Ron Paul CNN Interview on “Ron Paul’s Surge” – Dec 20 2011

The
Revolution Pages 64-65. No form of political organization, therefore,
is immune to cruel abuses like the Jim Crow laws, whereby government
sets out to legislate on how groups of human beings are allowed to
interact with one another. Peaceful
civil disobedience to unjust laws, which I support with every fiber of
my being, can sometimes be necessary at any level of government. It
falls upon the people, in the last resort to stand against injustice no
matter where it occurs. In the long run, the only way racism can be
overcome is through the philosophy of individualism, which I have
promoted throughout my life. Our rights come to us not because we belong
to some group, but our rights come to us as individuals. And it is as
individuals that we should judge one another. Racism is a particularly
odious form of collectivism whereby individuals are treated not on their
merits but on the basis of group identity. Nothing in my political
philosophy, which is the exact opposite of the radical totalitarianism
of the twentieth century, gives aid or comfort to such thinking. To the
contrary, my philosophy of individualism is the most radical
intellectual challenge to racism ever posed. Government exacerbates
racial thinking and undermines individualism because its very existence
encourages people to organize along racial lines in order to lobby for
benefits for their group. That lobbying, in turn, creates animosity and
suspicion among all groups, each of which believes that it is getting
less of its fair share than the others. Instead, we should quit thinking
in terms of race, yes, in 2008 it is still necessary to say that we
should stop thinking in terms of race, and recognize that freedom and
prosperity benefit all Americans. As Thomas Sowell points out, lobbyists
for various racial groups will spend all their time trying to enact
programs that specifically help their own group, even though that group
would reap far more benefit from advancing economic freedom in
general….. As I discuss in Chapter 5, the federal war on drugs has
wrought disproportionate harm on minority communities. Allowing for
states rights here would surely be an improvement, for the states could
certainly do a better and more sensible job than the federal government
has been doing if they were free to decide the issue for themselves. And
although people studying my record will discover how consistent I have
been over the years, they will uncover one major shift: in recent years I
have dropped my support for the federal death penalty. It is a
dangerous power for the federal government to have, and it is exercised
in a discriminatory way: if you are poor and black, you are much more
likely to receive this punishment. We should not think in terms of
whites, blacks, hispanics, and other such groups. That kind of thinking
only divides us. The only us versus them in which we might indulge it
the people, al people, versus the governemnt, which loots and lies to us
all, threatens our liberties, and shreds our constitution. That’s not a
white or black issue. That’s an American issue, and it’s one on which
Americans of all races can unite in a spirit of goodwill. That may be
why polls in 2007 found ours the most popular Republican campaign among
black voters.