Ron Paul -- a Portrait of Hypocricy and Paranoia

COMMENTARY| As the clock ticks down for the launch of the Iowa Caucuses, recent claims posted on Right Wing News by Eric Dondero - a long-term campaign operative for Texas Rep. Ron Paul -- have fanned to flame the hot-bed of conspiracy theories that have long smoldered in the mind of the now 76-year old third time presidential candidate.

New revelations of how Paul has managed a top spot in the Iowa contest proves his own willingness to conspire with Democrats in a desperate effort to win the Republican nomination.

"His campaign is distributing information sheets advising Iowans that they can register Republican "for a day" on caucus night," the Los Angeles Times revealed on Saturday, "then switch their registration back afterward."

"It's easy," confirmed David Fischer, co-chairman of Paul's Iowa organization as he encouraged voters to do so on Thursday. "You can register on your way in the door."

It is an embarrassing display of hypocrisy in which Paul is sure to deny involvement or knowledge just as he disavowed participation in writing the racist content in his newsletters published in his name. Clearly, in a last-ditch effort to win his third presidential bid, Paul has embraced the 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' mantra.

However, while evidence of Paul's hypocritical willingness to participate in a conspiracy for his own benefit is new -- even without confirmation by Dondero -- evidence of Paul's paranoia of conspiracies outside of his own campaign has already been well documented.

Among the charges of Paul's former staffer, Dondero reaffirms Paul's belief that the attacks of 9-11 "were coordinated with the CIA."

"There's been a coup," Paul reiterated himself at a Campaign for Liberty Regional Conference in Atlanta, GA in January 2010. "Have you heard? It's a CIA coup. The CIA runs everything."

Although he has yet to share any proof to validate this claim, Paul reiterated his hypothesis to friend and fellow conspiracy theorist of 10 years, Alex Jones on his Info Wars program in September.

"The CIA is involved in war," Paul also told Jones and their listening audience, again without a shred of proof. "They're involved in military activity, they pick targets from Langley in Virginia, they can shoot missiles to any spot in the world, generally killing a lot of people they shouldn't be killing and missing the one's they're trying to target." Paul added - equally sans evidence -- that it's the CIA that chooses the worlds dictators.

Evidently, Paul and his conspiracy theory comrades believe that President Barack Obama is one of them.

In fact, in August 2010, loyal Paul advocate and fellow Info Wars frequent flyer Wayne Madsen even attested to Alex Jones - also without validation -- that President Barack Obama has already been "conclusively outed as a creation of the CIA."

In 2009, as a regular contributor for Russia Today (RT) News, Madsen also claimed - likewise with no evidence or even an explanation as to why - that an armed Blackwater CIA operative infiltrated Paul's 2008 campaign disguised as security personnel through a "wink and a nod" collaboration with the United States Secret Service.

As described by Sonia Scherr of the Utne Reader, RT News is a worldwide Russian TV network -- heavily funded by the Kremlin -- which "spreads a unique brand of anti-American propaganda," and "conspiracy theories popular in the resurgent "Patriot" movement, whose adherents typically advocate extreme anti government doctrines."

In a 1998 video put out by the John Birch Society - dusted off and posted Wednesday by Casey Gane-McCalla on the website, News One -- Ron Paul gives warning of yet another of his conspiracy theories. Among the many suspicions lurking in the shadowy mind of Ron Paul is his conviction that the United Nations is actively plotting to seize the guns and property of America's citizens.

"There have been proposals made at some of their conventions," Paul said without mention of any dates, direct quotes or names (there seems to be a pattern here), "where they would literally repeal the Second Amendment." In addition, Paul declared that -- if the UN has its way -- "there will be curtailment of our right to practice religion" as well.

In 2008, as reported by The New American, Ron Paul not only endorsed the John Birch Society he delivered the keynote speech at their Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration. During his speech Paul reflected upon his first press conference at the Capitol Hill Club during which he was asked if he was a member of the group.

"No, I am not a member of the John Birch Society," Paul recalled saying in a carefree admission of his quid pro quo support for JBS, "but many members of the John Birch Society are friends of mine and they have been very helpful in my campaign."

The John Birch Society -- which believes in the existence of the infamous secret occult society known as the Illuminati and that members of the Council on Foreign Relations and the leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties are among the modern-day elite forces "actively working towards the elimination of what they see as the 'antiquated notion' of national sovereignty" as revealed by the New American in June -- is the very conspiracy theory petri dish from which the New World Order theory was born.

"No conspiracy theory was too outlandish for Paul's endorsement," wrote James Kirchick of the Weekly Standard on Monday.

From his beliefs that AIDS was created in a U.S. government laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland and that "gangs of black girls between the ages of 12 and 14" once roamed the streets of New York injecting white women with HIV-infected syringes to his accusations that the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 was "a setup by the Israeli Mossad" and that the U.S. military's combatant command for North America, is "taking over" the country," Paul truly believes that there isn't a single chord of disaster struck in the world that the wicked fingers of our government does not play.

Where most consider the world's events to be a collection of disparate incidents that can be defined as coincidental acts of random individuals, others see them as part and evidence of a complicated conspiracy.

As stated in the concise brilliance of William of Ockham, "Plurality should not be posited without necessity." The principle, otherwise known as Ockham's Razor, gives precedence to the credentials of simplicity in that -- when considering two competing theories -- it is the simplest explanation that is to be preferred.

However, in the minds of Ron Paul and those of his breed, we are supposed to engage instead in some warped game of connect-the-dots wherein we take a litany of otherwise unrelated world occurrences, add a few unsubstantiated claims and tie them together to prove the existence of an elaborate and evil plot being orchestrated by the hierarchy of some worldwide and centuries old sect that's hell-bent on forcing upon the earth a New World Order.

For those who embrace the latter school of thought -- it must be exhausting to be that paranoid.

Sources:

Paul West, "Iowa's GOP Caucuses May See Some Democratic Defectors", Los Angeles Times

Eric Dondero, "Statement from fmr. Ron Paul staffer on Newsletters, Anti-Semitism", Right Wing News

Joseph Watson/Alex Jones, "Ron Paul: CIA Chooses Dictators Around the World" Info Wars

Sonia Scherr, "The Conspiracy Channel", The Utne Reader

Brian Farmer, "Ron Paul Addresses John Birch Society", The New American

Daniel Sayani, "JBS President John McManus on Stopping the New World Order", The New American

James Kirchick, "The Company Ron Paul Keeps", The Weekly Standard