis? C'mon kids. Put away your hatchets. JLMadrigal (talk) 01:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Problem is, you want to talk extensively about straw polls, which have no actual value and, thus far, have not translated into actual votes, but try to hide anything that doesn't paint Paul in a perfect light. Straw polls are popularity contests among activists gathered for a specific reason. If you hold a so-called straw poll at a tax protestor picnic, of course Paul does great. Duh! But winning 53 out of 75 votes at the picnic doesn't make you popular when the REAL votes start getting cast. Didn't Paul win a straw poll in FL? Didn't he just get handed a 3% vote there? Niteshift36 (talk) 03:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Problem is, if it weren't for the Internet, Paul wouldn't have ANY light - much less "perfect light". The contempt of the broadcast "journalists" for Ron Paul, and the resulting blackout, has created an unquenched thirst for Ron Paul. The thinkers among us are lucky enough to have an actual source of information. This massive information void is being filled by the Internet (in case y'all haven't noticed). Those who know Paul (and read their Constitution), love him. JLMadrigal (talk) 12:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Since you want to sound smug, I'll play. Some of us not only read the Constitution, but understand it. There is a difference between reading it and comprehending it. And some of us actually have education on it that wasn't an elective while going to medical school. You can spin and spin and spin until you get dizzy. The fact is that this article and related ones will be moot points in a short time anyway. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Excellent. Let's go. Now why would it require special training to understand a simple clear and concise document that spells out the role of the federal government? Perhaps an "education" is required to learn how to "spin" it into something else. Anyone who speaks English is qualified. And a casual reading reveals that the Federal government is in violation of Article I Section 8 (the enumerated powers of Congress), Section 9 (the prohibitions of the combined states), and Section 10 (the prohibitions of the individual states), for starters. Shall I continue? JLMadrigal (talk) 00:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
LOL. No, you don't need to continue. I've heard the same rap from dozens of people like you. If it was near as simple as you paint it to be, we'd have no need for the Supreme Court. Discussing it with people like you is a fools errand. You think you know so much, but don't know the most important thing; how little you actually know. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Okidoki. Throwing in the towel, eh? Typical. And with a smiling retreat. Nice. JLMadrigal (talk) 03:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
C'mon, J.L., do you really not admit that some people think your interpretation has been obsolete since before 1865? Or do you not admit the validity of, say, the 14th and 16th Amendments? Because that's where I just shrug and walk away, hoping your tinfoil is thick enough. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:43, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Thomas Jefferson made sure that the US Constitution would not be a "wax" Constitution. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_18s16.html I'd be interested in knowing how the 14th and 16th amendments invalidate my "interpretation" of Article I - and where "tinfoil" comes into the picture. JLMadrigal (talk) 12:47, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Thorowing in the towel? Don't flatter yourself sport. But this isn't a debate forum and not the medium to have that discussion in. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:51, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Controversy section inappropriate for biography article

I am removing the controversy section from this article. The controversy is adequately covered in the Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 article, is inappropriate for a biography page, and properly falls under the campaign section. JLMadrigal (talk) 12:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree and have reverted the deletion. The newsletters are far more pertinent to Paul than they are to his campaign. Devpty01 (talk) 12:43, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, please don't just do these things. This is a controversial article, so it's far more useful for us to discuss potentially controversial edits here since it helps prevent edit wars (to which you are no stranger, I might add). —msikma (user, talk) 21:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I strongly agree with the deletion. I can understand why the section would exist in the campaign article, but why here as well? -LisaLiel (talk) 00:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I would probably agree to a properly discussed plan to move the bulk of this controversy to the campaign article (there is I believe a great deal of overlap and repetition), but this newsletter stuff has been dogging Paul for more than a decade and is part of his biography. And for what reason is a carefully cited and neutrally stated account of controversy "inappropriate for a biography page"? --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 00:26, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This supposed "controversy" has not "dogged" Paul for about 20 years. It's only now resurfacing as a smear campaign to label Paul a "racist" by proxy, in order to block his momentum. Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and Huckabee have plenty of dirt on them - much darker dirt, I may add. But they don't have "controversy" sections in their articles. If editors of this article were fair, they would allow expose' of the fact that the broadcast media has been unfair in its coverage of Ron Paul - who, although he has been steadily beating Giuliani in the primaries, has been outraising the other candidates, &c, is still getting less coverage. THAT's newsworthy. JLMadrigal (talk) 01:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This isn't the platform on which to get the word out about Paul. We write what is reported by reputable sources.
Regarding the supposed lack of controversy in the articles you mentioned, please see the following:
Also please note that this isn't a general "controversy section," but rather a section specifically devoted to the racist newsletter controversy.--Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 02:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
You need to read up on your candidate Madrigal. It was an issue in his 1996 Congressional race. That was 11 years ago. So let's not act like it has been dormant for 20 years. And, like it or not, it is a factor. It belongs in both because it's not solely about his campaign, it's about the man himself. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:59, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
It's ridiculous to suggest that this is just a big smear campaign. The man let a racist newsletter be published for twenty years under his name, and still employs the person who published it (Jean McIver) even after finding out about it, despite telling everyone that he fired the people involved. And despite denying any connection to these newletters that bore his name—and were published by "Ron Paul & Associates"—for decades, he continues to make the same kind of prejudice remarks. Didn't he describe those working for the Transportation Security Administration as looking "more suspicious to [him] than most Americans who are getting checked"? But no, apparently, to some people, any kind of criticism that refers to this is part of some smear campaign. Are you trying to imply that the people who want the newsletter section to remain in this article are part of that, too? —msikma (user, talk) 07:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
PS: I might have lost my WP:COOL with that last message, but I still find it deplorable that perfectly valid criticism is being deleted from an article for the reason that it's apparently "part of a smear campaign". I think it's insulting to those Wikipedians who are trying to make sure this article is at least somewhat balanced. —msikma (user, talk) 07:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
This is politics, so naivety can be left at the door. Of course it is a smear campaign - that's why we cover it on the Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 page. The User:Msikma statement that "for decades, he continues to make the same kind of prejudice remarks" is completely unfounded. You have to look hard and apply imagination to find much (I have seen the attempts). Please be careful not to impose your prejudges on the page. Wikipedia is not a tabloid, which is why we should focus on covering the controversies rather than attempt to emotionally affect our readers. Terjen (talk) 16:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
First off, I said "for decades" in reference to his newsletters. I didn't say "he continues to make prejudice remarks for decades", I said "he continues to make prejudice remarks". Clever way to twist a sentence.
Secondly, please don't say that we "shouldn't be naive"; it's simply not true that there's a smear campaign going on against an insignificant candidate who has viewpoints that a lot of people disagree with. He's simply being criticized as he should. I can't help the fact that there's a racist newsletter that was published right underneath his nose for 20 years. There is absolutely no excuse for this, and he's lucky that the media haven't made a massive deal out of this (of course, again, that's because he's really not very significant).
And lastly, you don't have to "look hard" to find these prejudice remarks at all! In fact, you don't even have to use your imagination. :) Like I said in my previous message, didn't he describe those working for the Transportation Security Administration as looking "more suspicious to [him] than most Americans who are getting checked," a while ago? He also sponsored legalization that would weaken the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and another that would deny Iranian students federal aid. These bills are all real, and there is simply no excuse or explanation for these things. Why would anyone want to deny federal aid to Iranian students specifically? Did he conclude that "those Iranians" are bad news already? There's so much more, too. I'm trying to make a point here rather than posting links to material worth adding in the article, though, so I'll stop here. The point is that I don't find it very strange he has written (or was at least strongly involved in) a newsletter that advocated very narrow-minded views for 20 years. —msikma (user, talk) 19:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
"These bills are all real, and there is simply no excuse or explanation for these things." There very often is, because Ron Paul makes speeches about the bills he introduces. Here's one that has to do with students from terrorist sponsoring countries. MantisEars (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The controversy section should be removed from this article. This really has nothing to do with Paul personally. This seems like an attempt to link something to Paul for political reasons. This is a biography page about his life. 75.21.123.50 (talk) 17:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad the controversy portion is here. I came here for that very reason. Why would I ever look for information about Ron Paul under something like "Ron Paul's 2008 Run For President" or whatever. I check the contents...no controversy...back to the web to find it. If you are a supporter of Ron Paul, would you rather I learn about it from Wiki or CNN or a competitors campaign site? These questions are relevant to Ron Paul the person. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.180.208.44 (talk) 04:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Statements misfiled in talk lead

Why the hell is the newsletter controversy section twice as large as his entire presidential election section? Pathetic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.9.231 (talk) 07:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not as angry sounding as the compaint above, but agree. Six paragraphs about newsletters, and the same amount in the "Political positions" section? I recommend going back to the "13:06, 8 February 2008 Pensil (Talk | contribs) (84,889 bytes) (Section too long, could constitute new article)" edit of that section and perhaps separating off most of the current content into a new page or something. 75.174.4.86 (talk) 13:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Preceding statements moved here by John J. Bulten (talk) 23:08, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Disputed statement - "but opposes a federal ban on abortion"

In the lede, there is a sentence which describes Ron Paul's pro-life views. Three weeks ago, on January 5, Terjen made an addition to this sentence. Previously, it had read: "Paul is strongly pro-life, and advocates overturning Roe v. Wade to let states determine the legality of abortion.[4] Terjen's addition is in bold: "Paul is strongly pro-life, but opposes a Federal ban on abortion, advocating overturning Roe v. Wade to let states determine the legality of abortion.[5]

Terjen provided a reference from this document, in which Paul wrote: "while Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid." However, Paul has made another statement about a federal ban on abortion. In this document, Paul wrote: "an outright federal ban on abortion" can be "done properly via a constitutional amendment". Paul's statements directly contradict one another.

—This is part of a comment by Photouploaded , which was interrupted by the following: I am sympathetic to Photo's concerns without wholly agreeing, and will comment more directly below, but wish to point out that (as later edits imply) this is not a contradiction: Paul opposes federal laws banning abortion per se, but supports Constitutional amendments effectively banning it. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

What is Paul's opinion of federal regulation of abortion? As 71.145.152.70 noted in these edits, Paul voted in favor of a federal ban on late-term D&C abortions.

—This is part of a comment by Photouploaded , which was interrupted by the following: Again, very interesting and relevant point, but it was not all late-term D&C's, but only events defined as partial-birth abortions. He opposes federal laws banning abortion per se, but supports (with objections) this federal law banning a particular form of abortion (PBA) that can be clearly distinguished. My suspicion is that, since Congress found as fact that the mother's health is not involved in PBA, that removes it from the category of (protected) "legal abortion", which can only include acts performed for a Scotus-enumerated reason. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

In the reference Terjen provided, Paul claimed that "the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue." Yet Paul introduced the Sanctity of Life Act, which sought to federally define human life as beginning from conception.

Is it reasonable, then, to state that Paul "opposes a federal ban" on abortion, when he has already voted in favor of one, and has stated that a federal ban on abortion can be "done properly"? No. Clearly, Paul is of the opinion that embryos and fetuses are unborn children, and that the only appropriate course of action is to create legal protection for them as human beings. He has sought to remove federal protection of abortion, and to replace it with federal protection of fetuses.

Clearly there is no place in this article for a statement that Paul "opposes a federal ban", when he has spoken and voted in favor of a federal ban. The lede should give a more accurate picture of Paul's views and actions towards abortion.

I suggest that we state something to the effect of the following:

"Paul is strongly pro-life, has introduced legislation intended to overturn Roe v. Wade, and seeks to "restore protection to the unborn".

Opinions? Photouploaded (talk) 17:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with this edit suggestion, and think it is worded properly. Paul has been clear all along in his position, but some editors here have chosen to be somewhat less clear. And, if I recall correctly from earlier discussions, he has introduced the Sanctity of Life act many times - it's not a passing position, it is central to his beliefs. Tvoz |talk 17:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Photouploaded cites Ron Paul's essay Pro-Life Action Must Originate from Principle as main evidence, but takes the quotes out of context, saying that Paul wrote "an outright federal ban on abortion" can be "done properly via a constitutional amendment". He correctly assess that this directly contradicts the statement I quoted in which Paul makes it clear that he opposes a Federal ban on abortion.
This contradiction can be resolved by reading the source: "State legislatures have always had proper jurisdiction over issues like abortion and cloning; the pro-life movement should recognize that jurisdiction and not encroach upon it. The alternative is an outright federal ban on abortion, done properly via a constitutional amendment that does no violence to our way of government." Paul is apparently not advocating a federal ban, but matter of fact pointing out that this is the alternative to the path he favors. Reading the rest of the essay makes this obvious.
Photouploaded also refers to Paul's explanation on voting for The Partial Birth Abortion Ban despite arguing in the essay that "The best solution, of course, is not now available to us. That would be a Supreme Court that recognizes that for all criminal laws, the several states retain jurisdiction.[...] Unfortunately, H.R. 760 takes a different approach, one that is not only constitutionally flawed, but flawed in principle, as well." It is again obvious Paul favors that the jurisdiction remains with the states.
The Sanctity of Life Act includes some rather dumb language, e.g. "The Congress finds that present day scientific evidence indicates a significant likelihood that actual human life exists from conception." Duh. I believe the goal of the act was to legislatively overturn Roe v. Wade, as it also removes Supreme Court jurisdiction over such cases. However, we should not get into legislative analysis, as that would be very much in the realm of original research.
Paul is very clear in opposing a federal ban on abortion and in promoting that the states should retain the jurisdiction. Our introduction had it wrong for far too long, and it would be a mistake to return to the old language now that it has been corrected to clarify that Paul opposes a federal ban. Terjen (talk) 18:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The bill may contain "dumb language", but that's irrelevant to this discussion. It is a bill that Paul has introduced year after year whose intention is to have a federal mandate that would make it illegal for any state to have laws that protect the right of women to have abortions. Photo's wording doesn't have the words "federal ban on abortion" and is much more accurate and true to what Ron Paul's position is than the misleading "opposes Federal laws regulating or banning abortion, advocating overturning Roe v. Wade to let states determine its legality" which implies that whatever the states decide is ok. But his SoL bill speaks directly against that. Paul may technically favor letting states determine its legality, but he favors having a federal mandate which would by federal law prevent any state from affirming its legality and it is misleading and somewhat disingenuous to suggest otherwise. I've said this many times as this has been debated on this talk page over the last months: Ron Paul is clear on his position - it is we who muddy it up, perhaps trying to make it sound more acceptable to a broader base of people. Saying words to the effect of "Paul is strongly pro-life, has introduced legislation intended to overturn Roe v. Wade, and seeks to "restore protection to the unborn". is a lot more understandably accurate than what we now have. The current wording is carefully parsed, and not technically incorrect, but it is grossly misleading. Tvoz |talk 20:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I am glad you realize that the current wording isn't "technically incorrect". However, you are incorrect when stating that the Sanctity of Life Act's intention is to have a federal mandate that would make it illegal for any state to have laws that protect the right of women to have abortions. This is not a place to make up your own creative interpretations of legislation. See WP:OR.
Paul explicitly states on the House of Representatives website that "the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue. So while Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid."[23] This (and other writing by Paul) supports our statement that Paul "opposes Federal laws regulating or banning abortion". Terjen (talk) 23:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Terjen, I think I set up the Sanctity of Life Act article, so I am somewhat familiar with what the bill says. I don't think we should be debating the subject here other than as it pertains to this article, but it's hardly creative or original interpretation to say that a federal law declaring that life begins at conception goes hand-in-hand with a position that such life would have to be protected by other state - and Federal - laws. And that is the intention of the SoL act - all I'm saying is that we should not be misleading here and give the impression that although he is personally pro-life, all he is has done legislatively is stated that it's up to the states. If he did not propose SoL, his position might be consistent with the way you represented it - his personal beliefs about when life begins would be separate from his view on what the Constitution says regarding state vs federal authority. But in fact he proposes the SoL Act in each Congressional session because he would like to see it passed as law, and that law would prevent the states from following their consciences, if they chose to protect abortion rights.

—This is part of a comment by Tvoz , which was interrupted by the following: Actually, it does not prevent the states from doing anything, it prevents the feds. The state is free to protect "abortion rights" or protect unborn lives at its discretion. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the article should say that he supports a Federal ban on abortion, but I think it should be clearer about what he does support. The current wording does not give a clear presentation of the totality of his position. Photo's wording does - or at least it gives a fuller representation. This article doesn't have room for a long discussion in the lede about this, of course - but it should not give the wrong impression. Tvoz |talk 23:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Creating the Sanctity of Life Act stub article hardly gives you any authority on interpreting the bill. Besides, even that entry does not state anything like that its intention is to have a federal mandate that would make it illegal for any state to have laws that protect the right of women to have abortions. I see a pattern in the discussion here. First the main argument of Photouploaded quotes Paul out of context, ignoring the rest of the source contradicting the position. Next Tvoz makes a layman's interpretation of a bill based on reading selected passages, conveniently ignoring contradictory parts. The latest interpretation of the Sanctity of Life Act: that law would prevent the states from following their consciences. Incorrect. That would be Roe v. Wade. I suggest you take the discussion about the real meaning of the bill to the Sanctity of Life Act entry and dish it out there, or perhaps better not. Bottom line: Paul opposes a Federal ban on abortion. Terjen (talk) 02:30, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[outdent] I didn't claim any authority on interpreting the bill, Terjen, I was responding to your patronizing attitude where apparently you are free to interpret it, but I'm not: "The Sanctity of Life Act includes some rather dumb language, e.g. "The Congress finds that present day scientific evidence indicates a significant likelihood that actual human life exists from conception." Duh. I believe the goal of the act was to legislatively overturn Roe v. Wade, as it also removes Supreme Court jurisdiction over such cases." You "believe" you know what the bill means, but I can't respond with what I think the words "sanctity of life" and the related portion of the bill mean. OK. And your characterization that I've made a "layman's interpretation .. based on reading selected passages" - do you have some reason to know what I've read or whose interpretation I presented? Are you providing some kind of expert testimony here that gives you superior knowledge of the meaning of the bill? You know - I see a pattern here too, but it's a different one. The pattern I see is the one I've seen for months editing this article, and that is the propensity for partisan editing, perhaps in hopes that some supporters will not completely understand what his positions - about which he is quite clear - are. There were attempts to distort the reporting of the newsletter controversy, and I'm seeing it here too. Yes, he says he opposes a Federal ban on abortion (despite voting for the Federal ban on late term D&C abortions) because he thinks it is a matter for the states to determine. But what he is in favor of is having a Federal law written which would be the grounds for defining abortion as murder which is illegal in all states. You seem to be the one selectively reading it - the name of the act indicates what its primary thrust is, and that is to define life - on the Federal level - as starting at conception. Not subject to any interpretation - read it yourself. There's no need to debate the "real" meaning of the bill - it's crystal clear. I've said before, you may recall, that a clear rendition of Paul's actual position on abortion would likely attract as many supporters as it would repel others, so I wouldn't worry about that if I were you. But it would be accurate and complete, something you seem to wish to avoid. Were you here when there were debates about whether the words "pro-life" should be included at all? Final word: I don't appreciate your use of "dish it out" or your sanctimonious declarations. The "disputed" tag should remain - in fact it should probably be replaced with an overall tag questioning the neutrality of the article or sections of it - but out of respect for a lot of hard work that has gone into trying to keep this piece neutral - by multiple editors - I won't put it on right now. Let's see if anyone else chimes in here - so far, I see two editors preferring a word change in the lede and one opposing it. We don't have consensus here. Tvoz |talk 08:31, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

This isn't rocket science, Terjen. Ron Paul is a vocal "pro-lifer" and has sponsored the according bills. Don't attempt to twist this; like Tvoz says, it's crystal clear what they were about. I'd explain in detail how one should read the titles of these bills, but there's no need to, as it's been explained already. —msikma (user, talk) 10:23, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Msikma, I am not disputing that Ron Paul is a vocal "pro-lifer" and has sponsored the according bills. But I don't think we should take your word for that it is "crystal clear" what the bills were about. You don't find the meanings of bills by reading their titles. Terjen (talk) 18:20, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
It now reads that Paul "opposes federal laws regulating or banning abortion", which I think is accurate and complete information. The Sanctity of Life Act does in fact outlaw federal regulation (including banning) of abortion. It makes no mention of Roe v. Wade, as that is a Supreme Court decision and cannot explicitly be countermanded by the legislative branch. Congress can only make laws - if the Court decided that the SoL act was unconstitutional, they could rule it so, and we would have "Roe v. Wade" Part 2. The Act is mentioned in this article and there is a citation which includes the entire text of the bill. I certainly believe that Paul advocates overturning or negating the effects of Roe v. Wade, which is also mentioned in the article. Paisan30 (talk) 10:57, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Paul does not oppose federal regulation of abortion! Before a federal bill restricting abortion passed, Paul wrote: "If the next version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban act reads like past versions in the House, I will likely support it despite the dilemmas outlined here. I cannot support, however, a bill like the proposed Senate version of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban that reaffirms Roe v. Wade." Clearly, Paul's dilemma was not with federally restricting abortion, but with voting in favor of a piece of abortion-restricting legislation that also federally protected abortion. Paul proved this to be true, by voting in favor of the ban. In the same writing, Paul voiced his support of an "outright federal ban" on abortion, stating that it could be "done properly". Paul is clearly in support of ending abortion, and has taken steps at the federal level to make this a reality.
The sentence in the lede was grossly misleading to the point of being outright false. I have rephrased it, according to the support for that change, here. The sentence now reads:
Paul is "strongly pro-life", has introduced legislation intended to overturn Roe v. Wade, and seeks to "restore protection to the unborn".
Please see the article itself to view the references for these statements. Photouploaded (talk) 17:19, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Paul explicitly states that he opposes a federal ban on abortion,[24] so it is not true when Photouploaded states that Paul does not oppose federal regulation of abortion. Photouploaded again quotes Paul out of context, apparently from the Pro-Life Action Must Originate from Principle, saying that Paul voiced his support of an "outright federal ban" on abortion, stating that it could be "done properly". The source makes it clear that this is not what Paul intends. Repeating already debunked arguments doesn't further the case.
I think the current language explains Paul's position well: Paul is pro-life, but opposes Federal laws regulating or banning abortion, advocating overturning Roe v. Wade to let states determine its legality. I would be fine if the middle part of this text just said opposes a Federal ban of abortion. I would prefer that instead of saying "its legality" it said the legality of the procedure to make it clearer, but neither is a big deal. Terjen (talk) 18:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
If you read Ron Paul's Weekly Column on Federalizing Social Policy, he says "Under the 9th and 10 amendments, all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the Constitution remains with state legislatures. Therefore the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue." He wants the state legislature, not the federal government, to handle ideas concerning issues abortion. The portion "opposes Federal laws regulating or banning abortion" should be taken out altogether as it sounds like Ron Paul opposes all laws "regulating or banning abortion". The full sentence should read "Paul is pro-life, he advocates overturning Roe v. Wade which would hold the individual states' legislatures, not the federal government, responsible for matters concerning abortion."Nly8nchz (talk) 08:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
It explicitly says "opposes Federal laws", and that can hardly be confused with "opposes all laws". The last part of the sentence already makes it clear that states can enact laws. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not "hold the individual states' legislatures....responsible for matters concerning abortion" - that's just confusing.Terjen (talk) 20:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Terjen, I hear what you are saying. My problem is with the wording. The wordking as it is does not make very clear that Ron Paul wants the states to handle laws on abortion, not the federal government. This might just be a personal preference, but I think the wording needs some help to cearly and concisely state Ron Paul's position on abortion and its laws.Nly8nchz (talk) 00:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps my suggestion above might help, changing "its legality" to "the legality of the produce"? As in "advocating overturning Roe v. Wade to let states determine the legality of the procedure". That will eliminate the ambiguous "its" in the current version, which could be read as referring back to "Roe v. Wade" rather than "abortion". Terjen (talk) 01:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Reading the article as it is now written, it is clear that Ron Paul is opposed to abortion, but believes that it is a state matter. The Four Deuces (talk) 09:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate that this debate (which sounds just like the archived ones IMHO) has quietly led to sorta consensus. Nly8nchz makes a key point, that the current language (quoted by Terjen) has all the necessary points, but is still lacking in wordsmithing. Prior to this debate, the points had been (1) strongly pro-life; (2) states' rights. Terjen wishes to make clear something relating to (3) federal laws banning abortion, which others have moderated into a somewhat more workable statement. My observation is that the evidence others bring (PBABA, SOLA, etc.) means that the fullness of point (3) would be very hard to state neutrally and briefly in the lead. We previously agreed essentially that this sentence should be short and sweet but should indicate that there's more to the story (a nuance), which can be found explained in the article below. Given that, I would only allude to (3) rather than state all its nuances, and my go would be: "Paul is strongly pro-life, and has introduced bills to negate" (not overturn) "Roe v. Wade, but affirms states' rights to regulate or ban abortion, rather than federal jurisdiction." Will probably go with that, this section may not be read much due to hiatus. In fact, "allow[] states to again ban or regulate abortion" are his words, from the "Pro-Life Action" piece. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Lew Rockwell did not write the racist newsletters. Here is proof

http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/01/24/ron-paul-racial-issues-and-the-racists-who-wish-to-kill-the-paul-campaign/

The racist newsletters were written by Bill White. It was this man that Jamie Kirchick used as a source.

"Reason magazine identified then prominent paleolibertarian activist Lew Rockwell" is a lie. It's as if Reason Magazine has the authority to "identify" any truth! They do not have that authority.

Bill White hates Ron Paul because he thinks Paul has been corrupted by Jews. Paul's economic principles, are principles that White believes stems from Jewish economists like Von Mises, Rothbard, and others who have educated Paul.

I think the whole entry on the racist newsletters needs to be erased entirely, as they are a vicious fabrication of lies. Reason magazine is run by objectivists, who hate libertarians. They hate libertarians because they believe them to be a weak and morally corrupt group. Objectivists are similar to libertarians, except objectivists are more militant in their beliefs. Whereas Ron Paul may say that although some Arabs practice things that violate personal liberty like stoning, the wearing of burkas, hijabs, they have a right to live any way they want, so long as they do not violate other cultures. Objectivists on the other hand see this as the equivalent of "sanctioning" such behaviour by the mere act of not engaging in violence with them. The Ayn Rand Institute and Libertarians may appear to be allies, but objectivists make them like oil and water.

It's sad that nobody here can even see this.

THIS is why those at reason magazine and other extremists hate Ron Paul and want to destory his campaign. By having the racist newsletters section on Ron Paul's wiki entry, you are doing EXACTLY what the liars want you to do. You are assisting in the character assassination of a very moral and NON-racist man.

I thus call for the newsletter section to be erased in its entirety. The link I have given PROVES Ron Paul did not write them, it proves Lew Rockwell did not write them. talk 02:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Your link doesn't prove anything and as a blog would be considered unreliable as a source in any case. And we're not here to discuss objectivism vs libertarianism, just the article. We specifically state that it is unknown who wrote the newsletters - we report that they were published under Ron Paul's name by an entity named "Ron Paul & Associates", and he has acknowledged this. Unless there is reliably sourced information that the pdf files provided by TNR were fakes - which no one has claimed to my knowledge - then our section is valid. We include Reason magazine's article and readers can draw their own conclusions as to its veracity - just as we include LewRockwell.com as a source throughout the piece for other matters. Tvoz |talk 08:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
The link does discuss some of the background to the newsletters and the efforts of White to create a controversy, but Tvoz is right as far as its lack of standing as a solid source because it's a blog. Also, the assertion that reason magazine is a bunch of libertarian-hating Objectivists is grossly misinformed. Indeed, some of its founders, supporters and writers are interested in Rand's ideas, but both the foundation and magazine are explicitly libertarian and have no connection to Objectivist groups or orgs. Not to get too far into the discussion aspect of this, but their coverage of Ron Paul (including the cover story in February's print issue) has been favorable. The newsletter authorship coverage in their Hit & Run blog is more tough love than any kind of smear. You would do well to direct your attention to those actually guilty of smearing Ron Paul. Twalls (talk) 19:54, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait.... Is that talking about Bill White (neo-Nazi)??? Yikes! No wonder Paul didn't want to say who wrote them. I wouldn't want to admit it if I hired that guy either. Devpty01 (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry if Ron Paul is accused of racism. That is actually a big plus if you are seeking the Republican nomination. --The Four Deuces (talk) 09:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Since Bill White was born in 1977 and the newsletters in question appeared starting 1989, he would have been twelve years old when he began editing the newsletter. --The Four Deuces (talk) 17:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Bill White has nothing to do with Ron Paul or his newsletters; he was a source for Kirchick's piece. If anything, White dislikes Ron Paul for not being a racist. Twalls (talk) 18:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

CRITICISMS KEEP DISAPPEARING?!

<removing list of allegations that have nothing to do with improving article; this is not a forum>

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.84.49.83 (talk) 01:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello new user, may I suggest an account first of all. Second, there are serious problems with your sources, not only with per WP:RS but also WP:BIO. Blogs are already poor sources to use; to use them as criticism would be intellectual suicide. ~ UBeR (talk) 07:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
While it's true we can't use blogs as primary sources, they can be a very useful resource for further research (by us). It's possible to find sounder publications by use of these blogs. We should keep these links around on this talk page to see if they can be useful later. —msikma (user, talk) 21:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
PS: by the way, if you see someone removing criticism, feel free to let it be known, just like you have now. We can immediately do something about it if you detail exactly what was removed and why this removal should be reverted. —msikma (user, talk) 21:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed the "pointers" from our guest per WP:BLP#Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material, which also applies to Talk pages. Terjen (talk) 21:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Terjen, WP:BLP is a policy with the purpose of preventing poorly sourced biographic text from being included in articles (and talk pages). It does not, and should not, however, prevent us from linking to blog articles on a talk page. A link to a site for the purpose of discussing this article does not equal "encyclopedic material". Besides, these pages may very well be based on truth, despite not sourcing the material in the appropriate way. Please remember that few bloggers actually use the scholarly reference style that we use here at Wikipedia. —msikma (user, talk) 07:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

This is supposed to be a "discussion" page. You have no right to incessantly censor and remove material contributing to that discussion just becuase it does not satiate your prejudices, as a Ron Paul groupie.

Grow up. And stop obsessively vandalising critical discussion here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.84.49.83 (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Read WP:BLP. Making spurious claims against a living person and/or using blog postings to support yourself is not tolerated anywhere on Wikipedia. ~ UBeR (talk) 19:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
You are removing anti-Paul material from this discussion page because it supposedly violates WP:BLP. However, these are just links to material which you haven't even proven to be needlessly biased or even defamatory. This (discussion) page does not even contain the material—only links to it. Please do not remove these links for the sake of preventing others from using them to add in criticism of Ron Paul; there has been a concerted effort by some of the contributors to keep this article free from criticism as much as possible, and the removal of these links seems to be part of it. I strongly disagree with that. —msikma (user, talk) 20:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, saying things like "Ron Paul as embittered ideologue; venomous screeds for fellow Americans" is rather contentious and blatantly in violation of WP:BLP. ~ UBeR (talk) 21:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
But there are many publications that write about him in a very contentious way. The articles that detail everything Ron Paul wrote in his newsletters, which we are already using as reference in this article, for example. So just the fact that an article is vocally in strong disagreement with Ron Paul should not matter. I think the problem is rather that the links that were given are not valid sources. But there is still a strong difference between keeping around a few links on a talk page and actually quoting material in an article and using the links as reference. Let's face at least that. I strongly believe that you'd rather not see any kind of criticism of Ron Paul creep up in this article; you are a pronounced Ron Paul supporter, after all. —msikma (user, talk) 07:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I am not a "pronounced Ron Paul supporter." I'm interested in adhering to WP:BLP, which is a very serious policy. Negative material about a living person based upon unreliable sources like blog postings are not tolerated anywhere on Wikipedia. ~ UBeR (talk) 22:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

<Remove personal attack per WP:NPA. UBeR (talk) 03:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.168.6.84 (talk) 04:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Anonymous guest, UBeR has followed WP policy, you have not. Please stop the personal attacks. Terjen (talk) 05:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Terjen, this comment is not just criticism towards UBeR. He criticizes the editors of this article who have actively engaged in censorship in order to embellish the image of Ron Paul. It's true that this has been going on. If I were you, I'd not complain about personal attacks like that's the most important thing in the world. Wikipedia's integrity is at stake here, as some people have been treating this article as their soapbox. That's far more important. —msikma (user, talk) 17:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

These links are inappropriate here, as is all the discussion of whether Paul is a viable candidate or not. If people want to discuss the inclusion of some specific fact or claim related to them, fine. The talk page is for improving the article and is definitely not the place to post laundry lists of grievances against Paul. If you all believe something specific is missing from the article, fix it or discuss it. This is not a forum.--Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 17:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, he already dropped out. Criticism is no longer necessary, mission accomplished. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.167.87.143 (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect. Paul today has said he is still campaigning and going the distance in this presidential election. Consider this for your contributions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPOV ChessCreator (talk) 01:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
"Mission accomplished." Where have I heard that before? JLMadrigal (talk) 12:13, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


This article is clearly biased. As ya'll have said previously, I'm sure legions of Paul supporters make this no accident. But sentences such as: "while some, like his term limits legislation, are considered 'ahead of their time'" is just pure commentary. Also, many of the facts listed throughout this page describing how wonderful Paul is are better suited to an election pamphlet than a reference article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.112.38.59 (talk) 00:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Paring down Newsletters section?

I agree with the criticisms of the length of the Newsletter section. It's obviously contentious and at this point in time it's hard for people to not edit with guns drawn, but I'd like to see if we can come up with something a bit shorter and more useful. I posted a starting point for discussion at User:Bartleby/Newsletters sandbox. Thoughts? Bartleby (talk) 01:58, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The newsletters section is the only bit of substantial criticism that this article has at this point. We should absolutely not start removing content from it because "it's contentious"—please realize that none of the claims are unreferenced or unfounded. Doing so would obviously be yet another attempt to tone down the criticism in the article for the sake of showing this person in a more favorable light. —msikma (user, talk) 06:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood me. As it is now, the section is unclear and confusing to a person wanting to learn about the situation. My reference to contentiousness was about the editing process, not the subject material. I don't advocate "toning down" the section or removing content just because it is controversial, but rather for clarity and usefulness. Bartleby (talk) 07:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Someone else renamed your page, and before reading this talk I redirected it back to the main article because as it stood it was rife for content forking. I agree this is a hard-to-edit section (which is why I've stayed out), but creating subdirectory (slashed) articles in mainspace is not the correct approach. Instead we should stick with carrying out the edits here, or in a userspace sandbox (though I don't encourage it). Right now it is still rarefied and there are easy ways to lose words without losing much else. I'll chip in eventually. John J. Bulten (talk) 22:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with using a subpage to discuss a proposed change before incorporating it into mainspace. It wasn't at risk of becoming a fork as it was just a tool for talk. I recreated the page and I hope discussion will commence on the proposal and not whether or not creating it was appropriate. Thanks. Bartleby (talk) 02:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Go ahead, but per the bold language in WP:CFORK#Temporary subpages I am moving it to User:Bartleby/Newsletters sandbox. My edits, however, will be in mainspace. My first observation is that, in keeping with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States presidential elections#Status of "controversies" pages, the first task is to split the controversy section into the 1996 election and the current campaign. John J. Bulten (talk) 17:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
The important thing is not where the article is, but how we can improve this one. Do you have any comments about the proposal? Bartleby (talk) 01:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[outdent] I disagree with this proposal - the newsletter controversy should remain in this article, and it does not need further paring down in my opinion. As for splitting it up, I don't agree with that either - the publication took place at one time, the controversy was spread over time - this is a case where it should remain together for ease in understanding. The breaking down of controversy pages is a different matter - we're getting away from having pages or sections that are in effect laundry lists of various controversies that an individual has been involved in or accused of. This is one whole item, and meaning would be lost if it were split up into senate and presidential campaign - also it would become redundant. Tvoz |talk —Preceding comment was added at 21:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I did not suggest moving it out of the article or splitting it but rather reorganizing it. I guess nobody is interested in trying to edit a proposal so I'll just go ahead and edit in mainspace. Bartleby (talk) 03:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"Newsletter controversy" section

Before reading this article, I didn't know anything about the "newsletter controversy". After reading the article, I get the impression that Paul was accused of having written something controversial, but I still don't know exactly what or when or in what context. This section would be more useful if it began with a few sentences describing the controversy for uninformed readers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.124.17 (talk) 21:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The newsletter controvery section has been repeatedly removed and eviscerated by Ron Paul's enthusiastic supporters, who want as little negative information about Paul as possible reaching the public. It's a miracle frankly that the section still exists, and the fact that it does is testimony to the tenacity and honesty a few hard working Wikipedians interested in preserving some semblance of balance in this article. Still, the section as it stands right now says almost nothing about the controvery. Laughably, it starts out with a DENIAL of the charges without first stating what the controversy is about. If you are retired and can spend 16 hours a day waging war with the Paulbots, or have access to a small army who can assist you, you might be able to insert some truthful details into this section. But if you try to do it while living a life on a normal schedule, you might as well forget it. With Ron Paul's political career ending and his campaign in a state of collapse, this wikipedia page is sort of a shrine for the Ron Paul people to gather around. And if it makes them feel better to build this little lonely island tribute to their hero, I'm inclined to let them have it. Ron Paul is a fringe figure fast fading from memory. Ultimately, it makes no difference if Nazi sympathizers build a tribute to David Duke, totalitarian communists build a shrine for Joseph Stalin, or the ultra-rightwing builds a temple for worship of Ron Paul. It's their business, their cult of personality, their obsession. I vote to let them delete the newsletter section completely so the fantasy feels even more real to them than it already does. -asx- (talk) 16:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, uh, Wikipedia is supposed to be non-biased as much as possible, so that's a pretty silly idea. I do agree that the section as it stands is pretty poor, more concerned with whitewashing Paul than even stating what the controversy was. --Tombomp (talk) 10:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
I totally agree with you. I was being extremely sarcastic above. And you are right, without question: Wikipedia should be objective and fact-based, not used to build shrines for favored candidates. Unfortunately, I was despairing of any hope to rectify the problem on this particular page (or any other related to Ron Paul), simply because his supporters don't care about Wikipedia's standards and take a fundamentalist approach to enforcing a single interpretation of their candidate. You should read (if you haven't) some of the past discussion pages; the Ron Paul people have even been deleting DISCUSSION about the article if it contains anything they disagree with.
Or look at the edit history of some of the pages about Republican primaries: A seemingly unlimited number of Ron Paul fans have repeatedly falsified primary and caucus results showing Paul taking 2nd or 3rd place when he really took 4th or 5th. You could fix the vandalism, and within minutes another Paul supporter would come by and reinsert the false information. They are a swarm and represent an attack on the core principles of Wikipedia. But who can stop them? Who can protect the integrity of this article?
Another user just restored the long-missing introduction to the newsletters controversy section, without which that section made no sense (because the original charges were never described before laying out all the denials). Let's see how long it takes before that change is reverted. It won't be long. -asx- (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. Just because a group disagrees with your edits does NOT give you license to accuse them of bad faith. Doing so is far more an attack on the core principles of Wiki than their actions. Buspar (talk) 11:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Spare me your citations; they don't apply to me, and your waving them around has the effect of chilling debate while creating an authoritarian atmosphere. You are discouraging participation and discussion, especially by those who disagree with your POV or with the article as it is written.
Furthermore, it is you who are assuming bad faith. I told you what I witnessed on other pages. Despite not knowing any of the facts or details of these encounters, vouch for the good faith of the individuals I described. How can you vouch for their good intentions when you don't know who they are or what they were doing? I would suggest that I witnessed the behavior and you did not, so you are not in a position to pass judgement on them, or my characterization of them. I would further note an irony: You grant yourself the right to say I am acting in bad faith, by deny me the right to accuse the aforementioned editors of acting in bad faith. I would simply ask you to please stop violating Wikipedia's guidelines — the very same ones you are now waving around — and assume good faith on my part. -asx- (talk) 00:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
No: lines like "They are a swarm and represent an attack on the core principles of Wikipedia" is clearly a violation of WP:AGF. It's no different than if an editor said "Muslims are a swarm" or "Liberals are a swarm." Such comments are rude and a serious breach of Wikiquette. Reminding another user to follow the principles of Wikipedia is not being "authoritarian" or "chilling." Furthermore, claiming that those rules don't apply to you reflects poorly on your quality as an editor. I did not say your edits to the article were in bad faith, merely your accusations and open hostility towards other users was unwarranted on a talk page. If you're going to discuss the article, discuss! Your POV breakdown below, for example, is fine. But the extraneous comments accusing Paul supporters of inserting false information don't belong. Buspar (talk) 07:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The newsletter controversy is already covered extensively in Paul's 2008 campaign article, so most of the content here is redundant and making the article overall longer than it needs to be. Since the section is a summary of his presidential run, I say the controversy should be trimmed to a few sentences. Readers can then use the "Main article" link to read more if they want. Duplicating info in two articles isn't good formatting. Buspar (talk) 11:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

You have now completely eviscerated the newsletter section. The little bit that remains is written from an entirely pro-Paul POV. There are numerous problems with the pro-Ron Paul version you have posted.
— Your text mischaracterizes the controversy. It is not a campaign controversy, but a Ron Paul controversy. Though it came up again during his campaign, and therefore mention of it belongs in his campaign article, the story itself has followed him since 1996, at least, and it therefore should be fully explored on his bio page.
— You have written the section in such a way that suggests Paul had nothing to do with the newsletters. This is the official Ron Paul position, now stated by you as fact, while competing viewpoints are omitted.
— You suggest the controversy starts and ends with a single article in The New Republic. You have omitted both the locus and scope of the controvery. The locus is the newsletters themselves. The scope is not one article in The New Republican, but a series of press reports and interviewed published overa span of 12 years.
— Your text insulates Ron Paul from responsibility by saying they were merely published "under his name," suggesting he was uninvolved. Omitted by you is the fact that he was an owner and publisher of the offensive tracts.
— The first sentence as you have posted is a masterwork of POV, rife with transparent pro-Ron Paul bias. The full first sentence reads: "On January 8, the day of the New Hampshire primary, The New Republic published a story by Jamie Kirchick quoting from selected newsletters published under Paul's name, mostly from between 1989 and 1994, a period in which Paul was not in office but in medical practice."
Let's take a closer look just at the POV contained in this sentence:
"the day of the New Hampshire primary"
The intended message: "The article was planted at a critical time to damage Ron Paul. The discerning reader will question the motives of the author and therefore the veracity of the charges."
Fact overlooked: This controversy has linged for 12 years and the newsletters themselves were published over a 20 year span. The date they were published is irrelevant to the controversy itself.
Do Both: The story appeared the day of the New Hampshire primary, and the rest of the media picked it up on that day. Both statements are correct, and both should be included -- the controversy first came up in 96, but it was revived on a day suited for political purposes. 66.162.82.154 (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
— "quoting from selected newsletters"
The intended message: "These were 'selected' newsletters, carefully cherry-picked to harm Ron Paul."
Facts overlooked: (1) If you are writing an article about the racist, homophobic, and conspiratorial contents of Paul's newsletters, of course you will select those newsletters which contain that kind of writing. The fact that they were "selected" for this purposes proves nothing. (2) There were a significant number of newsletters containing hate speech and conspriacy theories. It was not as if any great effort was needed to find examples. They are rife through all of Ron Paul's newsletters. Even if we were to select from Paul's newsletters randomly we would find racism, homophobia, and conspiracy theories.
— "newsletters published under Paul's name"
The intended message: "Ron Paul had nothing to do with these newsletters. They just had his name on them."
Facts overlooked: (1) Only as of 2007 did Ron Paul deny involvement or awareness. In previous years, he openly admitted his role in developing the offensive messages. (2) Ron Paul owned and published the newsletters. They were not simply "in his name," but were in his own product, owned and published by him.
More: (1) reports from Reason magazine and Texas Monthly put the years of his first denials back at 2001, not 2007. (2) This should all be mentioned: "He owned and published newsletters with articles in his name". However, that's about as far as it can be taken on given information. Unless evidence can be cited that he wrote the words, supports the sentiments, or takes credit for them, it can't be suggested in wiki that he does do those things. Credibly accusing him of being an absent and incompetent publisher for not policing the stuff written in his name seems as far as the facts take us. 66.162.82.154 (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
— "a period in which Paul was not in office but in medical practice."
The intended message: "He was busy doing other things and didn't know what was being published in his name. He can't be held responsible."
Facts overlooked: It strains credulity to believe that Ron Paul was oblivious, over a period of years, to what was contained in his own newsletters. The contents of the newsletters match the content in other correspondence distributed by Ron Paul, such as fundraising letters and promotional materials. Furthermore, Ron Paul did not deny knowledge of the racist content in pre-2007 interviews.
Personal credulity is not the criterium by which wikipedia articles are judged and should be left out of this subject altogether, so we can stick with facts, not our personal suspicions and judgements on the matter. 66.162.82.154 (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
In conclusion, someone needs to write an objective, fair account of the Ron Paul newsletter controvery, and it needs to be protected from the legions of Ron Paul surrogates who care more for the promotion of their favored candidate than they do for the standards of Wikipedia. Despite the overwhelming success of the Wikipedia model for content creation and management, I have little faith this article can be written fairly. There are simply too many activists and vandals who will refuse any criticism of their candidate to allow the article to contain a factual account of his life and positions. -asx- (talk) 00:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't "eviscerate" it; I took sentences from the existing main section and highlighted the key points: Kirchik raised the point, Paul's campaign responded, Lew Rockwell wrote the newsletters. If you follow the "Details" link I added, you'll find it leads to all of the information on the controversy in full detail. The section on this page is meant to be a summary only of his presidential campaign and surrounding controversies, not a full entry on the matter. If you believe the section on the controversy is biased, then you should discuss this with the editors at the talk page for Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008 and then come back here and re-edit the summary to reflect those changes. That would be more productive than going on about "legions of Ron Paul surrogates," which, again, is an unfounded attack on other editors who you just happen to disagree with. Buspar (talk) 07:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

March 4 victories by McCain

After last nights victories by McCain, will Ron Paul finally be dropping out? 207.190.244.74 (talk) 13:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

No, but Mike Huckabee did. Ron Paul has been asked to drop out since he started running, and his lack of media coverage has lead many to believe that he has. Early on in the campaign, he stated that he would go on as long as his supporters wanted him to, and evidently his supporters have not given up yet. When Mitt Romney "suspended" his campaign the question arose once again. This was his response.

With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get...

...It will not end in November. It will not end until we have won the great battle on which we have embarked. Not because of me, but because of you. Millions of Americans — and friends in many other countries — have dedicated themselves to the principles of liberty: to free enterprise, limited government, sound money, no income tax, and peace.

From the Ron Paul Blog Archive MantisEars (talk) 03:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand what you're talking about, Anonymous. Paul just won an election this Tue with a landslide 70% of the vote-- where's McCain? Oh, and as for popular votes for president itself, Paul has already received 400,000, McCain has received 0. John J. Bulten (talk) 14:35, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove navigation box that does not point to this article

{tl|editprotected}} Please remove the following navigation box from this article {{2008 U.S. presidential election}}. It does not point to this article, but rather Ron Paul presidential campaign, 2008. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TableManners (talk • contribs) 20:21, 15 January 2008

Adding signature to this comment. I believe the navigation box should remain, if it did not point briefly it does now. John J. Bulten (talk) 14:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron Paul acknowledges conventional non-victory of his 2008 Presidential campaign

Note his acknowledgement of this under the appropriate section. Source is here—Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.47.222.115 (talk)

Ron Paul actually quitting would be notable, this is not. Hinting that he will quit is a bad interpretation of the video. The relevant line is from when he acknowledged that "Though victory in the conventional political sense is not available in the Presidential race" (because of McCain's projected 1,191 pledged delegates) he would not need to run as vigorous a campaign. "Elections are short term efforts, revolutions are long term projects." He will continue to campaign to promote his ideas, and other like-minded candidates for public office, the "next phase". Rand Paul (Ron Paul's son) wrote a letter to clarify what the video meant and to respond to the Mainstream Media's reporting MantisEars (talk) 21:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
So note his acknowledgement of non-"victory in the conventional political sense" ie. defeat, including not having the support to be elected President or even GOP nominee, under the 2008 Presidential campaign section of the bio. If it's not notable then why's there a news story + source video to confirm it? If the article wasn't locked, I'd be making this update myself rather than adding this comment to remind the rest of you to do it.AllPerspectivesAccomodated (talk) 05:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Ron Paul did not say he didn't have enough support, he actually said that the support for his campaign exceeded his expectations and dreams. Isolated, "victory in the conventional political sense is not available in the Presidential race" would implying he was going to quit. If you look at it in the context of the whole video to understand what he meant by saying conventional political sense, you will see something else.
This video was a response to John McCain's passing the "magic number" of delegates; Ron Paul's addressing his supporters with the direction of the campaign as he would at any major event in the campaign. When Mitt Romney suspended his campaign, many interpreted Paul's letter as a sign that he was quitting, too. This is a mere projection of what the mainstream media wanted all along, with their asking him to run as an Independent or telling him that he cannot win. Ron Paul speaks about his Presidential campaign as something bigger than an election, something of exposing the public to a message. A message that they were starved for, he notes, evidenced by his support.
It is key to note that the video is a message to his supporters, not to the press. He has always said that his campaign was bigger than him, that it belonged to his supporters and he was only a part of the revolution. He asks for their continued financial support to spread his message, and appreciates the grassroots efforts. If the supporters cut him off or ask him to drop out he will. Until then, he will fight for every last delegate all the way to the convention. This is what he has been saying all along. MantisEars (talk) 16:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
"non-victory" means loss. Why not call it what it is? Niteshift36 (talk) 08:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Because for the True Believer, this is merely a signal that "the media" have won another round; but The Truth can never be defeated, only concealed. They have The Truth; so by definition there is never a loss. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It always makes me uneasy when a group claims to know "the truth" that nobody else knows. Niteshift36 (talk) 09:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

"Why not call it what it is?" Fine, call it "loss 'in the conventional political sense'". No need to trim necessary words.
Yes, if something is The Truth, not only is it undefeatable, but someone else will know it too.
BTW, heard the new rumor? Paul delegates may obtain or coalesce a majority in certain states sufficient to initiate a vote on the state party rules and overturn the winner-take-all rules in those states. May become notable yet. John J. Bulten (talk) 13:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
call it "loss 'in the conventional political sense'". LOL. There IS a need to trim words from that. 5 words to be exact. It's a loss. Pure and simple. He got his butt handed to him. Everyone except McCain lost the Republican primaries. How can someone talk about "the truth" and try to dance around that fact? Considering Paul was presented as an alternative to "politics as usual" calling it anything but a straight up loss sounds like typical Washington political doubletalk. Niteshift36 (talk) 11:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Speaking of trimming words, I'm following WP:BLP#Remove unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material in response to the mild obscenity in your comment. Please do not reinsert without providing a source, or a rationale that countenances the policies linked at User talk:John J. Bulten#WP:BLP and talk pages. To answer your rhetorical question, there is no dancing: the truth is that Paul never expected to win conventionally, because he is playing a completely different game, a game in which his victory will not be finally adjudicated for some years. But this is all vanishingly tangential to improving this article. John J. Bulten (talk) 16:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
You consider "butt" an obscenity? I'm not going to restore the comment because I do agree that it's not particularly relevant to improving the article, but could you please stop abusing WP:BLP to change other editors' posts? Please? --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 16:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The Federal Communications Commission considers "butt"s obscene. MantisEars (talk) 00:19, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
The FCC considers SHOWING a butt obscene, not saying the word. As for you Bulten, I could sit here and list the wiki-policies your deletion violates, but it's not needed. This is the DISCUSSION page and I do not need to provide a source for my opinion on what the appropriate wording should be. You can agree or disagree with my opinion, but you can't censor it. Refer to WP:NOTCENSORED and learn. Niteshift36 (talk) 07:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Cite web tag

I just made an edit diff where I made an external link into a reference, using the cite web template. I'm not sure if the publisher/title/etc. is really correctly titled, as I'm not so familiar with working with the cite web tag. If someone who knows about this would rename the titles in those parameters to something that's more typical when citing sources, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, --JamieS93 15:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to copy just the title instead of "main website > sub category > sub category > title". Look for a header instead of copying the actual title of the HTML document. In this case, it would be “Issue: Border Security and Immigration Reform” MantisEars (talk) 19:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, that's a better title than what I had before. I knew it would be better to abbreviate it somehow, just didn't know exactly how to title it. I've made the edit now, assuming that "Ron Paul 2008 campaign website" is a fine enough title for the publisher? JamieS93 21:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
That would be better for the "work" field; that is where the name of the larger website or newspaper goes unless the websites are publishing others' work (as some news organizations do with the Associated Press or Agence France-Presse). Publisher is for the company or group that publishes the article, in this case the "Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee" MantisEars (talk) 21:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I made the alteration. That makes more sense, especially after further reading about some of the citation tags; most of the time I use the basic format of <ref>[http://url.com Title of ref]</ref> as opposed to the templates for citations. Thanks for the help, MantisEars! JamieS93 13:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Ron Paul's articles continues to be a black eye to Wikipedia's creditability!

The rest of Wikipedia has standards for NPOV so high, that the entire text of this article is shocking. Until you wrest control of Wikipedia back from the Ron Paul cult of personality, and discuss Paul with the same neutrality afforded, for instance, to Lyndon LaRouche, the entire operation cannot stand up to scrutiny.

I say again, there is no psalm in the Bible as worshipful of God as this article is of Ron Paul. And considering now that the entire campaign is derailed while the cult talks of founding a "Paulville" compound in Texas, it is now clearly evident that neutrality in Wikipedia has been stomped to death here.

Hosiah (talk) 21:46, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you name something specific? The above isn't helpful and is just likely to start fights rather than actually do the article good. Wrad (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Unsourced allegations continue to be a black eye to Wikipedia's credibility... 137.22.25.154 (talk) 18:24, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Welcome back Hosiah! Would you mind commenting on this section? John J. Bulten (talk) 21:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

There's not even a criticism section on him. No mention of his numerous publications describing blacks as "fleet footed", among other insults. No mention of his attempts to eradicate separation of church and state, or any mention of his supporters being fucking insane. 76.25.115.99 (talk) 06:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

  1. Criticism sections are discouraged by Wikipedia policy; criticism is integrated.
  2. There is mention of such publications in the article.
  3. Ron Paul has not attempted to "eradicate seperation of church and state". If you believe he has, you will need to source that assertion.
  4. Civility, please.
Thrilltalk 07:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

When will we be free of the lies and distortions?

Consider this bit of complete fantasy that is on the protected page:

"While Paul was a leading 2008 presidential candidate in Republican straw polls, he saw substantially less support in landline opinion polls and in various primaries."

This "information" reflects the Ron Paul web site and is (1) not objective and (2) not true.

The Republican Party conducted 3,077 legitimate polls among the members of the Republican Party. Ron Paul won a single poll! In fact, Ron Paul LOST 3,076 polls to Romney, Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Tommy Thompson, Giuliani, Gingrich, and McCain. Ron Paul has chosen not to list the 3,076 polls that he lost, but instead lists 60 (questionable) polls. The 3,077 were conducted by the Republican Party, in person, with assigned ballots at the rate of one-person-one-vote, and the ballots were strictly accounted for by separate security. The 60 (questionable) polls that Paul supposedly won, were manipulated. Some were boxes set up at county or state fairs where the Ron Paul supporters stuffed them by putting in 30 to 100 votes at a time. (I observed this myself, at my own fair.) Others are at parties, where items are purchased that count as votes. Others are radio call-ins, and computer voting on-line. There are instructions at some Ron Paul web sites telling the supporters how to “cheat” to win, and explaining that the end justifies the means. All 60 were manipulated, yet the Ron Paul people are using them! The 3,077 were legitimate but they are not using them. This says a great deal about the character of Ron Paul and goes a LONG way to explaining why the Republican Party voted 3,076 to 1 against him. Incidentally the 3,077 official Republican polls represented from 500,000 to 750,000 people. Some of the 60 manipulated polls involved as few as 4 voters; others had 6 or 10. Some had 15 or 20. There is nothing comparable in the polls; the official Republican straw polls are substantial and legitimate; the Ron Paul straw polls are shameful.

The disclaimer about “landline” opinion polls is complete nonsense. I have worked for the Republican Party for decades and we do NO "landline" opinion polls that could ever be construed as straw polls. The Official Republican Straw Polls were done in person, and with assigned ballots, for the very reason of avoiding the corruption of Ron Paul’s supporters. For the author now to come around and say they were done “on landlines” as though that held some great message, is just nonsense. So much of this information is available straight from the Republican Party, but the author of ALL these Ron Paul warm and cuddly sites, does not work with the Republican Party, he works for Ron Paul and it shows. They want Ron Paul to be the Republican nominee yet they treat the Republicans with disdain and even lie about how the Republican Party does business. We want ACCURATE information. Ron Paul manipulated numbers ARE NOT HONEST. These numbers are WORTHLESS to us, but they seem to be GOLD at the Ron Paul site because the "little old ladies" who write checks to Ron Paul believe the dishonest (manipulated) polls. Suttonplacesouth (talk) 08:24, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, do we actually have a reliable, independent source that isn't run by some guy in South east Asia (*cough* usastrawpolls.com *cough*) that notes Paul's overall performance in straw polls vs. opinion polls? Burzmali (talk) 12:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
This user is an essential WP:SPA on this issue, yet strangely never produces the requested documentation of the 3077 polls (always the same number), nor ever comments on the fact that what the user has produced was already present in the opinion polls articles because that's what it was. JJB 13:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Caveat to Best selling author claim

Interestingly, the New York Times article used to demonstrate that RP's latest work is a best seller carries the notation that "some bookstores report receiving bulk orders" concerning the book. Now, given the discrepancy between RP's showing in straw polls and opinion polls, and this note, it seems likely that some group is astroturfing the book on to the best seller list. While my logic is WP:SYNTH, has any reliable source cared enough to notice? Burzmali (talk) 14:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The Times clarifies that there are multiple POVs about the essential point of this dagger notation and that Burzmali's POV is not the only one. Since this page is not the place to take sides among these POVs (nor is the notation notable in this context), the question might be better moved to Talk:New York Times Best Seller list. JJB 15:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, the NYT isn't the only source skeptical of RP's book usnews took a shot at him for exhorting his followers to buy it. Burzmali (talk) 16:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The #1 best-seller status of Revolution is notable but so is the notation that accompanies that status. I'm open to discussion about how and where it should be included (I could see it being most relevant in the article The Revolution: A Manifesto, for instance) but there is little legitimate reason to exclude entirely this statement from a WP:RS. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, the NYT statement is really a primary source, its their list after all. I would rather have a good secondary source to support the assertion that RP supporters padded the score than the unsupported insinuation we have now. Burzmali (talk) 17:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Honest question, not meant to be snarky: While I see your point, is this really a question of WP:PSTS? We'd actually only be repeating what the NYT is reporting that bookstores have told them (i.e., treating the NYT statement as a secondary source). I'd see this as more of a WP:PSTS problem if we used the bookstores as a source. --Newsroom hierarchies (talk) 20:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, since it is a primary source, we really shouldn't use it to do anything other than state a fact, but stating the fact in that manner gives undue weight to the phrase "some bookstores report receiving bulk orders". As John points out, that could mean many things and it isn't honest to toss that in there without the counterpoint. It's like pointing out that point out that someone placed third to last in a race without mentioning the number of racers. Personally, I believe that Paulites took steps to ensure that it made number one, irregardless of its actually popularity, as indicated my their pattern-of-conduct from straw polls and general disregard for the mainstream media. However, I don't support adding unproven insinuations without a reliable source. Burzmali (talk) 22:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
It's a simple, neutral statement of fact. Nothing wrong with it. --Mountainsarehigh (talk) 22:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
So is the statement that someone placed third from last in a race, that means they won a three-person race... Burzmali (talk) 23:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Your example is misleading without noting the number of people in the race. What is also misleading is stating a book made a best seller list without noting this was due to bulk orders. So if this were an article about your race, we should mention the number of racers, and similarly we should mention the bulk orders here. --Mountainsarehigh (talk) 17:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, the statement fails to address why the distinction needs to be made. If I say that Jesse Owens was the best black runner at the 1936 Olympics, the reader makes the natural assumption that since I qualified the statement, some non-black runner must have been faster. Therefore, while what I said is technically true, what it implies is not. In our case, we are accurately saying that the book received bulk orders, but since we don't explain the statement, it implies that the book's bestseller status is lessened by this fact, which the NYT article does not support. I support finding a WP:RS that supports the conclusion if possible, and leaving the qualification off if not. Burzmali (talk) 17:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
What do we need to explain about the statement? It is very straightforward: This book's place on the best seller list is based on bulk orders in some bookstores, rather than the much more commonly expected form of simply a lot of people buying the book. To avoid misleading our readers, we should state this fact. --Mountainsarehigh (talk) 18:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
The NYT itself footnotes such cases, where a book's sales seem to be unusually influenced by bulk purchases; it is done whether the book leans left or right or whatever. There is no NPOV violation in noting that fact.--Orange Mike | Talk 19:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
There is if it's given undue weight, as if it were a rebuttal to the previous sentence noting the best-selling status of the book. (Дҭї) 19:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Thankfully I don't think most readers will confuse context with "a rebuttal." This statement provides needed context; it does not however rebut the statement regarding best-seller lists. Of course, if information did rebut the previous statement, than it would be even more necessary to include it for the sake of balance. --Mountainsarehigh (talk) 19:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I think they will. I don't see how it provides 'context', though I can see quite plainly how it can be used to illegitimize Ron Paul's achievement and insinuate there was manipulation of the statistics. (Дҭї) 20:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Wow. Buying in bulk in the United States is a very common responsible, legal business practice rather than something considered illegitimate or manipulative. Perhaps a link to Bulk purchasing would help readers who might think buying in bulk is an ilegitimate practice. --Mountainsarehigh (talk) 21:16, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

←The point is that even the NYT states that the caveat is inconclusive. Including it without further explanation or substantiation from a reliable source is WP:UNDUE and leads to the WP:SYNTH drawn by Orangemike (talk · contribs). Burzmali (talk) 19:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, and your choice of abbreviations over actual words probably isn't helping. That statement seems totally clear to me. In what regard do you think it is "inconclusive"? --Mountainsarehigh (talk) 19:54, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

The cause of the bulk orders is easy to explain if you look at the current grassroots efforts: on May 24, Paul supporters are planning to donate quantities of the book to local libraries across the country (it's being called a "Book bomb"), so people are buying extra copies for this effort. I saw this advertised in one of the Paul Meetup groups. Unfortunately, I can't find any reliable sources, so this explanation can't be included. One point, though: why mentioned "bulk orders" without even mentioning what that means? It's confusing, otherwise. Also, I don't think the caveat belongs here, but on the book's page, since it's a relatively minor detail in regards to the Ron Paul article as a whole. Buspar (talk) 02:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is way too long

This article is way too long, so long it looks like a windy speech written and delivered by Ron Paul. If it were compact, say 1/3 the size it is now, it wouldn't have the appearance of having been written by the Ron Paul public relations office. As the article is now, all it is missing is a picture of a tree stump. Kidshare (talk) 19:28, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Any suggestions on what ought to be cut? --Mountainsarehigh (talk) 20:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I can start hacking if you wish but I'm not a Ron Paul expert nor do I wish to be. This article is longer than the GHW Bush article and GHW Bush won a primary or two and was president of the USA. Ron Paul has done neither. Please compact the article instead of stumping. Thanks Kidshare (talk) 22:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)