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Who Are The Ron Paulers?

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nonrate

at November 9, 2007 in Supporters, Primaries and Political Issues. 4 Comments

You may have recently begun to read about this Ron Paul character in the news. In addition to wondering who Ron Paul is, you may also be curious who these Ron Paul people are? Who are these guys running around frantically flooding website comments, waving signs and contributing to record breaking “money bombs?” And why do they care so much about this Ron Paul guy who barely registers in the polls? Well, I felt it was time you found out from the mouth of one of them.

Ron Paul, currently running for the slot of President of the United States, is a 10 time Texas Congressman running on the Republican ticket. Many call him out as a Libertarian. It’s true that he ran for President in 1988 on the Libertarian ticket –after leaving the Republican party for the time that he did it. And many gawk when they see the Republican label. He must be in support of the current Iraqi expedition, and an expansion into Iran. He must also be for all kinds of controls and laws to protect the American people, like listening into your phone conversations and suspending laws that were created to protect freedoms that could be used to hurt you. He must be married to the bible and committed to ruling the land by it’s word as he interprets it, regardless of what religion you hold true to yourself is.

No, no and no. Ron Paul’s support does not come from todays twisted and perverted platform once known as the Republican party. It comes from the twenty year old college student, who saw their parents get their education at a fraction of the cost of theirs, and now feel uncertain for the chance to labor toward the American Dream they’ve been working so hard for, and so many fought for. They’re the people that are irked at the fact that they’re either earning the same or less than they were five years ago, while every living purchase has skyrocketed, with no end in foresight. They’re those close to retirement who can easily envision little or no social security coming back to them, after they’ve had it taken from them all their lives. It’s the people in their golden years that struggle to survive on their own living and medical expenses who can’t figure out why those whom we fund for governance feel it’s more important to spend it on waging battles halfway across the world, based on false pretense, rather than battling for the welfare of the greatest generation that ever existed. The generation that delivered the most impressive fruits of the industrial revolution and created the comforts of life we enjoy so much today. And they see the product of their labor transformed into the instrument of conquest.

They’re people that believe America is what it was founded to be. A place where the people of each state can independently govern itself, bound by a set of common principals guided by liberty. Those that believe in equal rights for all of humanity and the rule of law, as outlined in the United States Constitution. We are the ones that not only want to see, but are determined to being a part of what makes America the best it can be.

And we’re against those who attempt to cloud the American way. Against the abuse of power that often delivers a rewritten message of what the American ideology is about. We are against any regression into an uncivilized structure of civilization that preys on the poor and promotes unnecessary militarist conflict.

any are now crafting articles in an attempt to not only label Ron Paul “crazy” or as a a “lunatic,” but also pass these sentiments onto his supporters. Fine. In my limited experience following politics, I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed such a strategy where not only the candidate, but the American public in support are also attacked. However, it certainly demonstrates this campaign isn’t just about Ron Paul. It’s about we the people. It’s about the message of liberty, responsible government and those in support of it. It’s an attack on the very ideas and principals that created the worlds first highly successful free society. But we, the Ron Paulers, are not swayed by such romper room tactics.

Those articulating their opinions in such a manner hope it will sway the Ron Paul supporter, or one considering to garner its message. It’s a natural defensive position to take when one threatens another –attempt to discredit them in the hopes you won’t listen to them and accept their judgment. And it’s your choice if you do or not. I know it can be difficult to hear something very sensible from someone like Ron Paul and become confused when someone that’s supposed to be an authority on the matter in question says it can’t work, when it did in a day we consider more primitive. And I agree it’s easier to adopt someone else’s judgment on a particular position or issue rather than examine it independently. But Ron Paulers are those that have decided to take the more challenging route and judge for themselves.

All in all, I can promise you this. We Ron Paulers are not about to fade into the night. We’re growing in numbers day by day. We’re committed to the modern ideas of freedom and liberty as scribed in our 200 plus year old constitution, and we plan on preserving it. We believe in a sound economic system where the money you earn holds its value while you alone hold onto it. We have no problem receiving the petty childish antics that attempt to shroud the message of liberty as crazy, or zany. Because we foster one of the most important traits required to maintain a free and prosperous country –tolerance. You may want to consider being a part of it… because we’re not going away.

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Ron Paul, Fruitcake?

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nonrate

at November 7, 2007 in Media. 8 Comments

There comes a time during the course of ones candidacy where the attack phase begins. This usually occurs around the time a particular candidate becomes a threat to those considered “frontrunners,” and the frontrunners are generally those who have two pre-requisites: the most money and the highest traditional polling numbers.

Well, as Ron Paul begins to come up from behind rather rapidly, his attack phase begins. And one such attack is from one Kevin Drum of CBS news. Because Dr. Paul is essentially bulletproof when it comes to digging political dirt, the best these so called professional journalist can do is pull the childish “nutjob” or “fruitcake” card. Luckily, most of the educated masses never respond to such adolescent attempts, and those that do readily come to their senses when you simply ask them, “how does that make him a fruitcake?”

Kevin’s article can be viewed here; it is a 4 paragraph essay which attempts to characterize Ron Paul as someone who’s crazy, but like all hit pieces provides no substantive arguments to show it. Rather, it’s an amalgamation of emotion and contradiction. “In the last Republican debate I saw, this noted truth-teller gave a strange and convoluted answer about his economic policies that the audience plainly didn’t understand,” writes Kevin. Nor do I understand as Kevin forgot to cite what that example was. This is no different than the village idiot trying to sell someone three magic beans saying “trust me” they work.

He also goes on to contradict himself by suggesting the following, “Next time I expect to see some straight talk about how we should return to the gold standard and get rid of the Fed. This should be followed by a question about whether he supports the free coinage of silver at 16:1. Then some questions about the tin trust.” For someone who claims his audience is too dumbed down to understand the basic economics Dr. Paul has explained in the debates, how should he expect his audience to understand the tin trust, which is but a small tiny element in a larger spectrum of the economic engine?

I bask in the refreshment that the Ron Paul supporters I’ve met and worked with to date are intelligent, motivated, and focused individuals. We choose not to regress to grade school tactics and use emotional attack strategies. We are especially smart enough to avoid using the “fruitcake” labels, as we realize this is signal of an emotional response in the absence of issues of vital concern to the American public.

However, Kevin’s theme of the article itself is him ranting on about his readers being childish, and how they need to grow up. Yes my friends, this being professed by someone that used the term “buttload” in a so called professional journalistic entry for CBS. Kevin, you ask your readers to grow up. You’re the first ten year old that’s asked me to do that. Would you like a lollipop now?

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Ron Paul Wants To Eliminate What?

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nonrate

at September 11, 2007 in Federal Government, Environment, Healthcare and Education. 7 Comments

I was on YouTube today and watched a segment of the interview Ron Paul did with George Stephanopoulos on ABC a few months ago. Scrolling through the comments, I read:

You realize Ron Paul will eliminate the dept. of Education, the dept. of transportation, FEMA, and the EPA. He voted against a bill trying to defend Network Neutrality. He wants health care solely in the hands of conglomerates! Are you shitting me? Wake the fuck up.

It’s funny because every time a fearful citizen brings up these points, they do so without understanding what they mean.

For example, I’ve heard the concern of losing the Department of Education come up quite a bit. I have to admit, when I first heard about Paul wanting to obliterate it, my ears perked up too –why would Ron Paul want to eliminate education?

No, Ron Paul doesn’t want to eliminate education. When one says “Eliminating the Department of Education,” many hear “Eliminate Education.” This most likely is due to people believing if a federal department exists for a particular societal function, that federal department controls all aspects of it across the country. This is an easy and almost natural assumption for one to take, but the reality is almost always untrue.

In fact, we super-smart Americans have allowed ourselves to be fooled into believing that all executive departments are solely responsible for their respective “named” functions in our society. Not only have we made asses out of ourselves for assuming as much, it goes against the American ideal to have such a centralized entity in the first place.

One problem is, most people don’t know what the federal departments’ do, are responsible for, or what their main objectives are. To shed some light on this, let’s explore the Department of Education.

The Department of Education, or it’s equivalent, was first enacted in 1867. It didn’t last very long – one year later, it had the misfortune of being downgraded to an office. That is until 1979, when Jimmy Carter broke the department level functions off of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Between 1868 and 1979, there was no department dedicated to education.

For those who find the elimination of this department preposterous today, Ronald Reagan himself promised to find a way to eliminate this department during his presidency. He did it with the support of the Republican Party, and its pundits. He did try, but failed to do so. In fact, in 1979, at the onset of the act to create this department, the Democratic party opposed it while the Republicans supported it. And yet, the same Republican Party believes it’s necessary today. A lot can flip-flop in twenty five years.

So what does the department actually do? I couldn’t find anything all too compelling, at least, nothing the states can’t or haven’t been doing on their own. Because education is almost exclusively managed at the state level, all this department’s main function is is to “formulate federal funding programs involving education and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.” It exists to play the role of policing the states’ own education police and to distribute taxpayer money that the states would do themselves if the additional funds weren’t diverted to the federal government for that purpose to begin with.

In other words, nothing we can’t live without.

Have they been doing a good job? In my opinion, absolutely not. Ask those around you if they believe public education in America today is better than it was before 1990. How about before 1980? In my experience, most agree the quality of education has diminished significantly in the last twenty seven years. So it would seem the Department of Education’s existence coincides with the decline of American public educational quality. And yet for many of the years before it existed on its own, educational quality seemed better.

So when others look at Ron Paul as some nutcase because he wants to eliminate departments and government functions that “sound” like they do something important, those individuals would benefit from actually understanding what it is the department does, before making such judgements. As in the example with the Department of Education, you can easily break down this logic for most or possibly all of these department’s. For example, consider some other areas people express fear or laugh at when Ron Paul discusses their elimination:

The IRS

Anyone who claims to understand what the IRS does and why it’s required for the good of the nation is a liar. Ask them if they have memorized the code of the IRS. When they say no, ask them to do so –they can’t. In fact, the odds of being able to do so are cosmic in scale. Then you’d have the challenge of understanding them. We had no IRS before 1913, and Ron Paul is not suggesting to eliminate revenue generation for the Federal government. He’s advocating not taxing individual income to get it. Period.

FEMA

They spoke for themselves during Hurricane Katrina, did they not? Citizens are responsible for helping citizens in the event of a disaster, at least in my opinion. Citizens can centralize a solution for this in private industry. Its being in government control has been a disaster. The concept of having an organized and funded group to assist in disaster recovery isn’t a bad one at all. In fact, it’s rather helpful to a functional society. But FEMA’s role is not centralized exclusively for this purpose as most would believe. And we’ve all seen how it’s been managed. I’d prefer to see a private industry take the reins on this one.

The Environmental Protection Agency

Having environmental regulations and laws for private industry to follow is one thing. Having a department act as a policing force for them is another. We don’t need it – removing the EPA doesn’t mean industry will be able to dump chemicals anywhere they want. We already have laws against harming individuals by contaminating the environment, so if you think eliminating the EPA eliminates the laws protecting the environment, stop being scared of that, it doesn’t.

Net Neutrality

Ron Paul most likely fears having the government micro-manage competition will stagnate growth on the internet, and simply doesn’t want government in control of maintaining neutrality. Think about it, if more competition were allowed in communications, the minute this happened a new company would be able to materialize without the unnecessary resistance or costs that exist today, to offer a better service, and people would have a choice to move to it. Simple. The problems with Net Neutrality are problems with other existing laws and not enough competition, and Ron Paul as president would help eliminate that restrictive red-tape.

Health Care

Although I agree that a socialized health care system is not in the interest of the federal government, I do agree health care has become a crisis of sorts for us. Unfortunately, much of this crisis is caused by poor judgment many Americans make concerning their own health and well being. Regardless, I would like to see a working solution myself. But as one would look at a resume and check references when hiring a new employee, I cannot in good faith hire the federal government to perform this function. Even though Ron Paul is against socialized health care, I have heard him state several times he also believes health care, at least for the elderly, is a necessity and is something he would work to promote a federal solution for. I will say this, I’d prefer to put a trillion dollars into my fellow citizens’ health care than bombs and ammunition to kill Iraqis.

Bottom line, if someone wishes to debate a Ron Paul over elimination of a Department based on its label, without knowing what it does, how it works, or how it contributes to the citizen… they do so foolishly. And from this point forward, you’ll be able to understand how much of a fool they appear. It’s like debating how my dad can cut metal with his teeth because he looks bigger than your dad. I know, it’s disturbing, but we live amongst a large group of adult kindergarteners who have the right to vote. I, for one, find that preposterous.

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“Ron Paul?” Is Working

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nonrate

at August 20, 2007 in Ron Paul Awareness. 4 Comments

While I was hanging out at my regular bar in Boston on Saturday, a couple from Maine walked in. They happened to walk by me as I was talking about Ron Paul to a patron next to me, a Navy Medic–I was explaining how the majority of military that have donated to the presidential campaign gave to Ron Paul. Well, this stranger stopped in his tracks and evidently selectively heard me say “Ron Paul,” because as soon as I spoke it he blurted out, “Ron Paul….is that a real person?”

This couple on a weekend vacation from Maine mentioned how they keep seeing Ron Paul signs popping up in their area, specifically, a very large one off a major road or highway that says “Ron Paul?” He had no idea who Ron Paul was, so he asked me, “Who is this guy who’s name I keep seeing?” I replied, “It’s the person I’m voting as the next President of the United States.”

Shortly after that his wife walks over and he says to her excitedly, “Hey, this guy knows who Ron Paul is. He’s a real guy.”

“Noooooooo,” she said in disbelief. I explained that yes, Ron Paul is real. And her husband stated, “Wow, I thought it was someones girlfriend pissed off at their boyfriend,” whatever that was supposed to mean.

Anyway, I continued telling them about who Ron Paul is, why I’m voting for him, and that they should look him up. They said they would. It turns out the Navy Medic I was originally talking to was from Texas and a Ron Paul supporter as well. Who knew?

California

Last week, I was out in California with some of my family experiencing my first time up in the northern section. During my visit, my Uncle and guests were invited to a private wine gathering just outside of San Jose. We ended up sharing our tasting table with a couple in their 60-70s, who turned out to be Ron Paul supporters.

The subject of politics came up, which my Aunt and Uncle dread when I’m around; they’re Hillary supporters and can’t seem to be swayed. I’ve tried and keep trying, which is why they dread it. Anyway, while the group at the table were talking about how disenchanted they were with all current presidential runners, the wife of our new friends said, “you can always choose Libertarian,” to which I excitedly rebuked with “That’s right, Ron Paul 2008.” She jumped out of her chair and offered me a high five and shouted “Ron Paul!” I think my Aunt and Uncle were taken aback, as they’re belief systems have to accept it’s not just nephew that’s supporting this great unknown candidate.

Local Highways

Yesterday, I saw my brother whom I have introduced to Ron Paul a short time ago. He let me know he’s been seeing signs on the highway spelling out “Ron Paul Revolution,” I believe around the 290, 495 or Rte 2 area in Massachusetts. He also let me know he’s been seeing more and more signage around his area of Fitchburg, MA.

The Revolution appears to indeed be growing, and I have to admit I’m shocked the public displays have been having the effect they do. The more they’re seen, the more people will be willing to get on the bandwagon, because the more “popular” he’ll begin to appear. And that should at least give him an aura of authenticity for those that make decisions based on how masses of others decide.

Ron Paul is the most fortunate of all candidates because he has supporters that don’t just believe in him, but are willing to take action to support him. Genuine actions that are not self-served, that are not bought and paid for, but directly from the fiber of their souls. Supporters of other campaigns give me the impression theirs is an alliance founded on fear. Fear of what they could lose, whereas Ron Paul supporters are excited about what his Presidency would allow us to gain. “Ron Paul?” in big letters on the side of the highway is working. Good work, and let’s keep it going

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Ron Paul Can’t Save America, Only You Can; And That’s Why He Must Be Elected President

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nonrate

at August 17, 2007 in Political Issues and Ron Paul Awareness. 0 Comments

That’s right. Ron Paul can’t save our nation. It seems every time we become disappointed with our leadership, we look towards another trailblazer to swoop in and save the day. And every time it fails, yet, we keep making the same decisions.

In 2000, I remember many around me cheering and applauding either Al Gore or George Bush to become the next President. In fact in October of that year, I was passing through Austin on my way to San Diego. I was having dinner at a Ruth Chris steak house, and a room of muted happiness filled the air every few minutes, drowning out the even more muddy sound of ruffled voices from a television. It was George Bush battling Al Gore during one of the, ahem, ever-so entertaining debates. Being in Austin, it was clear to know who the room packed with locals was cheering for. He was going to save us from the destruction of the Clinton era. Or, so they thought.

We forgive you, those that voted for him, for ye know not what ye have done. Until now –we hope.

This time around, I’ve heard more and more friends, relatives, and colleagues express their disconnection with familiar faces and party candidates, however continue to find a way to embrace the “one” that will save them. More often than not, that “one” happens to be a lesser of the other evils, the mainstream polished, bought and paid for candidate. “Fred Thompson better run, he’ll save us” comes from one side, while the salvation of Obama echoes from the other. Some I know even believe Clinton 2.0 will save the day once elected, in fact, more than I’d like to think (but they’re all over 50 –blame the conditioning of the duck & cover drills).

But if they believe getting their candidate in office is going to cause a 180 degree shift in the management of planet America, they’re going to be devastated… again. This is because over various decades the majority have allowed themselves to essentially outsource more and more citizen duties to an ever-expanding government. Every election period they continue to look for the one to hire that will embrace the Homer Simpson-like philosophy, “can’t somebody else do it?” Perhaps so. But recent history shows it’s not as effective as us taking hold of the reigns ourselves again. If America’s going to be saved, Hillary, Barrack, Thompson, or even Ron aren’t going to do it. We will.

So if none of these candidates are able to rescue us and make the changes we desire, why must Ron Paul be president? If the premise of this message is that our next President can’t make the change Americans barely understand they want, how does the importance of Ron Paul as President make sense? It’s not about what Ron Paul will do to save us, it’s about what he won’t do to inhibit, and what he will do to restore what we need to save ourselves. Dr. Paul’s policies and execution as President will maximize the empowerment the common citizen needs to create the society we desire.

Although there are a multitude of ways we the people can participate turning America into the futuristic paradise sold to us in Tom & Jerry cartoons and the Jetsons, we may need to break away from the warm safe security blanket of the state, and reap the greater rewards delivered by contributing and working together.

Three basic things we could focus on to build the America we thought we would have by now: