I admit it! I believed it all! I have been a Republican since I first started to vote. I voted the first time in 1982. Ronald Reagan was in office. He was saying things like, “Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.” by Dee Ann Patterson
(libertarian)
Thursday, December 20, 2007
I admit it! I believed it all! I have been a Republican since I first started to vote. I voted the first time in 1982. Ronald Reagan was in office. He was saying things like, "Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.", and "Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them.", and "Man is not free, unless government is limited.". I believed it all. What’s more I believe that Ronald Reagan believed it too. My mistake was in extending both Reagan’s belief and my own belief to the Republican Party at large.
In my own defense, I grew up in an age in which I was conditioned to a group mentality. The world that I grew up in was made up of many groups of people fighting for their rights and beliefs. We worked out complicated names for these groups cycling through a range of acceptable terminology. There were racial groups like "White" vs. "Caucasian", or "Negro" vs. "African American". There were other groups such as "poor" vs. "wealthy", and "liberal" vs. "conservative". There were new groups, such as "gay", "straight", "homeless" "hippies" etc…, all of which probably always existed, but none of us ever knew it. We were reminded nightly via the MSM which groups we belonged to, and what rights we were supposed to deserve for being a part of them. Consequently, it was utterly normal for me to apply my beliefs, and the beliefs of a man I respected to the whole group of Republicans. After all, Ronald Reagan was their leader. They must believe what he believed, right? To be fair, The Republican party probably did believe what Reagan believed as long as he was there to follow, and the love of power had not taken hold of them.
Yes, when Ronald Reagan talked about freedom, liberty, small government, and preserving our nation’s foundational heritage, I believed him, and I believed that others in the Republican Party believed the same. Sadly, I was so WRONG! As the years passed, it was evident that my belief in the Republican leadership was misplaced, but I kept making excuses. I placed blame on the Liberal Democrats. I placed blame on President Clinton. Right up until President George W. Bush came along, and it seemed Republicans finally had the power to make changes, back to the Constitution, back to liberty, back to smaller government, I believed.
I believed until I was hit with more government, laws taking liberty rather than giving it, a massive, growing deficit, pre-emptive war with no declaration, denial of habeas corpus, the National Animal ID System, and Real ID. Yes, I voted for Bush his second term in office, in the hopes of a more conservative Supreme Court. To say I regret my stupidity is so useless, but absolutely true now. Yes, I was duped.
So the question for me has been, what do I do now? Should I leave the Republican Party? Should I become a libertarian as I am classified by Nolan Chart? Should I become a Constitution Party member? What does a duped Republican do???
The answer for me is change. I don’t mean changing parties. Changing myself, and changing my party either back into what it once was, or better yet, into something better than it has ever been. It also means looking at my country, not simply as groups, but as individuals, individuals with rights preserved by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. For when I deny the rights of the one, then I also destroy the rights of all groups.
So how does one individual effect change in a whole nation? The same way individuals have been effecting change in our nation for hundreds of years, through the tools the founders of our country provided us. I can effect change through my vote. I can do this through both my vote for the leadership of my chosen political party, and also for the leadership of our nation.
As a result of a lesson learned I have been looking for what candidate could change America into a nation of liberty once again. Fortunately I had to look no further than my own party. I have watched Dr. Ron Paul try to effect change in our nation as one individual for nearly 30 years. I have watched him stand, many times by himself, fighting for liberty, smaller government, and the Constitution. He has upheld his oath of office when others have forgotten what an oath is.
Many in the media have made much of Dr. Ron Paul’s Libertarian run for the presidency in 1988 in veiled attempts to question his party loyalty. However, Dr. Ron Paul’s loyalty has never been to a party. His loyalty has been first to his nation. Isn’t that the kind of President we need? Don’t we need a President who put his country ahead of his party loyalty? In my opinion, that is exactly what we need. We need someone in office that will do anything, up to and including, running for president as the lone candidate of the Purple People Eaters party, if it means returning this nation to the Constitution!
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about Dr. Ron Paul is that he sees us all as individuals. He sees us as individuals with rights, which he is concerned about preserving. He accepts us as individuals too.
Lately I have seen much in the media about Ron taking donations from various evil characters in the media’s melodrama. There is discussion of a legal brothel owner donation, and an evil racist donation. Yet nobody is chasing Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani around looking for the evil monsters donating to their campaigns. Must we bring forth every political contributor for an interview on his or her moral values before we allow them to give money to a candidate? Surely in the past someone from the Mob has donated money to a candidate, or some murderer has donated politically. Perhaps, we should go back and find out what candidates Ted Kaczynski donated to, and make those candidates return the donations. Perhaps, we should just stop allowing the media the right to declare some opinions evil, and some opinions moral and just. Perhaps we should look at the moral character of the candidate, rather than his contributors. Would it be right for Ron Paul as candidate to have the right to determine who has the right to free speech and who does not? What if he decided a gay man does not have the right to free speech?
It is time for the media, and each of us to stop trying to be our neighbor’s moral conscience. It is time for us to look at one another as individuals with rights under the law just like we have rights. It is time to elect Presidents, and certainly a Congress who believes in individual rather than group rights. It is time to return to our Constitution and the Bill of Rights that preserves the rights of the individual and thus the rights of all Americans. I believe Ron Paul can begin to lead us in that direction. I only hope that I, as a citizen can support him by looking at this nation, and my party, as individuals, and by seeking to send supportive congressmen to office who also believe in liberty. No longer will I look at my party, and believe all of the many individuals believe in liberty whether their leadership does or not. The ideals of liberty must be proven to me on an individual basis from now on. For a President Ron Paul is only a beginning. We need to grow the nation from the milk to the meat of liberty. For I fear we have regressed to milk from the meat our Founding Fathers gave us.
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The views expressed
in this article are those of Dee Ann Patterson only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Dee Ann Patterson is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Posted By: Colette von Hessen
Date: 2007-12-20 19:02:32
Hi Dee Ann,
Â
All I can say is I agree with pretty much everything you say! The difference is that I voted for the first time in 1992 at 18. I also have no idea what to do if the GOP doesn't nominate Ron Paul. I feel homeless partywise. I'm pro-life and anti-amnesty for illegal aliens, both of which are at odds with the Libertarian Party, so I won't vote for them again unless they choose someone pro-life like Ron Paul or Harry Browne (for whom I did vote in 1996). Maybe I will just have to start a new political party -- want to join me? ;)
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