Ron Paul May Not Be A Racist, But He's Definitely An Extremist

Leonard Pitts Jr. argues it’s more important to consider what a Ron Paul presidency would look like than it is to consider whether or not Paul is a racist in his column, “Foolish Consistency, Or Just Foolishness?”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, meet Ronald Ernest Paul. He is the very soul of a foolish consistency. Meaning that he is willing, often to a fault, to follow his ideology to its logical and most extreme conclusions.

In this, the congressman differs from other GOP contenders for the White House and, for that matter, from most politicians, period. Your average pol might rail against the intrusion of government into the private lives of its citizens, then turn right around and advocate a law regulating what a gay man does in his bedroom — and see no contradiction. Paul is too intellectually honest for that.

Intellectual honesty is a good thing, if only because it can lead you to reconsider a faulty premise. But in Paul’s take on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 he doubles down on the bad premise instead.