What a let down....

This last presidential race showed a glimmer of hope when it looked like Ron Paul might actually have a shot. Then, the movement (or at least it's existence inside of the GOP) was steam rolled by the mob mentality fostered by our demo-gouging politicians. While I was had almost entirely given up on the Republican party as a legitimate political option already, the rejection of Ron Paul was the last straw for me. Naturally, like many of my friends in the liberty movement, I ended up voting for Gary Johnson and threw my support behind the libertarian party. 

It is incredibly interesting to me that people think Romney would have had a significantly different presidency. If the trends in the 20th century show us anything, one presidents mild abuses of power have translated into the following presidents furthering of such abuses.  

Examples....

• The Patriot Act under Bush and NDAA under Obama.

• TARP and stimulus packages under Bush and Auto Industry bailouts along with more stimulus packages under Obama (stimulus usually meaning that we printed more money and either redistributes the stolen currency value among the citizens or to some private corporations or other group). 

• And lastly how could you forget the health industry in which Bush signed a $400 billion Medicare Prescription Drug Modernization Act and as if Obama had to show him up, he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

This year has given me ample opportunity to become pessimistic about our societies ability to reason and wake up to many of the alarms and it does diminish my hope for us to be a truly free people. It seems that people are just intent on sleeping through the merger of our growing nanny and police states to one day wake up to fascist government when it is, of corse, too late. 

I have to then examine myself and my own learning experiences in the cause of Liberty. It wasn't long ago that I was possibly the most devout "conservative" you might meet in your short stay on earth.  If I could see the little erosions through my Teddy Roosevelt (You may exchange Teddy for Franklin if it helps you relate in a Democrat scenario) colored glasses so can the people around me. 

Whether more Liberty comes through the election of a Gary Johnson (or maybe the GOP redeems itself with the likes of Rand Paul or Justin Amish) or it comes through our resistance (hopefully peaceful but recognizing that the tree of liberty sometimes must be watered with the blood of both patriots and tyrants) to totalitarianism, I look forward to being a part of that movement spreading liberty.

Ron Paulian Rhetoric...

Ron Paul rally at Union Station in Kansas City, MO

I had the opportunity to see Ron Paul at a rally in Kansas City tonight at Union Station. One of the things I have noticed about the crowds of people that support Ron Paul in comparison to those that support other candidates is the rhetoric. Even in chants which in most cases tend to be the epitome of mindless agreement have far more substance than in other campaigns. In the re-election of George W. Bush we heard things like "FOUR MORE YEARS" and with Barack Obama, we were subjected to "O-BA-MA" and "YES WE CAN" which were rooted in nothing but demagoguery and campaign propaganda. At best, phrases such as "yes we can" were at least cleverly thought out to be malleable to whichever point of view the person participating in the chant held. 

Take those phrases and contrast them to those such as "END THE FED", "RON PAUL REVOLUTION; GIVE US BACK OUR CONSTITUTION" and "BRING THEM HOME" which are all chants that are substantive and have some actual depth to them and you will see a stark difference. Those chants are also backed with actual knowledge of current events and familiarity with our political system and the Constitution. At other campaigns you might find someone that knows a thing or two about the constitution but beyond rattling off portions of the preamble and a couple amendments, you would be hard-pressed to find people who could explain how the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki and other US citizens was a violation of the Executive powers and how it was a bad moment in our countries history for our civil liberties. I believe it would be equally challenging to receive and explanation of how the Federal Reserve act is a violation of our constitution. 

You can take that even further and contrast the kind of literature that people read at these events. You can count on finding a handful of people at any Romney or Gingrich rally that have either read or at least familiar with the latest book of their candidate but by far, the Ron Paul supporters have more often read several Ron Paul books and did not stop at the literature of their candidate. You will find people familiar with the works of F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Andrew Napolitano, Ayn Rand and the list goes on and on. 

In my experience, the knowledge of Ron Paul supporters goes far beyond, media talking points as heard on television and talk radio. It seems that even the group chants heard at a Ron Paul rally cannot be confined to the limits of the herd mentality that it so often accompanies and much transcend that by actually containing a meaningful message! Kudos to Ron Paul supporters for educating yourselves.  I can only hope that as the cause of Liberty trends upward in popularity, that people continue this habit of self-education. It can only bring about better things! 

Drugs...

Much fear is conjured up in the hearts of social conservatives at the mention of repealing drug laws. Instantly, they see images of crackheads and heroine addicts roaming every street, panhandling for drug money and stealing the copper pipes from plumbing systems all across this great land. As soon as the ban is lifted, our children, friends, spouses and even our selves will loose all sense of responsible behavior and become heavily addicted to hard drugs.

It is sad how easily we give into the notion that the government must prohibit something for our own safety. This has always been ineffective and in many cases extremely counter productive. One only needs to look at the enormous black market and gang activities that grew from alcohol prohibition and the enormous spike in drug usage as more and more restrictions were made in the past 60 years.

The problem is not that there aren't enough laws but we have been slowly losing our sense of personal accountability and responsibility. We have given up the healthy local community interaction and the charitable and educational responsibilities that go with it for government quick fixes in an effort to find a sort of "silver bullet" legislation that will end our drug consumption problems once and for all.

In removing those local influences of the community, for the ineffective mandates of Federal government, all we have done is give up more of those essential liberties that Ben Franklin warned us about for the temporary safety we were warned against. The only thing we have gained is a new outlet for government control in our lives. It sounds like a noble idea to rid the world of meth addiction through the crafty plans of our Federal government but has only proven to be a pipe dream. No matter how good the intentions of the Nanny State, they have only agitated he problem. Sixty years ago, we had a problem with people smoking marijuana and taking "bennies" and those instances were fairly rare. At that point in our history, we started trying to prohibit our way out of the problem. Look at ourselves today in contrast. Not only does our government want to pass tougher drug laws but they have extended their reach into what we eat for food. There are now movements that want to prohibit your fast food consumption and make sure you are eating a healthy diet.  Until we take back these responsibilities at the most local levels, we will not solve the problem.