Say Anything Blog

I’m shocked that Rep. Paul would be a Bircher:

Asked about the John Birch Society Society by the author, Paul responds, “Is that BAD? I have a lot of friends in the John Birch Society. They’re generally well-educated and they understand the Constitution. I don’t know how many positions they would have that I don’t agree with.”

Of course, Ron Paul thinks 9/11 was a plot to create an excuse for war in Afghanistan/Iraq (and thinks a staged attack to create an excuse for war with Iran is imminent).  Just as the Birchers thought FDR planned Pearl Harbor as an excuse to get into WWII:

Robert Welch’s underground book, The Politician, which influenced the early JBS, was a lengthy, scathing attack on President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He said also that President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in advance, but said nothing because he wanted to get his country in the war.

Birchers take good, core conservative values (anti-collectivism, anti-socialism, pro-Constitution, pro-individualism) to illogical and paranoid extremes.  They opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act on a “state’s rights” basis (also on the idea that there were far too many communists in the civil rights movement, what equal rights among the races has to do with communism is beyond me) and called President Eisenhower a “conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy.”  Something William F. Buckley deemed “paranoid and idiotic libels.”

“Paranoid” and “idiotic” about sums up Paul and his Bircher buddies for me.