It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | Ron Paul Is The Email Spam Candidate for President |
Anyone who has been paying attention to the 2008 presidential campaign knows that the supporters of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul have countered the obvious lack of support for Ron Paul in opinion polls by pointing to the huge amount of interest Ron Paul’s campaign has been able to generate online. I’ve been keeping track of signs of that apparent interest myself for months now. Among other things, Ron Paul’s name has consistently, almost unceasingly, been one of the top ten search terms on blog search engine Technorati.
How could that be? How could Ron Paul’s campaign stay up so high in Technorati’s rankings for so long, when no other candidate, even those with much more general public support, have failed to rise to that level of online interest? Now it seems that we may have our answer.
Ron Paul’s campaign has been promoted through the use of email spam, using techniques that are at minimum harassing and dishonest, and are likely to be actually criminal. For those people who aren’t familiar with the term “spam”, it refers to junk email sent out in massive amounts without any sign of interest or permission from recipients. Anyone who has left their email address somewhere visible online is likely to receive email spam, with messages promoting things like prescription drugs, cosmetic surgery for sexual organs, and pornography.
You can add Ron Paul to that list of annoying categories of spam. The pro-Paul email spam operation, which has been sending out messages with titles like “Ron Paul Wins GOP Debate!”, and messages such as “Ron Paul is for the people, unless you want your children to have human implant RFID chips, a National ID card and create a North American Union and see an economic collapse far worse than the great depression. Vote for Ron Paul he speaks the truth and the media and government is afraid of him.”
The media is afraid of Ron Paul? No, I’m afraid I’m going to keep on getting junk messages promoting Ron Paul like this in my inbox.
The Ron Paul for President campaign is, so far, denying involvement in the email spam operation. Whether Ron Paul is telling the truth about that or not, we can judge the candidate according to the kind of people his campaign attracts as supporters. Online, it seems that Ron Paul’s campaign has attracted dishonest hackers who have such disrespect for voters that they’re willing to subject us to torrents of garbage clogging up our email accounts.
The once ballyhooed popularity of Ron Paul in the online world seems likely now to be the result of fraud.
(Source: Wired, October 31, 2007)
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OK, jclifford, let’s put on our critical thinking caps.
First, how would spam e-mails affect technorati rankings?
Second, do you see the crowds that turn out for Ron Paul? 2,000 in Nashville, 2,500 in Ann Arbor…do you see the money he raises, $5.4 million in the third quarter? These people ain’t spambots.
Third, why would Ron Paul supporters, who are supposed to be (and actually are) tech-savvy, send spam out linked to youtube videos knowing it would result in those videos being yanked?
Put it all together and…it probably wasn’t Ron Paul supporters, was it Sherlock?
Comment by FZappa — 11/1/2007 @ 5:40 am
“Whether Ron Paul is telling the truth about that or not, we can judge the candidate according to the kind of people his campaign attracts as supporters.”
What? This sentence does not even make any sense. How can you tell if Ron Paul is telling the truth by the people who support him? Look at the man’s record! Look at the man’s life! Ron Paul is the most honest person I have ever seen run for public office, his reputation is beyond repute. He never get caught in double talk, he does not cater to his audience, he says the same message to everyone.
Jclifford, certainly you cannot be so stupid as to think that the only thing that matters when judging a person like Ron Paul is the quality of people that support his campaign, can you?
What I don’t understand is why are Ron Paul bashers always attacking Ron Paul’s supporters rather than the Man himself or his policies? Are you really that afraid that you will lose the battle of the wits?
But as long as we are judging Ron Paul by his supporters, why don’t we also include the U.S. Military since Ron Paul is overwhelmingly their favorite Repulican Candidate. Since you clearly imply that only low quality people support Ron Paul, and the military clearly supports Ron Paul, I ask You Jclifford, why are you trashing our troops? Are you an anti-American troops hating commie?
Comment by Johnnyb — 11/1/2007 @ 5:57 am
Put on your critical thinking skills, FZappa. Email drives web searches.
No, those people aren’t spambots. They’re part of a highly active small number of people, in the national scale. The polls show that clearly.
One accusation is that they did it to get unflattering YouTube videos criticizing Ron Paul offline. Another possibility is that they didn’t know YouTube would yank the video.
Your argument is hardly air tight, Sherlock. Try again.
Comment by J. Clifford — 11/1/2007 @ 6:28 am
Johnnyb, you’re not reading the sentence in the right way, that’s all. The opening “whether” is written in the sense of the word “regardless”, not in the word’s other meaning of “if”.
Ron Paul is certainly not the most honest person in public office I’ve ever seen. His claims about the North American Union, the Constitution, global warming, and huge number of other issues are quite dishonest.
No, I’m not so stupid as to think that the only thing that matters when judging Ron Paul is the quality of the people who support his campaign. Are you so stupid as to not bother reading the rather lengthy category of articles written here at Irregular Times about Ron Paul. In those articles, there is specific discussion of many different issues relating to the Ron Paul presidential campaign, though you say we critics never engage in such discussion.
Comment by J. Clifford — 11/1/2007 @ 6:57 am
No matter the belief we are all entitled to it. When it is all said and done it will be our VOTES that decide the next president.
Ron Paul is the one I see getting there though.
Comment by new years revolution — 12/18/2007 @ 2:29 am
Go to that New Year’s Revolution site, and guess what you get to do?
You get to give Ron Paul one hundred dollars!
Don’t you feel lucky to be part of that revolution?
Comment by J. Clifford — 12/18/2007 @ 6:13 am