Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Why I cannot Vote for Anyone Else For a while now, people have dismissed Ron Paul. I was told he couldn't win, why vote for him? Because a vote is for your principles, not so you can be on the winning team.by Taliesin
(Libertarian)
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ron Paul is probably not going to get the Republican nomination. I had high hopes for a while. I thought his message would resound with America, the land of Liberty, capital L. His message did. It really did. People who were able to fully hear his message either loved it or not. Those who hated it did so for a variety of reasons, mostly I think because they weren't conservative or libertarian to begin with. But, I hoped beyond hope that his message would find fertile ground with Republicans. But I was told he couldn't win so why vote for him? If a con man gets into office simply because they are "electable" what exactly do the people who voted for them win? What is the prize for supporting the obvious favorite, even if they do not agree with anything we believe in? Do we get a toaster or something? Still, I thought that surely long term Republicans would listen. Those who remember what the Party stood for until the 2004 election cycle would respond. Compare the party platform from 2000 to 2004 to understand what I mean.
But his message didn't get out. I am reminded of the Parable of the Sower from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 4. Those who vote for Huckabee may follow this analogy. However since they don't seem to understand that Jesus did not come to establish an earthly kingdom, maybe they won't. For the rest who have never heard it, in the parable, the Sower flings seeds into the air, some fall on rocky soil and cannot take root. Some fall among thorns and are choked out. Some few find fertile soil and grow strong. I didn't realize before how many thorns there were in the media and in the Republican Party itself. I felt that surely in the Republican Party at least there were many for whom the message of smaller government and liberty would find fertile soil.
But alas, the thorns of the media, and the thorns of the neo-con wing of the Republicans choked the message.With sometimes blatant and often subtle manipulation, Dr. Paul was marginalized. Where his message fell on ears that would hear, it did grow strong. But the thorns had already reached the minds of the public and the message could not spread. For the true "dyed in the wool" liberals, well, that was already a rocky soil write off, if you follow.
Since the first primaries, I have heard exit polls saying that "100 year" McCain will get us out of the war, or that Romney is a true conservative. How anyone can consider someone who is able to win an election in Massachusetts a conservative, I'll never figure out. And I shook my head. I wanted to scream and shout from the rooftops about how moronic people could be. But I followed Ron Paul's lead and kept spreading his message calmly and rationally to those who could still hear.
Why? Because I had found the candidate I had been waiting for since 8th grade. Ever since those early lessons about the Constitution, I've been wondering what founding document our government was reading. There must be different version in the hands of the Supreme Court, I postulated. There could be no other excuse.
Did no one understand the simple wording in the Bill of Rights? When an army chaplain is fired for praying a Christian prayer, or when the family of a Wiccan veteran has to practically sue the governement to get his religious symbol on his headstone, what version of the 1st Amendment was being used? The one I have access to appears to say you can't do that. When gun control laws pass, I wonder what definition of "infringed" was looked up in regards to the 2nd Amendment. And I waited many years, until Ron Paul came along as a candidate I could vote for, since I was too young to vote for him on his first run. After all those years, I finally heard a Republican saying the words I had been saying for years.
But America changed, and I hadn't noticed. Our founding fathers knew that people could be manipulated and enslaved without obvious chains. Right up until the point you could put the chains on or take them off and there would be no difference. Our forefathers put their faith in the Constitution to prevent this as best they could, but in the end it didn't matter. People will be sheeple, no matter what. And so we gave away our freedom. Freedom our ancestors bled for, freedom that they left their homelands for, the freedom that is the very bedrock of our country. We gave it away to the sound of applause. Instead of critical thinking, most people, it seemed, wanted someone else to interpret what it all meant. And the corporate controlled media was happy to oblige.
There is, as it turns out, another reason that is beyond Constitutional misunderstanding. That reason is the Power, capital P. As Frank Herbert wrote, "Power does not corrupt, power attracts the corruptible". And we now have a contest to see which party will control the power that our forefathers intended for us, the people. Who will be our masters: the Fascists or the Socialists? It's a nail-biter, it really is. But there was one man who power didn't corrupt. He was in the halls of power and it did not change him. Ron Paul.
But now I hear disturbing questions. I read a column asking which Republican will Ron Paul supporters vote for in November. My answer is simple. Ron Paul. I'll write it in if I have to. My conscience and my principles demand nothing else. I have voted in the past based on reactionary, emotional reasoning. I regret that now that I've seen a man who has not let the corruption of Washington touch him for 30 years, which is almost longer than I've been alive. A man who takes moral responsibility for things written in his name, even if he was not the writer nor shared the writer's views. A man who did not react irrationally to the obviously deliberate sidelining of his message. I've seen a man of true principles and morals, and I must follow suit.
Though I no longer consider myself a Christian, I have to say I know a righteous man when I see one. And my apologies to Chuck Norris, but in this campaign, it's not Mike Huckabee, it is Ron Paul. So, my principles will not die with Ron Paul's campaign. Regardless if it is typed on the form or written by my own hand, his name will be on any ballot I cast this year. And I will not vote for anything less than my principles again.
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