ESSAYS
1/2/08
HOW RON PAUL CURED MY APATHY
5 PAGES
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 2nd 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?
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) take
action.
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
To
weigh in with your opinion on Ron Paul, CLICK
HERE.
