Senator Rand Paul may find himself in the hot seat tonight as it has been revealed that the co-author of the book Paul published in 2011 is a racist, neo-confederate lost-causer who, among other things, sympathizes with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
The man who co-wrote Sen. Rand Paul’s 2011 book and currently serves as an aide to the Kentucky Republican reportedly spent years in the 1990s and 2000s as a pro-secessionist activist and radio shock jock.
According to conservative news site The Washington Free Beacon, Jack Hunter, who currently serves as the senator’s new media director, spent his part of his 20s as a member of the League of the South, a group which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.” In 1999, Hunter was listed as chairman of the group’s Charleston, S.C., chapter.
From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.
Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”
It’s mystifying to me that the Free Beacon would publish this report which is more representative of the work done by the Southern Poverty Law Center than their usual fair. This leads me to believe someone in the conservative establishment has a serious bone to pick with Senator Rand Paul.
And speaking of which, here’s the Southern Poverty Law Center on The League of the South.
The League of the South is a neo-Confederate group that advocates for a second Southern secession and a society dominated by “European Americans.” The league believes the “godly” nation it wants to form should be run by an “Anglo-Celtic” (read: white) elite that would establish a Christian theocratic state and politically dominate blacks and other minorities. Originally founded by a group that included many Southern university professors, the group lost its Ph.D.s as it became more explicitly racist. The league denounces the federal government and northern and coastal states as part of “the Empire,” a materialist and anti-religious society.
In Its Own Words
“Somebody needs to say a good word for slavery. Where in the world are the Negroes better off today than in America?”
— Jack Kershaw, League of the South board member, 1998
While others have emphasized that Jack Hunter is a current aide to Senator Rand Paul, I believe the fact that he co-authored Rand’s book The Tea Party Goes to Washington is far more revealing.
On The Tea Party Goes to Washington
It primarily provides a spirited defense of his belief in Tea Party principles. An extra is a list of books that Paul calls “must-read classics.” They range from The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
He criticizes President Obama’s “big-government agenda,” but bristles at the suggestion that the movement is against Obama because of race.
“The Tea Party doesn’t see politics in black and white,” Paul wrote, “but black and red — even as its critics continue to see racism when it simply does not exist.” [...]
Paul wrote the book with the assistance of Jack Hunter, a Charleston, S.C., conservative radio talk-show host. It is published by Center Street, a division of Hatchette Book Groups Inc.
The lines of division between libertarians, lost-causers, and some of today’s staunch government critics on the Left are increasingly dubious. And while I certainly wouldn’t draw a direct line between them as their motivations are often, but not necessarily, divergent, I would suggest that anyone who “Stands With Rand” on virtually any subject should be viewed with the utmost skepticism and scrutiny.
There is an element of callous disregard for the welfare of others that accompanies any motion that lends credence to the message of libertarians who, beneath the veneer of big government concern-trolling, would enable the return of some of our nation’s worst trespasses against humanity.
You may have wildly different views on race, the size of government, and the general welfare of the nation than they do, but if you co-opt their language and adopt their professed skepticism of all governance while placing absolute distrust in our judicial system of checks and balances, you enable them. You give them a pass. And you shouldn’t be shocked when your unprincipled stand offends those who would be harmed by their policies.
It is no coincidence that just as Rand Paul expressed his skepticism of the Civil Rights Act, implying that integrated lunch-counters were an overreach on the part of government, a book was being published under his name co-authored by the Southern Avenger.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Jack Hunter renounced his views in a interview conducted Monday, but if you really believe that, I have some Doomsday Insurance I’d like to sell you.