For Republicans, there is a silver lining to the re-election of Barack Obama. The door is now open for real change in 2016. The recently adopted Romney Rules at the RNC, which would have locked out any true democratic participation and guaranteed eight more years of GOP establishment, top-down, Brahman-style, domination, are now moot. The gate is open.
The change that will be debated in the next presidential election will not be about tax percentages, or troop withdrawal timetables, or welfare for Big Bird, or who should be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. The change that will be debated will be about fundamentals, about monetary policy, about the philosophical underpinnings of our foreign policy, about the relevancy of the American Constitution and where we are headed as a people.
It will not be the red team against the blue team, espousing the same things in different degrees, rather it will be about real differences.
Should the Federal Reserved continue to operate in secret, manipulating the monetary system be creating wealth for its own board members and their corporate cronies, robbing the poor and the middle class? Or should its work be transparent and accountable? Remember, 80% now want the FED audited, in 2012 it was not even mentioned by either candidate.
For the first time in a national election the housing collapse, which so devastated the wealth of the middle class, may actually be addressed.
Corruption on Wall Street, K Street and in the corridors of Capitol Hill will become issues.
One man can guarantee this discussion.
After three elections in which winning candidates have promised to end nation building there is a potential president who might actually do it, bring home our soldiers to guard our own borders instead of the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan. For the first time, finally bring home our troops from Germany and Japan where since World War II they have been stationed, pumping their money into local economies, while America descends into the economic toilet.
One man can stop the wars without end.
One man will champion civil liberties, reverse the fast paced trend toward ever more powerful, centralized government, that dictates what our children think, what we wear and eat and how we flush our toilets. One man will raise the issue of how government is relentlessly trying to snuff out our conversation online.
One man , an accomplished doctor from a family of doctors, born and raised and tutored in liberty, has both the character and the political skill and fundraising base to get elected. And that one man is Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Oh yes, I know, Liberty fans, he endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Too early for some of us. But then that is exactly why he is now positioned to actually win the 2016 GOP nomination and the presidency. Because a Rand Paul campaign would be inclusive and supportive and generous in spirit. And to win it he will need all the support he can get.
This is the lesson of this past election. If Romney and those recalcitrant GOP bosses didn’t need us in 2012, we will need them in 2016. And we will have to forgive them and honor them and cherish them.
A Rand Paul campaign won’t shut out the evangelical Christians and tell Sarah Palin she isn’t wanted or needed at the national convention. It won’t hire thugs to infiltrate our opponents campaigns and wear their clothes and pass out phony ballots even after we have won. A Rand Paul campaign will be generous in victory.
In a Rand Paul campaign, Peter Thiel will sit down with David Lane. It will be about liberty, everybody’s liberty and the protection of each other’s God given, Constitutional guaranteed rights. And this campaign will win.
In some respects, we are the weak link. We in the Liberty Movement will have to decide whether we are willing to become more than theorists but also successful, winning, political activists. Some of the debates will get scary as our candidate may decide that we need to cut our military bases from 900 to 75, instead of zero. He will be backing us away from the abyss, on his own timetable and it may be too rapid for the general public and not enough for some of us.
But in the end, we can’t govern American if we can’t govern ourselves.
The point is this, our dream is still alive. And in a way, it is still in our hands. And now there is a very real chance of victory. Now the real work begins. If this country is to have another rebirth it is up to us. Ron Paul will either be forgotten, a name swept away in history like Autumn leaves blowing across a lawn, or his statues will stand in public parks, as the father of a reborn nation and the father of our most popular president.
So, get a good job. Make some money. Lots of money. And get ready for the next installment of the Liberty story. In a few years, or a few months, the real work begins again. Run Rand Run.
Doug Wead 
I. Want. Ron.
AMEN. Ron was a one of a kind. Only time will tell if Rand is a Sell out.
Rand should then nominate Ron as VP. It will be an unbeatable ticket.
Well we cant have Ron. Do you really think.Rand could campaign his whole lide for his dad and turn on liberty movement? We need to trust tthe Pauls. They have much more insight and wisdom than we do.
I’m just saying I prefer Ron. Actually, I should have said it this way, using the proper rather than the common usage of the words:
I prefer Ron. (e.g. I’d rather have Ron if I could)
We want Ron. (e.g. we have a lack of what Ron stands for)
We all want Ron…I would trade all the years of my life with his so he could keep running.
Give it up the man is 77.
Charlene, why does RP being 77 mean we should give up a desire for him to be our President? He is clearly a wise, well-learned man, firmly grounded in conservative and conservative government principles. He is in better physical shape than anyone else who ran this year for POTUS, except probably Gary Johnson and possibly Rick Perry. I would not be a bit surprised to see him live past 100, and be mentally sharp right up to the end.
I think Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich would both have been far more likely to die in office or become incapable of executing their duties. Christie from a heart attack, and Gingrich from a brain aneurism.
Romney was the most likely to die in office — from spontaneous combustion — due to all the friction and static electricity generated by his Olympic-class flip-flopping around, on all that nice thick carpet in the whitehouse. If we could harness the rotational energy of my mental whiplash almost every time Obama opens his mouth, we would have no need to go drilling offshore or in the arctic, for that matter.
Seriously, though… as I’ve mentioned somewhere else, I think it would be great to see Ron Paul on the debate-stage in August 2015, if he is still feeling frisky then. I’d also like to see a bunch of other qualified liberty-candidates on that same stage, vying for attention from the voters, disagreeing respectfully with each other on the finer points of specific policy-tactics and policy-timing, plus with the neocon and theocon forces led by Jeb and Santorum.
However, by the time 10th December 2015 rolls around, we need to have settled on a single liberty-candidate as our frontrunner, based on their predicted electoral votecount probability-curve, as measured in state-by-state polling numbers against the likely dem nominee for 2016. If that liberty-leader is Ron Paul, well then, Ron Paul 2016! My guess, however, is that either Gary Johnson or Rand Paul will be ahead by December 2015… or possibly Judge Napolitano, if he wins gov and/or senator from NJ in the 2013 and 2014 elections there… at which point the liberty-candidates who are not that single liberty-frontrunner can bow out.
Ideally, they would all endorse the liberty-frontrunner and join forces in a liberty-tidal-wave, crisscrossing the land with our message, but being this is the liberty-movement, we ought to leave that up to the individual candidates. However, because of the danger that more than one liberty-candidate will want to stay in the race, and end up splitting our liberty-voters in Iowa and NH and the other early primaries, I would advocate that we need to have liberty-candidates sign a pledge slash contract that agrees to the terms of the poll-metric, and bowing out by a specific date, plus removing their name from Iowa ballots.
p.s. Although my hope is that Gary Johnson will personally return to the repub primary debates in 2015… with his new fame, having won 1M votes in 2012, the media and the party pooh-bahs won’t be able to rig the rules to keep Johnson off the stage in 2015… we also have the worry that someone out of the liberty-but-non-liberty-frontrunner candidates will exit the repub debates and run on the Libertarian Party ticket. Even if there is *not* a repub-primary-debate participant that runs third-party, there will be *somebody* that runs on the Libertarian ticket in 2016. Maybe we can make an alliance with them — if our liberty-frontrunner ends up winning the repub nominee as potus or vpotus, in exchange for the libertarian potus-nominee being given a cabinet post or ambassador to the UN or something like that, they agree to ONLY campaign in states which are at least 10-percentage-points blue, and stay out of the remainder of the country (swing-states and red-states), both physically and by using geoIP data?
___j___ , did you read my 7 Nov. 10:05 post giving my proposed speech for Rand Paul? I believe fusion and cooperation are the way to win, but I do not agree with pulling people out of the primaries based on pre-primary polling numbers. If Gingrigh and Santorum had stayed in the primary race (Gingrigh, at least, I suspect of being “bought off” by Romney and the RNC) then we would have had a multi-candidate convention and Romney would not have had the power and pull to get all those RP delegates removed, so we could well have ended up with Ron Paul as the only small-government Republican vying for the nomination at the convention, and with significant delegate support to perhaps pull it off. If RP wasn’t such a nice guy and if his campaign staff hadn’t been such defeatists, then he could have also really capitalized on Santorum’s withdrawal and that brief moment when the pragmatic evangelical leaders turned to RP as the only Christian left in the race. It seems he didn’t chase that opportunity very hard, and those people ended up going to Romney because of pragmatics.
My stab at a synopsis. Rand shouldn’t recant his romineey-support, but rather, should use honey to bring the 57m folks who voted for Romney (and especially the 10m repub-primary-voters) over to his way of thinking: namely, saving the dollar and tearing down statist big-govt policies, so we can truly be free and prosperous, requires a *truly* republican prez. {{{{{ Repubs have lost so much credibility, situation cannot be salvaged, we must now form 3rd-party-X. }}}}} Let us form a coalition of like-minded grassroots forces: I was elected by tea-party-patriots, we bucked the old GOP system, Sarah Palin TeaPartyExpress [often allies], Dick Armey FreedomWorks [often allies], along with Glenn Beck 9-12 groups [against Ron Paul & tea-party-patriots], the Rockwell/Woods/Mises.org branch of the Libertarian party [anti-war/pro-Ron but often anti-Rand], the Koch/Cato/Reason.com branch of the Libertarian party [sometimes-pro-war/often-anti-Ron plus pro-abortion/pro-LGBT], the Constitution party [anti-abortion/anti-LGBT], and other important groups.
Our new unifying mantra will be freedom (the orig 1856 repub party goal), small-govt (states bearing more of the burden rather than the centralized feds), and constitutionalist (rule-of-law). Among our coalition, differences will be worked out slowly and thoughtfully, via Constitutional amendments — such as a Balanced Federal Budget 28th Amendment, possibly the Anti-Abortion Anti-Euthanasia 29th Amendment, and the Zeroth Amendment proposed by James Madison to place an upper cap on House districts of 30k-to-50k persons. Fundamentally, govt defends the people from enemies (foreign & domestic), protects & preserves natural-negative-individual-rights (against criminal & bureaucrat), and follows our Constitution strictly as written, no exceptions. Time for the grassroots-jedi to restore the old republic, and once again bring peace & prosperity to the galaxy.
I only disagree with one sentence: the stuff inside the curly-quotes. Forming a third party never works, for financial and psychological reasons, but more importantly for mathematical reasons. If you have a new TeaParty running Rand-Amash for potus, and an existing Repub Party running Rubio-Christie for potus, plus of course Hillary-Gillibran from the dems, then even if 60% of the voters want to get rid of the dems, you still end up with Prez Hillary! Because 40% vote Hillary, 35% vote Rand, and 25% vote Rubio (not all existing tea-party groups will join us). Look at history: Gary Johnson 2012, Ross Perot 1992, Ron Paul 1988, Bull Moose 1912. Splitting the vote is always fatal, unless the other side *also* splits up (4-or-5-way election of 1860).
Anyways, we can accomplish all the objectives listed by sticking with Ron Paul’s plan, and remaking the repub party from within, drawing those various groups to our liberty-bloc within the repub party, and converting a bunch of civil-liberty democrats over to our cause, while we’re at it (plus the saner anti-central-bank Occupy-folks which can be taught to grok Austrian econ and anti-welfare policy). Look at what Reagan did in 1976, then finished in 1980. Freedom is popular, but pragmatically, we must win it inside the twin-party system — the Libertarian party is filled with smart hard-working people who have plenty of Koch funding, and ZERO winners during 2012. Gary got 1M votes in the general, whereas Ron Paul got 2M during the repub-primaries (when way fewer people bother to show up to the polls!).
“I do not agree with pulling people out of the primaries based on pre-primary polling… [because we want a] multi-candidate convention… [with] Ron Paul as the only small-govt Repub vying for the nomination”
Hmmm. There are a lot of things going on here. First of all, we are imagining the same opening moves: a big stack of liberty loving candidates on the stage during the repub-primary-debates. Third of all, we are imagining the same endgame: our liberty-nominee as the *only* small-govt Repub vying for the nomination, once we reach the natcon at the end of all the primaries and caucuses. We differ on the part that happens in between, the second-of-all phase.
In many ways, the idea of running a bunch of liberty-candidates in the primaries *seems* smarter: we want lots of people, to gang up on the presumptious-nominee-establishment-guy, and help us get to a brokered convention! Your point about Santorum and Gingrich staying in during 2012 is well-taken. But, had they wished, when they dropped out they *could* have given their delegates over to the Ron Paul campaign… instead they held off, negotiating with Mitt for a better power-brokering-deal, but in the end gave him all their dels (just a few days before the nominee roll-call in point of fact). Why didn’t they consider handing over their dels to Ron Paul? Well, it could be because they were bought, or because they hate libertarian ideals, but the more charitable explanation is Ron Paul was not able to win the popvote primaries, so he got no respect.
Therefore, it turns out that during the phase-two portion, the caucuses and the primaries, with their popvote beauty-contests, we must *not* run a bunch of liberty-candidates. Just like having Rand TeaParty + Rubio RepubParty versus Hillary DemParty, this is a counter-intuitive situation where less is truly more. As a concrete example, say that only Jeb, Huck, and liberty-candidates are running in 2016, and during the phase-one debates we have Rand, Amash, Johnson, Napolitano, and Ventura. What happens if they all stay in, for Iowa and New Hampshire? Huck will get 50% of Iowa, Jeb 20%, and the others will split the remaining 30% equally, each with a final tally of 6% or so. What happens if they all stay in for NH, too? Jeb gets 35%, Huck gets 25%, and the other 40% is split five ways, giving each liberty-candidate 8%. End result: liberty loses.
What we *want* to happen is for the liberty-frontrunner to be alone during the phase-two primaries. Say that it turns out to be Judge Nap, who beat out Christie as governor of NJ during 2013. For revenge, Christie runs against the Judge during the prez race! However, that is *good* for us liberty-folks. Similarly, although he again has no funding to speak of, Santorum decides he cannot let some libertarian-leaning repub be prez, so he also runs in 2016, which once again is *great* for the sole liberty-candidate. Less is more. During the Iowa caucus, Huck wins 25%, Santorum 25%, Jeb 10%, Christie 10%, and Judge Nap gets 30% — the winner. Ditto for NH, where Jeb gets 18%, Christie gets 17%, Huck gets 13%, Santorum gets 12%, and Judge Nap 40% — winner again.
We run a SINGLE strong popular liberty-candidate during phase two, and make sure there are at least two Mitt-style moderates and at least two Rick-style evangelicals, and we’ll win both IA + NH. Momentum like that will be impossible for the media to black out, and will tend to make Jeb offer us his delegates when he drops out, in exchange for making him ambassador to France or somesuch. Make sense?
No candidate can “give over” their delegates to anyone else.
Now, my friend, I’m starting to worry about you 🙂
Candidates can release delegates. It is viciously complex, because the details vary depending on the state-party-rules of the delegation(s) in question, but if a candidate suspends their campaign, they can often release their delegates — aka unbind them — and will often urge them to vote for a particular person. Gingrich suspended his campaign in May, but only released his delegates Tues 8/22, when pre-natcon meetings were already in full swing. Santorum suspended in April, but only released his dels at midnight on Thursday, one biz-day before Mitt was to be nominated as potus… presumably Santorum was holding out for secdef or something like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_2012#Delegate_changes_announced_at_the_national_convention Anyways, there was always a slim hope that Newt (or less likely Santorum) would release their delegates to Ron Paul, or simply make them unbound free-agents.
Back in 2008, the release-process happened *much* more quickly. Romney released his >100 dels to McCain on Feb 14th http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/14/AR2008021403485.html Huckabee stayed in until March 4th, and although I cannot find a report of him releasing his >100 dels to McCain, his concession speech is pretty clearly pointing to McCain as the winner, and his withdrawal (not suspension) means his dels become unbound. http://huckabeemomentum.com/ Ron Paul stayed in the race, and won delegates in several states: 5ak 6id 1me 6mn 2ne 4nc 4or 1pa 4wa 2wv. (Some of those might have been Huckabee supporters though… or some other candidate.) http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/R.phtml
The problem is statements like “offer us his delegates”, and “release his delegates to McCain”. A candidate can (in some states) release the binding that is upon his/her delegates, but a candidate cannot reassign those delegates and bind them to a different candidate.
Great post- Thanks!
I will only back him if he publicly renounces his endorsement of the Establishment and Rmoney.
I understand why he endorsed him, but not the timing of it. He couldve waited till after the convention.
You are the reason the Liberty movement is stagnant.
Exactly this.
Agreed. Rand threw the dice and rolled a 7. We gained they lost. All is good.
No, we are stagnant because people are being divisive and pointing fingers. Rand’s endorsement took the wind out of his Dad’s sails. You know it, and I know it. If he distances himself from the Establishment and makes an effort to come clean, I’ll back him.
We are stagnant because fake libertarians riding on the wave. (GJ)
We WERE stagnant because we have shown our power….and it scares the hell out of the GOP.
Now we grow because we have no choice……if America lasts that long…
Agreed. Nobody ever talks about Ron’s endorsement’s in the past (John Boehner for example). It was needed at the time to continue the party.
“No, we are stagnant because people are being divisive and pointing fingers.”
Says the guy who is being divisive and pointing fingers.
Could you imagine trying to secure the 2016 GOP nod while being accused of hating Republicans? Rand calculated that the Rominee would lose the General anyway, and the bet paid out.
It’s time to mature into power, take over every GOP org in the nation in 2013, saturate races with Constitutionalist candidates in 2014, and elect a Constitutionalist President in 2016 so we can get about the business of restoring the Constitutional order and returning liberty to these united States.
“You are the reason the Liberty movement is stagnant.”
No, the liberty movement is stagnant because its been invaded by fakes who don’t even understand what liberty is.
Just a reminder; RON PAUL has awakened a lot of people. No one else has. Not Rand, not Gary Johnson. Not anyone. There is a reason for that. The reason is principles and values. Rand has none. He plays political games for power. Just like everyone else. The people who trust him are of the same type that trust any run-of-the-mill politician. Dupes who haven’t learned anything. Often they are the same ones who still believe Ronald Reagan was a great president.
“Agreed. Nobody ever talks about Ron’s endorsement’s in the past (John Boehner for example). It was needed at the time to continue the party.”
Case in point. The “party” has NOTHING to do with liberty. Anybody that doesn’t understand that liberty is not connected to any party or its existence, doesn’t get liberty.
The party, ANY party, is expendable; liberty is not.
Furthermore, you ignore the fact that the same Ron Paul refused to endorse Romney, and that you ALWAYS knew where he stood on the issues.
“Rand calculated that the Rominee would lose the General anyway, and the bet paid out.”
Uh-huh. Sure he did. Amazing how many confidantes Rand Paul has that he clues in on what his true motives and intentions are.
He also tells his wife he likes oatmeal, but you all know he really likes Rice Crispies instead and will make a sneaky move to get it on the breakfast table in 2016. And his wife will go along with it too.
Tony,
You are another one I am happy to see willing to still speak about Rand Paul demonstrating he can be a turncoat at the flip of a switch. To this day nothing has indicated that maybe one of Ron Paul’s grandchildren, for example, had been terrorized for Rand to do what he did. Even if it was done as a plan to stop the movement because Ron himself was getting “wet feet” and did not want to have the big office, it could have been done in such a way as to not disorientate the movement so radically.
What Rand did was a calculated action by the inclusion of the greatest and most powerful con artists in the world. (Due to this post left by Doug Wead, I include him in that also since he cannot be mentally deficient enough to have not realized nor forgotten what Rand did and what it did to the movement directly). If it was done as many here say it was, for getting deeply accepted by the Republican Party fear mongers, then him now acting supposedly for the issues of the movement on the senate floor would not be happening. He would be demonstrating to be a turncoat to them all of sudden. That is called in some places as being a flipflopper. Therefore the result of his endorsement as it was done is a fact and that fact is that it created chaos within the movement itself which means that Rand Paul is and will be a turncoat at his discretion on a whim.
Yours,
Rhonda
November 20, 2012
Apparently you missed the part about being “willing to become more than theorists but also successful, winning, political activists.”
I more understand our need to patch the quilt back up. He did far less damage to the liberty movement than Gary Johnson or Robby Wells…so who you gonna vote for in 2016?….Newt or Santorum?..Maybe the Donald Trump Revolution will join the Ron Paul Revolution? It may be better that we patch up our mishaps and forgive.
Lesley hits on the key here. If you refuse to back Rand, then whom *will* you be backing in 2016? Gary Johnson, if he returns to the repub party? Virgil Goode, if he returns to the repub party? Justin Amash, if he decides to run for president? Judge Napolitano, ditto?
If you think Rand isn’t our best option, then you must put forth a better option, not merely complain about how Rand ain’t perfect.
The election is 4 years away, if you haven’t noticed. I know it is hard for the Rand Fan Boys. For me, Rand has to claw his way back from being another Mitch McConnell empty suit. It is possible, but highly unlikely. He has already cast his lot. Only the dreamers continue to believe.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. [grin] But yes, Rand has already cast his lot — with liberty. Look at the election-math, and the timing of his romineey endorsement. Look at Rand’s voting record in the senate, and his rhetoric (even when campaigning for Romney but especially going forward). Rand is no Ron Paul, but he’s so much better than Mitch, there is no objective comparison. Voting record. Anyways, I agree with you that we ought to decide nothing yet… my point wasn’t that we have to decide now, but that circular infighting was unhelpful.
As for “the election” being a long time from now… that’s what we thought back in 2008. We slumbered. The next election is in 2013, when Chris Christie is up for re-election. Judge Napolitano lives in NJ, you know. After that, we need to be ready to put a ton of new liberty-repubs into the senate, and a ton of new liberty-delegates into state conventions, during 2014… otherwise the RNCmte is going to slay the grassroots. Speaking of which, we need to retain our newly-won precinct chair and county chair slots, and get resolutions passed denouncing the teleprompter-scripted cheating and questionable circumstances of alleged-new-rule#12, the one rule to wring them all.
If he would have waited till after the nomination he wouldn’t have been able to speak at the convention.
Bill, it is up to you whether you back Rand, of course. Personally, my hope is that Gary Johnson will return to the repub party in 2014 (as a senator from NM), and then force his way into the repub primaries for 2016. Rand can be prez in 2020 or 2024, methinks, after he’s had time to amass more winning liberty-candidates in congress. Be that as it may… I think you are totally wrong with your approach to our political system. It takes a few paragraphs to explain why, as clearly as I can manage — I ask that you please bear with me. The nutshell is that Rand only endorsed the romineey *after* the election-math made it *impossible* for Ron to win.
In the years to come, you will have time to look Rand over, assess his voting record plus his public rhetoric, and figure out where your true loyalties lie: in the blame game, and the hurt feelings of taking political moves as personal insults, or in the winning of elections. Plenty of people in the liberty-movement have no clear understanding of election-math, because they are not REALLY doing their darndest to win… which absolutely requires math. Without a firm grasp of delegate-math, you can only understand the ups and downs of a campaign in emotion-laden sports-analogies, about sailing or scoring points or momentum or whatnot.
Look at the delegate-math for 2012, hard. Then, go over the idea that we must blame Rand’s endorsement of the romineey as *causing* the end of Ron’s active campaign… whereas in fact the delegate-math, where Romney was GUARANTEED to win the 1200 he needed, once Gingrich and especially Santorum dropped out, was the root cause of *both* the end of active campaigning in mid-May… and shortly thereafter Rand’s endorsement in early June. Why endorse at all? It gave Rand a speaking-slot in Tampa, plenty of facetime with the media promoting Romney (and the ideas of liberty… if you pay even the slightest attention to Rand’s actual words beyond the name-of-the-nominee), and most important of all, standing among senate repubs when it comes time to get committee slots for Rand / Lee / DeMint / Heller / Flake / Cruz / Fischer.
Maybe you don’t want to listen to me, because you don’t see the delegate-math as all that relevant. But look at it this way. We have 4 liberty-leaning senators right now, and in 2013 that will be 7 senators. They are not all Ron Paul senators… Flake is more a Goldwater-style liberty guy, and Cruz and Fischer are more tea party than liberty-movement. But they *are* the sort of allies we need, if we want to win elections (30% of voters sympathize with the tea-party), and if we want to filibuster things in the Senate, plus be the swing-votes on crucial committees, et cetera.
Here’s the cold hard math. During the 2012 senate races, the Libertarian Party had plenty of candidates out there. One of them got 5% of the votes in the Indiana senate race… enough to make Mourdock the tea-party-repub lose! Similarly, the libertarian guy in the Montana race took 6% of the vote, enough to make Rehberg the repub lose. That means, because they were more concerned with ideological purity than with winning, because they were more interested in the emotional rewards of running for a senate seat than the objective rewards of grokking election-math, the liberty-folks are responsible for the net loss of two repub-seats in the senate. More painfully, the loss of Mourdock the tea-party-guy means we missed a chance to increase the senate tea caucus, founded by Rand, from 7 to 8 members… which doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a 15% difference! Every senate-committee-seat counts.
Imagine if we have a liberty-president, someday… and the senate is filled with liberty-hating folks, rather than tea-party-allies and evangelical-allies and even (gasp!) moderate-repub-allies. You want Rand to make some sort of purification-gesture, by distancing himself from establishment-repubs, you say. For instance, he could give up his seat in the senate, and join the libertarian party? Or, he could challenge Mitt to a duel of honor, just like Burr & Hamilton? Maybe you just want Rand to perform some symbolic gesture, like going on teevee and saying he never *really* liked Mitt, right?
How about this: instead of playing the blame-game, and trying to say that Rand is somehow at fault for Mitt being the nominee, just look at the delegate-math, and admit that 2012 was not the right historical moment for liberty to again triumph. Then, look at how many years it took from 1764 to 1791, the stamp act to the ratification of the Constitution by the laggard states. Buckle in for a long ride, in other words. Point being, Rand telling the 57M repub voters of 2012 that they were suckers is a GREAT way to promote the cause of liberty. Not! You might say back, that the truth hurts. Fair enough… but my reply is, if you cannot say something nice, then better say nothing at all. We are in the world of politics, not the world of ideological purity, and the search for deepest truth. Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good.
You want Rand to prove his worth? Then watch his voting record, and call him out when he fails us. But remember that we aren’t after perfection — an abstract super-senator that never makes any mistakes. What we want is for Rand to have the *best* voting record of any liberty-senator. He already does, by my tally. Let’s make sure he keeps it up.
p.s. Libertarians also arguably cost us the Mandel R-OH as well as Wilson R-NM senate seats, if you take message-dilution and campaign-cash-diversion impact into the election equations. I’m not saying the libertarian party is bad, or that Wilson is great… I’m saying that we need to grok the way elections work.
Look at the senate race in Tennessee — the *dem* in that race was a liberty candidate, Mark Clayton, which means that we got to spread the message of liberty across the fine state of Tennessee, and even tho Clayton lost the race, the winner was an establishment-repub, who will vote with Rand on about 80% of the issues! That’s a great way to run a libertarian candidate, without any election-math risks.
Emken R-CA and Long R-NY were pretty decent liberty-candidates, too… cf Kurt Bills R-MN, endorsed by Ron Paul himself. Those folks didn’t mess up the election-math for establishment-repubs, because of they kind of races they were in, which allowed them to *be* the repub candidates. Mourdock messed up the estab-repub Lugar, which is acceptable… but then lost to a dem, which is not acceptable… and only lost because of a third-party libertarian who stole just enough votes from the tea-party-guy to spoil the election, which is pure ignorance of election-math at work.
If we want to improve respect for individual rights, we better start to respect the intricacies of election-math (however paradoxical), and the nature of politics in the twin-party system (however icky). Endorsing the romineey, after the liberty-candidate in the race has already lost, is just smart politicking, by a guy who groks math. People in the liberty-movement that also understand that same election-math, and see that the *symbolic* loyalty-gesture Rand made got us *tangible* political capital in return, will tell you that Rand’s endorsement was a savvy tactical move.
Does that mean we must *like* the sort of political party that puts more value on loyalty-gestures than on moral character? No. We ought to despise such a scheme. We ought to despise even more the paranoid insecurity of a candidate who would demand that a sitting senator give a speech, without being able to say their own dad’s very *name* from the podium! But if we understand election-math, then we know what Ron Paul was doing is the only way short of WWIII — we must remake the repub party, from the inside. Which means dealing with the establishment. Intimately understanding their rules, their power-structures, their dirty tricks, their fears, their hopes, their greed, their leash-holders, their flaws. Eventually we will fix the bugs — but only if we stay strong.
p.p.s. Apparently, besides disliking Rand for endorsing Mitt, you also dislike Gary Johnson, calling him a fake-libertarian. Sigh. That deserves another long posting, but I’ve already gone on far too long so you’ll have to forgive me for giving you the short-hand version.
Gary Johnson is a lowercase libertarian-leaning lowercase republican … pretty much exactly like Ron Paul was a lowercase libertarian-leaning lowercase republican. They differ in their personal stance on abortion (but not in federal abortion policy), in the percentage of overseas bases that they would close, and in the percentage of foreign aid they would support. Gary also supports the FairTax, which is ending the income tax and replacing it with a federal value-added-sales-tax, whereas Ron Paul wants to end the income tax and replace it with nothing. Otherwise, they have the exact same positions on a broad variety of issues. If, having won some fame (1M general election votes and 1% of the populace is awesome), Gary Johnson decides to return to the Republican Party in 2014, just as Ron Paul returned to the Republicans after *his* 1988 libertarian jaunt, we should welcome Gary with open arms. He’s not Ron Paul, but again, we must NOT be perfectionists. Unless, of course, we’d rather lose 100% of our issues-stances, instead of losing 1% of our issue-stances. It is *all* math.
Excellent post. My hope is that Gary Johnson and Rand Paul both run as Republicans for 2016 and that in the end it’s a Johnson/Paul ticket.
You keep talking about libertarians costing republicans elections. I completely disagree. Republicans lost those elections on their own! More people stayed home & DIDN’T VOTE, than voted either democrat or republican. All a republican candidate had to do to win, was register those people & get them to vote. That’s the CANDIDATE’S responsibility, to ignite those fires & motivate the disenchanged.
As far as Rand, I heard him speak at his Dad’s rally in Tampa. The crowd was VERY polite & not one person yelled, “Traitor!” When Ron pulled back his campaign in May, that was a fatal blow. When Rand endorsed Romney, that finished Ron off. I heard Rand speak at the convention. The speech was dull & lack lustre. He couldn’t hold a candle to his dad. Then, to find out the reason he didn’t even say “Ron Paul,” or “my dad,” was because those were the rules laid out for him in advance, made me sick to my stomach. I would NEVER sell-out like that. If you were there in the convention, you saw that the film of Ron was up first & little attention was paid to it. Then Rand spoke – mostly to yawns.
It’s RAND’S responsibility to cultivate his OWN SUPPORT. It won’t come automatically from his dad’s supporters. Nor should it.
Doug ends this column with an entreaty to go out, get a job & make lots of money. What planet are you on Doug? If the job & housing environment this time wasn’t worse enough, I can’t imagine what it will be in four years, & I don’t see anything coming down the pike that will make things better.
Cynthia, my apologies — I wasn’t sufficiently careful to talk about Uppercase Libertarians sometimes costing the lowercase libertarian-leaning-or-at-least-tea-party-type Uppercase Republicans election wins. The phenomenon is known as favorite-betrayal when the third-party gets too few votes, and lesser-weevil-spoiler when the third party gets too many votes. It is simply the election-math.
That said, it *is* a bit counter-intuitive, because it only happens in very specific circumstances (which most of the time don’t occur). The key example in 2012 was the Indiana senate race of tea-party-repub Mourdock versus mainstream-dem Donnelly. The dem won, not because he ignited more fires, but because there was a third-party candidate in the race, which mathematically hurt Mourdock. As follows: in real life, dem 1200k votes, tea-repub 1100k votes, third-party-Libertarian 150k votes. Almost all of the voters for the third party guy would have picked Mourdock as their second choice (or simply stayed home) if there had been no Libertarian candidate for the 2012 Indiana senate seat. In that scenario, dem 1200k votes, tea-repub 1250k votes, more or less (cf message-dilution costs etc). This math is the root cause of the lesser-weevil rule.
The lesser-weevil rule applied to Al Gore in Florida in the 2000 election; had there been no Nader, there would have been no Bush2nd. Repubs claim it cost them the 1992 election (Perot) and certainly it cost them the 1912 election (Bull Moose).
Basically, although I’m happy there *is* a Libertarian party, I wish they would run candidates in races that are not going to be close. When the Libertarian Party of California runs a Gary Johnson against Mitt Romney, the only thing it can do is hurt Mitt’s pride, because *all* the ecVotes in CA will be going to Obama, right? Similarly, when the Greens of Texas run Jill Stein and/or Roseanne Barr against Obama, nothing bad happens, because Mitt will be winning *all* the ecVotes in Texas. There was no harm in John Jay Myers running as a libertarian-ticket candidate against Ted Cruz, because the race was NOT AT ALL CLOSE in election-math terms, with Sadler having zero chance to catch Cruz, even with a little help via Myer subtracting the ideologically-purest folks from Cruz.
Think forward to 2016. What happens if Rand becomes repub nominee (or Rubio with Rand as vpotus), and Gary Johnson runs with Jesse Ventura as his veep? Well, then we end up with the Libertarian ticket taking some votes away from the liberty-repub, right? Which is bad. Depending on circumstances, might even be so bad as to give us Prez Hillary in 2016, by a measly few hundred votes. Which is why, when Gary Johnson gave his speech in Tampa this year, he said quite plainly that he would *drop out* of the race if he thought that Ron Paul still had a mathematical shot at becoming the repub nominee. To keep from splitting the vote, letting the dem Obama win against Ron. Ideally, the Libertarian-party-candidate for Indiana Senate would have made the same sort of election-math-conscious decision in mid-2012, and we would have tea-party Senator Mourdock… versus dem Senator Donnelly, who will certainly *not* be joining Rand’s senate-tea-party-caucus. Same troubles can bite us in the 2014 senate elections, too.
p.s. I watched the Sun Dome rally, the officially-sanctioned Rand speech, and the platform committee via fiber optics. (Thanks for being there representing us!) I agree about the May pullback, but election-math is what finished Ron’s chances at being potus-nominee, just like election-math doomed Mourdock to his loss. [Ron still could win five pluralities to earn a speech, which helps educate folks, so he stayed active in *that* fashion… and earned his speech thanks to IA NV MN + VI AK + OR ME LA OK and so on.
But election-math (the loss of binding primaries) was the end for Ron as POTUS-nominee just as soon as Newt dropped out… because sooner or later, without Newt and/or Santorum helping to keep Romney from getting 1144 bound delegates, brokered convention was out the window. Rand endorsed Mitt *after* that point was passed. Many were angry anyway, because they didn’t understand that mathematically we were done with striving for a POTUS slot. (Gilbert et al, yeah, sue the pants off ’em all… but do we wanna win *that* way, or win truly fair and square?) Thus, I’m trying to spread election-math knowledge, or at least, spread how important it is that we grok it. If we want to win in 2016, we need the Libertarian Party to understand spoilers in swing states, we need the liberty-candidates for the repub nominee slot to drop out prior to Iowa (or *very* shortly thereafter) and endorse the liberty-front-runner because they grok vote-splitting, and we need more precinct/county/district/state/national delegates. Not to mention more county chairs and more RNCmte seats to help Ashley.
I would say that Doug is jumping the gun by endorsing *only* Rand, right this second & forever, because we should pursue liberty omnidirectionally until we see what happens in 2014, and even up to and including the 2015 repub-primary-debates, methinks. That said, many more people are jumping the gun by ruling Rand out right this second & indefinitely, also. (Not you Cynthia, but some I’ve seen here, and others elsewhere on the internet.) Rand isn’t a great speaker, that is true; but Ron Paul is not, in point of fact, an oratory genius. The message is why he is powerful, pure and simple. Attention was lacking for the faux-tribute-aka-pretend-unity video, and for Rand’s faux-support-of-the-romineey-speech, partly due to the vast plurality of delegates being hand-picked by Romney, and partly due to the faux nature of both things! Pauliticians are not easily fooled by faux offerings, right? Right.
The point of Ron Paul trying to earn his 15 minute speech, and the point (at least partially — cf senate cmte assignment) of Rand Paul signing the evil contract from the romineey to never say his dad’s own name, was to get the liberty-message televised nationally. There was also a secondary point, which methinks will prove decisive to our eventual victory: by earning his speech, and forcing them to change the rules at the last second, Ron Paul proved the estab repub DC elites are cheaters, on national teevee — we have video of the rigged teleprompter. Rand, by giving his speech, in which he never mentions his own father’s name, proves with his facial expressions that he had signed a censorship pact… which proves that the estab repub DC elites *demanded* he do such a thing.
Having proof of the nasty tricks that were pulled, at the highest levels, is worth almost as much to the cause of liberty as that video of the mercenaries breaking bones in Louisiana, in my opinion. It proves this is not just a few bad apples, but a corrupt machine — which *all* everyday repubs ought to be against. For giving us those allies, Ron and Rand both deserve our thanks, and our sympathy, because it cannot have been easy. As you say, you could never have done it, and although I might kid myself that I would have the stomach, more likely I’d just throw up on the podium. Remember when Cisco was gripping the table, to keep from bodily attacking Rearden… and long-term self-interest won?
J,
I read a lot of your posts. Since many of them are long, I cannot always read them all, but that is neither here nor there. You always make good points and you also have a very calming attitude in what you present. I just am amazed how you can be so for Rand Paul which in doing so, indicates that you, as well as many others who think like you do about Rand, do not realize it is not about his endorsement nor even his voting record. You talk about having someone as a candidate for our cause which is a cause that is from a movement and yet you, and the others, seem to not be aware that Rand Paul’s actions broke up the movement that was growing and getting stronger by leaps and bounds. If you cannot see that, then I do not know what can be said to make you and the others realize that Rand is not to be trusted. Maybe we can call it that he turned against his family since we of the Ron Paul supporters were not just supporters of a candidate, but participants of a movement that no one else had nor has to this day and turning against your family that you were an insider of already is a sort of being a double agent.
Rand was being seen as the standard bearer who would be seen as the “heir apparent” of Ron Paul, not because he is Ron’s son, but because he was just that much involved within the movement. He was not sitting on the outside of what was going on. If that were the case, then Rand might be worthy of being on your list. Instead he had millions of people believing him to be part of something that was a real hope for change. He is not worthy of our endorsement of him and why Doug has posted something like this about him is suspicious to me. What does he maybe know that is being held back from us that we should know and safely could know?
Yours,
Rhonda
November 20, 2012/Tuesday
Ausscyn,
I like how you present how Rand Paul’s speeches went. I fully agree with you and was somewhat stunned at how courteous Ron Paul’s supporters were towards Rand when Rand spoke at his father’s rally. That was done during the time when things were very tense and yet out of respect for Ron, not one person verbally insulted the occasion. That is saying more about Ron Paul and his supporters as a family, as a movement for real hope and change than can be found anywhere else. That respect was not for the love of Rand nor what he was saying. It was for Ron and Ron Paul only.
Yet with all that love and support for Ron Paul, Rand still managed to help disorientate millions of people who were going in one direction into being divided and therefore we fell. Anyone who thinks that was not done with great evaluation as to its outcome is fooling him(or her)self.
Rand’s speech at the convention was a joke as you say. It meant nothing yet some think what Rand did was for that speech and to get him so liked by the Republican leaders that no matter what he did afterwards would not be seen as being against their cause. It was drab and was seen as that. It was planned to look that way. These people are the best con artists in the world. Just learning that his speech was vetted, if not fully written by someone else, in itself shows how much of a puppet Rand was. It was done in such a way as to make Ron look bad and the showing of that clip about Ron was also done in such a way that it tended to add more insult to injury.
You are correct. Rand will have to get his own support since he has proven he is not worthy of his father’s supporters and followers to be there for him just because his last name is Paul.
Yours,
Rhonda
November 20, 2012/Tuesday
Ron Paul is an amazing man. But his approach didnt work. We need to trust that Rand is just taking a different approach but will be an amazing president. Who else has the name recognition and support that will work as hard as Rand for our cause?
Thank you Bill (although I do not agree with you about Gary Johnson being a fake). No one cared about Rand Paul endorsing Romney. It also was not just the timing but how he went about announcing that endorsement that was a well planned out action to run the movement itself into discourse. It worked like a charm. Just read the comments to this day here and we can still see the discourse that Rand created. Whatever Doug is attempting to do here building up Rand Paul is also being done with forethought into smoothing out what was done as his none response to the many times Surfisher asked him for a public endorsement somehow seems to be part of the overall scheme that in my opinion is to aid in the furthering of the discourse within the movement. Doug just seems to have some sort of conscience in doing what he is doing.
Good for you in being brave enough to mention it here.
Yours,
Rhonda
Rhonda, my reply is down here — https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/rand-paul-for-president-2016/#comment-34256 Sorry about the verbosity in advance! [grin]
There is no perfect candidate people. Look at Rand’s record. He is the one to set forth real postitive change.
The only way I will support Rand is if you, Mr. Weed, was running his campaign.
Just wish the WAC (We Are Change) good folks would stop slamming Rand for not talking about the Bilderburgs. He KNOWS their evil. He just doesn’t want to die in a plane crash, so lay off of him!
Rand can do it, indeed. BUT, BUT, BUT! The first thing he absolutely must do is sever ties from the likes of Jesse Benton and hire somebody like a Tom E. Woods to PROVE to the Liberty movement that he is for real. Behind closed doors he can tell Tom, “Lets tone it down on the Bilderburg discussion and talk issues, eloquently.”
I cannot stress more to the Rand organization that he must not repeat the organizational failures of his father (racist comments in HIS newsletter, and letting Jesse Benton remain in an influential position). He must appoint true patriots. That will be the unspoken signal to “the resistance” (us) that we have the purity necessary to attract the passionate Liberty base. Of course, we don’t have to sound like “conspiracy theorists” because of the dumbed down populace and because the media would use it against Rand, but we must understand that the Fed DOES IN FACT run this country and our military.
I submit the name of David Adams as chairman or co-chair, and suggest Tom Woods as the spokesman/press chairman.
May God bless America and this movement of Liberty.
The idea of Rand running does give me hope. I just hope that Rand doesn’t disappoint by appointing neo cons like Jesse. There’s no need to clean house (like Ron needed to do) if you insert pure patriots from the start.
I pray for Rand to be courageous and take a stand against the Fed by not allowing deceived neo cons in the campaign.
The Jesse Benton comment may have good support, but the newsletter comment does not. It is abundantly clear when you look at the timeline and Dondero’s recounting of the history that the bad content was sent to press without Dr. Paul’s knowledge, and when he came back into the organization he implemented a “nothing goes to press without my personal signoff” policy, at which point all the junk went away. When you are vindicated by the words of your enemy, you are vindicated indeed.
I didn’t know this. Thanks for the clarification. Guess though the devil’s advocate would say, “How did Ron allow his name to be attached to the newsletter if he wasn’t signing off?”
To the public, it didn’t matter. They saw it on the news, and it became their truth. It damaged his credibility. Period.
Underdog, the answer to your “How did Ron allow his name…” question is that he was very much disconnected from politics, having let Lew Rockwell and some others continue printing his newsletter after he went back to birthin’ babies full time. If you look at the content and the timeline, the offensive-to-many content is a tiny drop in the bucket of what was published. To me, it looks like he trusted some folks with his stuff (including his name), they proved unworthy of that trust, when Dr. Paul came back to the political scene and saw what had happened, he took steps to be sure it didn’t happen again, but chose not to throw his friends-with-the-poor-judgement under the bus. That is why he has never publicly called them by name. He strikes me as a loyal man who took the responsibility for his own poor judgement on his own shoulders instead of pushing it off on his employees. To me, that makes him even more attractive as a candidate.
Too soon Doug? How about never? Rand made his decision and threw his support behind those that would betray the this country and the Constitution. That is not something to be forgiven, that is something to be remembered. Always. He does not, nor will he ever, have my support.
Gary Johnson is who we should support beginning now. Get behind him or get the hell out of the way!
Dave, I ask you to look at Rand’s work in Congress. Look at his voting record. What ONE thing do you have to complain about??
He has voted 100% with the Constitution.
Your beef is with strategy.
Don’t you think you’re being harsh and unforgiving? And it’s too early, way too early, to know if you or Rand is correct about strategy. It’s a long-term strategy. I was hurt too. Shoot, I cried that day. But perhaps it will work out.
But for goodness sake, please acknowledge the good work Rand is doing in the corrupt halls of the Senate. He is in a den of vipers, truly, some of the most evil people alive today. And so far he is maintaining his Constitutional stance.
the one thing rand has done that is hard to forgive is his endorsement of statist mittens obama-lite romney. it’s hard for me to get past that.
Good Lord. He had to endorse romney to speak at the rnc convention. I’m sure Ron didn’t mind one bit. All Ron was trying to do is spread his message and pave the way for Rand… Which he did
Rand spends his political capital wisely.
Look at what he was able to gain from the endorsement: He looks good in the eyes of the establishment. In 2016 he doesn’t have to defend against ‘not supporting the GOP candidate in 2012.’ While he did endorse Romney, he was also on the airwaves CRITICIZING him and spreading our message.
The only loss for his endorsement is from guys like you that can’t see what he bought… and it all could have been bought for free – if it wasn’t for folks like you.
So quit spreading the negativity and get behind a man that was tutored at the dinner table nightly by our hero, Ron Paul.
You are one of the few on here that understands politics
Terry is mostly correct to second Bill’s analysis, but I have a nit to pick. TANSTAAFL. The mistake that Rand made wasn’t his romineey endorsement, which *was* spending political capital wisely. The mistake was in not priming the pump with the folks in the liberty movement, explaining the delegate-math that guaranteed Ron Paul would fail to be the nominee, explaining the long-term benefits of being perceived as a loyal repub senator in good standing, et cetera. Quite frankly, a very large group of very vocal folks in the liberty-movement didn’t understand Rand’s endorsement, and as this thread makes clear, many months later there are plenty of liberty-movement folks who *still* do not grok the delegate-math.
Therefore, Rand failed to spend his political capital wisely with his base, the liberty-movement folks, even though he was spending other political capital wisely with another group, the estab-repubs. This was an avoidable failure, I submit — rather than assume that 100% of the folks in the liberty-movement understand delegate-math deeply, and (more crucially) had been paying close attention to the state-by-state totals up to that point, and (most crucially of all) actually *predicting* what would happen in terms of delegates in the states yet to even hold their state-conventions… well, Rand could instead have *not* made such an assumption, and done the necessary work (speeches and websites and emails and whatnot) to lay the educational foundation. First — before he endorsed. Because, TANSTAAFL.
Considering that 2014 and 2016 and 2018 and 2020 are yet to come, to my way of thinking Rand ought to publish the educational materials *now* that give an explanation for his endorsement. Show us the timeline of the state-conventions, and the delegate-totals as of June. Give us the predictions for the ‘future’ states like Nebraska and Utah and the rest. Then, give us the actual numbers, plus hypothetical figures, assuming that Ron Paul had *continued* to campaign actively, based on statewide-polling-data from April or something. Finally, list the benefits the endorsement got for the liberty-movement: number of minutes (and number of unique viewers) that saw Rand on teevee, number (and power) of the committee-seats that Rand and the other liberty-slash-tea-party-caucus senators will get in January, and so on.
Terry, Bill Gillingham, and I don’t think Rand did anything wrong by endorsing the romineey… but I’m starting to believe we are incorrect. He did do something wrong — he failed to properly prepare the liberty troops for his strategy, and thereby depressed morale. We need to keep this lesson in mind for 2014 and 2016. Politicking is tricky to get right, but to minimize morale problems, constant education and full disclosure are the best policies.
Never again. You go get a job, you get the money, we are all tapped out, and the economy hasn’t recovered, so where are the jobs for the young people and the older people who lost theirs going to come from? We cannot all work for campaigns and rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year like Jesse, Tate, and others. Suckers are born every minute PT Barnum
Getting a good paying job or creating a business to generate a good income in this terrible economy may really limit the amount of financial support that can be given to Rand Paul and other liberty candidates for future elections. I got the word out to many people this election but just didn’t have much funds to contribute and have been unable to find a job in my field for quite some time.
Dave Dodson,
Fully agree!
Rhonda
November 20, 2012/Tuesday
“And we will have to forgive them and honor them and cherish them.”
Doug, I’m okay with forgiving, because we should forgive if we want to be forgiven. But to “honor them and cherish them?” That doesn’t feel right. Can you elaborate on what you mean?
Honor and cherish criminals, thugs, those who viciously attacked Ron Paul’s doctrine and supporters??
“I ain’t ready to make nice!” – Dixie Chicks song
I also believe Doug misspoke, or at least, formed his sentence in a way that is ambiguous. My interpretation of the sentence depends heavily on the meaning of the word THEM, as in, the group being referenced.
The repub party is composed of all sort of folks — but for the purposes of this discussion, we can split it into three main groups. Liberty-movement types, which includes Rand and Ron and Doug Wead and Gary Johnson and even Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz and other tea-party-folks that are primarily Constitutionalists — that’s one group. There are many factions there, obviously, and part of what Doug is trying to get across is that we need to forgive/honor/cherish each *other* within the larger liberty-movement, despite our differences. Folks that wrote in Ron Paul need to forgive/honor/cherish folks that pulled the lever for Gary Johnson. Ditto, in reverse. Ditto, Virgil Goode voters. Folks that want Tom Woods to be the campaign director in 2016 need to forgive folks that prefer Doug Wead, or Jesse Benton, or Clint Eastwood. Folks that want to end the fed before we audit it, and folks that want to audit it (for proof of malfeasance) before we end it… there are many fractures in the liberty-movement. We need to put some Healing Salve of r-3VOJ-ution on the cuts.
There are other groups, though, which THEM includes. Besides the liberty-folks, there is a second repub subgroup composed of the elitist DC-centered establishment neocon totalitarian bastards and their shady leash-holders (all told well under a million people even if you include willing minions). Those would be the criminals/thugs/etc that you mentioned in your question… and I would suggest that Doug is *not* trying to talk about such people, when he speaks of THEM.
But there is a third group. Everyday repub voters, all 57 million of them, that voted for the guy with the R after his name, because they believed he was in favor of the Constitution, and capitalism, and the American Way, and liberty, and freedom, and individual rights, and the official party platform of the Republican Party of the United States. Only about 20% of those folks, the ones who follow primary elections and the ones that get at least *some* of their news from the internet rather than from teevee, have ever even heard anything truthful about Ron Paul, in their lives. Us liberty-folks in group#1, and the elitist criminal pooh-bahs in group#2, are in a battle to control the hearts and minds of group#3, the everyday repub voters.
Besides healing wounds within the liberty-movement, we also need to honor the everyday repub voters, our fellow citizens. They too are suffering under the yoke of the criminal twin-party system, suckered by the owned-n-controlled media spin doctors, and cheated by the fed. Many of them don’t even realize the cause of their suffering! Ginsberg, the guy directly behind rule twelve in Tampa, plus indirectly (at least!) behind Charlie The Cheater in Maine, is going to tell group#3 that the reason for their suffering is that they have too much liberty, and that if they will just submit to the fetters, the gov will protect them. He’s also going to tell them that the *real* reason Mitt lost the election in 2012 was because of Ron Paul, and all his delegate shenanigans in Tampa, which is why from now on Ginsberg will personally have veto-power over each and every national delegate.
How are we to fight the lies and the power of group#2, if we cannot get anybody in group#3 to trust us? We must honor and cherish and forgive our everyday fellow citizens, folks who did not vote for Ron Paul, folks who (in their ignorance) love Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, folks who think the TSA makes us safer… we must win the battle for the hearts and minds of group#3, so that we can get rid of group#2, by voting liberty-candidates into the nominee slot, by winning repub primaries, and by voting down corrupt RNC members that bend the rules, break the rules, and rewrite the rules.
That’s the particular kind of THEM methinks Doug speaks of.
Ben Swann for press secretary. Jesse Ventura for conspiracy management 🙂
Love it! You are following Dr. Paul’s (paraphrased) instructions: “My supporters can be awfully serious, so I remind them that they need to have a little fun.” Good for you!
are we 100% certain that RON paul will not run again? i have always thought rand is not quite the freedomist that his father is. if ron does not run, then rand would probably be the next best choice.
On his last Leno appearance, Ron Paul joked (or maybe not) that the reason he isn’t running 3rd party this time is he has to rest up for 2016!
brigit;
yes, i remember that. there are few things that would make me more happy than to get one more chance to campaign for the great ron paul. let’s hope and pray it will happen.
With any luck, if Ron Paul is still feeling frisky in the autumn of 2015, he will participate in all the televised repub primary debates. I’d also like to see Rand in those same debates. And on the same stage, why not have Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer, Virgil Goode, Chuck Baldwin, Jim Gray, and Judge Napolitano? It would be nice to see some young liberty-whippersnappers like Amash and Cruz on the stage, as well.
However, by the time the debates are transitioning into the actual primary votes, around the first week of December in 2015, we need the liberty-candidate who is doing the best in the state-by-state polls at the time to push on forward, and the other liberty-folks to drop out, before Iowa. Ideally, all the candidates that are dropping out would endorse the frontrunning liberty-candidate that remains in the race!
That way, the everyday folks in the liberty-movement have time to rally around our anointed champion for the 2016 primaries. Given his age in 2016, my guess is that Ron Paul might enjoy the debates, but wouldn’t look forward to the grueling primary-season against Paul Ryan (with VP Chris Christie… ugh), let alone the sure-to-be-vicious general election versus the Hillary-Gillibrand dem ticket. But hey, all that’s a long way in the future, so let the chips fall where they may.
Certainly I would hope that Ron Paul will get a speaking-slot at the 2016 national convention, to partially make up for getting robbed of the speaking-slot he earned at the 2012 natcon. If we have enough delegates to nominate our anointed liberty-candidate for POTUS, then we *also* have enough delegates to nominate Ron Paul for POTUS, right? We don’t want to split our delegate-votes, so we would need to have our liberty-delegations strictly agree on only actually *voting* for the anointed liberty-candidate, of course… but we can still give Ron Paul his well-deserved speech.
Seriously, I really think we should ask Ron Paul to make a up a *true* tribute video, of his Best Fifteen Minute Speech Ever, recorded in high-def, giving his message to future generations in a nutshell… and then we should have our liberty-delegates nominate Ron Paul for POTUS every single presidential election cycle, for the next few centuries. Maybe we can do the same with James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, so that every repub natcon for the indefinite future will get a full reading of the texts of the Declaration of Independence followed by a full reading of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights… now those are things that *deserve* to be nationally televised, eh?
Thanks to you, Doug, for your wise counsel and other service throughout the campaign. Your Christian leadership is exemplary.
We’ll be praying together for restoration in God’s perfect timing.
Rand is ok, but I want another Ron Paul, 100% ideological purity.
me too !!
Rand won’t get any further than anyone else until like Iceland, the bankers and corrupt politicians are arrested and jailed.Rothschild and his minions must be stopped.
YES!!!!!!! Finally someone gets it. The game is rigged. We need to start a new game, not play theirs.
You summed it up perfectly
Who is to arrest the corrupt politicians, and the corrupt special interest groups? Who is to jail them? The government rightfully has the monopoly on physical force, to keep out the mafia and the vigilantes. If we want to root our corruption, we must *become* the government, by voting out the baddies, and voting in some Good.
Ron Paul was able to get 500k as a libertarian candidate, then 1M in his first repub primary, and 2M in his second. Gary Johnson got 1M as a libertarian, which means whoever the liberty-candidate is in 2016 will probably get somewhere between 2M and 4M votes… and the liberty-candidate in 2020 might get 8M votes… enough to win.
As long as we don’t give up in the meantime, we ought to have many more liberty-senators and liberty-reps by the time we have a liberty-prez… which means we’ll have a good chance of smashing up the corruption, by using the power of Big Government against itself.
Maybe then we’ll be able to write Declaration Of Independence 2.0
Don’t fall for the carrot on the stick! You are responsible for preserving your own liberty. Anything less is slavery ideological or otherwise. All this episode has taught us, is that the role of politics is to use the illusion of choice and implied consent to get us to stand down, and let them have it all, and take what they do not have yet… You want to “Hope for Change”, well then your canidate already won. What are you complaining about? You want freedom and liberty handed to you on a silver and gold platter… well as long as you are looking for promises instead of evidence, we’ve got an endless supply of elite errand boys for the powers that be, who can give you precisely what your asking for. So be it!
Run Rand run.
As a humble(ish) Brit, I’m aware that either side of the Atlantic that to get issues of liberty on the agenda you have to have an intelligent debate. The trouble with the liberty movement is that it is currently framed around what it is AGAINST. Firstly, this looks very negative. Secondly, if you don’t say what you’ll replace it with then you’re open to accusations of letting the poor starve, women and minorities to be exploited and jobs to be lost.
You have to articulate a POSITIVE plan about what the liberty movement is FOR. This doesn’t necessarily (or rather doesn’t) mean government programmes, but it requires concerted action to establish community groups that will take on a lot of these issues in a tangible way. You need to motivate Church groups and others to take more responsibility for ensuring that families remain out of or escape poverty, that orphans are cared for and adopted, that the elderly and sick are given support alongside the government safety net. That the drug addicts with access to legalised drugs will have access to charities that will help them to get off these drugs and find fulfilment in positive things.
There’s needs to be an articulation that a small government at a federal level doesn’t NECESSARILY mean a small government at a state level. If you want your state to be socialist then – within limits – that’s possible, but states that want to be libertarian, or conservative, should be allowed to express this as the constitution allows and demands.
My knowledge of the US constitution and legal system is extremely weak but greatly improved having followed the Ron Paul campaign – and I thank you for that. But from what I understand there is a lot of great aspects to the constitution you have, and for your country to elect a President who sticks to it the revolution needs to be in helping the public to understand what the constitution means and what it means for free citizens to work together and love one another so that their families and communities can flourish. It’s not just socialism that is a threat to the West but also the rampant individualistic consumerism, and the pitfalls of that scares a lot of people on the left and the right, and causes a lot of inequality.
As I say, I’m an outsider, I don’t know about what it’s like on the ground in the USA in daily life, but I do know that for citizens around the world (not least here with there’s a shift in mainland Europe – in particular amongst the political elites – towards a federalised EU) there is slow creep of authoritarianism, however subtle, which is slowly eroding people’s freedoms, and so I humbly suggest that the path to 2016 starts now, and is not just about political adverts or voting, but about a lifestyle, about a call, a challenge, about intellect, about hearts, about actions, and it has to start with you, with us. Your nation cannot wait. My nation cannot wait. We must act.
Thank you. Nice post. I agree, in other words, you have to “sell ” Liberty to people. Ron Paul got an F for selling, and highlighting the benefits of Liberty being institutionalized. But he got an A for integrity, for voting, for teaching us all.
Ron DID teach what you’re suggesting in some of his books. He just didn’t have time in his normal 5 minute interviews to explain all of that.
But yes indeed we need to have a blueprint for a free society, because most of us, including me, have never experienced it.
Saying Ron Paul got an F is ridiculous.
Didn’t you see all those crowds he garnered? Do you realize that it was his good example and communication which started all of this?
Thank you for that perspective! It really rings “true” to me! Educate and set the example!
The liberty movement is FOR:
1. individual rights, the natural-negative-sort only (life liberty property pursuit-of-happiness … *not* free healthcare free car redistributionist welfare free condoms!… the only way to protect the smallest minority, a single individual, is to have a strict constitutional system with a bill of individual rights untouchable by congress-aka-parliament… take note those in the UK, where this isn’t the case… and those in the USA, where in theory the 2nd amendment protects your right to buy a handgun to fight off tyrannical government but in practice the actual government quite simply ignores the constitution when expedient… ditto for unreasonable search, ditto for free speech zones, ditto for implied powers, ditto for necessary & proper, and so on. )
2. equality before the law & equality of opportunity (*justice* for all… not govt beating down those with merit or luck whilst simultaneously forcing upwards via vast bureaucracies those lacking both … the surest pathway to success for persecuted women, persecuted ethnic slash religious minorities, persecuted industrialists suffering from eat-the-rich mob democracy, and persecuted minorities of one single individual… see #1, and make the court system and the cops and the various arms of the government enforce this philosophy, strictly. )
3. unlimited non-zero-sum capitalism (which provably and historically is the key to boosting the poor out of poverty, creating the technology and the wealth-base to care for widows and orphans, creating the high growth that causes environmental problems whilst simultaneously also creating the technology and wealth-base to engineer solutions for those very same environmental problems… plus giving us the wherewithal to support vast parklands, biodiversity projects, R&D efforts, and so on)
4. private individual optional charity (it feels *good* to help other folks out… iff you are voluntarily choosing the who, the when, the how, and the why… as opposed to the govt coercing faux altruism … even *with* institutionalized governmental welfare-charity, you will note that 90% of the top foundation-endowments are from billionaire industrialists, not from churches, not from the feds… see #3.)
5. freedom & liberty… which quite frankly *are* negative concepts, since they assume freedom FROM some sort of slavery or tyranny, and liberty FROM some sort of enslaver or oppressor. (Look at the declaration of independence, and for that matter the bill of rights, both of which go into detail about all the things the government ought never do… plus look at all the things left OUT of article 1 section 8, the strictly-limited and explicitly-enumerated powers, with none implied. )
6. insert your own comments here — expand the list!
And, speaking for myself at least, folks in the USA branch of the liberty-movement are overjoyed when we see Ron Paul signs in Poland, plus Aussies and Enzies and Brits and Irish and Scots and all kinds of other people around the world that have found something *positive* in our politics, finally. p.s. Thank you for the colonies that were, umm, acquired by the founders… we’re trying to take good care of their maintenance needs, although recently we’ve encountered some particularly vexing difficulties… I expect we’ll have it all sorted out soon, and we’ll be glad to forward the blueprints of the repairs that we made, in case you should want to boost liberty once again in the UK.
p.p.s. You don’t ask for much, do you? “…helping the public to understand what the constitution means and what it means for free citizens to work together and love one another so that their families and communities can flourish… starts now, and is not just about political adverts or voting, but about a lifestyle, about a call, a challenge, about intellect, about hearts, about actions, and it has to start with you, with us.”
But you are dead on 100% correct. If we want to re-institute capitalism, we must start practicing what we preach. If we want to re-institute voluntary private charity, we must start practicing what we preach. Not merely to live in a way that is consistent with our beliefs, but to *show* people that our beliefs can work, in the real world, with tangible results and actual benefits that anybody can see. I’ve been thinking these things, too. Doug Wead is also thinking along these lines, methinks. See here:
http://kevinkervick.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/nh-conservatives-and-libertarians-should-give-more/
http://kevinkervick.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/is-our-country-gone/
Thanks for your response 🙂
(still getting mail to my inbox almost a month later so thought I’d check back! ;D)
I can see past his endorsement. No biggy. I have followed his record and actions and they are ALL Constitutional. I’ll help campaign for Rand in 2016 most definitely! FOR LIBERTY!!!
What an inspiring article, Doug. I had the good fortune of meeting the Paul family in Tampa this summer, and after a brief discussion with Rand’s siblings, my revelation was confirmed – once you truly understand the philosophy of liberty, there’s no deviating from it. Rand Paul has the ultimate professor as his father and mentor… Once you put these two facts together, it’s not hard to figure out the strategy at play here. I just wish the naysayers would think about that for just a moment before issuing knee-jerk judgements.
I’m guessing that you will be a major part of The Movement Part II, and that can only be a good thing.
I think Doug should run for office.
I don’t think that the work can begin in months or years. For it to succeed, it must happen now. Today we should be talking about next steps. The momentum must be seized, or it does not matter for long-term change. This is not work for next month or next year, but for right now. It is not when, but how.
Absolutely correct. Part of the reason that we failed to capture the nominee slot in 2012 was, quite simply, because we liberty-folks were not pounding the pavement in 2009. By the time the summer of 2011 rolled around, Ron Paul had fallen back into the 1%-to-3% popularity range. He had money-bombs in 2011, and gave lots of speeches, but with the media-blackout and relying on hand-to-mouth donations, he only managed to get back to 10% popularity around October, and then a bit over 20% by January… which meant third place.
We need to start saving money, now. We need to start *making* more money, investing in the future and upgrading our careers, so that we will have more money saved up, and more cashflow come 2015.
We need to start campaigning, at the grassroots level, now. Join your local repub party club. Help with running things. Get elected as a precinct-chair in 2014. Memorize Robert’s Rules. Join your local tea party group. Participate on the blogs, defending liberty — not with venom & a big flaming stick, but with honey & gentle guiding taps. When 2016 rolls around, I plan to have at least 100 people that I have *never met before in my life* educated enough to understand what some liberty-candidate it talking about, in their 89 second soundbite.
The main risk, as I see it, besides getting lazy and going back to our regular lives as we did after 2008, is the risk posed by rule twelve, which Ginsberg and his buddies rammed through in Tampa. There was a resolution passed at the NH state convention which opposed those rule-changes as being invalid, but it was watered down so much by the estab committee that it is hardly recognizable. Some of the counties in Texas are doing similar things, with the idea being to influence the three RNC members from the state (NCM + NCW + statePartyChair). If you know somebody who is a precinct chair in your county, see if they want to pass a resolution at their county meeting which condemns the 2012 rule-changes, especially rule#12, as illegitimate and invalid and teleprompter-scripted. Then, drum up support on the committee and/or with a petition-signature-drive in your town. Once you get the resolution passed, forward it to the three RNC members in your state. Besides fighting rule twelve, the one rule to wring them all, this is also excellent practice for 2014 convention.
Check out Senator Rand Paul’s FB page on election day. He doesn’t mention the election, rather, he is basically one-upping Paul Ryan’s soup kitchen photo-op a couple weeks ago with genuine compassionate conservatism. He couldn’t even wait for Romney’s blood to dry before commencing his 2016 bid, and good for him. Rand’s support for Romney was merely a nominal, political necessity.
If Jesse Benton or Trygve Olson are involved with the Rand Paul campaign you can be sure I won’t be donating or helping at all.
^Most important point in all of the comments posted.
A big 2nd on that one.
I’ll go one up on that….
Unless trusted names in the circles such as Ben Swann, Tom Woods, Josh Tolley, Judge Nap, Jesse Ventura, Lew Rockwell, Peter Schiff, Nassim Taleb, Jerry Doyle, TMOT, Matt Larsen, Julie Borowski, Jeremy Richter, Amanda Billyrock [or whatever that pretty girl’s real name is], Tom Davis, Justin Amash, Mike Folmer, Jim Demint etc. are involved with new liberty endeavor, I personally WILL NOT partake in any further political activities and donations.
There are too many snakes hanging around, and we all have learned the hard way in this cycle about the harm they do. [Note the conspicuous absence of names like Adam Kokesh or Alex Jones from my list. I definitely don’t put them in a snake category. Rather, I put them in liability category. There are many positive attributes of characters like those, but definitely NOT worth the negatives. I will not go into listing what those negatives are, for I don’t want that to be the focus of my comment.]
BTW, another kind of off-tangent comment. I recalled it while typing about the snakes category. Some other pretend-snakes like Herman Cain are getting warmed up again. He is putting on pretense of being non-establishment “libertarian” rebel. Such snakes won’t know liberty if it bit them in the behind. But we will need to neutralize them quick and early, before media spin lets zombie sheep be controlled by them. There will be a lot of other distracting characters like Donald Trump, heck even Sarah Palin who will jump on the anti-establishment bandwagon. We will need to neutralize these threats quick and immediately.
Getting back to my original point: Unless truly trusted liberty names from liberty circles are involved in the show, I’ll find myself sitting on the sidelines. I’ll find myself practicing principles of voluntarism, semi-anarchy, and basically just withdrawing consent from the matrix as much as possible.
Baibar, Rich, Cindy, TheChief… I’ve heard a lot of complaining about Benton and Olson, but no actual *evidence* they did Something Bad.
So I’ve been treating complaints in this category as pretty much along the same lines as people that, all of the sudden, cannot stand Rand Paul because he made the symbolic gesture of endorsing the romineey.
At the risk of opening a festering can of worms, can somebody please fill me in, preferably with a couple paragraphs and a couple hyperlinks, on the evidence for why Jesse & Trygve are now in the same category as Darth Vader? AnneBeck mentioned that she has some sort of email evidence, but I haven’t heard back from her yet, so I’m not sure what it’s actually evidence of.
p.s. Yes, I realize the Ron Paul failed to become the nominee. That, in and of itself, does not count as evidence of wrongdoing. It was always a long-shot hail-mary play. How could it be any different? When you go up against the powers behind the Fed, the military industrial complex, and the twin-party system, you are not very likely to win. But hey, it only took *our* George eight years to finally wear down George The Third… we worked hard from mid-2007 through mid-2008, and hard again from mid-2011 through late-2012… which means we only have about five more years to go before we win.
Anyways, the point is, if your beef with Benton&Olson is that they failed to magically make Ron Paul the winner… okay, whatever. Just like with people that dislike Rand now, and refuse to back him because he endorsed the romineey … what alternative do you offer? TheChief gives plenty of alternatives, but most of them (with the exceptions being Jesse Ventura and perhaps Julie Boroski of FreedomWorks) have never actually run *any* successful political campaign, let alone a presidential election against Ben Ginsberg and his leash-holders. Certainly, Tom Woods as the campaign manager would have been a very *different* strategy than what Benton came up with… but can we say without a doubt *better* than what we got?
Because, quite frankly, my assessment of Tom Woods is pretty much what Benton said — he’s a good academician, skilled at analyzing complex concepts, excellent at lecturing urbane audiences on the theory of liberty, and totally absolutely incapable of going toe to toe with the likes of Ben Ginsberg in a smear campaign, or even with some talking head like Chris Matthews on a television show. While the talking heads were smearing Ron Paul all over the place, Tom Woods seems like the kind of guy who would calmly and placidly explain that rudeness is unbecoming a journalist, and lecture them on the fourth estate as a historical concept, pointing out their place in the flow of history… but the teevee audience, and the repub primary voters in particular, don’t seem likely to see his side of things… especially since the interviewer only allowed him four seconds before cutting to a commercial, further snipping & maliciously editing it all, later.
Benton wasn’t much good on teevee, either — which is my whole point. Saying that you want Tom Woods to manage the presidential campaign because you like him, or think he’s smart, is NOT SUFFICIENT to show me he can be a good campaign manager. Smart and likeable doesn’t get you far against Ginsberg. Tough and savvy is better. Experienced with hostile media is best. Doug Wead, for instance? However, I’m not sure Doug himself is qualified to be the 2016 campaign manager, because his skillset is more in dealing-with-pundits.
Anyways, my postscript is longer than my main question, and that’s on purpose. I’m not all that interested in Bad Things That Past Campaign Managers Did, unless they are correctable bugs that we can use as case-studies of what not to do. What *is* interesting to me is a list of criterion that would be useful for the interviewing and hiring of campaign-staff for 2016. Not that we’ll be in charge of that, of course… but maybe Rand, or Gary, or whomever ends up as the liberty-nominee in 2016, will find our list of criteria helpful.
Even the most worthy are forced to fall in line once backed by the GOP. The age of the GOP is in decline. You know this and your father did too. You SAW it happen. Be a true American Hero and be the LEADER of your Party, not a puppet.
I don’t share your optimism. I think Marco Rubio has been appointed the next GOP candidate for president, and regardless of what happens on the ground in the primaries, he will be the choice. It doesn’t make me happy to say that, but after watching the inner-workings of the RNC for the last two cycles, that’s what I think is going to happen.
President Paul! President Paul! President Paul! President Paul!
Doug, Rand went on the worst neo-con socialist TV show, WHILE his dad was giving his speech at Texas convention. He endorsed Stalin on that show, while his dad was still in the race, The convention hadn’t even taken place yet.
Rand will need to dip to the bottom of Pacific Ocean 7 times, climb Mount Everest 7 times and then circle the planet walking bare feet 7 times to atone for his sins. He might remotely get my vote if he does that, but even then I am not so sure.
i feel the same. i was EXTREMELY disappointed that rand would endorse mr. neoconservatism, mittens obama-lite romney. but if rand will admit that that was a mistake, i will probably be able to forgive and support him.
I would rather support Judge Napolitano over Rand. Doug seems to be hung up on “Paul” family name. But this is no dynasty or family nepotism thing, unlike Kennedy, Bush or Clinton families.
Before making final judgement about Rand, please wait and see who the contends are and what happens in the next few years. Also, please consider that Rand watched his father much of his life screaming into the wilderness. Could you imagine how frustrating it must have been for him? If I had to guess, I think that he must have promised himself that he would do things differently and not make the same “mistakes” as his father.
Michael, your comment about withholding judgement makes perfect sense. However, I’m anxious that we not “wait and see” what happens in the 2015 debates… we need to start working, hard, now, towards getting our favorite candidates ready for that stage, and towards saving up enough money to fund their campaigns. I agree we ought not condemn Rand prematurely, of course, but I also want us to spend our time in the next 3.5 years doing *constructive* things that will help the liberty-movement succeed. Attempting to purge unfavored candidates from the liberty-movement isn’t constructive — attempting to get our favored candidates (whomever they might be) more money, more power, and more teevee time between now and winter 2015, is.
TheChiefe, methinks thou dost exaggerate just a wee bit.
Stalin killed tens of millions of people, directly through his policies, and many times that indirectly through the result of his historical impact. People are *still* dying because of Stalin — whom, lest we forget, is now being whitewashed as a ‘harsh yet strong leader’ by the current prez-for-life Putin… that being the very guy that Obama promised he would be ‘more flexible’ with, after his re-election, when they both believed the microphones were turned off. (We just made Putin’s secret dream come true, whatever it is… crrrrrraaaaappppp.)
Romney promised not to raise taxes in Massachusetts, and ‘kept’ that promise by raising only *fees* which is totally different. Romney allowed his minions to cheat in a repub primary, and although we have no proof Mitt was controlling their every move, we know he (at least) let it happen and said nothing… which insulted the 2M repub voters that picked Ron Paul as their first choice… plus maybe twice that number of general-election voters that don’t bother with primaries… thus very likely costing Mitt the election.
About 1M of the pauliticians voted for Gary Johnson, while others wrote in Ron Paul as a protest, or wrote in Iesu O’Nazareth, but many might have just stayed home. Ron Paul got more than 2M votes in the repub primaries — not counting paulitician voters who skipped that phase — and while it’s not *impossible* that 50% of them voted for Romney, after the Tampa fiasco, and the various sorts of cheating at the state-level, and the media blackout, and the threats-or-maybe-warning-volleys of a smear campaign… to me it seems unlikely. Nor can I really imagine them voting for Obama, who does all the same things as Mitt, plus some worse ones. So besides the 1M who voted for Gary, the other million-to-five-million died in the wool pauliticians in the country now probably stayed home in disgust.
That disgust might have been the decisive factor, although the faux conservativism of Romney-Ryan also no doubt generated some low voter-turnout figures among other repub-leaning groups, besides us pauliticians. Be that as it may, Obama only managed 60m votes, down from his hype-crazed 69m in 2008, and about the same as the 59m humdrum Kerry got in 2004. Bush2nd beat Kerry with 62m, and McCain garnered a fairly-paltry total of 60m, which would have beaten both Kerry in 2004 as well as Obama in 2012. Romney only got 57m votes! Despite population growth in the meantime. The 120m voters in the 2012 election represent one of the worst turnouts ever, because *both* candidates were awful. That low repub turnout for Mitt almost certainly is what cost republicans the Senate, too… it ought to have gone from 47r vs 53d to something like 52r vs 48d, but instead repubs lost almost every single toss-up race, ending up with a *drop* to 45r. Which means that Obama will almost certainly be able to pack tilt the 13 federal appellate courts his way, and probably the SCOTUS, too — repubs have already been filibustering for the last two *years* on that, hoping for a repub prez to swoop in and save the day. Besides his secret promise to Putin, this outcome was the *other* big downside to an Obama re-election. Once again: crrrrrraaaaappppp.
Anyhoo, yesssss, good old Rand endorsed the party nominee, which happened to be bad old Mitt… but please, Mitt’s no Stalin, at worst you can call him a Michael Millken and a consumate liar-slash-flip-flopper, with either a revenge-fetish or an insecurity-complex or both… but when Mitt purged the paulitician delegates in the Tampa cred cmte, they went home in coach class, not in the freight section, packed into pine boxes, and not buried in mass graves hidden west of Disneyland. Romney’s no Stalin. (Furthermore, while we’re on the subject, Obama’s no Stalin, either. Certainly he’s killed more people than Mitt, what with his drone-fetish, but nowhere *near* Stalin, as yet.) I know you have watched some videos on the internet about how when Romney was in business in the 1980s he personally was responsible for funding and controlling some drug cartel in central and/or south america, based on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence… and that in the same video it is explained how Bush1st was the guy who *actually* shot JFK… but those sorts of things are, by definition, ludicrous conspiracy theories. Where is the admissible-grade evidence for these crimes, that would prove to a jury of Mitt’s peers (investment bankers!) that he is guilty of the alleged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt? There isn’t any, of course. Does that mean Bush1st is a good guy? No, but his most important crime is read-my-lips, which got Bill Clinton elected with a congress ready to do his bidding, and *nearly* got us Hillarycare back in 1992. Does this mean Mitt is a good guy? No, but his most important crime is lying like a rug, and letting his minions cheat by rewriting the republican party rules as they went along, which is giving us four more years of Obama, and kept Harry Reid in his job running the Senate. Even supposing that I’m wrong, and the video is right, and Mitt is responsible for personally ordering the killing the few hundred people that the video alleges he is somehow linked to via a Rube Goldberg-esque chain of circumstantial evidence… please, even if all those accusations were true, Stalin is still (quite literally) a hundred million times worse! There is no point in calling Mitt names, even ones that are true, because as Doug is trying to point out in his post, if we want to win in 2016 or 2020 or quite frankly EVER AT ALL, then we need to avoid pointlessly insulting the everyday repub voter.
Most of those folks, 57m of them to be exact, saw Mitt as their only viable way to avoid more Obama. Rather than insult their nominee, with outlandish comparisons to Stalin (which is just what liberal pundits backing Hillary would want BTW), we can instead stick to the facts. Romney was a poor choice for the repub nominee, mainly because he cannot generate any interest among the youth and the hispanic voters. Ron Paul has *always* soundly beaten the romineey in both categories, which means, when Mitt let his minions cheat in Tampa and earlier, insulting pauliticians everywhere and dampening overall turnout to even lower than McCain managed, Romney personally became responsible… not only for Obama remaining in the whitehouse, but also for thwarting likely republican control of the senate — turning it from a gain of +6 seats into a *loss* of neg-two senate seats, to the dems. All those everyday repubs are going to be angry about the republican losses in the 2012 election. They are going to want somebody to blame. Romney and his minions are going to encourage them to blame pauliticians, for sitting at home in disgust, rather than holding their noses and voting for the romineey. We need to put the blame where is belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the romineey, who through his insulting actions in Tampa and earlier absolutely *guaranteed* that pauliticians wouldn’t help Mitt out. We want the blame to be assigned to the people who *broke* the rules of the party, rather than to the *victims* of that cheating which ended up staying home in disgust.
p.s. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, if you don’t think that backing Rand in 2016 is our best option, whom *do* you like, and why are they more of a likely prospect than Rand? Gary Johnson got a million votes, and is prolly going to be a Senator in 2014, with any luck at all. (Not sure if he’ll run as L-NM or instead R-NM. But although his popvote total was impressive, it was still only 1% of the country… about three times lower than what I was predicting based on statewide polls… so I hope he learns his election-math lesson, and runs as a libertarian-leaning repub in 2016, just like Ron Paul has been trying to tell us.) Do you like him better than Rand? Or are you holding out hope for some other candidate? I have trouble seeing where we’ll get somebody with the same experience and name-recognition as Gary or Rand. But four years is a long time, and there are going to be some epic battles in the Senate, and some epic oratory on teevee. So maybe the best bet is to wait and see what the debates in November 2015 actually tell us, rather than trying to prematurely promote and/or prematurely eliminate any liberty-candidates.
If you hope that those debates will tell us that Judge Napolitano is our best bet, then you better convince him to run in the republican primaries in the weird off-year election of 2013, for governor of NJ against Chris Christie, and then after he loses that race to Christie, to run for senate in 2014 against Lautenberg. If the judge wants any chance of being president, he needs to get out of the business of being a media pundit, and back into office — he last served in 1995, which is a full 20 years ago as of the 2015 repub presidential primaries. Most crucially for his shot, the Judge will need your help to start campaigning for that 2013 governorship race now, and your continued help campaigning for the senate seat of 2014 *right* now, and not 18 months from now, because the Judge lives in NJ. The senate-race in NJ during 2012 ended up with 1.7m votes for the dem with $12m in donations, versus 1.2m votes for the repub with $5m in donations. If you want the Judge to be the next senator from NJ, we have to raise the difference of at least $7m … more once the dems figure out they might lose … plus convince 500k individual *new* voters in NJ that normally stay home, to come to the polling booths in November 2014. (Not to mention, first the Judge has to win the repub primaries… which means we have to convince 25% of the normal repub-primary-voters that the judge is their man, plus convince 100k pauliticians in NJ that have never voted in a repub primary to do so in 2014.)
All those obstacles represent a *ton* of work. Not to mention, as Doug Wead blogged about a few days ago, some of the bad-apple county chairs in NJ are busy trying to kick out pauliticians, one by one. Am I trying to discourage you, and belittle Judge Nap’s chances at winning? Quite the opposite… I’m trying to light you on fire. I want to see Senator Andrew ‘Constitution’ Napolitano elected in 2014, too! But we are going to have to work like dogs, and get tons of money, if we want to make it happen. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride, as the old saying goes. We must not remain beggars, so we can afford to pay for the cavalry of the r3V0Jution, and ride Judge Nap into DC. Imagine, if we can get Judge Nap into the senate in 2014, and a liberty-candidate elected president in 2016 or 2020, then we’ll have Supreme Court Justice Andrew Napolitano!
But if *all* you do is imagine it, rather than work hard — starting now — towards achieving it, then we are sunk. Calling the romineey names is not helping our cause. Doing vast amounts of research on the 1980s is not helping our cause. If you live in NJ, start helping Judge Nap get elected. If you don’t, and you cannot stand the idea of either Rand Paul or maybe Gary Johnson as the liberty-candidate for the presidency in 2016, then maybe you should *move* to NJ, in all seriousness. I’m moving to a swing-state in a few months, actually, partly for work, but also partly with 2014 and 2016 in the back of my mind. You can be a voluntarist semi-anarchist in the Garden State, just as easily as where you live now, right? What I’m suggesting is quite simple: if we want to complete the r3V0Jution that your friend and mine Ron Paul helped get started, then we need to join together and pledge our lives, fortunes, and sacred honours.
The Chiefe,
Absolutely. You seem to be one of the very few who remember that presentation of Rand’s endorsement. It was done on purpose to achieve what it did. It broke down the progressive moving-in-one-direction of Ron Paul supporters who put their hearts into a formidable agenda with the center “piece” being Ron Paul. People who are now endorsing Rand seem not to understand that it was HOW he endorsed Romney, not that he did endorse him.
With so many other good possibilities to support, it amazes me how the people here, as well as in some other forums, speak as though Rand is now going to be the savior of them whom he turned against. It actually scares me to see how so many people who are in a class far beyond the norm of the general populace are so forgetful and so easily swayed.
Yours,
Rhonda
November 20, 2012/Tuesday
I’m smart enough to look at Rand’s voting record and he’s still doing a very good job.
I have ONE question for Rand. Did he endorse Romney on his own, or was he coerced or threatened? If he did it on his own, he gets no love from me. Otherwise, I totally get it.
I am sorry but Rand showed his real character but not AIDING the liberty minded folk at the convention to nominate Ron Paul. Also why did he endorsed Romney BEFORE the convention? His too evangelical stands worry my libertarians bones(even though I am committed Christian) I really don’t trust him fully, yes he has done good things in the senate but that is not enough…
Yes, I also wish that Rand had been a more active campaigner during 2011 and early 2012. We need to fix that in future elections, by raising money that can be used to fly Rand around the country to speak (when he’s not busy filibustering something in the Senate).
As for why he endorsed the romineey, before the convention, it is a simple case of election-math: several weeks before Rand endorsed him, when Gingrich dropped out, was when Mitt had mathematically guaranteed he would win the election. Rand has a staff of his own, plus direct contact with the ronpaul2012 internal polling folks, so he knew that Ron Paul wasn’t going to be the potus nominee before many of the rest of us were aware (unless we were paying very close attention to the state-by-state delegate counting stuff). Once he had endorsed the romineey, he could not continue campaigning for Ron Paul, without being a hypocrite… but he could continue pushing for liberty, which he did, and which he continues to do.
Finally, on the religious side, that is one of the key differences between the Paul family and folks like Gary Johnson the lapsed lutheran. It is the big difference between the constitution-party-folks, and the libertarian-party-folks. We need to forgive/honor/cherish *both* of those liberty-movement subgroups, united under the banner of individual rights, if we want to win elections in 2014 and 2016.
So, point being, if Rand isn’t your favored candidate, then who is? Put forth an alternative. Do you like Gary Johnson? Judge Nap? Other? Make the case for them. Then, let’s start working towards getting *all* the viable liberty-candidates ready to take the repub primary debates of autumn 2015 by storm. Imagine having a stage with Rand Paul, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, Andrew Napolitano, Justin Amash, Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Buddy Roemer… plus off in the corner, holding each other and crying, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. That’s the sort of debate-slate I’m hoping to see in 2015.
But to get there, we’re gonna have to work, starting now.
Rand has chosen Party over Principle. No thanks.
Doug, I highly respect you and all the work you have done in the past. I do have a question. How is it that you perceive that a Rand Paul run, would be anymore well received by the msm, let alone all of his father’s supporters who deeply resent him? The way I see it, is even if we could teach the innocent and inexperienced liberty-minded electorate in politics 101, that forgiveness is necessary and that he is America’s only hope, the global and power elitists that controlled this last election through media manipulation, are not going to give Rand a pass. I am not trying to be pessimistic, I really wish I could still believe in a system that allowed grass-roots influence and contributions. Inasmuch as I am an eternal optimist, unless we can find the money and power to purchase a main stream network station and at the very least be able to provide honest, fair and competitive coverage, we don’t stand a chance at having any impact whatsoever in the future of American politics. Respectfully, Leslie from NC (I wrote to you after our convention)
Leslie, excellent points. (Thanks for holding the fort in NC, too!)
There are two aspects to your question, but I think they both stem from the same root cause. Why are liberty-movement people deeply resentful of Rand Paul? Because we, as a movement, have failed to educate all our members about the intricacies of delegate-math, and senate subcommittee assignment protocols, basically. This is a failure of communications, in other words.
Why are the mainstream-media refusing to treat the liberty candidates fairly, when clearly it would sell a lot of advertising if they were to let Ron Paul get viewers fired up about liberty and justice for all? The answer is, because we live under a controlled press. There is no one dictator, ordering journalists that mention Ron Paul be sent to the gulag — instead, there are a few elite wealthy folks, who own 90% of the media and 90% of the banks and 90% of the defense contractors and 90% of most everything else. These folks realize that any candidate against bailouts, and against wars, is going to ruin their corrupt little livelihood. So, they make sure that journalists who mention Ron Paul get fired, never to be rehired by them or any of their 90% cabal. The word of mouth gets around quickly: bash Ron Paul, get promoted, refuse and get homelessness.
Will the kid fare any better than the dad? Nope. The same old trick, alternating media-blackout with media-smearing, will still be used. However, we are more prepared now. We have more voters on our side. The everyday citizen is beginning to realize that the media lies to them, about almost everything. Most importantly, there are still some channels that aren’t controlled. Blogs. Youtube for the most part. Ben Swann, Lionel Lionel Lionel, John Stossel, and others, a brave few.
If we want to trump the controlled media, we have to bite the bullet, and realize that the only way we are going to get enough votes to win the republican primaries is the old-fashioned way: word of mouth. That is still the best kind of advertising, eh? We need to start going door to door, spreading the message of liberty, even though we don’t know who the liberty-nominee will be in 2016. We *do* know the message: invert the deficit, reign in the Fed, strictly follow what the Constitution says, bring the troops home yesterday, *really* protect individual rights (and quit making up group-rights)… plus liberty & justice for all. The more everyday citizens that hear this message, the more people we educate on how to vote in the primaries that *really* determine elections, the more people understand monetary policy and fiscal shenanigans… *that* is how to fuel our movement.
So, as you can see, I’m also an optimist. We need not purchase some teevee station, to get our message out. More and more people get their information from the internet, and although about half of it is controlled by the same people that control the teevee and the papers, half of it is ours, and every browser can see every URL, mostly, except in China. Getting people to visit paulitician-websites is the key, and this is a hard thing… but not impossible. We can convert sheeple into citizens, one at a time, for the next three years. If that’s not enough, then we can keep doing it until 2020.
Difficult; not impossible.
p.s. Remember what happened when Reagan, the most liberty-leaning prez in the recent decades (despite flaws), was in power? Telecommunications statute overhaul, which ended up creating the conditions for talk radio, FOX, cellfons, PDAs, and — with a little help from sole inventor Al Gore — that thing we call the internet.
If we can get enough citizens interested in liberty-issues, by going door to door, by waking up the sheeple one by one, by commenting on neocon blogs and lefty-liberal forums, then we’ll start seeing more and more liberty-candidates in elected office, and more and more constituents pushing their reps for a new telecom overhaul. With any luck, this time around we’ll get something that protects privacy, promotes technological innovation by releasing the laissez-faire capitalist hounds, preserves the wild untamed internet as a national treasure, and in the end, gives us a president who will stand up to censorship in China… “Mister 主席, tear down this Great Firewall!” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_down_this_wall#The_speech
I am very much considering Rand Paul in 2016. I will be spreading the word in Santa Clara County until the next election.
Rand Paul 2016 and the dude from Florida as his running mate. Merica!
What dude from Florida?
He might be talking about Connie Mack 4th, the semi-liberty-candidate who just lost his senate bid there… or Allen West, the tea-party-candidate who just lost his house-re-election there (due to redistricting). We can be pretty sure he doesn’t mean Jeb Bush!
But my educated guess is he means Marco Rubio, the tea-party senator who gave a good speech in Tampa this year. He’s not really a liberty-candidate, but he’s a popular guy, and has a very good record in the senate (compared to Rand’s great record in the senate — Rand is in the top three liberty-senators, and Rubio is in the top ten). In other words, unlike Paul Ryan, this guy Rubio is *actually* a member of the tea party… even though, to avoid divisiveness and play politics, Rubio has so far decided not to join Rand’s tea-party-senate-caucus group. Particularly useful for a presidential ticket, Rubio is from FL, which means he would get a home-state-boost to win those 29 ecVotes. (Romney picked Paul Ryan for similar reasons… he was hoping to win FL on his own Romneycare merits, and use Paul Ryan to win WI… but *that* didn’t work out so well in practice.)
There was a straw-poll of 600 repub-primary-voters just after the natcon in FL, for their early picks of 2016 repub prez nominee… 24% picked tea-party-home-state-favorite-son Marco, another 22% picked establishment-guy-home-state-favorite-son Jeb. In the same poll, Rand Paul did better than Sarah Palin, and *way* better than Santorum, but that’s because Santorum only got 1% of the votes. Floridians are very much establishment-n-moderate voters; about 10% of them like Huckabee, double what Rand managed. The other votes were about 10% to each of estab-n-moderate Chris Christie, semi-estab-semi-libertarian Condi Rice, and faux-tea-party Paul Ryan (who may be a social conservative… but is *not* a fiscal conservative according to tea-party-standards, any more than Romney was).
Predicting the future is a risky biz, but I would say Huckabee will run in 2016 as the evangelical candidate; not sure about Santorum the uber-evangelical. However, both of those are big-spenders from dem-leaning states, so they aren’t really typical evangelical candidates. I also expect either Jeb or Christie or both to be the estab-candidates. We ought to see at least one female candidate in 2016: Condi Rice, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Michele Bachmann, or Sarah Palin. Paul Ryan might be back, or might not. Ditto for Herman Cain.
Doubtless there will be some stalking-horse candidates like Huntsman again. (Whether or not Huntsman himself was even *aware* he was a stalking horse is questionable… but by skipping Iowa, which left more votes for Mitt, and hammering hard in NH, which took votes away from Ron Paul, and then dropping out and endorsing Romney a few days later… clearly Huntsman *was* effectively acting as a stalking-horse for Mitt.) Similarly, there will be superpac monies controlled by the establishment which are used to convert nobody-candidates like Santorum — who polled well under 5% all through 2011 despite being in every televised debate — into stalking-horses for a particular purpose, which in 2012 was tearing down Newt enough to give Romney the win in Iowa. Santorum shot up from 4% to 19% in the final three weeks of December… but the estab leash-holders made a slight miscalculation, and instead of Mitt winning, Santorum did. They’ll be more careful in 2016. *We* need to be ready in 2016.
Anyhoo, although I doubt that Marco Rubio will himself make a run for prez in 2016, but as a true tea-party guy, he’s certainly a better vpotus choice for a liberty-nominee potus than, say, somebody like faux-teax-parteax Paul Ryan just-saying-just-saying. Actually, though, I’m hoping that Ted Cruz sticks to his constitutionalist guns now that he’s actually elected, because he strikes me as more of a tea-party guy than Marco… we’ll see what happens.
If Kevin was talking about Rubio, then I am very surprised that any Ron Paul supporter would advocate him (Rubio). Rubio is constitutionally ineligible to serve as POTUS, for exactly the same reason as Mr. Obama (and Chester Arthur before him).
Barry Goldwater, the liberty-leaning repub-nominee of 1964, was absolutely outright Constitutionally ineligible. He was born in Arizona when it was still a territory. Mitt Romney was eligible, but Mitt’s father might not have been, back when *he* was a prez contender?
As for Rubio, I’ve heard rumors he was ineligible, but I think they are false. Wikipedia sez he was born in Miami (at a time when Florida was [grin] already admitted as a state into the Union). See the 14th amendment: all persons born in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the U.S. Unless there is some argument that baby Marco wasn’t subject-to-the-jurisdiction?
The confusion stems from the commonplace lack of recognition of the difference between a born (vs. naturalized) citizen and a natural-born citizen (defined by Vattel, letters of the US founders, and subsequent SCOTUS opinions).
Mitt was eligible because he was born a citizen, under (only) US jurisdiction, to citizen parents.
George (Mitt’s father) was born (in Mexico) to expat citizen parents (all 4 f them, 1 dad and 3 moms) who never acquired Mexican citizenship. Thus, he was also eligible.
Rubio was born a citizen, but to NON-citizen parents (who were later naturalized). He is therefore ineligible.
The same was true of Chester Arthur. Chester lied about the year of his father’s becoming a US citizen. In reality, his father was naturalized after Chester’s birth, making Chester ineligible, but this was not known until just a few years ago when the elder Arthur’s immigration and naturalization records were located by a biographer. President Arthur burned almost all of his papers when he left office, hiding his lie for decades.
Neville, this is an interesting discussion, because it’s a place in the Constitution where actual ambiguity exists. (Those are usually the crucial places where later abuses begin.) However, unlike the necessary&proper clause, or the general welfare clause, it’s pretty hard to see this small ambiguity turning into a huge problem.
From a bit of time spent on the interweb, it sounds like the ambiguity boils down to your assertion about “natural born Citizen” meaning that both parents (or just the mother or just the father per other sites) must be Citizens, versus instead, that nbC simply means a Citizen who is so because they were born here, in the natural way. For starters, there is *clear* distinction between Citizen and nbCitizen, which the Constitution explicitly makes, because you can be a Senator Rubio as Citizen, perhaps naturalized, but to be (V)Prez Rubio you must be nbCitizen. The obvious assumption is that a naturalized-citizen, i.e. a person who was a citizen at birth of some other nation, and then later immigrated here, can become a Senator after meeting the residency requirements and getting enough votes, but they cannot become Prez. The only way to be a non-naturalized citizen is to be born here. Thus, since Rubio was born here, he’s a natural-born-citizen, right?
Some of the folks that the dems call birthers don’t think so, whether the discussion is about Rubio or about Obama. The text of the Constitution doesn’t say what a natural-born-citizen is, because it isn’t a dictionary — it was intended to be a plainspoken document that any Citizen (whether naturalized or natural-born or otherwise) as well as most *potential* future Citizens who were immigrants or children, could understand… once they learned English anyhoo. Still, the text of the Constitution is also legalese, intended to be used by cops, judges, and politicians to govern the federation — the terms of the Constitution must have specific legal meaning.
From what I can tell, the SCOTUS has *not* ruled on the specific legal meaning of the phrase natural-born-Citizen, but they *have* ruled on other cases that touch on the phrase. In particular, there was a scotus decision which explicitly noted that the question of whether nbCitizen required parents to be citizens, and said there were “some doubts” about the truth… but then went on to say that since the case in question did not need to decide those doubts, no ruling was made on the issue. So from a legal standpoint, there is no terra firma; some anti-birther people point to English law, which pretty clearly does say that nbCitizen *just* means physically born in the UK, but our own scotus has never explicitly ruled that the founders meant the phrase in the technical jargon of English law. Can you give cites of the court cases you mentioned as being relevant, and the letters of the founders? Vattel seems to be not a great source, but the other stuff would be.
Anyways, even if it turns out that nbCitizen and born-here are not any different, there is another requirement in the Constitution, which is that part about “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” found in the 14th amend (which can be seen as further refining the definition of ‘Citizen’ from my layman’s perspective). In the particular case of Rubio, he was born here, and his parents were shortly thereafter Citizens here, but that means there is some question as to whether, at the time of his birth, his parents (and thus him as their son) were in fact subject to the jurisdiction of the USA. There are two cases where his parents would *not* have been s-t-t-j-t … let us say, jurisdictionized… per the terms of the 14th amendment. One case is where his parents were subject *solely* to the jurisdiction of Cuba (with the special sub-case in which his parents were illegal immigrants … this does not apply as they applied for legal residency in 1956 and got their SSNs and such), and the other case is where his parents were subject to *no* jurisdiction, like in that Tom Hanks movie, which once again is not the case here.
The original worry of the founders, from my quick research, had to do with foreign celebrities (such as a royal prince or whatever) immigrating to the USA, and then buying their way into the prez, which would make them c-in-c of the military. John Jay was worried about a military coup, in other words, organized by the monarchy of some scheming European aristocracy. When you look at in from this perspective, the 14th jurisdictionized-language can be seen as explicitly supporting the same exact goals as those of John Jay and the rest of the founders — even if the scheming king were to travel to the USA, so his queen could give birth to a son here, that princeling would be eligible to be a Citizen of the USA, but not if the King and Queen refused to renounce their own foreign citizenships (in which case the princeling would *not* be in fact jurisdictionized… similar to children of foreign diplomats who happen to be born here).
Pragmatically speaking, in the case of Marco Rubio placed before the court-of-this-blog-forum, I can see little difficulty. He was born here. His parents were, at the time of his birth, permanent residents for around a decade. When they first arrived, in the 1950s and early 1960s, they had planned to return home, and at one point his (future) mom even moved back to Cuba for a couple months… but his dad never moved back, and in short order, his mom returned to her *new* home in the USA. When young Marco was born in 1971, his parents were still permanent residents. Because of Castro, they probably at the time were citizens of no country, but before Marco was five, they became naturalized citizens of the USA. If it had turned out that his parents moved back to Cuba, and his dad became King of the Cubans after a military coup, naming Marco as heir to the throne of Cuba, then I suppose there would be practical difficulties with us electing POTUS Marco Rubio. (According to the spirit of the law… unclear about the letter of the law since there is no such ruling yet.) But in real life, his parents were subject to the jurisdiction of the USA when Marco was born, and stayed that way. By the terms of the 14th, that makes Marco a natural-born citizen, in the plain interpretation of the Constitution.
I’m not saying it is *impossible* to argue otherwise. Most of the websites that do so aren’t very well-written, though, and cherry pick quotes from *all* over history to support their position, ignoring the bulk of the evidence. If you want to argue that the founders meant some particular legalistic jargonic thing when they used the phrase “natural born Citizen” that speaks to the provenance of the parents, which was different from the way that legal jargon was typically used in English law, then show me the citations. If you want to argue that the first repubs, authors of the 14th, intended that the 14th *not* apply as the clarified definition of what it means to be a Citizen, and that the phrase “born Citizen” in the 14th is functionally distinct from the phrase “natural born Citizen” as used in the earlier still-valid text, then show me the citations.
Part of our job as lovers of liberty is to be strict Constitutionalists, originalists in our interpretation. But the 14th amendment is the correct text here, and the opinions of the 1860s our guide, not the earlier more-ambiguous text of Article two, nor letters of the founders. The point of amendments is that they change things, after all… such as the 12th, requiring vpotus to meet potus reqs. Anyways, I’d be interested to hear about the detailed arguments on whether Marco, Bobby, Nikki, and Barack are nbCitizens. But the assertion that the Constitution says your mother, or your father, or both your parents … have to be citizens, or native-born citizens, or natural-born citizens … at the time of your election to the (v)presidency, at the time of your nomination to the (v)presidency, at the time of your birth, continuously throughout your time on this earth, or whatever… need to be thoroughly backed up by evidence, not just cherry-picked out-of-context evidence, not just layman’s analysis of the grammar and/or logic, but serious study. Random blog sites *can* qualify as such, even if the blogger in question is not some specialized authority, because evidence for the truth isn’t restricted to the domain of gov’t-approved minions. Quite the opposite, really — I’d rather see an independent blogger analyze the gory details, rather than some party-paid spin-doctor.
Objectively, though, unless you have hard court-admissible evidence that Marco’s mom and dad are *currently* loyal to Batista and/or Castro, he seems perfectly eligible for (v)potus under the 14th. That’s the plain reading of the Constitutional language. Failing that sort of evidence, perhaps one could make a legalese argument, that in fact the founders meant something jargonistic when they spoke of nbCitizen, or that the early repubs purposely meant to exclude nbCitizen from their clarified definition of bCitizen & Citizen. Again though, show me the solid evidence. The text of the Constitution says nothing about the parents, and whether one or both of them needs to be citizens (let alone what kind of citizens… and, a particularly important point in Rubio’s case, nothing about *when* the parents must allegedly be/become [n/b/nb/misc]Citizens). The text of the Constitution says nothing about *sole* jurisdiction, either, just that Marco must be subject-to-the-jurisdiction. You can *make* the case that there is a distinction between a born Citizen and a native born Citizen and a natural born Citizen… but not from the text of the Constitution itself, certainly.
Historically, at least according to Wikipedia, nobody was arguing that Chester Arthur was ineligible because of his parents — his opponents tried to start rumors that *he* was born in Canada, or in Ireland (his dad was an Irish immigrant to Canada … his mom met and married his dad on the Vermont-Quebec border … but Chester himself was born in Vermont). You are saying, today, that Chester was ineligible back then because of the status of his parents… but you have to make the case that the folks who were *not* arguing that way, back in the 1800s, were mistaken/misguided. Nobody was complaining that Chester’s *dad* was born in Ireland, immigrated to Canada, and was an itinerant USA preacher… they were alleging that *Chester* was born outside the States. Maybe that’s because of Chester lying about when his dad became a citizen, as you mentioned… but if they were willing to start false rumors about Chester being born in Ireland or Canada, don’t you think they would also have started true rumors about his dad not being a naturalized United States citizen at the time of Chester’s birth, if they thought it mattered? It looks like they didn’t think it mattered, which is why it never came up, back in the day. (Along the same line of thinking, while it may be true that Chester burned his papers, it is speculation to say he burned them to hide the fact that he was ineligible for the potus slot — he may well just have been embarrassed that his dad was an immigrant, hence his lies, or he might have burned them for some unrelated reasons.) When were the recent-proof-papers unearthed by the biographer?
Anyways, I guess my parting thought is that the Constitution has bugs, from time to time. The 12th amendment is a good example. Technically, up until mid-1804, the vpotus *could* theoretically have been the 3-year-old princess of Norway, even if she had never set foot in the USA let alone been a natural born Citizen here, because a *strict* reading of the Constitution says that whoever gets the second-highest-number of electoral college votes will be named vpotus. There was the *implication* that only people qualified to be potus would run for the office of vpotus, since running for potus and running for vpotus were the same thing in those days, but in actual fact *only* the office of potus required age-35+ resident-14+ natural born Citizens. If the princess got first place, she would be Constitutionally ineligible for the potus seat, but if she got second place, she would technically and legally have been a valid vpotus! Obviously the founders thought it was a bug: they fixed it. (They also thought a *strict* reading was crucial.)
Maybe there is a bug in the Constitution now, with the language in the 14th speaking of a born Citizen, and the language in Article 2 speaking of a natural born Citizen, and there being some doubt about the difference (if any) between those and a native born Citizen, plus vagueness about the *specific* requirements the parents might have to meet (with all chronological loopholes fully hammered out), should there turn out to be significant differences. Regardless of your position on what the Constitution strictly is saying at the moment, what do you think it ought to say? Is there any *functional* or practical or pragmatic reason that Marco Rubio, born in 1971 to perm-rez parents, cannot be president.. but his little sibling Sally Rubio (imaginary), born in 1976 to naturalized-citizen parents, can be president? To me the question seems silly.
To my mind, we want to make sure that the prez does not have divided loyalties, just as John Jay was concerned with. But if we start worrying about the loyalties/citizenships of parents, why not also siblings, and grandparents, and cousins, and friends? Shouldn’t we be concerned if a potus has a penpal that lives overseas — what if that penpal has the ear of the c-in-c, and advocates dictatorship? Obviously, the prez must *never* speak to anybody who is not a natural-born-Citizen, and whose parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were at all points in their lives also nbCitizens! You can see how crazy this gets. The rule that the potus and vpotus must be born here, and that they must be subject to the jurisdiction of the USA (when they were born), and that they must have age-35+ and residency-14+ and citizenship (when elected), seem to me quite sufficient. You cannot pick your family, after all.
Marco qualifies, by those rules. So does Chester. So does Mitt. (Whether or not Obama qualifies depends on whether you believe he was born *in* Hawaii, or that the evidence was faked.) Barry Goldwater Sr doesn’t qualify, but his son does. McCain qualifies, in my book, although the Constitutional language does not clearly specify the particulars of his situation, logically he is an nbCitizen. George Romney *may* have qualified, if his parents never revoked their citizenship; innocent until proven guilty, and I have no proof they revoked their USA citizenship, so I say George Romney qualified, so far as I know… but would be open to hard evidence showing the contrary. Ditto for Rubio, too — give me the cites.
____|____ , could you try writing less material in each post, so it would be easier to respond to all the points? It would help me, at least. I don’t know whether it would help anyone else.
You say you have done quick research on the NBC issue, but you managed to cover a lot of ground. I think you are pretty thorough. However, I have followed this particular issue in depth since 2007 or 2008. I have dozens of saved articles, footnotes, and references stashed away on my computer and my Email on this, but it is kind of one big unstructured body of information.
Of course, you had no way of knowing, but you had no need to educate me on the background of the issue, including
I believe that a major problem in your thought process is where you say “Part of our job as lovers of liberty is to be strict Constitutionalists, originalists in our interpretation. But the 14th amendment is the correct text here, and the opinions of the 1860s our guide, not the earlier more-ambiguous text of Article two, nor letters of the founders.”
I am surprised that you would say this, given that you earlier pointed out the clear fact that there is a fundamental difference implied in the USC between Citizen and Natural Born Citizen. The 14th amendment only deals with the issue of citizenship (as in, you are, or you aren’t), and not NBC Though some may argue on the basis of one or two statements, to me the preponderance of evidence of Bingham’s statements indicate that he agreed.
The NBC phrase is left undefined in the USC, and as strict constitutionalists, we have a duty to understand and interpret it as it was written when it was written and according to by whom it was written. Therefore, letters, supporting documents, etc. are actually extremely important, rather than to be dismissed.
I believe you have misunderstood the Chester Arthur situation. The big issue of the day was whether Chester was born a citizen at all (one of the same issues that the Obama birthers are focused on, and which may still be an issue). However, in retrospect it can be seen as effectively being a red herring. Perhaps Chester even let it grow, knowing that he could easily shoot it down when the time was right, which is what happened. We can’t know his motivation, but it would have been a very shrewd way to play the game. As to his motivation in burning his papers, we don’t know that either. However, the fact is that Chester’s burning of his papers DID hide for decades the lie about his father’s naturalization.
As to Goldwater Sr., McCain, the Romneys, and Rubio, we at least agree on Mitt. There is no evidence of which I am aware that states that George’s father ever gave up his citizenship (you agreed with this, I believe). Since Mexico did not grant birthright citizenship, then George would have been born a citizen of the U.S., as was his wife, to citizen parents, and under the jurisdiction of any foreign power. Thus, somewhat ironically it seems to me, George actually was more clearly eligible than most of the others in this group. McCain’s eligibility is still up in the air, in my book, as his produced birth certificate shows that (contrary to his own assertions) he was actually born in the Colon city hospital and not the base hospital. Re. Goldwater Sr., I have found absolutely nothing that says that those born in U.S. Territories were not considered citizens at that time. There is some question, I admit, given that later legislation specifically conferred citizenship on those born in the Territories. Finally, re. Rubio, even if one should argue the “1 parent vs. 2 parents” angle, Rubio still fails. The language of the founding period and in several SCOTUS opinions since, refers to NBC’s as those “born to citizen parents”. No matter how you slice it, Rubio was not born to citizen parents. The man is simply not eligible.
Much of my information and thought on this subject originated with Leo Donofrio, who is a bit colorful and more than a bit controversial, though not nearly so controversial as many celebrity “birthers” (Donofrio may be a minor celebrity, but he is definitely no birther). I would often start off by reading his analysis of information sent to him or that he had researched originally, and then find myself 4 or 5 hops deep chasing references and footnotes to prove to myself that the facts weren’t being twisted somewhere along the way. What I found was that he was much more thorough and clear in his logical and legal analysis than the Apuzo and Taitz types. I am an information junkie, and not easily persuaded, but I am quite comfortable with where I have ended up on this issue.
“I have followed this particular issue in depth since 2007 or 2008. …Of course, you had no way of knowing, but you had no need to educate me on the background” Well, I could tell you had spent more time on this than me, but I was laying out the gist of my research — partly so that you would know where I stood, and partly so that you would know I wasn’t as well-versed as you (and therefore can give me some useful corrections… without having to guess what my current preconceptions were).
“you have misunderstood the Chester Arthur situation. The big issue of the day was whether Chester was born a citizen at all” Quite possible, I just looked at Wikipedia on that one, all their refs are to physical books (not websites). Was there in fact *some* attempt to prove that one or both of his parents were non-citizens at the time of his birth, with the presumption that therefore he would be POTUS-ineligible, even if Chester himself was born in VT? Because if such occurred, it gives strong evidence that the meaning of the 14th and the meaning of Art2 (both in effect during Chester’s VPOTUS run) were understood as hinging on the citizenship-status of the parents, not the birth-location of the kid.
“Since Mexico did not grant birthright citizenship to George Romney” Okay… but even if they *did*, assuming his mother was a U.S. Citizen at the time, then per the congressional laws in 1905 or so, George would also have been *simultaneously* eligible to be a citizen of the USA. I don’t think the founders were against dual-citizenship (and quite frankly they prolly never considered it as a possibility). But this goes back to the question about ‘sole’ jurisdiction… technically, I don’t think ‘sole jurisdiction’ matters, which is why even if Rubio’s parents were still technically Cuban citizens, they were also permanent residents of Florida, aka under (joint/shared) jurisidiction of the USA.
“McCain’s eligibility is still up in the air… born in the Colon city hospital and not the base hospital.” okay… does it matter? What if he was born on a boat travelling from Colon City to Miama? What if the boat was going the other way? What if he was inside the 200-mile mark? My understanding is, all that matters is that his mom was a citizen, and therefore, per congressional law at the time (and in line with similar 1790s laws), as the son of military-diplomatic folks, McCain was not under the *sole* jurisdiction of Colon city Panama, any more than George Romney was under the *sole* jurisdiction of Mexico, ditto Rubio *sole* Cuba.
“Goldwater… those born in U.S. Territories were not considered citizens?” He was born in AZ Territory in 1909 (statehood 1912). Whether he is therefore NBC and potus eligible dependings on the 14th-amend-phrase “born in the United States”. Does it mean physically in, or some kind of abstract-legally-in, like George Romney and John McCain? Is the U.S. a *plural* reference to the various states-of-the-union, or a *singular* reference to the federal-govt-of-the-USA? Can somebody from Puerto Rico, which gives statuatory citizenship in the USA, become potus? Can somebody from American Samoa, which gives nationals-status only, become potus? Al Gore was born in DC… was he *really* a natural-born-citizen of the state of TN, or of any state of the union, since he was born physically “in” the federal capitol? These are slippery tricksy questions.
“major problem in your thought process is where you say that the opinions of the 1860s must be our guide… 14th amendment only deals with the issue of citizenship (as in, you are, or you aren’t), and not NBC” My position on that was not supposed to be surprising, but it hinges on my understanding that BC and NBC have not been shown to meaningfully differ in the minds of the 1860s repubs that ratified the 14th amendment language. You say the opposite is true; can you provide cites?
There is a clear Constitutional distinction between naturalized-citizen and born-Citizen (14th), and also a clear distinction between naturalized-Citizen and natural-born-Citizen (article 2). There is *not* a clear distinction (that I see) between BC in the 14th, and NBC in Art2, just going on the language in the Constitution, which is why in my understanding the 1860s control — because the amendment which clarifies what citizenship means, will of course apply over top of the existing Art2 terminology.
If you want the letters of the founders to matter, you first have to show that the 1860s repubs intended the BC of the 14th amendment to functionally differ from the NBC of the 1780s. If they do *not* differ, 1860s controls, if they do differ, then we have to look at both the 1860s (regarding jurisdictionization) and also the 1780s (regarding what the founders meant when they spoke of NBC). “The NBC phrase is left undefined in the USC, and as strict constitutionalists, we have a duty to understand and interpret it as it was written when it was written and according to by whom it was written.” Yes, and well said. But the point I’m making is that, if BC is functionally equivalent to NBC, then the 14th amendment overwrites Art2.
“The language of the founding period and in several SCOTUS opinions since, refers to NBC’s as those born-to-citizen-parents. No matter how you slice it, Rubio was not born to citizen parents.” There *is* actually a quibbling argument I can point out here, which to you and me makes little sense, but to the steeped-in-precedent SCOTUS folks in fact might pass muster… which is, that citizenship by birth is Rubio’s because of the 14th amend, and the (V)POTUS qualification as an NBC-meaning-both-parents-are-citizens might *not* be chronologically required at his birth, but rather, at his nomination / election / inauguration as the (V)POTUS. His parents *are* citizens now, therefore, if he were elected as potus, now, does he qualify as an NBC, even though back then, at birth, he only qualified as a BC? Tricksy.
Can you give me a cite of one of those SCOTUS cases you mention, preferably one *after* the 14th amend was ratified if possible, that specifically says NBC in Art2 (or BC in 14th for that matter — but I’m thinking that isn’t the case) explicitly means born-to-citizen-parent(s)?
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It seems to me that you are still mixing together citizen and natural born citizen in a number of your examples. I believe this is a fundamental flaw in your arguments. Why would the framers, Bingham, Congress, Senate, and the several state legislatures write and accept sloppy legal language that confused their meaning (e.g. substituting “born” for “natural born”)? Changing the constitution is far too important for so many hundreds of people to have been that sloppy. I’m not buying it.
Here is a response of mine, excerpted from a conversation with Rick Green (of Wall Builders). I would ask you to study these references and then use them as jumping off points for further research, and see if you don’t end agreeing with (at least most of) my contentions.
======================
Rick,
This is not a quick and easy thing to research, but I am really glad to see that you’re willing to look into it.
The very best place to start, in my opinion, is not at the beginning, but at the end. The link below will take you to an Amicus Brief filed in the current Georgia ballot challenge. The brief is long and thorough, and was filed by Leo Donofrio. Donofrio is the attorney who, 3 years ago, tracked down the naturalization records of William Arthur, father of Chester A. Arthur. Donofrio is not someone you would expect to show up at a CPAC meeting, is not a birther, and is most definitely not a partisan, but he desires to hold everyone fast to the law, especially the US Constitution. It was Donofrio who filed the first challenge to the eligibility of Obama/McCain/Calero on the 2008 New Jersey presidential ballot.
http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/amicus-brief-georgia-potus-eligibility-cases/#comments
That is what you asked for – a good source. With that, you may want to stop reading here.
== additional info below ==
Here is a summary of some detail and references you may want to consult and study.
Rubio’s problem essentially boils down to the same as Obama’s problem – for each of them, at the time of his birth, he had an alien parent.
At the US Citizenship and Immigration Services web site (http://www.uscis.gov/ ), look up the following “Interpretations” which distinguish in black and white between native-born citizen and natural-born citizen
+ Interpretation 324.2 (a)(3)
+ Interpretation 324.2(a)(7)
+ Interpretation 324.2(b)
Supreme Court cases and legal articles:
+ The Venus, 12 U.S. 8 Cranch 253 253 (1814) (note: all 7 SCOTUS justices lived through the revolution and most were intimately involved – consult Barton for details)
+ Inglis v. Sailors’ Snug Harbor, 28 U.S. 99, 3 Pet. 99, 7 L.Ed. 617 (1830) (this case, and the next 2 listed, all either cite to, allude to, or quote Vattel in their decisions)
+ Shanks v. Dupont, 28 U.S. 3 Pet. 242 242 (1830)
+ Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)
+ Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1874)
+ Ex Parte Lockwood, 154 U.S. 116 (1894)
+ Boston Globe article November 9, 1896 by Percy A. Bridgham
+ United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) (notwithstanding the ruling on Wong Kim Ark’s standing as a citizen, the court recognized a class of citizens (separate from “natural-born”) constituted by persons born in the US to alien parents)
+ Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325 (1939) (Elg was verified as “natural-born” because both her parents had become citizens prior to Elg’s birth)
There is a lot to study on this. Even basing your reading on others’ excellent work, it will likely take days to get through it all. In the end, I am confident that you will determine that, according to:
+ our founders (per contemporary letters and articles)
+ Emmerich de Vattel (“Law of Nations”, English common law, and the Bible, were the foundations of our Constitution)
+ John Ramsey (president of the Continental Congress, which wrote the US Constitution),
+ John Bingham (the author of the 14th amendment),
+ multiple past US Secretaries of State,
it is abundantly clear that the distinction that separates the class of “natural-born” citizens from “native- born” citizens is that natural-born citizens are those born on U.S. soil to parents who are both citizens at the time of said birth.
Neville, you are correct to say the difficulty here hinges upon the definition of NBC in Art2, BC in the 14th, and the more generic term citizen. I’m not *trying* to confuse nor conflate them… I’m trying to point out that THEY ARE AMBIGUOUS as written in the Constitution itself, which means that *historically* they have often been confused and conflated by a great many people, and therefore that unless the equivalence-ambiguity is *fully* resolved by the scotus making a ruling, then we quite frankly CANNOT SAY FOR SURE if good-guy Marco Rubio can be prez, or if bad-guy Obama can be prez, subject to the terms of the Constitution… because the meaning of the terms themselves is at issue. You are trying to tell me, that based on your long study of the issue, NBC has a very particular meaning. What are the possibilities, though? I’ll ignore possibilities here that *everybody* would agree is over-tightening the meaning, such as a theoretical (and nigh-circular!) meaning of NBC where the *parents* had to be NBC for the kid to be one. Even then, there are still a lot of possibilities.
NBC#1A. both parents Citizens (any sort), when kid born.
NBC#2A. father a Citizen (any sort), when kid born. cf jus sanguinis, typically the international law in the 1700s, but not in the USA
NBC#3A. mother a Citizen (any sort), when kid born. cf USA laws about kids born overseas to citizen-mothers.
NBC#23A. at least one parent Citizen (any sort), when kid born. Combo of NBC#2 and/or NBC#3 requirements
NBC#4A. citizenship of parents ignored, when kid born
NBC#1B. both parents Citizens (any sort), in order for now-age-35+ kid to be eligible to be prez. [could be specified as required prior to: announcing, fec filing, primary ballot, party nominee, election ballot, general election, electoral college ballot, electoral college winner, or even inauguration]
NBC#2B / #3B / #23B, following a similar pattern (but there is no #4B which is identical to #4A and thus elided)
That’s just speaking of the ancestry-difficulty. There is also the issue of what it means to be born “in” the jurisdiction of the USA, and more particularly, what it means to be born “in” the USA (does the concept mean physically-located-inside-the-boundaries-of-a-state-of-the-union, or does it also include territories, DC, possessions, military bases, ships sailing through international waters, et cetera? alternatively, does the concept instead mean legally-located-within-the-abstract-sovereign-domain-of-the-singular-federal-government, in which case the physical location is a contributing factor, but no longer a controlling factor, in the decision on meaning?)
NBC#5P. physically inside the land-boundaries a state of the union, such as TN. Being born in DC, Al Gore does *not* qualify.
NBC#6P. physically inside the overall-boundaries a state of the union, such as TN, to include airspace and lakes and oceans-near-the-coast.
NBC#7P. physically inside the overall-boundaries of the 50 states, DC, and the federal boundaries associated therewith (200 miles from shore)
NBC#8P. same as #7P, plus adds specific territories by name (e.g. PR, VI, NI, GU).
NBC#9P. same as #8P, plus adds overseas bases, minor possessions, ships with flags of the USA, military transports and locations, treaty leases like the canal zone, and so on and so forth.
NBC#5V. virtually inside the legal-domain of a state of the union, such as TN. Being born in DC matters not by this definition, since Al Gore was inside the legal-domain of the state of TN.
NBC#6V. virtually inside the legal-domain of TN, or in the chunk of federal airspace and navigable waterways in the region of TN.
NBC#7V. virtually inside the legal-domain of the mainland-centric federal government plus AK & HI, with no other exceptions.
NBC#8V. same as #7V, but adds specific territories by name (not to necessarily include e.g. the Phillipines when those were occupied)
NBC#9V. virtually inside the legal-domain of federal government, without restrictions, but still taking note of physical location.
NBC#10V. virtually inside the legal-domain of the federal govt, no restrictions, no regard to physical location (if the mom is a citizen then her *body* is in the legal domain of the federal govt, even if she happens to be in a hospital building which is the legal domain of the government of Panama). There is no #10P.
A == atBirth, B == byPresidency.
P == physicallyIn, V == virtuallyIn.
You are trying to assert, and correct me if I’m wrong, that the correct definitional choices are NBC#1a9p, or maybe #1a9v. Under those definitions, then NBC in Art2 clearly does not mean the same thing as BC in the 14th. Somebody working for Obama in the CRS, on the other hand, would say that the correct definitions are NBC#4a10v, which basically means that BC == NBC.
My only assertion is that we DO NOT KNOW what the correct choices are, legally speaking (the scotus has never made a determination of the exact meaning of the phrase in Art2 and whether it is the same as the slightly-different phrase in the 14th amend). Furthermore, I’ll be quite plain in asserting that the legalistic meaning actually has little bearing on whether the Constitutional language is *good* for the country, or otherwise.
Look at the Obamacare decision, which makes it the Supreme Law Of The Land that congress henceforth may continue to pass *any* law requiring any sort of onerous taxation scheme on us poor citizens. In a way, I’m glad that the supreme court didn’t overturn obamacare, because it means we MUST fix the problem of wild DC overreach into the lives and liberties of the citizenry, via the tentacles of the tax-code, under the strict limit of a new constitutional amendment (ideally I’d like it to say something like “the power to tax is the power to destroy, therefore no part of the government at any level shall make any law laying any involuntary taxes/fees/revenues/penalties/penaltaxes/etc whatsoever, save a single federal-level flat 20% tax on net annual income, applicable only to the wealthiest 53% of the citizenry”). That ought to force the government to stay well under 20% of GDP, right where it belongs. Overturning obamacare would have been the easy way out, in other words — now we can, and must, strike at the root.
Anyways, what is the root of the trouble with the NBC clause? Fundamentally, the founders wanted to make sure that the c-in-c wasn’t subject to any divided loyalties, to any foreign allegiances. M.Rubio, B.Goldwater, C.Arthur, G.Romney, J.McCain, and even B.Obama pretty much all pass that functional test. They aren’t foreign princelings, intending on pulling a coup. When the c-in-c happened to be Obama, we didn’t get invaded by Kenya, right? Similarly, if Rubio becomes the c-in-c, we won’t be taken over by the invading army of the Cubans, while Rubio secretly helps. The worry about foreign influence of celebrity-princelings from the EU was a serious danger in the 1700s, and even most of the 1800s, but in the current millenium it’s pretty far-fetched. (Our more serious difficulty is that our modern politicians have dual allegiances, not to some foreign king, but to various lobbyist-led special interest groups: defense contractors, big bankers, big pharma, etc. Obama’s allegiance to the AFL-CIO and to Solyndra and to Planned Parenthood is damaging; his cultural heritage as son of a guy from Africa is not. But as you say, we are a country ruled by laws, so our discussion about the NBC clause *is* still important.)
Given that sort of outlook, what is the correct way to elect the president? To my mind, any sort of geographical restrictions on who can be the president are silly, nowadays. (I’m not saying we shouldn’t follow what the constitution says — I’m saying that the worries of the founders about physical-based allegiance are not as important as they used to be.) I’d be just as likely to vote for a presidential candidate from Hong Kong, Switzerland, or Australia as I would be for Mitt Romney. If we want to get a good president, the qualities we *really* need are a clear understanding of the free market, first-hand experience in the military, enthusiasm for strictly following the Constitution, and totally honest integrity.
My requirements for a presidential nominee would be that they founded and run at least three startup companies (with at least one of them still in business) using no government subsidies/grants/etc, that they served at least two 12-month tours on active duty and are currently in the reserves, and that they can recite the constitution and the bill of rights from memory with no more than 1 un-self-corrected goof. Maybe we should also give them an SAT math exam? Experience serving in congress or the statehouse is preferred but not required. Parentage & birthplace are irrelevant, but if you want to attract enough votes (not to mention pass the memorization-n-recitation portion), pragmatically you’ll need to learn English.
To avoid other nations sending foreign bureacrats to make claims (taxes owed or somesuch), prior to filing with the FEC and/or being listed on a ballot in a party primary-or-caucus, candidates must renounce any and all foreign allegiances, including dual-citizenship and similar. Again, though, who cares about the parents? Finally, the honesty & integrity idea… I would wish for an electoral-college-based recall possibility during the midterm election, where the public decides whether the newly-elected prez broke the campaign promises they made. If the recall was successful, there would be a special election all during December, with polling places open on December 26th, and six months later all laws signed by and EOs put in place by the recalled prez would be null and void, unless the successor chose to re-approve them.
Anyhoo, barring my proposed Constitutional amendment that simply eliminates the NBC requirement (I’d still urge we keep the 14-year-residency and 35-years-of-age requirements), what are the practical outcomes of the various choices for the NBC definition?
C.Arthur, born in VT, mom cit, dad not until age 5 (permrez), disqualified under any of 1a 2a. Unclear whether anybody at the time attempted to argue against his eligibility on 1a 2a grounds; however, at a later time, just after the 1916 election, there *were* arguments made against C.Hughes on such a basis.
B.Goldwater, born in territory of AZ, mom&dad cit, disqualified under any of 5p5v 6p6v 7p. Cf 1790 naturalization act.
G.Romney, born in Mexico, mom&dad cit, disqualified under any of 5p5v 6p6v 7p7v 8p 9p and maybe even 8v 9v. If evidence were found that Mexico claimed his grand/parents as citizens at some point (but see Afroyim v Rusk for counter-argument), or that they voluntarily renounced their USA citizenship at some point (to Mexico or to Deseret or just generically) then George would also have trouble under 1a 2a 3a 23a 4a as well, but he would be just fine according to 1b 2b 3b 23b.
A.Gore, born in DC, mom&dad cit, disqualified under any of 5p 6p.
J.McCain, born in Canal zone, mom&dad cit, disqualified under any of 5p 6p 7p 8p and maybe even 9p. Cf 1790 naturalization act.
B.Obama, born in HI, mom cit, dad not (to date), disqualified under any of 1a1b 2a2b. However, see also 8usc§1403 of 1937 which *retroactively* conferred citizenship on Canal Zone babies.
M.Rubio, born in FL, mom&dad not til age 5 (permrez), disqualified under any of 1a 2a 3a 23a, but would be fine under 4a 1b 2b 3b 23b variations, or alternatively under 8usc§1403.
Hmmmmm.. Since it seems that congress has passed retroactive-citizenship-stuff in the past, maybe we can interest some congresscritters in looking over this natural-born-Citizen controversy. This NBC question is actually distinct from the birther controversy… something I did not realize until our talk here… because the *actual* birther folks are trying to say that Obama was not born in Hawaii… which is not very interesting or likely to get anywhere legally… whereas the issue we’ve been hammering on here is whether the citizenship status of Obama’s/Marco’s/Chester’s *parents* could possibly disqualify the kids from the v/potus slots. As the supreme court themselves has opined, if both parents were citizens at the time you were born physically here in the USA, then you are clearly a natural born Citizen, but if your parents were not, or if your birthplace was not physically here: “some authorities go further… there have been doubts”.
McCain got congress to pass a non-binding resolution, asserting he was presidential. Maybe, with his tea-party background, Rubio has more respect for the Constitution, and will get congress to submit (to the scotus!) the question of what exactly Art2 means. Rubio, and Obama for that matter, can always take the shortcut of pulling a retroactive-citizenship-statute (quite necessary for Obama since if the scotus rules him ineligible without such a face-saving trick then he’s out of office). I would argue we don’t want Rand doing it, nor Ron Paul, because the media would certainly spin it as an attack, not a quest for truth. Are there *any* democrats in office now that respect the Constitution enough to question the potus from their own party?
I’ll keep looking through the links you provided, and if I remember will post progress-reports from time to time. But, my first stop was the 1874 case of Minor v Happersett, since it is a) after the 1860s and the 14th and b) listed as the key topmost reference in the Georgia amicus brief. It is only about ten pages long, here is the case, http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/88/162/case.html and here is the relevant excerpt, emphasis added.
…The question is presented in this case whether, since the 14th, a woman who is a citizen is a voter. From the opinion, we find that IT WAS THE ONLY ONE DECIDED in the court below, and IT IS THE ONLY ONE which has been argued here. The argument is that as a woman, born or naturalized in the USA and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the USA and of the state in which she resides, she has the right of suffrage as one of the privileges and immunities of her citizenship.
…Additions might always be made to the citizenship of the USA [starting from the original citizens of 1787-1791] in two ways: first, by birth, and second, by naturalization. The Constitution DOES NOT IN WORDS SAY who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. [note that ONLY TWO possibilities exist; by implication, native-born equals natural-born equals born.]
Some authorities GO FURTHER [but therefore some must not! so NBC#1a is advocated by ‘some’ unspecified authorities] and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction WITHOUT REFERENCE TO the citizenship of their parents [which means ‘some’ unspecified authorities accept NBC#4A]. As to this class [NBC#2a and 3a and 4a] there HAVE BEEN DOUBTS, but never as to the first [NBC#1a]. For the purposes of this case, IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO SOLVE THESE DOUBTS. It is sufficient for everything we have now [the question of female suffrage] to consider that all children [no matter the gender] born of citizen parents [like the lady in this case] within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens.
…Certainly if the courts can consider any question settled, this is one: for nearly 90 years, the people have acted upon the idea that the Constitution, when it conferred citizenship, did not necessarily confer the right of suffrage. If uniform practice long continued can settle the construction of so important an instrument as the Constitution of the United States confessedly is, most certainly it has been done here. Our province is to decide what the law is, not to declare what it should be. We have given this case the careful consideration its importance demands. If the law is wrong, it ought to be changed; but the power for that is not with us.
The arguments addressed to us bearing upon such a view of the subject may perhaps be sufficient to induce those having the power to make the alteration, but they ought not to be permitted to influence our judgment in determining the present rights of the parties now litigating before us. No argument as to woman’s need of suffrage can be considered. We can only act upon her rights as they exist. It is not for us to look at the hardship of withholding. Our duty is at an end if we find it is within the power of a state to withhold.
That is an *awesome* final double-snippet. The decision is a crystal-clear example of a bug in the Constitution, when it was originally set up, because it was written in a way that failed to protect the privilege of the vote for all adults. By leaving that decision to the states in particular, women (only) had that privilege withheld in general. Fixing the bug took another 50 years longer, and Virginia Minor died just 20 years later, so she didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of her labor. However tragic that story is, about the slow grinding of the wheels of justice for all, it is also *exactly* the way the story must be, if we are to preserve the republic: we must have judges that follow the Constitution strictly as written, that are originalists in their interpretation, and that refuse to let activism sway their decisions one iota. Otherwise, we get free healthcare as an inherent creator-endowed natural human right. (Next up: free broadband internet access. Hillary Clinton quote somewhere….)
If the scotus ever gets around to hearing the merits of a case to figure out the firm and legally-binding precedent for just what exactly the phrase “natural born Citizen” really means, I hope we have just such a fair & unanimous decision, without activism. Currently, though, it seems clear that ‘some doubts’ about anything looser than NBC#1a will continue to plague us. I would *much* rather we get those doubts finally resolved by the scotus, even if we end up not liking the answer, than have candidates get in the habit of ignoring the Constitution (more than they already do).
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You are burying me in posts. There is no way I can keep current. But it is clear that we have a fundamental disagreement about BC and NBC in the Constitution. I claim that the two phrases are obviously different and different on purpose, whereas you believe it is a bug/mistake.
I’m glad you are reading the refs I posted. After you’ve made a first pass through them, I think it would also be very good to read through dissecting analysis I referenced. While logic should be necessary to interpreting legal issues, logic and legal procedure/precedent are not always equivalent, so I like having the benefit of analysis by a constitutional attorney (whose name does not end with “Obama”).
Also, in general, I believe you place a little too much importance on the SCOTUS. That branch of the fed. gov ‘t. was created as the weakest, and given the myriad arguments/proposals/compromises involved in the drafting of the Constitution, I think it should be assumed that it was created that way on purpose. Remember that, constitutionally, Congress holds full power over the SCOTUS, and SCOTUS holds no actual power over Congress or the Executive. It is only in practice that we have allowed SCOTUS to wield power outside it’s constitutional provision.
Well, I made it to page 30 of 209, and got stuck when Donofrio complained that the explicit-but-possibly-sarcastic reference (by the dissent) of Wong Kim Ark being eligible for the presidency, but then suggested that the ‘definition’ of natural-born-Citizen (which Donofrio believes to exist but which a plain reading of the text of Minor v Happersett totally fails to support) was “intended to lay the dissent’s fears to rest”. That is just silly. There is no definition. The fears of the dissent in 1898 are fully justified. The concurring opinion in Wong Kim Ark very strongly suggests, but does not come right out and explicitly say, that he is a natural-born-Citizen, eligible to run for the office of the presidency, just like any other second-generation natural-born-Citizen.
The brief submitted to the court in Georgia is *arguing* for a particular future scotus outcome, not *citing* a specific past outcome… and in fact he is arguing at several points for a *reversal* of past scotus language. I don’t say Donofrio is “merely arguing” because I don’t want to belittle his considerable efforts. But he is not laying out the obvious interpretation of the language — he is asking the scotus to select his particular somewhat-controversial interpretation of the language. He claims many times that the founders meant “natural born citizen” to be jus sanguinis (using a complicated argument involving translation-typos and the pigeonhole-principle), and he claims many times that Minor v Happersett *solely* defined the meaning of natural-born-Citizen (despite the plain language of the case), and furthermore claims many times that at different point in Minor v Happersett the scotus got it wrong, plus does the same thing with US v Wong Kim Ark (picking some parts he likes and pointing to other parts as places the scotus got it wrong).
Now, since I’m not a lawyer, let alone chief justice of the scotus, it would be wrong for me to say whether his arguments have any merit. Just like it’s wrong for me to say the C.R.S. report written by the Obama minion has no merit. The mechanism of the Constitution is, if you don’t like what the scotus has said, or you think something done by congress is unconstitional (such as permitting a non-natural-born-citizen to be the winner of the electoral college balloting process which is specified as being explicitly the responsibility of the congress to oversee), then you have only one recourse. Namely, you must bring your own case before the court with the correct jurisdiction. Then, at that point, after all the years of argumentation and all the appeals, eventually you come before the supreme court, and *they* make a final determination of what the law actually says.
Sometimes, as in the 1857 Scott decision, their final determination is overruled, by changing a wrong law through a constitutional amendment: the 14th amendment of 1868.
Sometimes, as in the 1875 Minor decision, their final determination is overruled, by changing a wrong law through a constitutional amendment: the 19th amendment of 1820.
Quite possibly, if the scotus ever hears a case concerning the meaning of natural-born-citizen, and whether or not (and if so how) the 14th amendment clarifies Art2, and just exactly what the meaning of the term “in” the USA means as found when consulting the language of the 14th amendment… maybe their decision will show us that we have the wrong law yet again, and only a 28th constitutional amendment will suffice to make things right. As to how the future will play out, I don’t know.
But from my reading of Minor v Happersett (as well as ex Parte Lockwood which merely cites Minor … and Perkins v Elg which once again fails to *solely* define NBC), the scotus absolutely does *not* fully and solely define the meaning of natural-born-Citizen, but merely points to a subset, without even saying whether it is a mathematically-strict subset or not. Similarly, from my reading of U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, the court recognizes a class of native-born citizens as distinct-n-separate from natural-born citizens BY REFERENCING THE SLAVES which existed, prior to the 13th and 14th amendments, within our country. Look at the raw text of the Wong Kim Ark decision — it explicitly is talking about the language from the Dred Scott decision. Therefore, I totally disagree that in Wong Kim Ark that “the court recognized a class” of born-Citizens separate from natural-born-Citizens, because it was the *losers* writing the dissent, and because those losers were referencing the *1857* decision which we fought the Civil War to overturn, and which the 14th amendment of 1868 did most certainly overturn.
That said, you’ve got me convinced that WE DO NOT ACTUALLY KNOW as yet whether or not Marco Rubio is eligible for the v/potus position, because of the “some doubts” line from Minor v Happersett. Until those doubts are fully and completely resolved — by a decision of the SCOTUS — as opposed to by the C.R.S. arguing in favor of Obama — or by Donofrio arguing against Obama — then the true meaning of the natural-born-Citizen clause will remain up in the air. That is a bad thing, because we are a nation of laws, not of politicians. I very badly want the law to be clear, so we can follow it strictly. I don’t want to have people that point out bugs in the law getting attacked as partisan eevvviill baaasstaarrrrdzzzz… I want them seen in a heroic light.
Donofrio, even though I think he’s wrong on the merits of the case, is playing the hero. I hope he gets his case to the scotus, but I hope he broadens the question from a simple decision about Obama, or about Rubio, into a laser-focus question about the exact meaning of NBC in Art2. Rather than suing Obama as the ‘bad’ defendant, he should concentrate on picking ‘good’ plaintiffs: Romney, Huckabee, Ron Paul, and the class of republican primary voters back in 2008 were potentially injured by McCain winning the repub potus nominee. Hillary, Edwards, and the class of dem primary voters, ditto for the 2008 dem potus nominee. There are future plaintiffs in the future, too, including folks potentially displaced by Rubio (and if not him in 2016 then *somebody* in some future election), and in the past we have B.Goldwater, C.Hughes, C.Arthur, and so on.
Point being, any *particular* named defendant will lead the scotus to their usual ‘lazy’ ways, ignoring the sweeping question about who is eligible to become prez, and instead just answering the specifics of the case at the bar, perhaps leaving many loose ends (just like they did with their subset-definition during the Minor v Happersett decision).
p.s. As you can tell, this is pretty much my own personal opinion. (What else can I rely on, without a firm scotus ruling?) As we heard from Rand in his speech in Tampa… When I heard about the decision upholding Obamacare, I thought to myself, obamacare is still unconstitutional! My wife told me to take a deep breath and count to ten. Well, I’ve had time to count to ten, and I still say, obamacare is *still* unconstitutional! Heh heh.
Anyhoo, because I’ve only studied the matter briefly, not to any extensive depth, I could easily be wrong. You’ve gone through it more deeply than me. You’ve followed the back-references, and read the positions of the founders, and all the rest. Clearly, so has Donofrio, and although I feel like he’s *arguing* for a particularly non-intuitive reading of the Constitution, rather than *citing* an already-well-supported position of the Constitution as upheld by the SCOTUS… that is a-okay in my book, even though I might disagree with the prima facie details of his argument.
Just because *I* don’t grok the argument, doesn’t make it wrong! Donofrio might be correct about Wong Kim Ark, and for that matter, Rand might be correct about Obamacare. I hope they both keep on fighting to persuade the rest of us, and fighting for the Constitution.
“You are burying me in posts.”
Sorry! But, as it turned out, I was just finished. I will read and digest more, and cogitate. Thanks for a good discussion on a complex topic. Even though we end up in disagreement, we did well in staying civil. With luck maybe the repub primary debates will be this substantive and this civil in 2016… nah. [grin] Anyways, thanks for the knowledge, and talk to you later.
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Now you’ve gone and done it!
You said ‘and because those losers were referencing the *1857* decision which we fought the Civil War to overturn’.
Historical events surrounding Fort Sumter, as well as Lincoln’s own words, show that this is not the case. The war was launched by the USA to forcibly repatriate the CSA, i.e. “to save the Union” because Lincoln wasn’t about to let it split up on his watch (never mind the fact that it officially fell apart on Buchanan’s watch). Slavery was part of the backdrop, but in the end it was the USA government’s refusal to back off of what the Carolinians reasonably viewed as unwarranted and unconstitutional acts of aggression against their state that caused the actual order of secession. Their secession turned the presence of federal troops at Moultrie and Sumter into a powderkeg issue. The war really began then, in January, with Buchanan ans Scott deciding to re-supply Sumter and call the governor’s “bluff”. The war was started by Buchanan over a state’s rights to its lands and right to secede, and Lincoln was determined to do anything necessary to restore the Union, including waging a war that never had to happen in the first place.
P’raps my phrasing should have said — which *ought* to have been the reason we fought the civil war, to overturn Dred Scott — instead? Furthermore, having looked at the history of how the 14th was ratified by the southern states (using military force to dissolve their state legislatures as many times as necessary until they finally gave in), I’m not very comfy with the genesis of the Republican Party. Cf the population of NV, when it was admitted to the Union just in time for the election of 1864. Makes the 2012 cheating in Tampa look less daunting, although not less immoral.
That said, the good thing about the civil was was that it ended slavery, and the *best* thing about the civil war is that the 14th amendment overturned Dred Scott, and simultaneously, finally fixed the most serious bug in the original Constitution: “No Person held to Labour, escaping, shall be discharged, but delivered up” … an execrable internal contradiction when contrasted with “all men are created equal” in the Declaration. The 14th is now being used to defend the 2nd, amongst other important duties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights#Specific_amendments
It is true that the original Constitution allowed states (in those days they were called States with good reason) to make laws explicitly contradicting the bill of rights… because it only was thought to apply to laws made at the federal level! Thus, although the Constitution guaranteed that no federal government would ever mandate a religion in violation of the 1st amendment, take away weapons in violation of the 2nd amendment, or institute slavery in violation of the inherent negative-natural-right of liberty, the State governments could, and did. The 14th fixed those bugs.
Secession from the union is another issue… and in particular, what the question boils down to is whether a state (say Hawaii) is able to take all the federal land and federal property, and found their own nation. There is a long legal tradition permitting individual citizens to become expats, but secession was an untested question, up until SC.
My take on secession is somewhat philosophical. Say you decide to be a tax protestor, and you own a 3-acre plot of land in downtown Honolulu. Can you declare your completely-surrounded house to be an independent nation, never to pay property-taxes to the city, never to pay sales-taxes to the state, never to pay income tax to the feds? Can you shoot down unauthorized aircraft/spacecraft directly above your roof, from sea-level to infinity? Can you ignore zoning laws, FCC & EPA regs, and the 14th amendment inside your new nation? Can you make a deal with Putin, to install an ICBM on your rooftop? See also, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Voluntary secession, without armed insurrection against the former ruler, isn’t possible. It can only *delay* the war over the act of secession, never eliminate the war.
Anyways, if this apology for my poor phrasing satisfies you, rather than talk about the mechanics of secession, and how seasteading expats is a better way, I’d rather steer the discussion back to the mechanics of remaking the repub party from within, and restoring the Constitution to a place of honor in our republic. But I do most definitely want the whole Constitution, 14th amendment included. Amendments I think are bad — such as the 16th — I want to deal with properly via further Constitutional amendments — in this case, a Constitutional amendment fixing a fixed-percentage flat-rate tax on personal income above a specific realdollar annual amount *and* preventing Congress from laying any other involuntary taxes at all.
Similarly, you’ve convinced me there is another bug (smaller but still important — just on principle — and also possibly in practice) in the Constitution, which is that the meaning of natural-born-Citizen in Art2 *may* be clarified by the definition of born-Citizen in the 14th, but then again might be *purposely* distinct in meaning. We need a scotus ruling on the question, and then possibly a Constitutional amendment, if we end up disliking the ruling. Ideally, getting a scotus case before 2015 will help settle the Rubio scenario.
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I don’t have much more to say on the secession issue, except on 3 points.
1) Re. the example of (say) Hawaii taking all the federal land and property and leaving to form a new nation, I think you bring a couple of interesting things to mind. For one, I really think the federal property should be limited to the D.C. plus any property acquired from other nations (UNTIL such property becomes a state, at which point it should be ceded to the state’s government – think of the money paid as ransom to free the state-to-be from the shackles of the big bad foreign power 🙂 ).
2) Also re. the Hawaii-taking-federal-lands example, this is exactly what happened in South Carolina. SC did not want to steal federal lands. They had provided the land for the federal forts, and there was even some dispute (even in the mind of President Buchanan himself) as to whether it was a long-term loan or whether it was an irrevocable gift. So, SC offered to purchase the forts and settle the problem the easiest way – with money. They didn’t want the garrisons of a foreign power sitting within their own port, and their position makes perfect sense (to me, at least).
3) The example of a solitary citizen declaring his completely-surrounded-by-Hawaii house as a separate country, refusing services and declining to be taxed, does not apply. That is not an act of secession, if secession is defined as ending one’s voluntary participation in the union. The country was not formed as a union of the joint and several people. It is a union of states. Individuals did not ratify the constitution – states did. I’m not sure at the moment what to call it, but I know it isn’t secession. I’m sure some of the more careless speakers out there would declare “Well, that’s clearly TREASON”, but it would not qualify as treason under the definition in the constitution, so I guess I’ll have to keep thinking to come up with the right word.
Doug I want to believe you are right, but 2 things:
1 Yesterday you predicted a sure Romney win
2 You are assuming that Rand will be given a fair chance in the process and not derailed by Santorum, Rubio, et al the same way his dad was.
Are you going to accuse Ron Paul of selling out or nepotism if he endorces Rand Paul for President? Rand Paul loves his father and did not sell him out to Romney. I am positive Rand discussed this with his Father before moving forward. It was a two prong offsensive for Liberty.
We are going to need those same people who were willing to vote for Romney to vote for Rand Paul in 2016 if we want to advance the cause of Liberty and win. I intend to fully support Senator Rand Paul for President if he decides to run.
I will say this, if we don’t agree on a strong liberty candidate like Rand Paul and unite. We will be handing another win over to the neo-cons and stuck in the same situtation or worse in 2016. Voting for a candidate just because they have a “L” next to their name is just a dangerous as voting for candidate just because they have a “R” or “D” next to their name.
Liberty First, Justice Always,
David Ryon
Columbus, Ohio
Rand Paul 2016!
“i want another ron paul,” i want another john locke and a martin luther king jr. guess what, it won’t’ happen. people like ron paul only come once in a life time, so while you whine and complain about the other liberty candidates the democrats and republicans will continue to win elections and freedoms will continue to be taken away. yes rand paul SAID things that go against our liberty movement for strategic purposes, but his ACTIONS are still on our side, juts look at his record! People we have to understand how to play this game if we want to win, this is politics, we need to stand united and learn to bargain and negotiate. like doug said, we might have to settle with a little less of our demands at times because remember we are the minority group in our country and our demands can scare the avergae citizen who isn’t familiar with our reasoning. i recommend watching Game Of Thrones, for everyone who knows the show just think about why eddard stark got killed and why varys and tyrion are able to survive and still fight a good fight. Politics my friend, the liberty movement needs to be more savy. Doug weed does this for a living, we should trust his advice on this. its not that we are going to compromise our principals, but rather we are going to pace ourselves for a long long battle that might take many years.
Rand has made a name for himself as a trader and no amount of “he had to play politics” is gonna cut it for someone like me.
Then you will never be on the the right side of history! A rigid mind demonstrates it’s small size.
I have to admire the uplifting tone and enthusiasm in this article, but I suspect the Republican oligarchy that employed Soviet style tactics and criminal election fraud to retain their hold on power will not change. The old Republican guard is morally bankrupt and must go if the party is to be viable in 2016.
There will be much better prospective candidates in 2016 than sell out Rand Paul. Give me a break!
I would still prefer to keep Rand in KY and have him run for Governor.
Well said!
2016 will go 1 of 2 ways… Rand will stick to his principals, run and be treated just like his father as they force Jeb Bush down everyone’s throats into the nomination. OR, Rand will win the nomination by talking about Liberty while fooling his supporters, becoming president and continuing the neo-con agenda just like Obama did.
…if he beats Hillary that is
Please do not say ridiculous things. Those are the things we wanted to debate this time. We did not debate them because the Democrats own the press and the television news rooms, and succeeded in forcing the discussion onto trivia.
Do you think they are going to disappear between now and 2016? Do you imagine they will be any more eager to discuss fundamental issues after four more years of ObamaCare?
Get real. Your Favorite Candidate is no more special than the last one, and the enemy is still the enemy.
Ill be happy to support Rand…two conditions
1-Liberty centered voting record.
2-NO Jesse Benton
Doug,
Thanks for all your hard and passionate work. Thanks, also, for this reasoned and eloquent essay. You say it so much better than I!
Forget it!! The Paul brand is dead. No point in throwing good money after bad.
But..but..Rand is a hero for intervening when his supporters attacked this woman ..oh wait..he didn’t lift a finger did he? You are correct b smith. Anyone thinking the below incident won’t follow Rand for the rest of his career is only fooling themselves or , in Doug’s case, looking to profit off the rubes (look at his last paragraph-who will get some of that money? Doug of course!)
That woman is a pro-riot starter. This video shows her shoving that sign into Rand’s window while the car was moving, and then you can see her running after him again before she is taken down. The dude who stomped on her head went to far and was charged for assault. Everyone else, including the man who tackled her, acted as they were supposed to when the candidate they were charged with protecting was threatened.
Yeah kicking a woman in the head as she is already subdues, lying on the ground is very manly…your response is a great example of why 99% of the country rejected you and your beliefs at the polls yesterday.
Libertarians: the REAL 1%
Jim… are you the woman in the video?
Bill your question reflects the intelligence level of the average Paul supporter. No wonder con-men like Paul and Wead were able to fleece supporters out of millions for a race they NEVER had any intention of winning.
Here ya go, Jim. We agree on one thing. Rand Paul is not my choice, either. Rand Paul is not Ron Paul. People who go with Rand based on his last name (as seems to be the case) are not thinking.
However, it was not Rand who kicked this woman in the head. You cannot assign that act to him. Instead, assign this to America’s out of control police, okay?
Out of control police annebeck58? Where? The video shows the out of control overzealous supporters that typify what happens when politicians like Paul peddle extremist rhetoric.
What most of you Rand haters won’t admit is that by the time that Rand endorsed Romney, it was over for Ron Paul. Do you hear me? It was over for Ron Paul. The establishment GOP was not going to let it happen. Ron Paul supporters did not have the overwhelming numbers to give Ron Paul the nomination. Most of the Republican Party are made out of obedient sheeple. Get over it! It meant nothing to Ron Paul at the time that Rand Paul made the announcement. Don’t throw out the good, looking for the perfect.
Hear, Hear! I support this message.
First, for Rand to go back now and recant his endorsement of Romney would make everything he ever says in the future suspect. I would like to see him say something more like
“In 2012, I endorsed Mr. Romney thought we could win it, and that would be the vehicle from which we could attack the statist big-government policies that have been killing our nation steadily since the [insert POTUS of choice here] administration. Obviously I was wrong – we didn’t win it – but I will keep trying to shine the light on those policies and will keep trying to end them so we can truly be free and prosperous once again.”
That part is not at all unreasonable to expect. He needs to admit he was wrong, but if he does it that way, then those 37 people who actually thought Romney was a good candidate will not demonize Rand over his mea culpa. But that is all the “spoonful of sugar” needed to get the medicine down.
Here is the medicine:
” … and the reason is that the cancer of statist big-government is not only deep within the Democrat Party, but sadly is flourishing within the Republican Party as well. In my view, it is so well entrenched and we as Republicans have lost so much credibility with the voting public that the situation can not be salvaged. I was elected to the Senate on the shoulders of the Tea-party patriots who were willing to buck the old GOP system in order to get back to our Republican roots. Their support was crucial, and will continue to be critical to the success of our efforts to restore American freedom, prosperity, and greatness.”
And here is the spoon:
“Therefore, today, I am announcing that after long and serious discussions with the leaders of (list names of various Tea-party groups), the Constitution Party, and the Libertarian Party, we have found more-than-sufficient common ground to unite in the creation of a new, unified political party, the TEA Party. I invite all those disillusioned with the state of our status-quo government to join us in promoting candidates and policies in keeping with the original goal of the Republican party – FREEDOM – freedom to make our own laws and to live by our own laws and for government to be small, effective, trustworthy, and accountable to the people. Now, I realize that not everyone who associates with a group agrees 100% with the rest of that group. To expect that would be willful ignorance. But all of us on this platform here today have a common fundamental vision of government and believe that a properly-constrained government operating within the clear bounds set for by our forefathers in our Constitution, can be ours again. There are some areas where those of us on this platform have some pretty serious disagreements about what we’d like to see in the U.S. federal government. That’s okay, because we all also acknowledge that in our Republic there are reasonable and lawful mechanisms to pursue those sorts of changes. But those mechanisms are not easy, and that is by design, to keep government stable and predictable, not easily derailed by emotion of the moment, but slowly, methodically, and carefully adaptable to the needs and perhaps even changing ideas of our and future societies. One of the most fundamental of our areas of agreement is that government to protect the people from enemies who would do us harm, but that such conflicts are defensive not offensive in nature. Our government also exists to protect the rights of the people from infringement by others (including by government itself). The beauty of our government being a union of States is that other functions, if so desired by the people, can be placed with and entrusted to the governments of the States wherever our wonderful Constitution does not demand and reserve a certain function be placed with the federal government. If we, as a nation, desire to expand (or contract) those federal powers and responsibilities, then our founders wisely gave us a means to do so. And, in fact, our Constitution has been amended 27 times over almost 225 years. I personally believe that we should have an ironclad Balanced Budget Amendment. I also personally believe that we should have an Amendment guaranteeing the same protections to all Americans regardless of the stage of their life (including the elderly, the infirm, children, and the unborn). I believe it is clear that, if the federal government needed a Prohibition Amendment in 1919 to effectively prohibit the personal consumption of a substance, then we likewise need a new Prohibition Amendment to do that same thing today or else we need to stop doing it. I will readily admit that there are those here with me on this stage that disagree with me on those points, but like me they are dedicated to working WITHIN the framework set forth in our Constitution, and are steadfastly opposed to ignoring it or working around it. Join us in this most worthwhile effort to immediately begin to nominate and elect representatives who will govern according to the law and TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK! Thank you! “
Okay, so my spoonful of sugar / medicine analogy doesn’t work exactly as written but that’s because I was careless. The ideas expressed are what is important.
Ron Paul’s actual message & policies == the medicine
Rand Paul’s perceived loyalty to the party == the sugar
Us liberty-folk helping ten more liberty-candidates win ten senate seats from the dems in 2014 after which all of them immediately join Rand’s senate tea party caucus group == the spoon
In the movie, the singer uses magic to eliminate all the effort required with personal responsibility. That song was written based on a story about the songwriter’s wife giving their kids some sugar with the new FDR-funded polio vaccine. After spending massive amounts of taxpayer money inventing the vaccine, and then even more vaccinating millions, the giant federal bureacracy disbanded. Happy ending, just like the movie!
Ohhhh, wait a minute… in *reality* they changed their name from the infantile paralysis foundation to a vague name referencing their federal-funding-oriented mission (remember the face on those dimes), and nowadays they are a classic example of a quasi-public entity which bilks the middle class taxpayer as a means of enriching the elites, paying their corporate president $600k per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Dimes#Criticism
Our re-interpretation of the classic song is that the children need to take personal responsibility, that the inventors of medical advances need to fund their work via the free market, and that the establishment elites need to take the message of liberty willingly, lest they suffer the consequences of *not* taking that message (cf day the music died).
Reblogged this on The Ruminations of an Orthodox Catechumen and commented:
Doug Wead, arguably the best man that Ron Paul’s campaign had, comes out immediately for Rand in 2016.
“The change that will be debated in the next presidential election will not be about tax percentages, or troop withdrawal timetables, or welfare for Big Bird, or who should be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. The change that will be debated will be about fundamentals, about monetary policy, about the philosophical underpinnings of our foreign policy, about the relevancy of the American constitution and where we are headed as a people.
It will not be the red team against the blue team, espousing the same things in different degrees, rather it will be about real differences.”
Reblogged this on Tru Blu ReView.
Well, it might be fine to start talking about 2016, but I think it is WAY premature to be putting too many eggs in Rand’s basket now. Too much time needs to go by and too many things can happen. Besides, there are other liberty minded candidates who got elected this time around, who may have qualifications to match or surpass those of Rand. Gary Johnson comes to mind. Ron Paul left the GOP to run as Libertarian and then returned to the GOP. There is no reason why Gary could not do the very same thing.
Rand needs to be very careful. His tendency toward pragmatism and political calculus will draw to him a core network of support that rejects the principled politics of his father. It will also subtily transform his own thinking into something indistinguishable from that of the typical useless Republican. Here’s just one of several potential examples: Foreign aid is wrong in principle; not just because the recipient countries don’t do what the US Govt wants, as Rand argues.
One thing I love about the Liberty movement is that, as a Christian, I actually end up arm in arm with atheists. As a conservative, I end up standing side by side with liberals. The thing that gives us strength is our diversity. We all have different opinions, but we all agree that we should be allowed those opinions. Diversity and disagreement are OK! They are great, actually.
I understand why some people are upset with Rand. Fair enough. But as Doug pointed out, his decision may have been a step back in order to get a run-up. I stand firm on my principles and ideals (more than most in my circle), but I also recognize that working those things out requires hard work over time and even calculated compromise designed to achieve a certain goal down the line. Would I have endorsed Romney? I don’t think so. But that’s me, and this is Rand, and we are all the Liberty movement. Despite the lamentations of some, Rand’s decision did not place him outside the camp, nor did it take the wind out of Ron’s sails as some suggest.
Let’s not make this something that divides our diverse movement. It’s OK to set it aside — even let go of it — and move forward. I don’t think, at this point, we have a better option than Rand Paul for 2016. MOREOVER, getting Rand into office in 2016 is arguably the best way to get other liberty candidates into office in 2020, 2024, etc. Not only into the White House, but into state and county offices where we need them just as badly.
So let’s get this issue out of our system and keep moving forward.
Thank you Mr Wead. It says how far the liberty movement has come when we have people of your caliber involved. Even if by some wild chance the caucus process worked perfectly and we elected Ron Paul (this was not going to happen) the people would rebel when they found out what he is about. The public still needs to be educated and we have to work tirelessly on that. If you are waiting for someone more perfect than Rand you are going to wait a long time and we are not going to have a chance to recover. You can’t have some obscure person and no one is perfect. You are all getting stuck on strategy not on beliefs. We don’t have time for this non sense. We have to educate and welcome every songle person we can behind the most electable candidate we have who understands what is happening. I have not heard anyone else seriously bringing up the Fed or ending wars for starters.
Yeah that’s just what the GOP needs to win general elections: more Sarah Palin! (<<saracasm)
Bait and switch as far as Ron Paul Goes. Rand is unqualified for president: he is also a turncoat. But Ron Paul is to blame for helping him. No thanks, I am on to the Paul’s now, and I will be burning my teashirt and sign and asking forgiveness for falling for this scam
I think actions will speak louder than words and Rand has a run for his money should Justin Amash throw his hat in the ring. Justin doesn’t have the luggage the Rand cast upon himself, and Justin has remained true to the cause. Looking back, what did Rand gain by supporting Romney? Not one single thing. It did not help him politically, and caused a devastating blow to his fathers campaign when it was at its apex. I am not saying that Rand will not be the liberty candidate, but it will be up to the movement to select the next champion of the constitution, and selling out does not favor the support of the Liberty movement. I know many folks here are stating “Rand did what he had to do”, yet his father never did, and remove the cheating, fraud, lies, and violence and Ron Paul might be moving into the White house in January. Rand has associated himself with a very questionable group that have zero respect in the Liberty movement, and Ron knew that no one person could make an announcement who we; the Liberty movement, would vote for. This is unchanged and pushing Rand is fine, but do not expect the support until he distances himself from the establishment, from those that sought to destroy his father and his campaign, and works every day to shut down the anti constitutional Obama administration as well as stays on top of the neocon coup he chose to support over his father. it was a gamble and he lost, the GOP lost, and most of all the American people lost. I truly hope he can rebuild what he has destroyed by following the advise of the establishment, and going along to get along, but t will require a great amount of work on his part, as the Liberty movement moves forward with or without him.
A strong ‘No’ to Rand Paul.
Without the support garnered by Ron, his dad, Rand would not have been elected dog catcher. To then promote interventionist policies, policies his dad stood against was both a slap in the face to all of Ron’s supporters and repugnant at its core.
Don;t support political family franchises . Say ‘no’ to dynasties and look for other candidates. With a population of over 300 million there are plenty of possibilities.
Boston Joe,
Thank you!
Rhonda
November 20, 2012/Tuesday
We need to realize we cant have Ron and that he may not have been electable but his son is. Rand is just playing politics. He has not hurt the cause. Ron had no chance when Rand endorsed Romney. We need to stop being so stubborn and short sided. Imagine if u were Rand, growing up listenimg to your passionate father talk about liberty and corruption and loosing every legislative battle he was in. How frustrating would that be? He campaigned for his dad his whole life. He is no sell out. Wake up! He is just doing things in a way thats more appealable to the people we need support from. He is a true Libertarian who just has to play these games.
Doug, I agree.
Doug,
I agree with you. Actions speak louder than words. While I didn’t like Rand mixing with those that harmed his father, you have to look at voting record. He is solid with constitutional rights, monetary policy, and opposition to endless war. Thank you again for your enormous contribution to the Liberty Movement. Keep up the good work. Best, Kenn
“This is the lesson of this past election. If Romney and those recalcitrant GOP bosses didn’t need us in 2008, we will need them in 2016. And we will have to forgive them and honor them and cherish them.”
Jesus Christ said:
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Now, Mr. Wead, very few people is able to do this. Not in spiritual terms, not in moral terms, not in political terms. In fact, most of the “theological” work of most of most intelligent and learned people over the centuries has consisted in twisting and spinning the words of Jesus to avoid the moral reform that every individual must undergo, and justify the natural and fallen instincts and reasonings that we all have. That is, justifying sin. The political “sins” are also justified by many, since it is preferable to behave like an angry, spoiled child.
Everyone loves to sulk over anything.
I think it’s the best to underline the concept of intellectual reform. You are doing your best effort in that area. I hope you succeed, but it’s a tough job. I hope others, like Jack Hunter, and Jerry Doyle, don’t fall into the temptation of demagogery or lying for the cause of political victory.
_________
One thing that Rand Paul should do as soon as possible is to ask for the pardon for Irwin Schiff and his acolytes, and many other people who has suffer under the legal terrorism of the State and Federal Government. And also ask restitution for these heroes. Irwin Schiff must be free. America must end personal income tax, so that other countries follow the lead, and thus put and end to the overreach of Governments.
What about the department of education, or energy, or the bailouts. Will Rand Paul support the abolition or will he join the socialist ranks? Surley there are more millions of posible voters among the socialists than among the libertarians (Rand is not a libertarian, or so he said), but if he is going to be another socialist, then there will be no intellectual change.
What will happen with the competing currencies theme?
And what will happen with the reform of the electoral system?
What about the 1021 section of the NDAA, Rand should rant about that every single day starting tomorrow. He has spoken many times against TSA, so the NDAA should pose no problem to him.
Rand Paul may be a good president, but if he does as Reagan (talk the talk, but not walk the walk), the little hearts of thousand of american patriots will be, once more, broken. Please, no more treason.
God Bless
It was Ron Paul that began the Tea Party movement with his presidential bid in 2008. The Tea Party Movement was corrupted by neo-con Republicans thinking they could use it and control it to their advantage but they were wrong as usual.
The Ron Paul Revolution is healthy and alive. 8 of the 11 House Candidates that were endorsed by Ron Paul won their elections. The one senate candidate Ted Cruz…who received a Ron Paul endorsement won as well. We have Senator Rand Paul in Kentucky.
I am considering a run for the US House of Representatives in Ohio CD-3 on the Republican ticket in 2014 but I have learned in order to have a chance to win you need at least $150,000.00. My entrance into the race is conditional on raising the needed money. I will only run if I have the funds and a chance to win. And without the funds, there is almost no chance for any candidate to win. And of course, I would seek Ron Paul’s endorsement. His endorsement means so much to me even if I loss at the ballot box, I would still feel like a winner.
Excuse me, Mr. Wead, can you clarify why the Romney Rules are now moot?? Even tho, yes, they won’t be used now to prevent a primary challenger to Romney had he been elected here…won’t they be utilized to help ensure that establishment gets their desired candidate in 2016?! Am I missing something Mr. Wead?!?!?!
Excellent point. The rules that minion Ginsberg rammed through the subcommittee, and the rules which were then teleprompter-rigged past the body of the delegates, are still allegedly in force.
#1 It is possible that Doug is predicting a rosy ending, where instead of using their alleged-new-rule#12 powers to destroy the tea party (and the pauliticians of course) by using the paulitician forces as an excuse and a scapegoat for Mitt’s loss and for the loss of the senate, maybe the jarring reality of 4 more years of Obama will mean the RNCmte will back down rather than pressing their luck.
#2. It is also possible that Doug thinks (or with his inside position on the negotiations with the romney campaign… perhaps knows?) that Mitt was personally the driving force behind the attack on the tea party, and that without him at the helm, the push to utilize alleged-new-rule#12 will dissipate.
#3. Personally, I am *extremely* worried that when the RNCmte convenes for their first meeting after the November election, which will be sometime in early January, they will start wielding their alleged-new-rule#12 with a vengeance, to prevent any chance of a liberty prez in 2016, and to consolidate elite DC insider control of the repub party. To prevent this, I suggest you start looking at the party leadership in your state — your portion of the RNCmte is the state-repub-party-chair plus the National Comitteewoman & National Committeeman. Those folks might be liberty-people, such as in Maine and Alaska, but more typically they are establishment-types.
Unless you *already* know these folks personally, rather than spam them with your direct appeal, though, better to pass a resolution denouncing the new rules as being passed under questionable-bordering-on-fraudulent circumstances, and asserting that therefore the 2008-as-amended-in-2010 rules are, and of right ought to be, still fully in effect. They did that in NH at their state convention (somewhat watered down unfortunately by establishment-types on the state-platform-cmte), and are also doing it county-by-county in Texas. Find out who is on your county repub party central/executive committee, and drum up support.
___j___
#3 is the correct answer. And the wordy epithets following are spot one!
Well done!
I’ll add that a lawsuit to negate rule #12 needs to be filled ASAP…since it was obviously PREDETERMINED TO PASS (as such the ‘aye’ vote was fraudulently announced as true).
If we ever want a candidate that is truly “for” the people we have got to have our own “media”. IT kills me that they kicked the judge off TV. Even worse to see Huckabee get his own show? For what? I would like to see Ron Paul get his own show..a supporter funded show. If he would have been given free reign to educate the people by the media we would be celebrating a Ron Paul presidency. The GOP would not have gotten away with all the fraud either and maybe his own son would have seen you stick with your own Dad and your principals no matter what. That is the appeal of Dr. Paul. He is consistent, steadfast and never waivers if our constitution is being attacked. The media is selecting our president and that will only change when we the people have a real voice that talks about the real issues and warns us when sell out elected reps are about to betray us again. Until then a Rand Presidency is a pipe dream unless he continues to compromise his stances.
Here are some numbers that will sober you up!
A lot Less than Half of the eligible voters bothered to cast their votes this time around.
So the “winner” got less than 1/4 — meaning over 75% of the American People do not care for Lil’ Hussein!
1) The 2012 “election” was reduced by 12 Million (that is a huge decline from last election — showing that nearly 10% of the previous voters decided that NEITHER is worth the effort)!
2) Who voted for Barack Hussein — and how this reflects on who determines our Nation’s path?
a) 99% Lesbians and Gays
b) 98% African Americans
c) 95% Latinos (Mexicans)
d) 92% Jews
e) 91% Unmarried Mothers
Qvo Vadis America?
How many Catholics voted for Obama (AKA Barry Soetoro)?
How many main stream protestants voted for Obama?
How many evangelicals dared not following their chiefs crazy orders (vote for Romney)?
How many Ph.D.’s (supposedly learned people) actually wasted time going to the polls?
The people who chose Obama over Romney are the same kind of people who chooe Romney over Paul, or who would have chosen anyone but Paul for GOP nominee. I always thought that Romney was the preferred candidate of the Democrat party. There is proof now.
Something that might be important: this has been the first Presidential election since 2010 census. That fact should tweak many experts analysis a little bit.
My name is Doug Shreffler. I have tried to find an email address to ask permission for this post first. I am a Presidential candidate on the Democoratic ticket for 2016. I would like Doug Weed to contact me, I will give him a personal phone number, use the email on this website. http://www.dougshrefflerthenextpresident.com
I am g4 classified and wish a discussion, he may run me first.
I want his approval to post ocassionally here and start a discussion here. I hope he will leave a great comment, and ask me what I think,
that goes for everyone. I will answer all questions I must say I am new and never used blogging, I hope Doug Weed will allow me this privilage here. Again, I urge Doug to send an email, I will give him my personal cell contact and wish to discuss a couple of vital interests. I am also g4 classified with an extensive Civil Service background. I have great insights, and a quite unique ability to
create plans for long term US needs. With this, I urge doug’s phone contact. and I urge the publics contact and will answer any questions about his topic on this thread. Thanks everyone,
I am an unknown and a common man starting from zero capital, can the country get behind a common man in the Presidential race today?
http://www.dougshrefflerthenextpresident.com
Ron Paul’s 2002 Predictions All Come True – Incredible Video!
We have now lost our Nation to a Government that will have no mercy on We, The People!
Spread this 6 minute video like wild fire!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifJG_oFFDK0&feature=endscreen)
*NEWS FLASH, NEWS FLASH, NEWS FLASH*
Today, 11-09-2012, Ron Paul speaks out against all the evils that we are now facing!
Watch this 30 minutes video and spread it like wild fire!
(No longer encumbered by having to choose his words, while running for the presidency, Ron Paul NOW speaks his mind — AND ALL SHOULD LISTEN)!
Mark my words — freed from the confines of playing the NECESSARY TACTICAL Game in the chase of getting elected — Ron Paul will NOW have a much greater impact in reaching all people!
There cannot be a debate that Ron Paul is the Greatest TRUE AMERICAN of the 21st Century!
And NOW, his words will reach even greater audiences that will DELIVER HIS MESSAGE OF THE LIBERTY MOVEMENT as our Nation further slides into Poverty and Despotism by the Criminals that are In Power of Our Government Today!
Watch this video from minute 33:23 till 58:49!
(Huckster Alex Jones is tolerable — since Ron Paul is talking)
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbg8ranlUjU&feature=player_embedded)
“And we will have to forgive them and honor them and cherish them.” I’m afraid you have it somewhat backwards. The liberty movement told the Republicans that they can’t win without us, and the Republicans responded by insulting Ron Paul and his supporters.
If we are to give them one more chance that they don’t deserve, we need to give them an ultimatum – no more insults, no more ignoring us, no more throwing us under the bus, no more statist Republicans. For years they said we need to support them so that they will eventually deliver more liberty minded candidates, now it is their turn. They need to learn to honor us and cherish us, or they need to learn to love failing.
Hell yes Doug, I agree. Play the game enough to get good. Hold on to your roots and win. Rand gets it. There’s no way Ron Paul’s son is going to double cross the movement. He grew up in the lap of the movement. We all say we would never turn our backs on liberty and we just heard some speeches. How can we think Rand is gonna falter. Don’t be unreasonable people, he is so ripe. Time to juice the fruit of liberty. Don’t be all extreme. I’ve sacrificed my queen many times to lure my opponents into check mate. Yet everybody’s all salty about an endorsement. Hogwash. Opportunity is knocking. Let it in.
Principles we must stand by!
“A government big enough to give you everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have….” Thomas Jefferson
“They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security” BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
“Freedom is not merely the opportunity to do as one pleases; neither is it merely the opportunity to choose between set alternatives. Freedom is, first of all, the chance to formulate the available choices, to argue over them — and then, the opportunity to choose.” C. WRIGHT MILLS
“When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.” DOROTHY THOMPSON
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”—Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” EDMUND BURKE
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” ABRAHAM LINCOLN
“We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birth-place or origin.
But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn’t doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.” — Written in a letter by then former President Theodore Roosevelt on January 3, 1919 to the president of the American Defense Society.
I’ve never understood why so many Ron Paul fans get their panties in a bunch just because Rand isn’t a clone of his father. He endorsed Romney, who cares? What did it hurt? Look at his voting record, he’s playing the game because I’m sure he’s fully aware, short of another Revolution, we’re stuck with a 2 party system. I supported Ron the past 2 elections and I’d support Rand in a second. Hopefully we’ll even have another election.
Rand Paul 2016. An eye for an eye, and a truth for a truth.
I’m with RP up until they talk about cutting our military bases to 20% of what they are today. You guys make Barack Obama look like a hawk.
It’s an easy exercise. Step 1) All bases are slated to be closed. Every single one. Step 2) Base commanders and theater commanders get to provide an argument why their base should be kept open ( suggested report page limit: 50 pages). Step 3) Evaluate whether 20% goal is reasonable Step 4) begin closing unnecessary and superfluous bases.
This happens periodically for bases here in the states. There is no reason not to do a critical review of overseas bases.
John, which bases do you think are absolutely required to be kept open? Your list should be well over 40, maybe well over 100, based on your comment.
John, as was well-explained by Neville, the point of cutting our bases (especially overseas — which is where the ~20% figure you cited applies — cutting bases domestically is not the same kettle of fish) primarily is about zero-based budgeting. Just because we have a base somewhere, and have for decades, does that mean it serves our national security interests *now* as crucially as it once did? More to the point: can that vast amount of money we are investing in staffing and defending and maintaining that small toehold in a foreign land … or sometimes not-so-small as you know … really be justified? We are BORROWING every single dollar of that funding, with our trillion dollar deficit — we live high on the hog, and the grandkids get the bill.
But your final statement is actually more interesting to me. We can argue logically about whether cutting bases is better than continuing to borrow money. Reagan borrowed extravagantly, for example — and although some Ron Paul folks (including Ron Paul himself when he left the repub party in 1988) say that Reagan was wrong, in my estimation *that* borrowing spree was justified. We had a great credit rating, a booming economy, and a very powerful enemy who was ideologically and politically committed to matching us dollar for dollar on defense spending: Reagan’s borrowing spree, plus Reagan’s funding of Osama in the 1979 Afghan war, is what tipped the USSR over into economic collapse. The cost was terrible, but I would argue it was worth it.
Nowadays, *we* are the ones spending our nation into the grave, *we* are the ones mired in the 2009 Afghan war, and *we* are the ones pulling QE3_INDEFINITE_DURATION which risks an economic collapse. Bush invaded Iraq. Obama ended that war, but on the timeline signed into law by Bush on new year’s eve of 2008, and furthermore shifted most of the funding to Afghanistan, or into drones. Your statement that Obama is a hawk compared to Ron Paul was intended to show how *bad* of a guy Ron Paul must be, since even the *dem* wants more wars and more killing and more billions spent… but what you say is pure fact. Obama does not merely look like a war hawk — he is a war hawk, in his actions. Look at his Libya invasion (and the blowback when we lost our ambassador in Benghazi) and look at his deployment of 100 troops to the Jordanian border with Syria (without bothering to notify congress let alone ask for a declaration of war). Look at Obama’s repeated use of executive orders to tighten the stranglehold on Iran, and his drones in their airspace — remember the one that crashed there a few months back?
Democrats moaned and groaned when Bush was prez, about how he was a warmonger… but Obama not only continued all the Bush policies (sometimes with tweaks and other times without), he also made all-new policies of his own… which if a repub prez had instituted them, would have the media and the vocal dems screeeeaaamming. When their guy does it, they stay mostly quiet, or even *supportive* like this article about how militant democrat female diplomats is a triumph for democracy — http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/03/20/libya-airstrikes-hillary-clinton-and-the-women-who-called-for-war.html Every once in awhile you see something like this — http://ultravires.ca/2012/02/obama-the-neo-liberal-war-hawk/ — but only because the author is a CANADIAN, not an Obama-admin beneficiary here in our own mainstream media at home.
Point being, if you compare the war-budget of Bush/Romney with the war-budget of Obama/Hillary with the war-budget of somebody like Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, you can call Obama the 90% funded guy, Romney the 110% funded guy, and the libertarian-leaning repubs as the guys that want to return funding-levels to their ~2005 levels. That is *not* radical, my friend.
yr wars gdp war%gdp
2012 711 15127 4.7
2011 690 15094 4.6 [obama steady 4.7% avg]
2010 690 14526 4.8
2009 640 13939 4.6
2008 660 14369 4.6
2007 605 14028 4.3 [bush post-troop-surge 4.5% avg]
2006 520 13377 3.9
2005 480 12623 3.8 [bush post-9/11-attack 3.8% avg]
2004 470 11853 4.0
2003 430 11142 3.9
2002 370 10642 3.5
2001 315 10286 3.1 [last time fed budget balanced]
Our steady $600-to-700 billion for war is about double what we spent in 2001, and nearly 5% of GDP. Ron Paul would have reduced the war budget to ~500 bil, Gary Johson to ~450 bil, a bit over 3% of GDP. Is that lower? Sure — and every penny saved is a penny we can stop borrowing from the unborn.
Is that insecure? Maybe — national security is relative to the worst-case-imaginable-scenario international threat-level. Here it is: china + russia + saudi + turkey + etc, sum is ~300B today. Our main international allies: uk + france + japan + india + germany, sum is ~300B today. Objectively, looking at these numbers, *we* need a defense budget of >300B only if we plan to fight on five fronts simultaneously, with no allies whatsoever. The only way you can justify spending ~5% of our GDP on war is if we are deeply threatened. I will point out that we are NOT at war with China, with Russia, with the Sauds, or with the Turks.
Instead, we are at war with intangible concepts: the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on international poverty, the war against tinpot dictators we happen to dislike at the moment, the war to win the election. (Oops, did I say that last one out loud?) Please, look into the math. You like the liberty-wing of the repub party on the domestic issues already, but if we want to cut welfare budget, we have to offer the dems in congress something in return — cuts to the military budget. If we repubs fail to accept any military cuts, then the dems will refuse to accept any welfare cuts (meanwhile
always harping on raising taxes), until eventually our national credit will be gone, overnight. If that happens, we are going to be forced to make emergency cuts, and might face martial law here.
Republicans need to be smart, look at the numbers, and figure out how to CUT SPENDING. The democrats like Obama aren’t going to do it, because they don’t *care* about cutting spending. Obama is happy to spend like a warhawk, as long as he can ALSO spend like a welfare czar. We must halt Reid in 2014, and Hillary in 2016. Romney lost to Obama in 2012 because Mitt refused to face the hard facts: we must cut the war budget now, not boost it by another 200 billion. We must *invert* the 1500 billion dollar deficit, within five years of finally getting a repub president in office, not in the 2039 of Romney-Ryan. Our unsustainable debt and our unfunded welfare liabilities are *the* most critical threat to our long-term national security, bar none. Pretending we can just do some tinkering, and that Obama’s ideas just need some tweaking, will ruin us (remember when Mitt said he would keep “some parts” of Obamacare?). That sort of pretending excites nobody, which is why Mitt got a mere 57m voters, less than McCain. Guess what sort of stances Jeb Bush will be taking in 2016?
p.s. If you’re unhappy with the idea of generic military cuts, or with cuts to our bases overseas in particular, then maybe it will help if you look for some specific areas that you think could be cut. For my own pet cuts, do we need to have *three* nuclear capabilities: nuke subs, nuke ICBMs, and nuke strategic bombers? Cutting any one of the three would save us billions every year. Consider the war on drugs, as another idea. Is is worth borrowing from the grandkids to put hippie potheads in jail — we now have 1% of the population in jail at some point during their lifetime, which is insanely high by both international and historical standards. I’ve got no interest in hemp byproducts personally, but why do we prohibit marijuana, yet allow alcohol, which is arguably far more deadly? Delve into the details, find some boondoggle pork-barrel corporate defense-contractor bureaucracy you think the feds have no business being involved with, and then tell us about it here. We’ve got four more years of Obama to suffer under, but I suggest we get started making a detailed plan with specific spending cuts, now.
___j___ , I don’t what to say except … “if I wasn’t already married …” . Very, very well said.
Ron Paul schools Barack Hussein:
“If you don’t know the Constitution (the one you swore to protect) you shouldn’t be in Office.”
10 minute video — spread it like wildfire!
(also, note how without a teleprompter Lil’ Hussein can’t put two words together without mumbling, bumbling and stumbling)
I don’t think I can support Rand in the future after the Romney nomination. I really don’t think I could….
Liberty Live Stream Team, (the SURIYAHFISH brand), will interview Doug Wead tonight on their Live show, more information here.
http://www.dailypaul.com/262829/doug-wead-live-tonight-9pm-est-on-the-liberty-live-stream-team-show-with-the-fish-sisters
JOAN the SILENCER! Doug Wead SILENCED!
BREAKING NEWS!
***Petition for Texas to secede from US reaches threshold for White House response***
The People are finally Waking Up!
—————————————————-
The petition on WhiteHouse.gov asks the Obama administration to “peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government.” The petition had surpassed 34,000 signatures as of Monday evening.
Similar petitions from other states have also been filed including: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee. However, unlike the petition from Texas, none of these states had reached the 25,000-signature threshold to get an official White House response as of Monday evening.
Rand Paul for President 2016…of Texas.
Just for the sake of completeness I want to point out that this is not some new action that sprung up because of BHO’s re-election. This has been happening for years now, including when Bush was elected.
Neville —
It is the first time such huge number has signed, thus MANDATING an official response from the White House!
Well, that would be interesting. Maybe it will happen. As of the filing of the article, the threshold had not been reached, but it could still happen.
Doug —
I respect your intellect, and your commitment to restoring Liberty and Prosperity in America!
However, Logic necessitates that your above pep talk be dissected (sorry).
———————————————————————————–
“Rand Paul for President: 2016”
The Premise upon you build your argument IS that Rand Paul will be viable by 2016 (assumes that he, Rand Paul, will have no competition by thousands others, or, that if EVEN One other Republican has moxy, Rand Paul will still prevail).
————————————————————————-
Next:
1) “…. The recently adopted Romney Rules at the RNC, which would have locked out any true democratic participation and guaranteed eight more years of GOP establishment, top-down, Brahman-style, domination, are now moot….”
Fallacious — The rules are STILL in place to assure that in 2016 only the Top Chosen Republican determines which delegates get approved (your “moot” is only based on a Patriot winning, and is invalid if another Mitter gets the heads-up from the GOP).
—————————————————————————
Next:
“…This is the lesson of this past election. If Romney and those recalcitrant GOP bosses didn’t need us in 2008, we will need them in 2016. And we will have to forgive them and honor them and cherish them…”
Fallacious assumption that the RNC bosses will permit anyone but their own kind (an establishment crony) to become Top Dog ala Rmoney, again!
Therefore, instead of “honor them and cherish them ” these GOP Elitists need to be brought to Justice. Lawsuits need to be filed ASAP to remove them from their positions, and also, to re-instate the original Ron Paul people that won their seats fair-and-square!
———————————————————————————–
Next:
“…So, get a good job. Make some money. Lots of money. And get ready for the next installment of the Liberty story. In a few years, or a few months, the real work begins again. Run Rand Run…”
Assumption, after an assumption after another assumption (too many assumptions, Doug):
Get a good job in this Depression, and make lots of of money — what kind of Money, Doug…the ever becoming NEAR WORTHLESS Federal Reserve Notes..?!
————————————————————————————–
Doug, you have stated a possibility that has a chance in less than a thousand.
But, I do hope you are correct for a change!
I’d support Rand Paul if we ever get another Election — and if he is still around in another 4 years.
***Petition for Texas to secede from US reaches threshold for White House response***
The People are finally Waking Up!
—————————————–
The petition on WhiteHouse.gov asks the Obama administration to “peacefully grant the State of Texas to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government.” The petition had surpassed 34,000 signatures as of Monday evening.
(interesting language: “to peacefully grant”…what would happen if it is not peacefully granted?)
Similar petitions from other states have also been filed including: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee. However, unlike the petition from Texas, none of these states had reached the 25,000-signature threshold to get an official White House response as of Monday evening (with 30 days to go, how many States would also qualify?)!
Here is the MSM link (with their usual spin):
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/12/15117305-petition-for-texas-to-secede-from-us-reaches-threshold-for-white-house-response?lite
Could it be possible for Rand to finally break this one party duopoly? Is the beast too big to be bested by a person of courage and conviction? A person who could bring forth to this nation an idea whose time has come – again? Could Rand be the one to deliver what his father inspired – the completion of the r3VOLution that will sorely be needed by 2016? Rand Paul 2016 – Independent? Whatever way he chooses, from what I’ve seen so far, he’s our man. We’ll see …
“And we will have to forgive them and honor them and cherish them.”
Forgive? …I would possibly “Overlook” in trade for actually making some progress, but never Forgive or Forget.
Now on the Honor & Cherish? lol Are you serious?
I’d rather suck feces thru a straw…
Ron Paul:
“In a free country, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When the people have very clearly withdrawn their consent for a law, the discussion should be over. If the Feds refuse to accept that and continue to run roughshod over the people, at what point do we acknowledge that that is not freedom anymore? At what point should the people dissolve the political bands which have connected them with an increasingly tyrannical and oppressive federal government? And if people or states are not free to leave the United States as a last resort, can they really think of themselves as free?”
Spread this 4 minute message like wildfire!
Ron Paul: You’re Not FREE if you Can’t Secede from an Oppressive Government
“In a free country, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When the people have very clearly withdrawn their consent for a law, the discussion should be over. If the Feds refuse to accept that and continue to run roughshod over the people, at what point do we acknowledge that that is not freedom anymore? At what point should the people dissolve the political bands which have connected them with an increasingly tyrannical and oppressive federal government? And if people or states are not free to leave the United States as a last resort, can they really think of themselves as free?”
Spread this 4 minute message like wildfire!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RrBCT_NXI&feature=player_embedded)
My Take:
The District of Columbia (Washington, DC) — where the White House and all Federal Governmental Agencies reside — have passed the point by their anti-American-anti-Constitution ACTIVITIES that they have FORFEITED THE RIGHT to be called the USA. De facto, THEY have already SECEDED from the Union by constitutional default, and any State that wants to secede from THEM is a State that wants to RETURN BACK to the Original CONSTITUTIONAL USA!
Faced with a MANDATORY Response to the Secession Petitions — two top chickens from the White House have flown the coop — Barack Hussein left for Asia, and Hiltlery Clinton is Israel bound!
These two may run, but won’t be able to escape how their underlings respond!
Rand supporters, don’t be hatin on me… but I’m fixing to bust him good. He needs a spanking after the Romney endorsement, And I intend to deliver such… 🙂
*I Dreamt of Free America* (a friend of mine that escaped the Soviet Block in 1968 asked me to post this for him):
“I lived in a Communist Country that was totalitarian. In the morning I woke up to TV news that told me how great our Socialist Government was, then read the same in their newspapers, while waiting in line for bread. I was then 16 years old.
My parents went to work before the break of dawn, and came home exhausted each day after 7pm. The meager dinners we had were the best of times — my parents taught me not to believe the lies the communists told, but to dream that there is a truly FREE COUNTRY called America, where we’ll all try to escape to someday!
School I hated — it was six days a week back then — and all they taught us was how great our socialist leaders were, and how wonderful the world would be once Communism is achieved.
Every other Sunday, my parents and I (just like all our neighbors) had to attend in a basement the local Commissar’s mandatory gathering. Here, all had to pledge allegiance to our Socialist Republic, and have us tell on neighbors and friends who might be an Enemy of the State. The Commissar always made a patriotic call that ANY CHILDREN, that have seen or heard, their parents say something against the State MUST report them, since that is how our country would be saved from internal foes.
I’m sadden to recall that there were a few children that reported their own parents (these children did get an extra allowance of candy, AND THE RARE Chocolate bar…and we envied them, since Chocolate was an unheard of luxury back then), but next time we never saw their parents….
But I loved my parents and respected them — and no Chocolate bar could ever replace them.
We did escape in 1968 — and came to Freedom, the Greatest Country in the World back then, the USA!
My parents died in the 1980’s, and I no longer mourn them — because I’m happy they did not live to see what this nation has become!”
——————————————————
“Right now our USA is no different than the communist country I escaped from over 40 years ago!
Please, do not let my tale die with me.”
Ron Paul: Obama’s Reelection Is a Bad Sign for America
Must watch 6 minute video — spread it like wildfire!
Ron Paul’s 2002 Predictions All Come True – Incredible Video!
Watch this 5:52 minute video till the very end! — and spread it like wildfire!
Illegal Everything…in America!
re: John Stossel (from FOX News)— spread this video like Wildfire, showing that nearly All our Liberties are GONE!
———————————————————
It is estimated that over 1/2 Billion Negative Laws, Rules and Regulations have been created by the Federal Government in the last 40 years.
This number is STAGGERING — More NEGATIVE LAWS than there are Americans (counting all men, women and children in the USA) TELLING US WHAT WE CANNOT DO (thus negative laws) upon the THREAT Of GOVERNMENTAL PUNISHMENT!
All these UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAWS are enforced by gun-totting UNIFORMS — if you have not run afoul of such, try selling Lemonade on our lawn…and see how many gun-toting Uniforms will come to shut you down by the threat of their guns they so proudly wear!
———————————————————
Some are awakening to the fact that Our Citizens have become the most government controlled peoples on this Planet today!
These Few Enlightened Citizens, these Brave Patriots, these pure Souls in search of TRUE Justice and Liberty for All, have started petitions in all 50 States to Secede from the Federal Government that by its anti-Constitutional and anti-American ACTIVITIES has FORFEITED THE RIGHT to be called the USA.
The goal of the Secession Petitions is not to break away from the Union, but to negate the Unconstitutional Powers that Washington, DC has usurped for their own anti-American interests, and return ALL States to the Original (Organic) US Constitution!
It is shameful that the Main Stream Media, and their parroting, brainless shills, have such fear of the Truth, and are spreading false and silly accusations to this American Principle — Secession (if we did not Secede from Tyrannical England, we would not be called Americans)!
#1/5. Rhonda, thanks for your kind words. I have some harsh words to say in return — but they are not aimed at you, as a personal attack! It is tough to get a good tone across, through this plaintext internet. I enjoy reading your posts, and you clearly have a good heart, and a steady mind. So, although I’m about to criticize some things that you do, and use that as a jumping-off-point to criticize things I have seen other people do, please take it as I intend it… constructive criticism, from one lover of liberty to another. And, ummmm, speaking of constructive criticism for each other… you gently pointed out that my posts are waaaaay toooo loooonnnnnnngggg… and you are correct! I’ve tried to make this one as terse as possible (but no terser)… but this is still 3500 words, sorry. I’ll keep working on writing better haiku, rather than my usual novels.
Rand Paul’s voting-record is not the problem. We agree! He has the best voting-record in the senate, possibly tied with Mike Lee. We should continue to keep an eye on his voting-record, however, because Jeff Flake and Ted Cruz and Deb Fischer just got elected senators, and Dean Heller and Mike Lee and Jim DeMint were re-elected, so now Rand has some extra competition. And some new allies! (If the liberty-vote during the Indiana race wasn’t split between the tea-party-Repub senate nominee and the Libertarian senate nominee, Rand would have had another name in his senate-tea-party-caucus. https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/rand-paul-for-president-2016/#comment-34014 Foolish infighting caused us in the liberty-movement to shoot ourselves in the foot — not only the Indiana senate race suffered from this pervasive problem, as I will talk more about later.)
Rand Paul’s endorsement, by itself, was not the problem, either. We agree! But many folks in the liberty-movement were, and still are, very angry about it. Which is silly, since Rand only endorsed Romney *because* he was going to be the nominee (something Rand promised to do back in 2010 as a way to stay a Republican In Good Standing). Is it fair that the Party elites have rigged the game this way, where if you aren’t on the RIGS list, you get no committee seat in the senate? No. But we have to work within the system, if we want to remake it from within, and as I’ve argued elsewhere, the *only* way we can peacefully restore the Constitution is by remaking the Party from within. Someday, when we win, we can abolish the RIGged rules. In the meantime, either we give up these symbolic things… and sometimes *not*-so-symbolic things, such as the new Party ‘rule’ keeping Jim DeMint from supporting liberty-candidates in states where there is already a sitting establishment-repub-incumbent… or we must necessarily accomplish less. Endorsing the nominee is a necessary, but symbolic evil… as long as we never endorse them until they are mathematically guaranteed to win the nomination (no sooner and no later). That is exactly what Rand did. However…
___j___
If one cares to slowly read what Rand Paul said (word by word), one would understand that Rand Paul did not actually endorse Mitt Rmoney — Rand Paul talked of his father, Ron Paul, and belittled Mitt’s policies and agenda under the guise of attacking them as if they were solely Barack Husein’s…when in reality they were also Mitt’s platform…and THEN FINALLY SAID (paraphrasing here) if these PERFIDIES can be negated, than Mitt Rmoney is your man!
Those with functioning brains should have found it for what it was — a rarely heard of Sardonic Moment on national TV!
Priceless…LOL!
J,
What a haiku. Mahalo Nui Loa. ‘Olelo Hawai’i or just the Japanese? No concern. Just having alittle bit of fun on your “poetic” nature. After all, if you can be so coarse to me (hehe) by dividing up your 3,500 words into five (or six) parts, I can ask you if in a sense each one is in verse. Not bad, and yes, since it was directed towards me, I read it all. I am not sure about it in this world, but in mine a personal reply back in such philosophical detail could get you many suitors, even ones from Mensa, those who enjoy a round table type of discussion, which brings me to your beginning statement to me about being disagreeable with me.
I will not be so detailed as you. I will start by saying I have no idea why you are being so polite in saying that there will be no personal attack in your statement to me as though I might take it as such. Talking the way you do, in another realm I can only assume that you would realize that bringing one’s opinion on the facts of a subject are good for expansion of thought. One cannot realize everything pertaining to any one thing and therefore it is the reason that scientists have peer reviews. With that being said, I take no insult but am only flattered that you spent so much replying to me.
In short, one of your main issues in everything you said to me is near the end when you mention about Doug Wead talking about Rand the way he did. Yes, you understood me quite well. It was not what Doug was/is saying that bothers me, but it is his boosting up Rand Paul at this time. His entire statement/post/article makes sense and is put together quite well, but it seems to me that he is using that writing skill of his to build back up Rand Paul for something that is about to happen in the near future, not 3.3 years down the line. Jack Hunter did the same thing but much heavier. Leave out Rand’s name in much of what they both say and it makes better sense. Surprisingly, it might be odd to say that they are both smart enough to know that his name should be off their reference points and yet they talk as though he is the replacement savior for Barack Obama and no one else can be no matter how much into the future and how many others might be seen within those years. I see you might not be saying that so outwardly, but you see it also, which is good.
The three links you gave were interesting. The first one was funny. The second one said I had to sign in to see it and since I am not part of the singing in crowd, I did not see it. The third one was funny also. Tnx for them.
My opinion of your entire “novella”, as Surfisher calls it, is that you are living in a fantasyland. Maybe I should rephrase that to say that you are talking idealogy. Everything you say, even with your references, should be put into a book of positive thinking. You speak like Mr. Spock of Star-Trek 7, I believe. He became an ambassador and was the silent symbol of a movement that was forming strongly through and with the youth. Your thoughts are in order and you see the positive side of what can be done with the facts. Even so, it is a goal, not necessarily a means as you present it. Each step of what you say has many barriers making what you say being pertinent in words, but not in reality, at least beyond the hopeful part of it. Each step that you present maybe should be in someone’s pocket to be pulled out every now and then when necessary to see where that person might think he or she is off course, but the means of getting there could put one in many other directions first.
If what you say you think can be done as easily as the map that you have laid, then I suggest that maybe you come over to my world where the only reality is what your imagination will allow you to conceive into physical achievement. Of course I know you do not see it so simplistic as I am describing, but to some, there could be enough for them to pick on attempting to tear your suggestions apart without giving due credit for the context of your “verses”.
Now, I could put down something from each “page” of your response to me picking out individual sentences but that really is not necessary. Of course I must be as polite to you as you are being to me and I will say that all I have just done is give you some positive criticism or constructive criticism and I am not attempting to attack you. Of course I realize you are aware of that already. Actually it is nice to be able to relate in such a way with someone from out in this world. Most people just want to bicker and some will even lie just to create chaos. You know that by what you said when you mentioned that much of the problem was from within the movement itself due to inner bickering.
So I will leave you now in good hands. Whose, I am not sure, but it sounds good anyway. Take care.
Yours,
Rhonda
November 25, 2012/Sunday
PS: The “Rhonda for president” thing? Tnx, but no thnx. I prefer to be followed by a million people throwing roses at my feet rather than lead into them. Then again, 3.3 years is enough time for plenty of things to change and I have never aged past a woman’s prime age of “21” so I will not be too old 😉
#2/5. Rand Paul’s actions broke up the liberty-movement, that was growing and getting stronger by leaps and bounds. Well… we sort of agree here, as well. By his actions, I presume you mean, the timing of his romineey endorsement… and the way it was clearly well-planned as concerned the media but *without* any thought regarding the grassroots pauliticians who were left in the dark… plus his failure to continue working for the Ron Paul 2012 campaign after endorsing the romineey… such as at the national convention. Rand spoke at the Sun Dome in Tampa to introduce his dad at the unofficial rally on Sunday, and then later gave his (censored) speech from the official natcon podium, managing to slip in a reference to his dad without actually saying The Name That Shalt Not Be Spaken right out loud. Rand saw the cheating, but did not speak out. For that matter, *Mitt* saw the cheating, performed by his minions, and he also did not speak out — so whether or not the cheating was *ordered* by Mitt, certainly he turned a blind eye to it… which I would argue is the main reason why even the pauliticians that *might* have held their nose and voted for the romineey, just to get rid of Obama, instead stayed home, or wrote-in Ron Paul, or pulled the lever for Gary Johnson. (Mitt only got 58M votes, worse than McCain in 2008, worse that post-anti-PATRIOT-act Bush2nd in 2004.)
Anyways, getting back to the divisions within the liberty-movement, there absolutely are quite a bunch of them. Some people hate Jesse Benton, since now he works for the repub establishment as represented by Mitch McConnell, which is just as bad as working for Hillary, or pulling a glock and shooting Ron Paul, in the minds of some liberty-movement folks. https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/rand-paul-for-president-2016/#comment-33630 Because in hindsight the Ron Paul 2012 campaign was a failure, many people in the liberty-movement look for somebody on the campaign-staff to blame, trying to find a culprit to match their conspiracy theory: Benton was a traitor, Olson was a traitor, Tate was a traitor, Wead was a traitor, Ron Paul himself was a traitor (the guy called ‘Jim’ in the blog-comments quite literally believes that Ron Paul is secretly a nazi… and therefore unfit to be a liberty-candidate). Other people hate Gary Johnson supporters, either because Gary’s personal stance is pro-choice (whereas his *policy* stance on abortion is exactly the same as Ron Paul and Rand Paul), or because they were angry-slash-jealous when about a million former Ron Paul supporters suddenly became Gary Johnson supporters after the natcon (despite Gary Johnson having the same positions as Ron Paul on >90% of the issues), or for some other reason. There are also plenty of petty personal disputes, where one liberty-person simply doesn’t really *like* another liberty-person, and they get into an argument, which turns into a fight, which turns into a permanent grudge and or a permanent vendetta slash grudge-match. And of course, plenty of folks are mad at Rand Paul supporters, because *obviously* despite the bulk of his voting-record and the bulk of his oratory-record, Rand is a traitor. Sigh. More on this a bit later.
Furthermore, plenty of liberty-people are so mad at the cheating in 2012, they want to leave the Republican Party entirely, giving up on Ron Paul’s strategy of remaking it from the inside, and instead go with the Libertarian Party (permanently — not just Gary 2012 — cf Ron 1988), or maybe the Constitution Party (endorsed by Ron Paul in 2008), or maybe a brand new Party from scratch, or maybe the anarchist / agorist / secessionist / seasteading / minduploading / galt / survivalist / expat / whatnot alternative strategies. Or just give up! Many of them decide to get out, and then really do it, individually… but more often, they tend to want the rest of us to come along, abandon the delegate-strategy, abandon voting, join them on their new adventure. Advocacy quickly turn into anger, arguments quickly turn into fights, and infighting means we end up with Donnelly the dem winning the Indiana senate. Eventually, there is real danger the liberty-movement may lose our way, and become the vehicle for a new guillotine, plus then a vehicle for the reincarnation of the little general. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilien_Robespierre#Opposition_to_war_with_Austria ‘No one loves armed missionaries.’
#3/5. As an important aside, there in fact *was* a conspiracy during the 2012 campaign: the elite trans-national trans-ethnic super-donors that run the repub DC-insider establishment had decided that Romney was *going* to be the repub nominee… and that Obama, their current puppet, was *going* to be the dem nominee… which means, Romney or Obama, so the bigwigs win no matter what. Which explains not only the identical lists of top donors, but also how *similar* the two candidates were in important policy-stances about the Fed, Iran, socialized medicine, bailouts, indefinite trillion-dollar deficits, indefinite detention, and so on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekQSpbwKkdg (2 minutes) Remember what Obama said in 2007. Remember what Mitt said in 2011. Their actions differ from their rhetoric for a reason! Bad people used their wealth and their power to control the media (first running a media blackout against Ron Paul… and then threatening a media smear-campaign). They used their wealth and power to purchase superpac adverts, trying to rig the Iowa outcome in Romney’s favor by using Perry as a stalking horse to take out Bachmann, then using Santorum as a stalking horse to take out Newt, then using Huntsman as a stalking horse to try and take out Ron Paul (in NH). Doug Wead has told us that they threatened to do even worse, in February/March, and methinks again in April/May, unless Ron Paul trod oh-so-carefully. They cheated at the conventions in ten states that I *know* of from video footage or similar hard evidence, not to mention the natcon.
But this conspiracy isn’t secretly driven by the illuminati, area 51 aliens, the rothschilds, neo-nazis, the bilderburgs, the freemasons, the guys who killed jfk, the guys who brought down the twin towers, or any other sort of secret evil group. The reality is, our country is in the grip of a boring old plain-jane power cabal: big banks, big oil, big defense contractors, and a few others. They’ve been around since Eisenhower, and I would say since Credit Mobiliere… Andrew Jackson was their enemy, so was Jefferson. Alexander Hamilton and Salmon Chase were their best buddies. Nowadays, though, the cabal has no major political enemies (except for the liberty-movement!). They know quite well, simply and logically, without any need to even discuss it with each other in Super Secret Shady Meetings, that tension in the middle east will drive oil/military/banking profits, and that bailouts via the Fed will give them a blank cheque to invest in high-risk high-return vehicles — they can stash the profits offshore, then get a nice bonus-payment from the taxpayer! If we want to get a liberty-candidate as the repub nominee in 2016, we better start figuring out how to outwit the power cabal that pulls the strings on the DNC and RNC puppets, and picks the twin-party nominees. http://youtube.com/watch?v=HmaE2Aez_XY (5 minutes) That is our biggest trouble, bar none.
Are we working to do that? For the most part, the answer is no. What do we do instead? Fight amongst ourselves. Tear down other people in the liberty-movement, either because they are not pure enough, or because they aren’t as good as our own pick, or because we just dislike them for some reason. Note well, I didn’t say constructively criticize other people in the liberty-movement, I specifically said TEAR DOWN, as in, viciously attack and attempt to violently destroy. We in the liberty-movement have very strong passions. That is our chief asset — we care. We care about liberty, we care about the Constitution, we care about picking good candidates, we care about having the correct policy stances, we care deeply enough to devote our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honours. But it is also our chief weakness, because passion is a dual-edged sword: sometimes we care so *much* about which candidate is chosen, and about which policy stance is selected, that we get angry. We lash out. We stop caring about each other, we stop spreading the LOVE of the r3V0Jucion, and start spitting vitriol, and slinging mud. We see other politicians do it, like Obama and Mitt, after all. We see it on teevee, and on youtube, and in forum-comments. But we never see Ron Paul doing such things. There is a reason. He knows that the true key to saving this country is to save the people, one by one. We in the liberty-movement, when we call people names and fight amongst ourselves, have forgotten the face of *our* founding father, Old Man Liberty, then champion of the Constitution, the spiritual leader of our moral revolution, Obi-Ron Libertea.
___j___
Bravo! Superbly stated!
#4/5. Ending the infighting is just the beginning. Not only must we love each other, we must also love our neighbors, the confused folks that voted for Romney, the confused folks that voted for Obama, over a hundred million of our fellow Americans. Our love of liberty, our respect for the individual, must extend to loving and respecting our opponents: those within the repub party, and the dems. That is what Doug is saying. That is what I am attempting. Join me, and together we will rule the galaxy… with the iron fist of liberty and justice for all… spreading peace and prosperity… by refusing to force anybody into anything! Point being, if you feel that Rand isn’t the best choice for our 2016 liberty-nominee, great. I have reservations too, which I will publish in a future post here (once I’ve made it a bit shorter). But please make sure you give only constructive criticisms. Make sure you love the liberty-folks who, like Doug, have decided Rand *is* the best choice, even at this early date. Because love is the key. Make us love Gary Johnson, or whichever liberty-candidate you prefer, rather than trying to make us hate Rand/Napolitano/Amash/etc, since they are competing with your choice. This is good practice for 2015, when you will need to help millions of repub-primary-voters fall in love with our final-pick presidential liberty-candidate (whomever it ends up being), and then help tens of millions of general-election-voters fall in love with the repub-nominee… even if the liberty-candidate is only vpotus/secdef/fedchair, rather than the potus. If we keep practicing on love, we will absolutely beat the cabal. But we must not give in to the dark side of our passions, because they will destroy us.
So, we are at the end of my harsh words. I agree with you that, in response to Rand’s actions during the late summer of 2012, the liberty-movement became disoriented, and chaos increased considerably. However, rather than blaming *Rand* for doing what he thought he needed to do, making his own decision on what way he thought he could best support liberty, I put the blame squarely where it belongs: on the weakness of the liberty-movement itself. There was no need for Rand’s actions to cause infighting, disorientation, chaos, and other bad outcomes. Those problems are not ones we can lay at Rand’s feet, any more than we can blame Ron Paul for failing to become the Republican Party nominee of 2012. The failure was not in our leaders, but in ourselves. After 2008, when Ron Paul got such a whipping in the primaries, and when Obama got ten million more votes than McCain, I got discouraged, and went dormant. Therefore, when the 2012 campaign rolled around, I was not ready. I had not converted my neighbors over to liberty, in the three years of 2009/2010/2011. Instead, other things were my focus. It is my fault Ron Paul lost. But here we are, with the 2012 campaign over, and 2013/2014/2015 stretching out before us: the highway to liberty. But we must always take the high road, along the moral high ground, if we want to get to our destination.
Here is *my* constructive criticism about Rand giving out his endorsement of Romney, and the unfortunate repercussions amongst the liberty-movement. If the reasons for the endorsement had been given out before-hand, to the county coordinators and the state coordinators, and to the owners of the major fansites and major grassroots groups, so that the folks in the liberty-movement had a clear understanding of the mathematical reason that Romney was *going* to be the eventual nominee… plus more importantly, the practical & philosophical reasons that Ron Paul was going to continue fighting for the delegates… so that we could have input on the platform, so that we could have pauliticians elected to the RNCmte, so that we could make contacts with the delegates from other states at the natcon, and so that we could get the liberty-message televised nationwide… methinks *that* would have helped keep the liberty-movement from experiencing quite as much chaos. When the midterms of 2014 roll around, and the repub-primary-debates of 2015, we definitely need to have a better system for keeping people informed. We also need the people at the top to realize that folks in the liberty-movement *need* to be informed, because if there is an info-vacuum, rumors and worse will quickly fill it. See also — https://dougwead.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/rand-paul-for-president-2016/#comment-34103
“…courteous not yelling… respectful not insulting… That respect was not for the love of Rand, nor what he was saying. It was for Ron, and Ron Paul only.” This is where we disagree, Rhonda. I’m saying we need to be courteous, respectful, *and* loving — not only for Ron Paul, but for all Americans, born or as yet unborn, not just those that voted for liberty in 2012, but also those that were confused. If we want to win elections, we have to win hearts and minds. That is not just the only way we can get into a position to make changes to policy — it is the only way our kind of changes in policy will *stick* once we make them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOgg0LdgTD0#t=44m39s (the last 4 minutes of the last Ron Paul speech in the House) Our government is a *reflection* of the electorate. Of us! “The ultimate solution is *not* in the hands of the government. The solution falls on the heads of each and every individual, with guidance from family, friends, and community. The number one responsibility, for each of us, is to change ourselves, with the hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government — that goal is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government *will* change.”
#5/5. Methinks this quote below is the key to Doug’s entire post. My commentary is inside the squarbies.
[quote] In some respects, we [the folks in the liberty-movement!] are the weak link. We in the Liberty Movement will have to decide whether we are willing to become more than theorists [people that love liberty in theory yet never achieve it in practice] but also successful, winning, political [!!!!] activists. Some of the debates will get scary as our candidate may decide [as a compromise with the current willingness of the general public] that we need to cut our military bases from 900 to 75, instead of zero. He will be backing us away from the abyss, on his own timetable… and it may be too rapid for the general public, and not [rapid/extensive/pure] enough for some of us.
But in the end, we can’t govern America [by getting liberty-candidates elected to public office and liberty-activists in the driver’s seat of the Republican Party apparatus at the county/state/national levels] if we can’t govern ourselves [as individuals logically & emotionally… and as a movement tactically & strategically]. The point is this, our dream is still alive. [Woo!] And in a way, it is still in our hands.
….[ Why is it not still *entirely* in our hands? Because to win in 2016, we have to convince far more than the 2M people that voted for Ron Paul in 2012 and the 1M people that voted for Gary Johnson in 2012 — we have to also convince an additional 10M repub-primary-voters, and then an additional 60M general election voters, which means we have to be political realists. That does *not* mean we should lie through our teeth: the reality is, honest politicians and honest political activists are a refreshing WINNING idea. That also does not mean we should change our core principles: the reality is, freedom is popular, it is also a WINNING platform.
But it *does* definitely mean that we in the liberty-movement must work together, on figuring out our best liberty-candidates without mudslinging and hyperbole, on saving up millions of dollars in lukewarm-squishy-fiat-scrip (cold hard cash being outlawed by the feds!) so we can fund our liberty-nominee against the Fed-funded presumptuous nominees in 2016, and most importantly on learning to *trust* each other… instead of constantly looking for evil in the campaign staff, looking for black hearts in liberty-candidates, looking for conspiracy theories about why Ron Paul lost in 2012, and looking at the everyday Republicans who vehemently opposed Ron Paul the liberty-candidate of 2012 … many of whom will do the same for any non-establishment-pick candidate in 2016 … as THE _E_N_E_M_Y_.
Instead, we must learn to love our opponents as ourselves — or as Ayn would say, rationally decide to pursue our *true* long-term self-interest — for two reasons. First, in practical terms, we mathematically *cannot* win the 2016 primaries, unless we have the support of many millions of people who voted for Mitt in 2012. But the more important reason is a bit subtle, yet utterly crucial to our chances for success: if we treat our opponents with LOVE and with RESPECT, helping them see the error of their views, *helping* them see the potential of liberty as a message that will trounce Hillary, and LETTING THEM HELP DECIDE the details of the exact liberty-message our liberty-candidate ought to stand behind… then our liberty-candidate will become *their* candidate too, and our r3V0Jucion will become *their* cause… which means, the media exposure, the big donors, and the Republican Party hierarchy election-machine will back us 100% against the dems.
People were unwilling to rally around Mitt the nominee, because he was not worth rallying around — he excluded so many people, Ron Paul people, Sarah Palin people, and so on, that he ended up with less votes than even *Obama* managed! If we want everyday voters to rally around the liberty-nominee, we must include their desires, their hopes, and their input. Read what Doug wrote. Listen to Ron Paul’s final speech. We must become the Republican Party, we must remake the Party, but this isn’t a hostile Bain-style takeover, this is reaching out to our true friends… they just may not yet *realize* what they are, as yet. Those tens of millions of people that voted for Romney (and Obama in many cases) are looking for answers. We have their answer: liberty and justice for all. But unless we say it with love, they may not listen.
Goldwater lost in 1964 by a landslide, because even though he fought hard, even though he became the repub nominee, he *offended* the establishment folks, not just the elite bigwigs running the RNC at the top, but millions of *everyday* repub voters, by adopting a message that alienated. We must learn from history, to avoid repeating it.
]….
And now [that we have video proof the establishment-elites are cheaters… plus 3.3 years to bring the repub primary voters over to the cause of liberty] there is a very real chance of victory. Now the real work begins. If this country is to have another rebirth, it is up to us. [/quote]
Doug could well be wrong about Rand being the ‘one man’ who can lead the liberty-movement in 2016… in my opinion, it remains to be seen who the liberty-candidate of 2016 will be… and for that matter, our choice might well be a woman. Rhonda 2016 — wheeee! But where Doug is clearly quite correct is his assessment that the liberty-movement has a lot of internal and external challenges going forward, and that the real work towards liberty in 2016 must begin now, if we are to take advantage of our best chance ever.
p.s. Perhaps #6 of my 5 serial-comments, I guess you could call it. Doug certainly didn’t put it this way, but his comment about giving our country another rebirth, made while standing on the ashes of the Ron Paul 2012 campaign, brought this 2014 poem to mind. While I fully realize that America has not yet fallen so far that the sole remaining option is a second-amendment solution, and that therefore lovers of liberty have not yet been forced to give the *last* full measure of devotion, during the 2012 campaign, I saw so *many* pauliticians put their heart into striving for liberty, I feel the comparison is appropriate. If we ever do end up in a last-ditch stand involving bullets rather than ballots, I expect the very same people will still be fighting for The Good.
Eleven score and seven years ago, our founders brought forth on this continent a new Constitution, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great intraparty catfight, testing whether that Constitution, or *any* constitution so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are speaking together on a great battlefield of that catfight, the internet. We have come to dedicate a portion of that internet, as a final resting-place for the bitterness and the intrigues of the Ron Paul 2012 campaign, and to honor the pauliticians of the 2012 campaign-cycle, who gave their time and their treasure, that the Constitution might survive. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this blog-forest of liberty. The brave pauliticians, active and dormant, who struggled here — they have already consecrated it, far beyond *our* poor power to add, or to detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the diehards, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they who fought here have — thus far — so nobly advanced. It is rather for us, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from this honored campaign failure, we take increased devotion to that cause for which the pauliticians of 2012 gave their devotion. We here highly resolve that the pauliticians of 2012 shall not have strived in vain… that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom… and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Cf… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_1B0w7Hzc#t=02m13s (30 seconds)
___j___
Excellent! Your “novella” has elevated the philosophical points here!
Here are some practical points I’d like to ask for 2016:
1) In four years will the ‘election’ be about whose philosophy reigns supreme, or which candidate offers shorter bread lines?
2) Will we be encouraging our neighbors to do the right thing, or will we reporting them in order to get extra food allocations?
Sounds dire? Well, history has a way of always repeating when we do NOTHING TODAY to change it, but plan something for maybe tomorrow….
off topic — but a must see!
Knowing his past can only show what his future path will be:
Barack Hussein Obama EXPOSED!
Spread this 7 minute that’s gone viral!
What Ever Happened to the Constitution? — by Judge Andrew Napolitano
You cannot be a Real American if you don’t comprehend this!
Spread it like Wildfire!
Ron Paul, freed of the encumbrance of running for office, IS NOW DEVOTING HIS TIME to Educate the People (and especially the young generation that will be our Future in a few years) that the Rights of the Individual, the US Citizen, are NEVER to be transgressed upon by any Unconstitutional “Laws, Rules and Regulations” that may be enacted by ANYONE in Office!
That Wars the White House starts without Congressional approval are not only Unconstitutional, but have bankrupted us! That our Money is funny paper printed by a Private, Never Audited, organization called the Federal Reserve Board, that is NOT part of the US Treasury Department (the only LAWFUL AGENCY ALLOWED BY THE US CONSTITUTION TO ISSUE VALID US Dollars)!
And the list of our Citizens sufferings goes on!
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Ron Paul will now have a greater impact in saving America then ever before! Expect great things from this Greatest American in the months to follow — and in the next few years — expect that HIS Liberty Movement will Finally END the Tyranny that the Centralized Federal Government has tried to impose on We, the People!
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In this latest interview (11-30-2012), Ron Paul logically dissects the problems of our nation — and gives apodictic solutions to the Intentional Mess the Criminals that have taken Control of the US Government have plunged us into!
Must watch 10 minutes video — spread it like Wildfire!
Doug, your boy Rand voted to INCREASE sanctions on Iran on November 30.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00215
And he is being “PREPARED” to become neo-con Zionist starting with a visit to Israel in January.
There is NO way he is getting my vote or attention.
Gooodbye.
I wrote to Senator Paul’s office asking for the reason he voted this way on this amendment. I will post the answer here.
He claims to be against pre-emptive war in Libya, Syria etc. yet votes on such amendment. And he very well knows sanctions against Iran are an act of pre-emptive war themselves.
Hmm, Chiefe, I thought you said “Goodbye”. 🙂
I agree it sounds wrong, but I will wait for young Dr. Paul to speak for himself.
I thought I had posted Sen. Paul’s response to my inquire, but i was just looking for it here and I don’t see it. For whatever it is worth, here it is (possibly again):
December 10, 2012
Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding additional sanctions on Iran. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue.
Providing for the national defense is the primary constitutional duty of the federal government. However, that does not mean the Department of Defense (DoD) should receive unlimited authority to conduct any operation or establish new programs without serious oversight. In order to supply our military with the necessary tools, it is vital to prioritize our spending carefully.
Each year, Congress works to authorize certain appropriations for activities of DoD. These activities include military construction, overseas contingency operations, personnel strengths and benefits for the fiscal year.
In March 2012, the yearly National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) process began again when Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) introduced a version of NDAA for fiscal year 2013 (S. 3254). While debating S. 3254 before the Senate, Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) introduced an amendment to the bill that imposed additional sanctions on the Iranian government by targeting their energy, shipping and ship building sectors (S.Amdt.3232). S.Amdt.3232, was debated before the Senate and passed by a vote of 94-0.
I supported additional sanctions on Iran, as an alternative to prevent military interaction. Despite my lone opposition, the Senate passed a joint resolution stating that it is the sense of the Senate that United States foreign policy toward a nuclear Iran should not be one of containment – essentially saying the United States should do everything in its power, including the use of force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons (S.J.Res.41).
Issues regarding United States foreign policy are very important to this country; one of the most important votes a Senator can make is on sending our men and women of the Armed Forces into battle. I believe we should only go to war when it is in our national interest based upon an actual and imminent threat to the United States.
In December 2012, the Senate passed S. 3254 by a vote of 98-0. A different version of NDAA, H.R. 4310, was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 299-120. Following a conference committee, a new version will once again be submitted to both the House and Senate for consideration. Thank you again for your message and feel free to contact me again regarding any other federal issue.
Sincerely,
Signature
Rand Paul, MD
United States Senator
Ron Paul KO’s Shalom Bernanke (King Fed)
Enjoy this priceless video — and spread it like wildfire!
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Best moment.
Ron: Is Gold money?
Shalom: Aah… No.
Ron: Than why central banks hold it (gold)?
Shalom: Aah…it (gold) is called reserves.
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LOL — If Gold is NOT money, then why should International and our Central Banks hold Gold in vaults, and not just throw it in a river…?!
“He stumbles and fumbles and mumbles…” — what’s his name?
Barack Hussein.
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Spread this 1 minute video like Wildfire— gone viral with over 5.7 million views!
INDUSTRIAL HEMP, when it happens, the dominoes tumble, and all the “Medicinal Users” will celebrate the 420 thing, jump up and down, and CLICK their heels together … 🙂
I think Rand would make a good president, not as good as his dad but Rand seems to understand the issues better than the many clueless politicians up there in DC. People need to understand that Romney did not succeed because he tried to dismiss the Paul ideas.
http://purplethoughtsbrownman.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/romney-loss/