Ron Paulies Are Batshit Conspiracy Theorists, Chapter 794

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Ron Paul and his think tank don't want the U.S. to get embroiled in an overseas war with Russia over its recent annexation of Crimea. That's reasonable. Ron Paul and his think tank suggest that Russia didn't even invade Crimea, really. That's self-blindered hysterical conspiracy theorizin' bull semen.

Dave Weigel over at Slate has the details on a growing libertarian rift regarding how Russia got its new Black Sea appendage. To wit: Ron Paul's recent speeches have been sort of glib about what happened over there. He parroted Russian talking points, praising Crimea's "right to secede" from Ukraine in favor of the big kid on the block. (Paulie shares that perspective with white Southern secessionists here in the States, too.)

Some libertarians think Paul's argument elides a basic truth: Russia invaded Crimea on the thinnest of pretexts, then gamed the entire "self-determination" vote in Crimeawith troops, with organizers, with propagandato tip it absurdly in the Russian bear's favor.

That's all true. You don't have to want a U.S. war with Russia to recognize that Vladimir Putin pulled a greedy despotic land-grab. You can condemn another country's action and still be skeptical whether the U.S. shouldor coulddo anything to change the situation. Just because you have moral qualms about America's great-power counterparts doesn't mean you have to be a neocon.

But that's not ideologically pure, or truthery enough, for "Daniel Adams, executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity," who wants you to believe that Russia never invaded Crimea, or forced Crimea to vote for Russian integration! That's a neocon "conspiracy theory":

We know what an invasion looks like it's called shock and awe and it happened eleven years ago this month, in the US illegal invasion of Iraq. It happened fifteen years ago this month over the skies of Serbia, another illegal US attack.

If it had happened earlier this month in Crimea would we not have video? Everyone has cell phones these days.

Surely if the referendum had been taken at gunpoint we would have seen evidence of those on the receiving end. Or does the writer wish us to believe that the Russian military rounded up more than 80 percent of the population and forced 93% of those to vote in favor of joining Russia without having to shoot a single Crimean? That sounds like a pretty wild conspiracy theory.

This insane blather speaks to a larger problem with white-guy-dominated libertarianism: It assumes that coercive power only comes from the barrel of a gun, and not from cultural and extra-institutional pressures.

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Ron Paulies Are Batshit Conspiracy Theorists, Chapter 794