publius
Now that we're beginning to see how this works, I would admit that the anti-gun analogy was unfair and not applicable. In retrospect, it now seems to imply that Paul was somehow secretly supporting racism itself, and that was never my intention. In my defense, I would say that I was struggling to think of an analogous phenomenon, and chose a poor one--and repeat, once again, that I have said from the beginning that "I certainly do not believe that most, or even many, of Dr. Paul's fans are bigots; on the contrary, by and large they seem to be normal, patriotic Americans who are drawn to him by his devotion to the Constitution and his emphatically pro-American and libertarian views."
Anyway, the analogy was flawed and not helpful, and the inference that I suspected Paul of secretly supporting racism was legitimate. Though that was not my intended point, I apologize.
Your other remarks I frankly disagree with. I don't think that a vague generalization that "bigots want freedom like anyone else" is particularly helpful. An examination of how certain specific positions (most of them unique to Paul) might appeal to bigots, though, is. Further, I don't see how a reference to hatred of "the Fed and Jewish bankers" speaks to anything OTHER than bigotry.
Your apparent suggestion that I should have figured all of this out myself and never brought it up in the first place is defensible, I suppose--but only if you also apply it to every question ever asked on this forum. As I understand it, a "forum" is a place where people bring up issues and questions, and we work TOGETHER to find answers and reach conclusions, or at least share ideas and learn from each other. If I were an omniscient genius and just wanted to figure out the truth all by myself and post my pontifications without any need of responses, I'd be writing editorials for the New York Times.
I do understand the suspicion on the part of Paul supporters that this thread was an attack; but I think that has more to do with the preset assumptions of those supporters than with anything I said. I think my initial post was about as specific and clear as it gets, and now that the question I asked us finally being addressed, I would hope that someone would agree that asking the question, and finding some answers to it, is actually helpful.
There are logical, specific reasons that racists and anti-Semites are attracted to Ron Paul's campaign, and they do not in any way indicate that either Paul or his followers are bigots. Isn't it a good thing to know what they are?
Sorry, but I don't think it's wise to ignore a problem like this, and I think it's a little peculiar, once progress is actually being made, to object that it was all so easy to see in the first place. If these issues were such obvious reasons from the get-go, why did it take us forty-some posts to get here? Yes, I should have been brilliantly insightful and analytical and posted these issues as possible reasons in the first post on this thread; mea culpa. But then, anyone else could also have been a genius and posted them in the second. Instead, we spent the better part of an entire day wrangling over a perceived "smear". Somehow, considering my initial post, I don't think that's my fault.
Finally, to answer your and another poster's remark about wildalaska's comment: I 'distanced myself" from those remarks before he made them, and in any case, IIRC, he phrased those comments as a question, not a statement: "IF"--repeat, "IF" Ron Paul is a creature of the extremist Right and an enabler of hatred, etc., he'd want to know. Well, so would I; so would anyone. But I'd already addressed that assumption from the very beginning, and I saw no need to do so again.