How Ron Paul Cured My Apathy

I swore off politics over a year ago. Actually let me clarify: I swore off politicians over a year ago. Believe me, I've got opinions on just about every issue (global warming, healthcare, Michael Moore, Abu Ghraib, voting in general) that I'm always willing to share with anyone who will listen. There are all sorts of aspects about this country that I would like to see changed. The thing is, I've stopped believing that any real change would ever come about because of a politician. I mean did segregation end because of the politicians who were in office at the time? No, as near as I can tell it ended because the attitude of the public was finally starting to shift in that direction. Did the Cold War end because a Republican president figured out a way to bankrupt the Russian economy? No, it ended because the Russian way of government was inherently flawed and it bankrupted itself. Did our economy boom in the nineties because a Democrat took over as president? No, it boomed because the personal computer simplified entrepreneurship while the internet encouraged faster buying and selling. And did the Iraq War end because congress finally had a Democratic majority? No. In fact most of the Democrats who campaigned under the anti-war banner ultimately voted to keep funding the operation! As near as I can see, politicians don't tend to change things that aren't about to change anyway on their own.

As voters I think we understand this, at least subconsciously, which is why we tend to vote for politicians based more on what they believe than on what they'll actually do. We vote for somebody because they believe abortion should be abolished… even though they won't really push to overturn Roe vs. Wade. We vote for somebody because they think there should be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage… even though they won't attend more than a token assembly on the matter. We vote for somebody because they oppose the war… even though they won't actually do anything to stop it when the vote comes up.

I have barely lent a moment's worth of attention to the presidential primaries these last several months. I figured all the candidates would be saying pretty much the same things anyway. The Republicans would emphasize the war on terror while the Democrats rallied us toward universal healthcare. The Red states would be placated with speeches about the 2^nd Amendment and the sanctity of marriage, while the Blue states would be whipped into a frenzy over global warming and taxes on the rich. Come November, I felt pretty confident that we would be deciding between two candidates who had been deemed "most electable" by their respective parties, but whose ideas wouldn't vary all that much from the status quo… or even from their opponent's talking points.

Then I started reading about Ron Paul. I'd heard his name mentioned before, mostly by conservative talkshow hosts who considered him to be the token fruitcake of the Republican Party. Even though he operates under the Republican banner, Ron Paul's voting record shows a philosophy centered more in Libertarian than Conservative thought. What's more, he apparently has no problem telling his compadres in the Grand Old Party exactly when and how he thinks they're wrong. And his ideas, doled out in convenient-for-TV sound bites, did sound ridiculous. I mean he wants to eliminate the income tax and not replace it with an alternative source of funding! He wants to cut back or completely dissolve various government agencies including the IRS, the FBI and the Department of Education! He thinks the federal government has no right to determine the legality of moral issues like abortion, drug use or even prostitution! And, perhaps most insanely, he wants to pull back all of our troops, not just from Iraq, but from every single foreign base we have! This guy is a Republican?!? I was ready to write Ron Paul off as just some political nut who would never make it past the primaries.

Still, there was something intriguing about a presidential candidate who was so unapologetically different from any of his opponents. More than anything, Ron Paul struck me as the kind of person who, given the chance, would actually follow through on his ideas… even if those ideas made him inherently "unelectable." Even though I didn't agree with everything he had to say (or even most of it), I went to the internet to learn more about him. I read about the issues on his website. I listened to his interviews on YouTube. I scanned the blogs that painted him in a good light and compared them against the ones preaching his insanity. And the more I delved into the logic behind his "crazy" ideas the more I found myself saying, "Hey, you know what, that actually sounds crazy enough to work."

Where will our country get money if we eliminate the income tax?
Well, eliminating the tax has to go hand-in-hand with cutting trillions of dollars from our budget by eliminating useless drains like our military presence overseas.

Won't pulling our troops back make the terrorists come fight us on our own soil?
It may briefly encourage the leaders and the true zealots. But if they can no longer point to an American base in their neighborhood and tell people, "That is the enemy!" it's going to be rather hard inspiring people to fly thousands of miles to blow themselves up.

But is he really going to cut education from the federal budget?
Well why not let the local districts decide how best to impart knowledge to the children of their particular demographics… as opposed to teaching everyone towards some federally (and subjectively) standardized test.

And he could actually pave the way for legalizing marijuana?
Hey, if a guy suffering from chronic pain can get relief from a ten-dollar bag of weed purchased in the free market, maybe it'll encourage the drug companies to stop their price gouging.

But how can the free market solve the entire healthcare crisis without government oversight?
When you look at it, the cost of healthcare didn't start going through the roof until the government got involved with HMO's during the seventies. Politicians are obviously incompetent with this sort of thing so why not go back to a working system?

The more I read, the more I watched, the more I listened, the more it became apparent that Ron Paul wasn't merely a "one issue" candidate. Rather, he seems to view all the issues as inextricably linked to each other. We need to cut federal programs like military and healthcare to retain enough money in the budget so that we no longer need the income tax… which will leave more money in the pockets of citizens to afford healthcare. By getting the government out of the global warming arms race, you let the market – with its inventors and entrepreneurs – find us a more efficient fuel source. The moment some privately held corporation can turn a lucrative profit by producing energy that is cleaner, cheaper and safer than oil, you better believe we'll be spewing less carbon into the air… which would eliminate our dependence on foreign oil… which would eliminate our need to police the Middle East… which, in turn, would save us trillions of dollars and produce fewer terrorists.

No wonder it's been difficult for the pundits to sum up Ron Paul in thirty-second sound bites! He's not suggesting falsely simple band-aids for individual problems. Instead he's proposing an entirely holistic approach to success, trusting that each and every reform (aided by nothing more than the spirit of capitalism) will naturally lend itself to the next, ultimately producing a cure for everything that ails us… well maybe not "everything", but a lot of things.

I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for a politician like this. A politician who understands that no issue exists in a vacuum. A politician who realizes that a strictly liberal or strictly conservative stance is not an effective way to solve complex issues. A politician who doesn't mind sounding crazy in thirty-second sound bites, but remains confident that the whole overall message will eventually get through to people… and that the message will appeal to a lot of them. What's more, this is a politician who doesn't sound like a politician, which I think I appreciate most of all. When somebody asks Ron a question, he doesn't launch into a circuitous line of rhetoric, striving for a happy balance of "electable ambiguity." He'll actually say, "Yes" or "No" before defining where that "yes" or "no" fits into his "big picture."

Even though my knee-jerk reaction has been to cringe at a lot of Ron Paul's ideas, I have found myself (quite unexpectedly, and in stages) agreeing with them wholeheartedly. Even more unexpectedly, I have found myself believing that this is a guy who will actually follow through on those ideas. That's right. After swearing off politicians altogether, I have found myself trusting in one to be my president. Oh the horror. I initially tempered that grinding shift of gears with the realization that Ron Paul would likely never make it past the primaries anyway. In an age where people want increasingly quick and easy fixes to their problems, a guy like Ron Paul, with all of his complex and un-sound-bite-friendly ideas, remains, as ever, unelectable.

But you know how buying a new car suddenly makes you notice the same make and model on the road everywhere you go? After deciding that Ron Paul was the kind of candidate I would actually vote for, I immediately discovered that I was hardly alone in my thinking. I started seeing his signs everywhere. I started hearing friends and family dropping his name into conversations. Even the talkshow hosts seemed to be giving him ample airtime now. According to news reports, even though Rudy, Mitt and Huckabee were routinely topping the official polls, Ron Paul somehow managed to raise more campaign money than any of them. To believe the buzz in forums like MySpace, YouTube and the always-lively blogosphere, Ron will likely command the entire market of Republicans (about 25% of them) who oppose the war, and may actually be the go-to candidate for all those "undecided" folks. The more I look into it, the more plausible it seems that this guy could be a real and viable competitor in the primaries, and not just someone with a small but vocal cult following.

I realized I could no longer be cavalier in my support of Ron Paul. If there was a legitimate chance that he could effect an upset victory in the Republican primary, well then it was my duty to help make it happen. I've donated money to the campaign. I'm registering Republican for the first time in my life so that I can vote in my state's primary. And I'm focusing as much effort as possible encouraging people to at least look into Ron Paul and see what he's about. It will require a bit of time and effort to understand the whole truth behind his positions. It will mean reading a few paragraphs on his website and not depending on those one-sentence blurbs from AOL's front page. It will mean watching an entire ten-, twenty- or even sixty-minute interview on YouTube, and not just those short-but-meaningless sound bites on Fox News.

The cynics and the pundits say the general public has neither the patience nor the interest to invest that kind of time into researching a candidate. The very fact that Ron Paul's ideas can't be expressed as TV-friendly blurbs would seem to be a crippling hindrance. Frankly I tend to think just the opposite. As a nation I think we're eager for somebody who is a bit more complex; somebody whose ideas can't be categorized with simplistic terms like "Red State" or "Blue State." We don't want to get into another election cycle where our only two choices for commander in chief are an apparent imbecile and a guy who can't seem to decide how he voted on something. I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who has been waiting for a candidate like Ron Paul. I think there are a lot more like us out there.

I think my generation in particular has the unique desire and the ability to push for real change in this election year. We're in our mid-20's to late-30's – old enough to start caring about the issues, educated enough to sort out our own decisions, yet still young and idealistic enough to take a chance on something new and different. In a recent blog, I called this Generation X/Y hybrid "The MySpace Generation", and I defended our poor voting record and general apathy toward the current "Us and Them" state of politics:

Perhaps what looks like apathy is just "our generation" unconsciously biding its time, watching and waiting until "they" vacate the premises. We know there's nothing we can really do as long as "they" are still in control, so why waste "our" time and "our" energy on useless rallies and campaigns that will only serve to get another one of "them" elected?

I went on to suggest, completely tongue-in-cheek mind you, that perhaps MySpace would become "the platform where the new revolution begins." If numbers are anything to go by, that little joke may have been more prophetic than intended. Ron Paul's page on MySpace currently boasts over 107,000 friends. Compare that to frontrunners Rudy, Mitt and Huckabee, who have only 64,000 friends combined. There is a political passion running through the younger generation, and Ron Paul has tapped into it in a way that no other Republican has. And now that I'm on that bandwagon I can sense the momentum building. It's palpable and I'm daring to believe that we have not only a politician who is "crazy enough" to get the job done, but a fed up public who is ready and eager to embrace a little craziness.

I encourage everyone – but especially my proverbial "peeps" from the MySpace Generation – to spend an hour looking into Ron Paul. Look beyond the labels. Look beyond the sound bites. Look beyond the polls. Look at the big picture. And when you find yourself agreeing with his ideas for America (perhaps in spite of everything you previously believed) . Get registered now – not just as a voter, but as a Republican. Get out to the primaries and make your vote count for once by electing someone who promises real change and not more empty talking points. And while you're at it, encourage others to do the same thing. I think we can actually make a difference with the right person this time around – though it's going to require more than simply "friending" that person on MySpace.

So in the words of my generation: "Just Do It." Ron Paul cured my apathy. He made me believe again in the power of a politician. Maybe he can do the same for you. The Ron Paul revolution is on. Get in on it while there's still time.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED LINKS:

RonPaul2008.com - The official campaign site. Start by clicking on the Issues link and familiarize yourself with Ron's ideas.

The Ron Paul Library - Delve a little deeper into the issues with this archive of Ron Paul speeches and letters

The Google Interview - An hour-long dialogue with Google exec Elliot Shrage. Ron Paul takes the necessary the time to speak freely and fully about his stances on the issues.

The Glenn Beck Interview - A series of clips (5-10 minutes long) shot on December 18 where Ron once again has the time and freedom to express his views in more than just a sound bite.

Clip 1 - Our National Sovreignty Under Threat / A Grass Roots Majority
Clip 2 - The Economy and Government Spending
Clip 3 - The Currency Crisis / Eliminate the Federal Income Tax
Clip 4 - Iraq and the War on Terror
Clip 5 - Prosperity and the Power of the Free Market
Clip 6 - Ron Paul's Supporters
Clip 7 - Libertarianism and the Responbilitiy of Freedom