Give us your opinion of the campaign! Fill out this survey.

[Matt Collins]

We need you to give us your opinion on the Ron Paul campaign - what went well, what went poorly, strengths, weaknesses etc. I know you are all very opinionated and pooling this information will help other liberty minded candidates in the future. Please fill out the survey at http://www.maketheargument.org (http://www.maketheargument.org/)

Thanks!

[spacehabitats]

Here are my responses to the first two questions.
Give your answers first so I don't prejudice you.

Greatest Strength?

The greatest strength is the relative irreversibility of the enlightenment attained by those educated by the movement, once a critical level of education has occurred.

Most political movements, parties, organizations, etc. may recruit or convince followers for awhile, only to lose them (sometimes to their opposition) once disillusionment sets in.

This occurs primarily because their basis involves “illusion”. They persuade or seduce through salesmanship, but that does not stick if there is no true substance behind their message.

The majority of Americans are already deluded, misguided, or ignorant of the political processes shaping their society and of the media manipulation shaping their opinions.

But once they have seen compelling evidence, BACKED BY A COMPELLING THEORY to explain the behaviors they can observe, their perception is irreversibly altered.

This is the “emperor's new clothes” phenomenon.

But there is a critical mass of enlightenment that must be attained. It is not enough to be persuaded about a particular issue or policy taken in isolation, no matter how important or compelling it might be (eg. war in Iraq, war on drugs, income tax, etc.).

The individual must see how that issue fits into a pattern of tyranny that includes many other pieces, individuals, and organizations. It is not necessary that they know or identify all of the players (who can?), but they must have gained a sense of the pattern enough to know instinctively that there is a “conspiracy of ideas” that must be opposed.

Greatest Weakness?

The greatest weakness is diffusion and distraction.
Lack of control over the news media, while critical in one sense, is not the final enemy.
Wedge issues, irrelevancies, lack of a coherent sense of priorities; have always doomed reform movements in the past.
Our opposition knows exactly what their goals are.
They do not care one whit about a number of emotionally charged political “issues” that seem to consume the national attention; except of course for the fact that they use these to divide and undermine movements that oppose them.

Power and money are what they care about. Symbolic, moral, and/or religious issues are what they hope the American people will continue to debate.

“Interesting” conspiracy theories which are false trails or are ultimately unprovable or controversial are also wonderful distractions working against our movement. These will be actually be started or promoted by our enemy; especially if they can link the truth to unpopular theories or unsavory individuals and organizations.