Ron Paul is opposed to the "meaning" of MLK day

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Marko Posted: Wed, Jan 18 2012 5:42 AM

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http://www.theamericanconservative.com/millman/2012/01/17/shibboleths-and-principles/

The latest Ron Paul strawman and from an unlikely source (a TAC blogger): Paul's opposition to instituting MLK day as a national holiday proves he is opposed to the "meaning" of MLK day.

Representative Ron Paul was one of these opponents. He opposed the formation of a holiday honoring King in 1979 and again in 1983. I don’t presume to know the reason for his opposition. (Though he subsequently decried the holiday as “hate whitey day” and lamented that we now had a holiday honoring a “pro-communist philanderer,” in more recent years he has called King a “hero.”) But I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that he understood that the holiday had a symbolic meaning, and that he was opposed to that meaning – that he opposed either soft-pedaling King’s radicalism on, say, the viability of capitalism, or that he opposed the normalizing of King’s radicalism on relations between the races, or both.

Another post from the same blogger on how the Fed was not responsible for the housing bubble:  link

I found it boring, but I think some on here may be interested to read it and perhaps even reply.

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No2statism replied on Wed, Jan 18 2012 9:05 AM

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One truth is that Dr. King is not consistent with the NAP (he supported mass redistribution of wealth and the CRA of 1964 also could possibly cage people at gunpoint), so it's puzzling as to why Dr. Paul should have to support Dr. King.  As good as he was, he was far from the deity most people portray him as.

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John James replied on Wed, Jan 18 2012 9:16 AM

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Oh yeah, that's another point Tom Woods makes in his 33 Questions book...MLK wasn't exactly the "freedom and liberty for all" posterchild he's made out to be.  But that's another discussion.

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tunk replied on Wed, Jan 18 2012 11:38 AM

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I dealt with this in my FAQ on the newsletters (section #7):

Many have criticized Paul's vote against a national holiday for Martin Luther King (MLK). It's true that congressional records show that Paul voted “nay” in 1983 to making MLK‟s birthday, January 15, a national holiday, and that he voted “nay” to a similar bill in 1979. But they also show that Paul twice voted “aye” in 1979 to amend that bill to designate the 3rd Sunday and 3rd Monday in January, rather than January 15, the legal holiday. Why is this? A likely explanation is that a federal holiday that falls on a Sunday or a Monday guarantees a three-dayweekend for public employees. (According to executive order, if a holiday falls on a non-workday that happens to be a Sunday, the next basic workday is an “in lieu of” holiday.) In other words, Paul only voted “against” the MLK holiday in 1983 because the relevant bill didn't actually fully establish a holiday. He voted for it in 1979, when it did.

This hack also quotes the same soundbites from the newsletters that everyone can recite in their sleep as if Ron Paul wrote them, a claim for which there is absolutely no evidence (see section #11).