In case many of you don't know, Little Green Footballs is a Right-leaning blog run by Charles Johnson. It focuses mainly on radical Islam, but no topic appears to be off limits. Lately, he has focused heavily on Evolution, why Intelligent Design should not be taught in schools, why Ron Paul is a racist, why Glenn Beck is crazy and the prevalence of Fascism in Europe.
When I was blogging exclusively for Copious Dissent a few months ago, Charles linked to my posts. One time he linked to my discussion about Evolution, another time he linked to my analysis of an Indiana University Study. In fact, LGF is still a permanent link on Copious Dissent.
Not only has Charles approved my material in the past, but his audience loves my content as well.
The way I know that Charles' audience loves my content is because Charles added a spinoff link section to all his posts, which I routinely linked to Copious Dissent and some YouTube videos. (Ironically, this feature led me to nominate LGF for Right Wing News' best blog design award). While most links in the spinoff link section receive at most a +10 rating, I have received a link rating as high as +93, and several above +50. In short, I was a regular guest on LGF, and anyone who cared to follow the LGF links would have known me to be a regular guest.
This of course makes me wonder why my "Devil's Advocate" account was banned from LGF.
It all started yesterday when Charles made a post lamenting that Ron Paul was becoming mainstream. Evidently, Ron Paul proposed HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, a bill that would launch an audit of the Federal Reserve System, and which has attracted 112 co-sponsors. When Paul introduced the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act just two years ago, no other members of Congress signed on.
Aside from linking to a New Republic article, arguing that Ron Paul is a closet racist and open conspiracy nut, Charles went one-step further. He called Ron Paul's economic theories "weird," and appeared to complain that Paul's economic theories are gaining traction. The latter is where I differ with Charles.
Let me first say that I didn't vote for Ron Paul; I voted for Mitt Romney. Had Fred Thompson or Rudy still been in the race, I would have voted for them. Then I would have voted for Mike Huckabee. In my opinion, Ron Paul should not have been President.
Nevertheless, had we had 435 Ron Pauls in the House of Representatives for the last 30 years, we would have a balanced budget and be in great economic shape. In fact, Ron Paul is right on almost everything when it comes to economics.
This led me to write the following message to Charles in the comments:
Charles, I think you need to elaborate better on this. I didn't vote for Ron Paul; I didn't agree with his foreign policy. I didn't approve of Lew Rockwell's racism. But, one thing that Ron Paul has been right about is economics.In essence, Ron Paul stands for Capitalism, No Bailouts, Free Trade. I stand for all those things.Subsequently, some people attacked me for ignoring Ron Paul's Gold Standard support. I responded by citing three books that are instructive on the Gold Standard, including Milton Friedman's Money Mischief, Thomas E. Woods, Jr.'s Meltdown and Ludwig Von Mises essays for the Gold Standard.
This issue with the Fed, is based on the Austrian theory of the Business cycle, understood by F.A. Hayek and Ludvig Von Mises. Essentially, it is the idea that price controls always create misallocation of resources, so why do we accept the Federal Reserve setting "price controls" on our money via interest rates.
I think you need to explain why you're against Ron Paul's economic policies on paper, because he happens to be right on those narrow issues.
While I am not for the Gold Standard...yet, nor abolishing the Federal Reserve...yet, there are very legitimate arguments for the Gold Standard and abolishing the Fed that do no include Alex Jones' conspiracies. While most people would be ready to revolt if Barack Obama called for price controls on oil, we seem to be completely okay with the Fed. setting "price controls" on our money via interest rates below market value.
Moreover, since every reputable economist understands that poor Federal Reserve policy caused the Great Depression and contributed to much of the recent economic climate, some argue to let the free market via gold set the price of our money. In fact, I argued it wouldn't take long for the prices to correct themselves just like any other commodity once the system was set up.
Again, I'm not advocating this yet, but it is important to understand the arguments because many of them are valid, and I didn't even touch the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle. At the very least, transparency of the Federal Reserve is a good idea, which Ron Paul supports.
But, all this was just too much for Charles I guess. As soon as I started the debate, Charles banned me saying,
"Now I get it. 'Devil's Advocate' is the fifth sock puppet you've registered at LGF. Get off my website."
It is my understanding that a "sock puppet" is a fake account used for hateful messages.
As I mentioned above, and you can follow my links, I have been a regular on LGF, and clearly not a "sock puppet." Yes, I had registered two accounts on LGF for my friends on my computer a long, long time ago because Charles only opens registration at random times. But, I never made comments with those accounts. Either way, what Charles said was patently false, and wouldn't explain why Charles had linked to my content knowing I was a "sock puppet."
In fact, I only got in two other disagreements with Charles in the past. One time I disagreed with Charles that Glenn Beck is just as bad as Janeane Garofalo. Another time I defended George Will when Charles attacked him for citing faulty sources dealing with Global Warming.
After my banning, I sent Charles three emails hoping that he would remove the ban. He didn't respond via email. Instead he wrote the following in the comments:
"Anyone who wants to defend Ron Paul's insanity needs to explain why he is a frequent guest on the Alex Jones conspiracy show, gave the keynote speech for the John Birch Society's 50th anniversary meeting last year, and took money from the neo-Nazis at Stormfront and refused to return it when it was revealed.And that's just scratching the surface of the problems with this guy. He's a creationist, he's connected with the hardcore extreme right paleocons at the Robert Taft Club, and much, much more."And this.
The reality is that almost no reputable economists believe the gold standard is a viable basis for a modern economic system. One of the main causes of the Great Depression, in fact, was ... the gold standard. If we ever had a government that tried to re-establish the gold standard, our current economic troubles would look like a walk in the park. It's a recipe for global disaster.And the idea of abolishing the Federal Reserve is nearly as crazy.Well, in fact many reputable economists believed the gold standard is viable and necessary, including F.A. Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises (what lightweights I might add), and the Federal Reserve caused the great depression...not gold.
So, I know this is a long post, but I think I understand the rules of LGF now:
1) Don't ever support Ron Paul's economic policies, even if you don't support Ron Paul;
2) Don't ever support Glenn Beck;
3) Don't ever support Michele Bachmann;
4) Don't ever support someone who believes in Creationism even if you yourself believe in Evolution; and
5) Don't ever question Charles even if you supported him for 2 years.
You will be banned!
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