Topic: Ron Paul
It's Time for Civil Disobedience Ron Paul calls Americans who engage in civil disobedience "true patriots and champions of liberty". by Jake Morphonios
(Conservative Libertarian)
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
"I couldn't stop this movement if I tried." - Ron Paul in an LA Times interview.
Ron Paul will not be President of the United States. He has confirmed repeatedly that he will not run as a third-party or independent candidate. He has already admitted that he cannot win the Republican nomination. "Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero."
Paul supporters that keep hoping that he can snatch up all the delegates of Romney, Huckabee, Guiliani and other GOP candidates are fooling themselves and wasting valuable time. There is absolutely NO WAY that Paul can win the Republican nomination.
The Republican party has not reflected a belief in constitutional principles for decades. The party is dead and cannot be resurrected. I spit on its grave. I say, let this monstrocity die its rightful death.
Ron Paul is not the revolution. We are.
How do we want to procede? Consider Ron Paul's support base: disenchanted Republicans, anti-war Democrats, Libertarians and Independents... does anyone really believe that these parties want to form ranks behind Ron Paul to save the Republican party? NO.
The answer is not to shut our mouths and be loyal to a corrupt party, hoping against hope that one day it will return to sanity and a constitutionally-sound party platform. Even if Paul is successful in sending enough delegates to the nominating convention to have some influence on how the party planks should be written, does anyone expect the neo-cons to abide by the platform? If they won't follow the US Constitution then they won't follow a Constitutional party platform. Duh!
We have accomplished too much in the past year to go away quietly. We have been snubbed by ignorant voters who don't even know the difference between a republic and a democracy or between capitalism and socialism. We have been insulted and silenced by the mainstream media, under the control of corporate dictators like Rupert Murdoch. We have been called kooks, nuts, and Paul-tards.
Now the movement is fracturing because there is no clear objective.
I propose a new course:
DEMAND REFORM THROUGH CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Ron Paul has said many times that he believes in civil disobedience. Read comments he made on the floor of the House of Representatives on May 22, 2007:
"Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment."
"Peaceful non-violent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit as successful as those involving military confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. achieved great political successes by practicing non-violence, yet they themselves suffered physically at the hands of the state."
"But whether the resistance against government tyrants is non-violent or physically violent, the effort to overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism."
"True patriotism today has gotten a bad name at least from the government and the press. Those who now challenge the unconstitutional methods of imposing an income tax on us, or force us to use a monetary system designed to serve the rich at the expense of the poor, are routinely condemned. These American patriots are sadly looked down upon by many. They are never praised as champions of liberty as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. have been."
"Liberals, who withhold their taxes as a protest against war, are vilified as well especially by conservative statists."
"Unquestioned loyalty to the state is especially demanded in times of war. Lack of support for a war policy is said to be unpatriotic. Arguments against a particular policy that endorses a war once it's started, are always said to be endangering the troops in the field. This, they blatantly claim, is unpatriotic and all dissent must stop. Yet it is dissent from government policies that defines the true patriot and champion of liberty..."
I believe that if we are to keep our revolution alive, we must strike hard against tyranny. We must organize a grand march on Washington DC. We must commit acts of non-violent civil disobedience to wake this country up.
All successful civil rights campaigns, from women's suffrage to equality for blacks, involved a march on Washington DC and the extensive use of sit-ins, protests, demonstrations, and other forms of non-violent civil disobedience.
I think we should begin a substantive discussion of what actions we can take individually and as a whole to demonstrate our absolute refusual to continue to tolerate government tyranny against us and our families.
To those of you who feel no anger, I invite you to go back to suckling the beast that feeds you. Fair-weather supporters who are too afraid to stand up for their rights against a vicious government are welcome to stay out of the way of those of us wishing to emulate the founding patriots of our nation who spent more than trite words for the just cause of liberty.
I leave you with Dr. Paul's words from this past January:
"The whole world is watching how we do today.. on a day dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, the great champion of non-violence at home, peace abroad, and civil disobedience against tyrannical government."
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2008 Jake Morphonios, all rights reserved.
Published: Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Last modified: Thursday, March 6, 2008
The views expressed in this
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Q - How do you spot a "plant"?
A - They infiltrate and try to "plant" the seeds of destruction, a mindset of failure, within the group or organization. Without fail, the first thing they tell you is you're not going to win.
Q - How do you win anyway?
A - Ignore or Delete the Offenders. And Keep on Truckin' ; )
While I tend to perhaps hold on to hope for a Ron Paul presidency longer than you have, that is my only point of disagreement with your article.
Yes, civil disobedience is so clearly called for here!
I suspect that the most "publicly noticed" form of civil disobedience would be for all the newly coalesced lovers of Liberty to immediately cease filing "personal income tax" forms with the IRS.
Mass public demonstrations on April Fools Day (April 15th) in conjunction with a "failure to file" ( which is a misdemeanor charge ) would be a real consciousness-raising event. CAUTION: this will most certainly incite the "wrath of the beast" and should not be done without serious soul-searching and competent counsel.
Short of that, but probably almost as effective, would be just the "mass demonstration" part as suggested by http://www.truthattack.org/ - show up and demonstrate at your local post office on April Fools Day (15th) and distribute information to everyone mailing their "returns" about the illegality of the income tax.
After Mitt Romney dropped out, Ron Paul said in a widely read letter to his supporters that his chances of winning the Republican nomination are "nearly zero".
Obviously Ron Paul is a "plant" by the enemy and is trying to convince us that Ron Paul will not be elected President.
Posted By: Scott from Oregon
Date: 2008-03-05 14:19:46
One of the ways to show contempt for your IRS requirement is to submit your form "crinkled" to where it must be processed manually. If you are afraid of breaking any laws, you can protest your discomfiture by wrinkling both your check and your form.
If every Ron Paul supporter did just this, it would slow down the processing of taxes considerably and make quite a noise without breaking any laws.
I will support almost any method (peaceful or otherwise) to check the over sized, mud raking, tyrannical, barnyard beast, that is the federal government.
Ron Paul is NOT a plant (though I can understand how you'd get that idea from listening to him speak sometimes).
The problem isn't him, it's the people he's chosen to trust (and run his campaign). The Ron Paul we're hearing today is a beaten one. Because Republican INSIDERS have finally convinced him that there is nothing to see or do outside the Republican Party.
The only reason he keeps saying he'll ONLY try and influence the Republican Party is because they (the Insiders) have convinced him that is ALL he is CAPABLE of.
They don't want his message to get out. And they certainly don't want anything big to happen (like a Paul/Kucinich march to the polls in November).
They (the Republican Insiders) want Paul to go home quietly in September and to take his message with him. The Beast has many tentacles. And I'm not so naive as to believe they couldn't get inside his campaign.
Paul understands the dangers of running as an independent. But it must have taken them some real convincing to get him to abandon us at this point.
But just watch. At the same time they're telling Paul to throw in the towel, the insiders will continue to milk the remaining 6 Million out of his campaign. They are going to ride it out as long as they can get paid. But they aren't going to help him (they haven't so far, so why start now?).
Q - What's the lesson here?
A - Don't trust Republican Insiders to run a pro-freedom / pro-constitution campaign.
I know I am sounding like a broken record, but whatever we do it has to be coordinated. An extension of the campaign, or the Liberty Caucus, or a new orgainization led by Dr. Paul and a board of directors. Something, or our effort is diluted. Judging from the pledges unless things pick up the march could fizzle and we would be the worse for it.
I am a transplanted Texan from New Mexico and a financial supporter of Dr. Paul for many years. But, I am in no mood to break laws and go to jail, Thoreau notwithstanding. But I am in the mood for something spectacular that even the MSM might pick up on.
I have discovered (painfully!) that different people have VERY different levels of "satire detection" capability, and so you have to either PAINT A PICTURE sometimes, if you really don't want to be misunderstood, or just accept the fallout when someone doesn't "get it..."
Scott from Oregon: Uh, crinkling it does nothing. Crinkled forms are slapped into a scanner with a weighted lid and scanned and the copy is fed in instead.
This quote struck me as utterly hilarious: "I suspect that the most "publicly noticed" form of civil disobedience would be for all the newly coalesced lovers of Liberty to immediately cease filing "personal income tax" forms with the IRS."
I can tell you that the IRS would love nothing more for you to do that and give them an excuse to request even additional police power, perhaps even command over National Guard units. Don't think it could happen? The idea was floated twice in the Clinton years, in 1994 and 1995.
I'm all for you people demonstrating, writing in, work stoppages, etc -- but I have to say -- and this is not me as a statist or me as liking big government but me who has SEEN what happens to taxpayers who pull this stunt -- your finances will be ruined, your credit rating ruined, they'll put pressure on your employers to fire you, and so on.
I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying do a bit of research and MAKE VERY SURE that's what you want to do -- and the consequences and resulting laws as a result of that.
I'd be happy to answer any questions in that regard.
With Paul supporters coast to coast how hard would it be for tens of thousands to march on the 12 Federal Reserve branches? Seems to me some civil disobedience on such a grand scale might enlighten a few as to just what a raw deal the Fed Reserve is. Why should the campaign directors suck all the money out of the fund? If they are as principled as Dr. Paul it seems they would want to further the cause. A PBS, Frontline or HBO documentary of some sort could certainly be underwritten in part/whole with a fraction of funds. So many options to continue the fight. I personally don't have it to give, but I would give Dr. Paul $500.00 to run as an independent or as a write in candidate.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-03-06 06:24:12
Ice Fog: I'm pretty sure it wasn't Ron Paul's handlers and the Republican Party who convinced him that running as a third party candidate is futile. Rather, I"m pretty sure it was his own run in 1988 as a Libertarian that convinced him of that fact.
I personally don't believe that the Republican Party can be or wants to be reformed, but that doesn't mean that running as a third party candidate will work any better, and I say that as a dues-paying member of the Libertarian Party.
I'm not even sure that this bastardized form of democracy that we now have is even salvageable but if it is then the first thing that should be done is to NEVER vote for anyone with a R or a D after their name. The Libertarian Party is by far the best, but I would be willing to vote for a Constitutional or Green party candidate if one is running. Second, discuss with your friends and co-workers that the U.S.A. is on a downward slope and that since the R's and D's are responsible for the mess that someone else should at least have a chance to fix things. The R's and D's have had there's and they've failed miserably. Third, if your a believer in limited, fiscally responsible government then run for something as a Libertarian. County commissioner, school board, something--- though unless you have a lot of money I wouldn't go higher than state representive.
Posted By: patrick henry
Date: 2008-03-06 15:17:21
"When the people fear the government you have tyrranny, when the government fears the people you have LIBERTY" -Ben Franklin
Awesome how our benevolent state will subject us to such hardships, to illegally oppress the fruits of a man's labor. Emannuel Goldstiens! Down with BIG BROTHER
Jake, I didn't miss your satire. And Walt, I know Paul has seen what happens when you don't run under one of the major parties.
And, if Paul were just any guy running for president, I would accept his surrender as willingly as some others have.
But he's not just any candidate, and this is not just any election year.
We are on the precipice of the abyss. Even the lip service shown to the constitution (which is all we have left at this point) is about to DISAPPEAR. They're not even going to PRETEND to follow it anymore. The NWO politicians' disgust for its principles will be made open. And we (the American People) are going to pay a heavy price.
As soon as these NWO folks (Clinton, McCain, and their Internationalist Ilk) lay their cards on the table, it's all over.
They can already rig the elections to come out however they want. They have already IMPLEMENTED the North American Union (they just haven't told you yet). And they have already Militarized and Nationalized all local police forces.
I may not even believe that Ron Paul has any chance of winning a Write-In campaign (because freedom lovers aways seem to be such a minority). But he HAS to do SOMETHING. Something BIG, and something SOON (i.e., NOW).
Because while WE'RE all sitting here lolly-gagging, the NWO is marching happily forward (on a road paved over the rights we used to have).
Ron Paul needs to step forward and start running HIS OWN campaign.
John McCain is a very old man. Who can be sure his health won't deteriorate to the point where he cannot be the nominee? Whereas Ron Paul is healthy as oxen.
Furthermore, it occurs to me to mention that paper burns. Tax payments are due 15 April and most are still filed by mail with paper checks. Civil disobedience? As a great philosopher once wrote, "Naughty, naughty. Very naughty!"
Friends:NOW is the time for us to unite and come together, whether our primary cause is peace, labor, truth, human rights, American sovereignty, impeachment, environmental, voting rights, civil liberties, the Constitution or sound fiscal policy....or all of the aforementioned.
We are manipulated and overpowered only when we allow those in power to segment and divide us. In fact, we have much more in common than we may think. After all, we are concerned citizens and people of principle. Strength comes via numbers and the forging of sound strategic alliances by, and between, activist groups.
We will be updating you with additional information. And no, we are not just asking you to participate and to help spread the word. We are asking you to consider that WE must unite and WE must demonstrate the power of the people....we need representation and participation from every "cause" and "belief set" in order to send a loud and clear message that WE ARE RECLAIMING OUR POWER as Americans.
It is time to send a message to those in authority: WE may have different priorities, we may be of every persuasion, but we are all Americans and we are sick and tired of unrepresentative government. We are tired of watching the fundamental promise and potential of American life subverted by profiteers and self-serving interests.And we are sick and tired of the few pretenders, and their supplicants, who posture that their agendas are ours.
UNITED we will stand...and so will the America we love.
APRIL 15, 2008 MASS RALLY IN DC
TO TAKE BACK AMERICA
Join us in Washington:
APRIL 15th,2008
11 AM on the west lawn of the Capitol
Dave Von Kleist
of "The Power Hour" Radio show will be our Master of Ceremony and will be performing his music throughout the day.
Guest Speakers:
Ron & Carol Paul
A artists rendering of Ron and Carol in patriotic dress will be presented to them in honor of their 51st Anniversary.
Jack Mclamb, Police Officer (retired), Constitutional Patriot
Bill Stegmeier
Murray Sabrin, NJ --David Robert Grate, NY -- John Wallace, NY -- Greg Lewis, Fla -- Dean Santoro, Fla --
Ted Terbolizard, CA --B J Lawson, NC
Performing Artists:
International # 1 Hit Artist "Will To Power"
WNC's own "Empty Slate"
POKERFACE
( no introduction is necessary for these guys)
Wanda Case,
Soprano Vocalist performing "heart/soul rendering" presentations of Our "National Anthem" and "God "Save" America"
Everything is all set: We have the sound systems, staging, porta potties and the permit has been redone so we can start setting up the stages at 7 AM to be prepared for a 11 AM start off.
See you all there on the 15th with your signs and energy lets get this
REVOLUTION IN HIGH GEAR !
We have the permits in hand,
This is our chance to show Congress and the Senate there are eyes on them and they can be voted out if they do not start doing their jobs.
The participants can carry hand signs, dress in costumes and in general have a peaceful demonstration. No dangerous objects will be allowed ( Homeland security rules) as sticks with pointed ends, metal poles for signs etc. Bull horns are permitted from the steps for amplification for speakers.
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE TRUST AND SUPPORT YOU HAVE GIVEN THE GRANNYS THIS PAST YEAR. YOU HAVE ALL BEEN SO GENEROUS AND SUPPORTIVE WHICH HAS ALLOWED US TO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED THE TASKS WE HAVE TAKEN ON.
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