We Don't Need No Stinking Debate Here

The post on Redstate, “Attention, Ron Paul Supporters (Life is *REALLY* Not Fair),” begins, “Effective immediately, new users may *not* shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion. Not in comments, not in diaries, nada. If your account is less than 6 months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul. Those with accounts more than six months old may proceed as normal.” (via Politico)

I gave up on RedState a long time ago, I have never seen one fresh, innovative, logical or conservative idea posited there. I had no idea that honest discussion was such a threat to "conservatism" until Daniel pointed this out in a recent post. He sums it up pretty nicely:

Unfortunately, this latest is just a symptom of the broader conformism on the “mainstream” right, particularly on matters of foreign policy, and represents the mentality of a movement that has been losing its ability to maintain and grow its political coalition. Paul’s campaign has thrived on the message that conservatism and Republicanism can and should still mean respect for the Constitution, liberty and a sane foreign policy–the very kind of rejuvenating and reforming message that the GOP needs if it is to retain the loyalty of millions of disaffected small-government conservatives and libertarians–and where Paul is making converts the folks at RedState, to adapt a phrase, are interested in finding heretics. It is a great irony this year that it is the purists who are actually swelling Republican ranks, while the pragmatists and big-tent folks are doing their best to empty that tent. Republicans will object that new Paul supporters will not support the GOP once Paul’s campaign is finished, and they may be right. RedState has just given Paul supporters one more reason to stay home or vote third party.

Morrissey over at Captain's Quarters gets it wrong in his assessment of all of this:

Banning them simply for their support for a candidate seems more like an admission that Redstate lacks that ability.

This has nothing to do with a two-bit GOP shill site and its inability to effectively support and defend the unconstitutionality of almost every GOP policy - this has to with the indefensibility of the ideology behind GOP "conservatism". The entire field opposing Paul is comprised of clowns and crooks.

In one very important way it is crucial that freedom-loving Americans are rallying around a man that stands on principles and believes in the rule of law. Ultimately we need these sorts of things, we need to see that the system will not allow the sort of honest discussion Ron Paul wants to have, we need to see first hand the great lengths phony conservatives will go to in order to avoid honest debate. We need to see, in the final analysis, that the system is broken and it will take more resolve and more work than just an election to fix it.