I’m Catholic and voting for RP, too.
And, while I’ve been a member here since 1998, I have not posted since fall of 2006, much less donated here again, with the neo-con shoutdowns and censoring.
So, here’s a lengthy posting to make up for all that lost time, if any still reading...
I know Ron Paul better than most, as I’ve been supporting and voting for him for close to a decade down here in Texas, as he’s been my Congressman, or was until the last re-districting mapped me out of his district.
Most all politicians are liars, telling you whatever you want to hear and bribing you with promises to get your vote, but once in a while there comes along a Statesman. A person with integrity and principles. Occasionally seen on the local level, though very rarely arriving and surviving on the national level.
How does anyone know with confidence who somebody really is and stands for and believes and would do when elected compared to what they say during the election?
What you do is look/see closely at what they’ve done in the past, what their track-record is, not just what they’ve recently said, but actually done. The longer the track-record the better and clearer the picture of where they’d really be heading next.
If you do so regarding Ron Paul, you’ll see why he has the nickname of “Dr. No”, for his consistent 20 years of voting against anything Un-Constitutional, voting against big government and higher taxes, voting against expanding police state powers and erosions of our freedoms and liberty, over and over again. For ten consecutive years he was awarded, out of all Congress members, the ‘Taxpayers’ Best Friend’ for these consistent efforts.
Other candidates have a real disconnect between what they say today and have done yesterday, if you look. And, that says a lot about their integrity and principles, too, or rather lack thereof.
You can also come to know any candidate by who their supporters are. In Ron Pauls’ case it has been uncontested that he has the most active duty military and veteran donors of any campaign. In fact, it’s his single largest group! Individual Americans, and lots of them, breaking all-time historic donation records, not PAC’s, bundlers, industrialists, lawyers, unions, and all manor of special interests that crowd the tops of other candidates donor lists. Look and you’ll see for yourself.
You can also come to know any candidate by who their enemies are, and here everybody in the establishment status quo govt, political parties, special interests, banking, and media, that has had a hand in ruining this country, empowering and enriching themselves, while eroding our wealth and freedoms, is and has been blatantly tripping all over themselves to silence Ron Paul.
Not just now, but for years this has been going on. He’s been one of the all time least popular and marginalized Congressmen on the hill, for so often voting Constitutionally and against his party and/or being the lone dissenter when all of Congress has embraced some feel-good or politically expedient resolution that was not Constitutional. He did not get the ‘Taxpayers’ Best Friend’ award for voting the party line, but for voting his conscience to always uphold his oath of office to support and defend the Constitution. Shame on Congress that it has been such a lonely stand.
Ron Paul is all about re-instating the Constitution in practice, not just campaign rhetoric, and he should be ranked amongst the hero’s of our Founding Fathers for his decades long lonely stand against most all that we have hated seeing going on in this country all these many years. If he’s not ignored, he’s vilified, marginalized and ridiculed. And, has been for years in staying the course for what is Constitutional while fearlessly rejecting whatever was not.
Most fair people that are not Ron Paul supporters, IMO, have been influenced or prejudiced by the media that he is not worth looking closer at, so they never have.
It’s also why many who most need to be reading this are not, because they won’t bother to waste their time, as the media bias has already made up their mind for them.
Even if you don’t support Paul, yet, you’ve got to admit that the fairness of the media and establishment GOP is horrendously biased against Ron Paul ever getting a fair airing of his positions, as seen here...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5jZTd9j6_yg
And, consider, where would RP be ranked today if his positions had a fair airing, or at least as much media coverage as Rudy has enjoyed, whom Ron Paul has beaten 4 out of 5 times! Remember that every time you see Rudy mentioned on the air, but not a hint of Ron Paul or his sound proposals.
That’s what stings, that we might never get to see if enough Americans would have come together supporting Ron Paul this election if they had, and that is a real shame for all America.
What are they so afraid of you finding out, of possibly even have catch on nationally?
But, don’t take my word for any of this, go find out for yourself.
If he truly is who I say he is, you’d certainly be glad you did, for yourself, your children, your country, wouldn’t you?
Go look/see at his record and stands for yourself at...
www.ronpaul2008.com
...and...
www.ronpaullibrary.org/
Also, go look/see at his grassroots supporters here, too...
www.ronpaulforums.com
If you do, you’ll discover that Ron Paul and his campaign are alone calling for a return to the Constitution and limited government.
All the other candidates would maintain the current status quo and growing leviathan govt with all of us in the bus being driven right off and over the cliff’s edge. Their weight on the gas pedal might vary, but their track towards inevitable destruction surely would not.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised, considering the hugely powerful and entrenched vested interests he is threatening to dismantle, that we are doing as well as we are with this rare historic opportunity to undermine TPTB via this campaign to regain our Constitutional based limited govt and freedoms.
I was, admittedly, skeptical early on that there were enough un-apathetic American patriots left. Many, though, who had long ago opted out in disgust of the system, are jumping back in seeing the Ron Paul campaign as a last ditch attempt to wrestle back our country from the brink of destruction. The grassroots effort is truly and historically, record-breaking, amazing in their resolve and sacrifice to save their country.
For me, I’ll be vigorously supporting Ron Paul getting his message out far & wide for as long as his star burns brightly illuminating the masses to the loss of their Constitutional freedoms and liberties.
Win or lose, we are winning converts every day that are being inoculated by the Good Doctor for-life to never again settle for anything less.
When it comes time to take this country back, whether he had won or not, we’ll have thousands more fellow patriots standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us then because of him and this historic campaign having awakened them.
I hope/pray we can do so in-time, via the ballet box... before it’s gone.
- Shane
PS - It’s been personally enlightening for me these past months supporting Ron Paul in this Presidential bid. As one who would normally prefer to associate with people most like myself already, like most of us naturally do, I’ve found myself also rubbing elbows on occasion with fellow RP supporters that I’d consider pretty opposite of what I believe in spiritually and/or embracing lifestyles I don’t condone. There’s some of them, too, that just plain don’t look, act, talk, or live anything like I do.
This was all a little disconcerting at first, to say the least, and required some introspection and then growth on my part, as I asked myself whether some of these people are whom I really want to be associated, so opposite a few of them appeared to me and my values.
Except for that one big value that brought us together in the first place and unites us all, that one value that assures all our freedoms to be different from each other, we were all in agreement on preserving the Constitution, and that, for me anyways, eventually trumped any & all of the other usual personal differences.
My conception of freedom and liberty has since been expanded to enthusiastically include that they, too, of course, have the same right to pursue happiness as they see fit, too. I don’t have to agree with how they use their freedom, and I will argue with some of them about their bad personal life choices if given half a chance, but I do now recognize more today than ever that it is their choice and that that is what we can all work together to preserve and regain, each our own freedom to live as we each see fit with minimal govt interference.
Anyways, bottom line, really and substantially having America again embrace the Constitution via this campaign might first require many of us expanding and growing internally first our conception of what freedom and liberty for all really means in practice before we can all come together effectively. I know I’ve had to and my appreciation now of our interrelated reliance upon securing each others freedom has transcended any abstract theory of it and I’m better for it!
Where in years past I’d of been first attracted to the Evangelical leader in the race, all else being equal, now though, after more than a few disappointments, here’s what I consider most important in a President to best secure both my personal religious freedom along with assuring an environment that’s least restrictive for all religious persuasions:
#1 - In exercising his oath of office duties as President, I want a President that is foremost focused and dedicated to supporting, defending, and upholding the Constitution.
#2 - If he does #1, then my religious freedom to worship as I see fit without interference will be most assured and protected and prone to flourish, regardless of the Presidents own religious beliefs, or lack thereof.
#3 - A candidates religious beliefs and practices are of interest to me only to the degree that they might help illuminate or reveal his character and integrity to be, and remain, steadfastly committed to embrace #1 above, if elected.
Make sense?
Is America ready to fully embrace again the Constitution?
We’ll see soon enough and enjoy or suffer the consequences for generations to come!
If you don’t vote, you don’t count, and your children could suffer greatly for it while you stood by! Shame on you!
If you do vote, but had failed to become fully informed about the candidates, your vote then is at risk of actually having helped darken their futures, too.
Make sense?
- Shane
I want to put some illumination on the Paul supporters who represent a fanatical libertarian point of view with morals and beliefs also at odds with mine. A Paul presidency would be a big disappointment for them.
I can see a Paul presidency withdrawing support for the federal war on drugs for example, but I also see Paul letting the 10th Amendment operate for the states and localities which means they would be free to pursue the war on drugs as each sees fit, without federal mandates that effectively shackle them. Same for porn, prostitution, abortion and so on.
In effect, these neo-libertarians make themselves unwitting useful idiots which would probably find aid and comfort once again only in liberal northeastern States and California, and maybe Oregon, Nevada and Washington state.
Not perfect maybe, but it would be an improvement (my apologies to conservatives stranded in those states). I just think a Paul presidency would be a huge buzz kill for these people after about six months of real federalism recovered.