Are we REALLY this weak? [Archive] - Ron Paul Forums / Liberty Forest

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Sematary

08-28-2012, 07:38 AM

mickey mouse joy division

08-28-2012, 07:42 AM

I'm voting for Obama. Only the best for Romney and the RNC!

Sematary

08-28-2012, 07:42 AM

I'm voting for Obama. Only the best for Romney and the RNC!

How does that make a stand for liberty and Ron Paul?

The Goat

08-28-2012, 07:53 AM

How does that make a stand for liberty and Ron Paul?

4 more years of Obama is better than 8 more years of his policies.

TruckinMike

08-28-2012, 07:54 AM

I have seen (and many of you have noticed the same thing) a bunch of posts that essentially say the same thing - the poster will vote for Romney (pick a random reason). ...

Just to set the record straight in case there is any confusion - I made a post here (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?387525-Video-Ben-Swann-Reality-Check-questions-Mitt-Romney-about-unseating-of-Maine-delegates&p=4606277&viewfull=1#post4606277) that did exactly as you say -- SO if any of you read that post -- it was done tongue in cheek -- per the tone of the thread in which I was on. But there appeared to have been some folks that did not get it. If you are one of them, sorry for the horror that you may have experienced due to my post.:)

parocks

08-28-2012, 07:57 AM

Ron Paul won't be on the ballot if he doesn't get the nomination.

No, obviously not Romney. but Gary Johnson. He's on the ballot. Or Virgil Goode. Or stay home. Maybe the Convention will give us Palin.

I haven't seen anybody say they'd vote for Romney, and a lot of people are getting ready to get somewhat enthused about GJ.

I have seen (and many of you have noticed the same thing) a bunch of posts that essentially say the same thing - the poster will vote for Romney (pick a random reason). Are you F'n kidding me? After ALL we have been through? After Romney and his campaign and the RNC have shown their true colors and their absolute DISDAIN for who we are and what we stand for, people are willing to sell their soul to the devil to try and keep Obama out of the Whitehouse? REALLY? I am disgusted beyond words at this turn of events. If the people who supported Ron Paul are not even willing to stand up for their principles with their vote, what hope is there?

And, never mind the fact that those who profess to be willing to vote for Romney in order to defeat Obama are reneging on their principles but how about the fact that our next best chance to effect a change in the Whitehouse won't come for another 8 years rather than 4? Again - are you f'n kidding me? People are willing to to make a bet that somehow Romney will be better than Obama (which, by the way - in actions and in words - he has already shown that he will be just as bad if not worse).
This election, and the next, are about the future of America - the future of freedom IN America. We must stand strong because divided, we lose.

ONLY Ron Paul in 2012. There can be no other!

parocks

08-28-2012, 07:58 AM

I'm voting for Obama. Only the best for Romney and the RNC!

I'm not going to vote for someone who I know will make the country worse. Both Obama and Romney will make the country worse. In 2008, I voted for Palin. There was always that chance that McCain would die.

69360

08-28-2012, 08:00 AM

I think Romney might be a tiny bit better than Obama but am voting Johnson now. Well if Romney's lawyers dont get Johnson kicked off the PA ballot. :mad:

cajuncocoa

08-28-2012, 08:04 AM

It pains me to see some putting Rand's 2016 run before doing the right thing NOW. Neither one of those clowns deserves the vote of true liberty-minded individuals. Not to mention that there is no guarantee that the GOP won't treat Rand the exact same way (they will.)

Do what you want, but to me writing in Ron Paul, voting for Gary Johnson, or abstaining completely are the only choices.

Sematary

08-28-2012, 08:06 AM

PointsOfOrder

08-28-2012, 08:06 AM

I have to vote for the GOM labeling in California and not raising taxes. If Ron Paul is not on the ticket, I will choose and write in "no one" for Prez.

parocks

08-28-2012, 08:10 AM

I think Romney might be a tiny bit better than Obama but am voting Johnson now. Well if Romney's lawyers dont get Johnson kicked off the PA ballot. :mad:

Romney is DEFINITELY a TINY bit better than Obama. It is almost 100% certain that the country will be worse in 4 years than it is now.

Romney's attitude is worse than Obama's. Look at the last 2 weeks. Akin says something controversial. Romney says "step down". Are the feelings of feminists
sacred cows now? Whatever you do, don't offend the feminists? Wait, what would happen if Romney was President and the Leftists/Feminists/Liberals whine about something, which they do all the time? Romney would back down. There is no chance, under Romney, that anything good could pass. The Left would complain, and Romney would capitulate.

Here's what you'd get with Romney - same basic bills, but some Republicans would vote for them, because Romney is a Republican.

If Obama won, the Republicans would continue to block Obama (I assume). Clinton didn't do much between 96 and 00, and some things, like welfare reform, could be seen as good.

But Obama has been a terrible President, and Romney would be a terrible President, and there is 0% hope that either of those guys won't be terrible. I'm not voting
for a President that I'm 100% certain will be terrible.

Gary Johnson, Virgil Goode, stay home.

parocks

08-28-2012, 08:12 AM

I have to vote for the GOM labeling in California and not raising taxes. If Ron Paul is not on the ticket, I will choose and write in "no one" for Prez.

I could spoil my ballot with a big ol - NO. THEY ALL SUCK. and focus on the state rep races and the state senate.

parocks

08-28-2012, 08:13 AM

Red Green

08-28-2012, 08:15 AM

4 more years of Obama is better than 8 more years of his policies.

Word that.

anonymous billionaire

08-28-2012, 08:23 AM

I'm voting for Obama. Only the best for Romney and the RNC!

Obama has my vote too!

anonymous billionaire

08-28-2012, 08:25 AM

Do you really want a Republican behind the helm when the U.S. economy begins to take a turn for the worst?

No.

If you want to made head way, then let Obama get re-elected so we can use his fascist/socialist ideas as ammunition for 2016 and further on.

kahless

08-28-2012, 08:26 AM

I have seen (and many of you have noticed the same thing) a bunch of posts that essentially say the same thing - the poster will vote for Romney (pick a random reason). Are you F'n kidding me? After ALL we have been through? After Romney and his campaign and the RNC have shown their true colors and their absolute DISDAIN for who we are and what we stand for, people are willing to sell their soul to the devil to try and keep Obama out of the Whitehouse? REALLY? I am disgusted beyond words at this turn of events. If the people who supported Ron Paul are not even willing to stand up for their principles with their vote, what hope is there?

And, never mind the fact that those who profess to be willing to vote for Romney in order to defeat Obama are reneging on their principles but how about the fact that our next best chance to effect a change in the Whitehouse won't come for another 8 years rather than 4? Again - are you f'n kidding me? People are willing to to make a bet that somehow Romney will be better than Obama (which, by the way - in actions and in words - he has already shown that he will be just as bad if not worse).
This election, and the next, are about the future of America - the future of freedom IN America. We must stand strong because divided, we lose.

ONLY Ron Paul in 2012. There can be no other!

If it makes you feel good to vote for a candidate that is not on the ballot and will be lumped in as 'SCATTER' with other candidates then you should do that. That is a vote that is essentially the same as staying home and having a steak, which I hear some may do to make them feel better.

Others however believe there is no guarantee we are going to get Rand or some liberty candidate in 2016 if Romney loses. They are already promoting Rubio and Christie as rock stars so he will have quite a bit of competition.

If Obama wins the Overton window will move further in his direction and Conservative-Libertarian like policies will be more unpalatable and extreme to the masses in 4 years. Romney and the party maybe paying lip service to some of our domestic issues as of late which might be meaningless when it comes to action but at least it keeps these issues in the national dialog. An Obama win will be interpreted as the country moving farther to the left.

Voting for Romney maybe like eating a big shit sandwich but I am not going to blast anyone for doing so considering the facts. You are also deluding yourself that there is no difference between Obama and Romney. They are as far away from each other domestically as Ron is from them.

Sematary

08-28-2012, 08:35 AM

If it makes you feel good to vote for a candidate that is not on the ballot and will be lumped in as 'SCATTER' with other candidates then you should do that. That is a vote that is essentially the same as staying home and having a steak, which I hear some may do to make them feel better.

Others however believe there is no guarantee we are going to get Rand or some liberty candidate in 2016 if Romney loses. They are already promoting Rubio and Christie as rock stars so he will have quite a bit of competition.

If Obama wins the Overton window will move further in his direction and Conservative-Libertarian like policies will be more unpalatable and extreme to the masses in 4 years. Romney and the party maybe paying lip service to some of our domestic issues as of late which might be meaningless when it comes to action but at least it keeps these issues in the national dialog. An Obama win will be interpreted as the country moving farther to the left.

Voting for Romney maybe like eating a big shit sandwich but I am not going to blast anyone for doing so considering the facts. You are also deluding yourself that there is no difference between Obama and Romney. They are as far away from each other domestically as Ron is from them.

Who CARES what their domestic policies are. The ONLY way to save the nation from itself is to get someone in office who will abide by his oath to the Constitution and NEITHER of them will do THAT!

kahless

08-28-2012, 08:38 AM

The ONLY way to save the nation from itself is to get someone in office who will abide by his oath to the Constitution and NEITHER of them will do THAT!

I agree. Until that person comes forward this is all we have and will take the man that will be slightly less destructive.

Sematary

08-28-2012, 08:39 AM

I agree. Until that person comes forward this is all we have and will take the man that will be slightly less destructive.

And who would that be? A tyrant in Democratic clothing or the tyrant in Republican clothing? What makes the tyrant with the "R" less destructive than the one with the "D"?
They BOTH want more war.
They BOTH ignore the constitution
They BOTH have the same puppetmasters.

So what's the difference?

Liberty74

08-28-2012, 08:39 AM

Cleaner44

08-28-2012, 08:40 AM

Anyone who votes for or hopes Obama wins is going to permanently set the movement back. If Obama wins, everything is over. There will be NO TURNING BACK. Just look at what he has accomplished in less than 4 years.

No, I'm not voting for Romney but would we be able to use some muscle against Romney and maybe keep the Overton Window from moving too far Left with permanent irreversible damage? Possibly until 2016.

It's why Dr. Paul said he did not "fully endorse" Romney. Read between the lines people.

This is wishful thinking. Romney will not respond to any muscle you are thinking of. Just look at how he is already attempting to dictate to the entire party at the RNC. Romney is a tyrant.

I am voting for Johnson because I want my vote to be registered and I refuse to vote for liberals, regardless of their label of Democrat or Republican.

The GOP needs to have their back broken if they are to be rebuilt as a small and limited government party.

TruckinMike

08-28-2012, 09:03 AM

Anyone who votes for or hopes Obama wins is going to permanently set the movement back. If Obama wins, everything is over. There will be NO TURNING BACK. Just look at what he has accomplished in less than 4 years.

Simply not true -- The Republican (voters) will be up in arms, the dems will not have the votes, only executive orders and waring will ensue. And the masses will awaken with our help.

With Romney -- everything you said is true because the republican voter will go back to never-never-land thus giving free reign to the republican establishment.

DanK22

08-28-2012, 09:09 AM

Anyone who votes for or hopes Obama wins is going to permanently set the movement back. If Obama wins, everything is over. There will be NO TURNING BACK. Just look at what he has accomplished in less than 4 years.

An Obama victory will give us the leverage we need to oust the establishment types that forced Romney on us. That said, I'm either staying home, voting GJ, or writing in Paul.

Noblegeorge

08-28-2012, 09:14 AM

I dont see how anyone who calls themself a Ron Paul supporter could vote for anyone but Gary Johnson. TBH though between Romney and Obama Romney scares me more. Trying to appease Israel and neo cons that clown could land us all in World War 3. At least Obama appears to be somewhat cautious on that front. Plus as has beeen said before we would have to wait until 2020 before a Liberty candidate could run as Republican if Romney gets in. Choosing between the best of two evils Obama is a total no brainer for me.

CaptUSA

08-28-2012, 09:15 AM

We've had a million threads about this.

Vote how you wish.

Obama? I can't bring myself to do such a thing. Not even for strategic reasons. (I think "strategic" voting is the lowest of the low. It gives us what we've already got. Voting against the evil you don't like while voting FOR an evil you don't like.)

Romney? What's the difference? He won't be any better. Maybe some of the GOP goes back to sleep? Maybe more of them wake up and realize it's both parties screwing them.

Johnson? I like him. I really do. But the vote would only be for strategic reasons - to send a message. See point one.

Write in Paul? My vote won't get counted, but at least I voted for the guy I really want to be President. I can sleep knowing that I didn't contribute to the pain and suffering being perpetrated on my son. Yep. This is my plan.

Really, though, do what you wish, but don't stop working to wake more people up. And don't hate your fellow freedom fighter for doing something different. Despite what the media tells you, we are not a singular collective movement, but a group of individuals, each with our own minds.

BSU kid

08-28-2012, 09:16 AM

I can't believe people here are voting for Obama, I want to throw up all over the floor. Just don't vote.

jay_dub

08-28-2012, 09:16 AM

What Romney and the RNC have done is a big F%*! YOU to Dr.Paul and us all.....then they have the nerve to shill Ron with a 'tribute' video!!!!

I can't believe that Ron actually gave his speech under a RepubliCAN banner. My God man, don't you know when you've been shit on??

No matter what planks are added to the platform, we've seen, by the jackboot methods they went through to change the rules that these guys don't give a damn about any of us.

How about Romney's response (feigned ignorance) to Ben Swann's question about the Maine delegates?

I've been thinking I would vote for Johnson as a protest vote, but really, maybe I should just vote for Obama instead. With the gridlock in DC right now, nothing much will get done if he gets re-elected, which is a damn sight better than letting Romney and his cohorts have their way.

Endthefednow

08-28-2012, 09:17 AM

I will write in RON PAUL if not in the ballot in California

VBRonPaulFan

08-28-2012, 09:21 AM

Romney isn't even a Republican.

If you're a true republican - how could you even stand voting for the scumbag? I will NEVER EVER VOTE FOR ROMNEY. I wouldn't vote him president of the PTA, let alone POTUS. Are you guys nuts? Obama is terrible - Romney is worse. Neither of those guys will get my vote this fall, no way.

People try to rationalize voting for Romney by saying that he's better than Obama, but there is no way that's true. Romney is a liberal masquerading as a Republican and has never voted for Republican principles. What makes anyone think he'll do that now? He'll continue to promote big government the same way he always has, and everyone who has voted for him will feel like a freakin' sucker in a year or two.

pacu44

08-28-2012, 09:23 AM

IF Paul isnt on the ballot, voting third party... (electric machine)

Huckabee, the RNC and Romney can sit on stick and twirl.

pacu44

08-28-2012, 09:24 AM

IF Paul isnt on the ballot, voting third party... (electric machine)

Huckabee, the RNC and Romney can sit on stick and twirl.

Southerner

08-28-2012, 09:24 AM

I have seen (and many of you have noticed the same thing) a bunch of posts that essentially say the same thing - the poster will vote for Romney (pick a random reason). Are you F'n kidding me?

Come November, we will have a new president (elect), and his name sadly won't be Ron Paul. No one enjoys voting for the lesser of evils, but our nation can NOT survive another 4 years of Obama. I WILL vote for the GOP nominee, whoever that is. Even if it was Lindsey frickin Graham! (barf, puke) Obama WILL bankrupt this nation if he already hasn't, and even Romney won't do near the damage if given 8 years that Obama has done in 3.5

RAND PAUL 2016 or 2020

wgadget

08-28-2012, 09:26 AM

Come November, we will have a new president (elect), and his name sadly won't be Ron Paul. No one enjoys voting for the lesser of evils, but our nation can NOT survive another 4 years of Obama. I WILL vote for the GOP nominee, whoever that is. Even if it was Lindsey frickin Graham! (barf, puke) Obama WILL bankrupt this nation if he already hasn't, and even Romney won't do near the damage if given 8 years that Obama has done in 3.5

RAND PAUL 2016 or 2020

Good luck.

sailingaway

08-28-2012, 09:31 AM

sailingaway

08-28-2012, 09:34 AM

IF Paul isnt on the ballot, voting third party... (electric machine)

Huckabee, the RNC and Romney can sit on stick and twirl.

I'd leave it blank and let the discrepency in the voter numbers between number of voters and number who vote for president be the recording of my vote, IF you preferred to write in Ron and only weren't because of the electric machine. The way you wrote that made it sound like you would write him in if you could.

The Dude

08-28-2012, 09:37 AM

What's almost as bad as people saying they'll be voting Obama/Romney is writing in Ron Paul when there is a perfectly good liberty candidate that needs our vote on the ballot. Anyone who doesn't vote for Gary Johnson is shooting themselves and this entire movement in the foot.

jbauer

08-28-2012, 09:38 AM

But....If you ask the Romney people, writing in RP, voting GJ or staying home ARE votes for Obama. Since we're all going to hell anyways we might just as well go down with the ship right? :p

It pains me to see some putting Rand's 2016 run before doing the right thing NOW. Neither one of those clowns deserves the vote of true liberty-minded individuals. Not to mention that there is no guarantee that the GOP won't treat Rand the exact same way (they will.)

Do what you want, but to me writing in Ron Paul, voting for Gary Johnson, or abstaining completely are the only choices.

jbauer

08-28-2012, 09:41 AM

I'm coming around to that idea although it pains me to not vote for Ron after all he and us have been through. At this point I think we need to seriously look at the 3rd parties. It is apparent that no 3rd party is going to win this year, but it is also apparent that Ron isn't going to either. So with that said by voting for Gary Johnson we atleast get to record a NO vote for the D's and R's. To me that is becoming the most logical path as of right now. Oh and no I wont joing the Libertarian party.

What's almost as bad as people saying they'll be voting Obama/Romney is writing in Ron Paul when there is a perfectly good liberty candidate that needs our vote on the ballot. Anyone who doesn't vote for Gary Johnson is shooting themselves and this entire movement in the foot.

acptulsa

08-28-2012, 09:41 AM

Obama WILL bankrupt this nation if he already hasn't, and even Romney won't do near the damage if given 8 years that Obama has done in 3.5

Why does this sound so familiar?

Oh, yeah. I heard the same thing about Dubya. Right before he made the debt skyrocket with a couple of meaningless wars and a massive giveaway to the rich, the wealthy, and other Dubya supporters.

So, Obama's worse because he purported to be a man of peace and Romney's worse because he purports to be conservative. If it weren't for liars we wouldn't have any MSM-approved candidates at all.

Libertytree

08-28-2012, 09:42 AM

Rmoney is the fascist Ron was referring to in his speech the other night.

jolynna

08-28-2012, 10:15 AM

Rmoney is the fascist Ron was referring to in his speech the other night.

BINGO.

TrishW

08-28-2012, 10:50 AM

I am either writing in Ron Paul or staying home. I don't see any other options. Perhaps if Ron does not make the ballot (still praying for a miracle) then I will get to know the libertarian candidate. But I can assure you, there is no way, I can vote my conscience and cast a vote for Romney or Obama... it just can't be done.

NIU Students for Liberty

08-28-2012, 11:02 AM

For those of you willing to vote for Romney for "strategic" reasons, you do realize that Republicans will go back to sleep if Romney were to take office, right?

NorfolkPCSolutions

08-28-2012, 11:11 AM

I will write in RON PAUL if not in the ballot in Nebraska.

(Edited to reflect my state.)

Liberty, people. That's the goal here. Even Gary Johnson is a better alternative to supporting the globalist puppets Robamney or Black Jesus.

Anti Federalist

08-28-2012, 11:15 AM

There is no difference, of course.

But that still won't change the minds of some folks.

We had plenty of McPain wobblies around here last go around as well.

There will be plenty of Obamney wobblies this time, who have swallowed the whole "Obama is evil" story hook, line and sinker.

And who would that be? A tyrant in Democratic clothing or the tyrant in Republican clothing? What makes the tyrant with the "R" less destructive than the one with the "D"?
They BOTH want more war.
They BOTH ignore the constitution
They BOTH have the same puppetmasters.

So what's the difference?

NorfolkPCSolutions

08-28-2012, 11:16 AM

For those of you willing to vote for Romney for "strategic" reasons, you do realize that Republicans will go back to sleep if Romney were to take office, right?

Yup...

...and in the process, move the football back half the distance to the goal. I will not support Obama. I will, however, view his inevitable re-election as a better outcome than supporting the GOP in any fashion; insofar as taking a long view. A second shot of Black Jesus will help us to turn up the volume on the alarm clock a little louder still.

Waking up the people, and illustrating their subservience to government, is the goal here at RPF - the nomination of Ron Paul is/was merely one facet of our movement, I believe. Regardless of 2012's outcome, I anticipate reading articles in the coming year along the lines of, "Why are these Ron Paul people still organizing, still blah-blah-blah-ing..."

Anti Federalist

08-28-2012, 11:18 AM

I rest my case.

Anyone who votes for or hopes Obama wins is going to permanently set the movement back. If Obama wins, everything is over. There will be NO TURNING BACK. Just look at what he has accomplished in less than 4 years.

No, I'm not voting for Romney but would we be able to use some muscle against Romney and maybe keep the Overton Window from moving too far Left with permanent irreversible damage? Possibly until 2016.

It's why Dr. Paul said he did not "fully endorse" Romney. Read between the lines people.

Come November, we will have a new president (elect), and his name sadly won't be Ron Paul. No one enjoys voting for the lesser of evils, but our nation can NOT survive another 4 years of Obama. I WILL vote for the GOP nominee, whoever that is. Even if it was Lindsey frickin Graham! (barf, puke) Obama WILL bankrupt this nation if he already hasn't, and even Romney won't do near the damage if given 8 years that Obama has done in 3.5

RAND PAUL 2016 or 2020

acptulsa

08-28-2012, 11:22 AM

I rest my case.

The old 'Atlanta's my team and I won't turn my back on it just because it stars a convicted dog abuser' logic...

ShaneEnochs

08-28-2012, 11:28 AM

When was the last time a sitting President was beaten? It's been a while, right? (1992 doesn't count)

acptulsa

08-28-2012, 11:31 AM

When was the last time a sitting President was beaten? It's been a while, right?

Ironically enough, Dubya's daddy. Because it's the economy, stupid.

Which is why it amazes me to see them trying to shove Romney down our throats. In theory, the real unemployment rate of 25% ought to guarantee the GOP a victory. But when you look at the approved clown--er, I mean candidates, I can't help but think they really don't want to beat Obama.

ShaneEnochs

08-28-2012, 11:37 AM

Ironically enough, Dubya's daddy. Because it's the economy, stupid.

Which is why it amazes me to see them trying to shove Romney down our throats. In theory, the real unemployment rate of 25% ought to guarantee the GOP a victory. But when you look at the approved clown--er, I mean candidates, I can't help but think they really don't want to beat Obama.

Yeah, I edited it a couple minutes later. That was kind of special because there were three candidates, and Johnson isn't as known as Perot.

acptulsa

08-28-2012, 11:40 AM

Yeah, I edited it a couple minutes later. That was kind of special because there were three candidates, and Johnson isn't as known as Perot.

That's all right. Romney isn't as strong--with either independents or Republican voters--as even GHW Bush was in '92. And he wasn't exactly a strong candidate.

Shane Harris

08-28-2012, 11:55 AM

QuickZ06

08-28-2012, 11:57 AM

LOL at anyone who thinks Obama and Romney are not the same. It does not matter who is in change out of these two as they are bought and paid shells that will do anything for 'supposed power". They are puppets being controlled, it does not matter who you vote for they are both 100% evil.

TheTexan

08-28-2012, 12:01 PM

Brett85

08-28-2012, 12:08 PM

I only said that I wanted Romney to win, not that I'm going to vote for him. I've stated that I'm voting for Chuck Baldwin of the Kansas Reform Party.

pahs1994

08-28-2012, 12:16 PM

krazy kaju

08-28-2012, 12:20 PM

Writing in Ron Paul won't be a "stand" for anything. Your vote won't be counted.

You have two choices:

1. Romney - With the GOP in control of the House, Senate, and White House, we'll be able to pressure them to support some good legislation, like how we pressured every House Republican to vote for the Audit the Fed bill (which was consequently killed by the Senate Democrats). Also, 4-8 years of Romney will decrease the Establishment/moderate GOP's popularity to the point where a true rebel candidate, someone like a Rand Paul or Justin Amash, will be able to take the nomination. Lastly, we won't have any experienced candidates to field in 2016 either way. Ron Paul is probably out of the race - while all of our other potential future Presidential candidates won't have enough experience to be considered good picks till after 2016. If Ron Paul does decide to run in 2016, it would be good if he did so against Romney, just to show to the American populace that there are two wings of the Republican Party with a differing set of ideals. This would set the stage for a Rand Paul or Justin Amash to run in 2020.

2. Gary Johnson - If the vote Johnson gets is greater than the differential between the two major candidates, i.e. if Johnson gets 3% while either major party candidate loses by 1% or 2%, then that will send a signal to the politicians of the two major parties that there is a new subset of swing voters out there that they have to appeal to. It'll help encourage future candidates to make their platforms slightly more libertarian by supporting civil liberties and fiscal responsibility.

Mini-Me

08-28-2012, 12:44 PM

If it makes you feel good to vote for a candidate that is not on the ballot and will be lumped in as 'SCATTER' with other candidates then you should do that. That is a vote that is essentially the same as staying home and having a steak, which I hear some may do to make them feel better.

Others however believe there is no guarantee we are going to get Rand or some liberty candidate in 2016 if Romney loses. They are already promoting Rubio and Christie as rock stars so he will have quite a bit of competition.

If Obama wins the Overton window will move further in his direction and Conservative-Libertarian like policies will be more unpalatable and extreme to the masses in 4 years. Romney and the party maybe paying lip service to some of our domestic issues as of late which might be meaningless when it comes to action but at least it keeps these issues in the national dialog. An Obama win will be interpreted as the country moving farther to the left.

Voting for Romney maybe like eating a big shit sandwich but I am not going to blast anyone for doing so considering the facts. You are also deluding yourself that there is no difference between Obama and Romney. They are as far away from each other domestically as Ron is from them.

If the US collapses under Romney, it will be spun as the final death of "capitalism," and we will be at a huge disadvantage fighting that narrative. If the US collapses under Obama, we're in a much better position for educating people. Considering the US is just as likely to collapse under either of them, and a Romney win will also prevent us from primarying him in the 2016 election...yeah, a Romney win is the worst case scenario.

Vote Ron Paul. Vote Gary Johnson. Vote Vermin Supreme. Don't vote. Hell, vote for Obama if you have no hard principles regarding votes...but in a practical sense, the worst possible vote you can make is a vote for Romney.

Anti Federalist

08-28-2012, 12:47 PM

It will be in MY state.

No One But Paul.

Another wobbly makes his presence known.

Anyone who votes for or hopes Obama wins is going to permanently set the movement back. If Obama wins, everything is over. There will be NO TURNING BACK. Just look at what he has accomplished in less than 4 years.

No, I'm not voting for Romney but would we be able to use some muscle against Romney and maybe keep the Overton Window from moving too far Left with permanent irreversible damage? Possibly until 2016.

It's why Dr. Paul said he did not "fully endorse" Romney. Read between the lines people.

Come November, we will have a new president (elect), and his name sadly won't be Ron Paul. No one enjoys voting for the lesser of evils, but our nation can NOT survive another 4 years of Obama. I WILL vote for the GOP nominee, whoever that is. Even if it was Lindsey frickin Graham! (barf, puke) Obama WILL bankrupt this nation if he already hasn't, and even Romney won't do near the damage if given 8 years that Obama has done in 3.5

RAND PAUL 2016 or 2020

Writing in Ron Paul won't be a "stand" for anything. Your vote won't be counted.

You have two choices:

1. Romney - With the GOP in control of the House, Senate, and White House, we'll be able to pressure them to support some good legislation, like how we pressured every House Republican to vote for the Audit the Fed bill (which was consequently killed by the Senate Democrats). Also, 4-8 years of Romney will decrease the Establishment/moderate GOP's popularity to the point where a true rebel candidate, someone like a Rand Paul or Justin Amash, will be able to take the nomination. Lastly, we won't have any experienced candidates to field in 2016 either way. Ron Paul is probably out of the race - while all of our other potential future Presidential candidates won't have enough experience to be considered good picks till after 2016. If Ron Paul does decide to run in 2016, it would be good if he did so against Romney, just to show to the American populace that there are two wings of the Republican Party with a differing set of ideals. This would set the stage for a Rand Paul or Justin Amash to run in 2020.

2. Gary Johnson - If the vote Johnson gets is greater than the differential between the two major candidates, i.e. if Johnson gets 3% while either major party candidate loses by 1% or 2%, then that will send a signal to the politicians of the two major parties that there is a new subset of swing voters out there that they have to appeal to. It'll help encourage future candidates to make their platforms slightly more libertarian by supporting civil liberties and fiscal responsibility.

acptulsa

08-28-2012, 12:47 PM

parocks

08-28-2012, 12:48 PM

For those of you willing to vote for Romney for "strategic" reasons, you do realize that Republicans will go back to sleep if Romney were to take office, right?

I don't think there's anybody left that would be voting for Romney. 3 months ago there were a few.

krazy kaju

08-28-2012, 12:53 PM

Yup...

...and in the process, move the football back half the distance to the goal. I will not support Obama. I will, however, view his inevitable re-election as a better outcome than supporting the GOP in any fashion; insofar as taking a long view. A second shot of Black Jesus will help us to turn up the volume on the alarm clock a little louder still.

Waking up the people, and illustrating their subservience to government, is the goal here at RPF - the nomination of Ron Paul is/was merely one facet of our movement, I believe. Regardless of 2012's outcome, I anticipate reading articles in the coming year along the lines of, "Why are these Ron Paul people still organizing, still blah-blah-blah-ing..."

Your mistake here is believing that four more years of Obama will somehow bolster the libertarian wing of the GOP - but a rising tide lifts all boats - and that will include the moderates and the neocons within the GOP Establishment.

I believe our path to victory will be more similar to 2008 - when we had an unpopular incumbent Republican President and consequently an unpopular GOP Establishment vulnerable to being defeated in the primaries by a rebel faction of the Party. Ron Paul didn't have a chance in 2008 because there wasn't a libertarian wing of the GOP yet. But now, thanks to Ron Paul's efforts in 2008 and 2012, there is a libertarian faction within the GOP. Not only can we use our new found power to pressure Republican politicians to support some of our legislation - like the Audit the Fed bill - but now we have a chance of running a rebel AND WINNING against the Establishment pick in 2020.

In the meantime, we have the opportunity to recruit more libertarian Republicans, more Rand Pauls and Justin Amashs and Kerry Bentivolios and Thomas Massies so we can start building a pool of candidates and get them experienced enough in national politics so they actually have a record to run on. Also, we can't drop the ball, we have to continue to strive to take over our local and state GOP party structures.

krazy kaju

08-28-2012, 12:59 PM

If the US collapses under Romney, it will be spun as the final death of capitalism, and we will be at a huge disadvantage fighting that narrative. If the US collapses under Obama, we're in a much better position. Considering the US is just as likely to collapse under either of them, and a Romney win will also prevent us from fielding a viable Presidential candidate in 2016...yeah, a Romney win is the worst case scenario.

Remember what happened in 2008? Ron Paul got disproportionate attention even though he had no chance of winning - simply because he was representative of a different wing of the Republican Party. He didn't have a chance then, but if we continue our efforts to expand the libertarian wing of the GOP into 2020, we will have a chance at getting the GOP nomination from the moderates and neoconservatives BUT THIS WILL ONLY HAPPEN AS LONG AS THE MODERATES AND NEOCONS ARE BLAMED FOR OUR ECONOMIC WOES.

Again - a rising tide lifts all boats. And having Obama in there till 2016 will bolster the ENTIRE Republican Party - including the moderates and the neocons. We won't have a good experienced candidate to field in 2016 - not good enough to defeat the neocon wing of the GOP. But if the neocons/moderates win this year, then we can make a play for it in 2020 when people are sick and tired of government hyperinterventionism and are looking for an alternative that the Democrats won't be offering.

Mini-Me

08-28-2012, 01:02 PM

Doesn't matter who you vote for you. Your vote won't be counted. As with everything else in this election, whether it be our candidate, our ideas, or our delegates, your vote will be swept aside and promptly discarded.

The government at all levels is corrupt and lawless. The president and the politicians commit heinous crimes against the constitution on a regular basis. So much so, that such behavior is considered normal, and accepted.

Up is down. Wrong is right. Unconstitutional is constitutional. Tyranny is freedom. War is peace. This country is so incredibly far gone it is beyond repair.

By voting, the only message that sends, is that you still believe in the "system." You still believe that the system works. You still believe that if only we can vote enough liberty people into the system, that we'll be able to vote our freedom back. The problem is, they barely even let us vote at all. Because it is a criminal organization. It is far, far too late to turn it around by working within that system. They have an iron grasp on it. Anything that even remotely threatens their grip, is dealt with efficiently and expediently.

Do not vote. Withdraw your consent. Make it clear to yourself, and anyone who will listen, that this system and these people are criminals and they have no rightful authority.

Okay, so the voting machines are rigged. Okay, so Romney's team compromised the central tabulator this time around. However, they can only cheat so much; otherwise, Ron Paul would have lost his Congressional seat long ago, and none of us would have heard of him, and a lot of people here would still be neocons or progressives. Therefore, the voters in the 14th district of Texas HAVE made a huge demonstrable difference. Just because there are setbacks, and just because it's an uphill battle, is not a valid argument for saying it's totally futile. We've barely even begun to try, and I'm constantly hearing crap about how we should simply give up.

What, do you think the government is going to go away on its own? It won't! So long as the government has enough of an appearance of legitimacy, it can still collect tax money and rape and pillage. What about agorism? Agorism only affects trade, not the large-scale production of most economic goods. We need capital goods and factories and fields that cannot be hidden forever from the IRS to actually produce stuff, which means that there will ALWAYS be enough above-board business for the IRS to tax and fund government with. Education alone means nothing as long as the government is getting its money, and most people have very different personalities from you and me: They cannot be educated by rational argumentation until they're emotionally ready, and they need to hear arguments from "winners" before that happens. Tax revolt? People aren't ready for that kind of sacrifice and risk to fight the establishment, considering they're not even ready to stop voting for the "lesser of two evils." Armed revolt? LOL. What about non-voters? The vast majority haven't "withdrawn consent;" they're simply apathetic, and that is exactly the message that not voting sends outside of a tiny libertarian circlejerk. They have it in their power to actually make third parties WIN if they did vote (see above about the 14th district in Texas)...but they just don't care enough to lift a finger, let alone organize.

I understand you're probably just riding this out and waiting for collapse, but what then? People WILL beg for another government, and likely a more fundamentally compromised one than this. We're not immediately going to go into some voluntaryist paradise from here; that's a lot way off, after the population becomes comfortable enough with years and years of stable minarchy to slowly and methodically dismantle it. Instead, a collapse will bring another state, probably a worse one with "positive rights" codified in its Constitution, unless WE get involved and exert every bit of our influence on its Constitutional Convention. What does that take? Oh, yeah...political action. Whether you wait for collapse or not, political action is literally unavoidable at some point for us to ever actually get anything done...but it just might be considerably more difficult after collapse, depending on the circumstances involved.

In short, please, PLEASE stop pushing such a destructive notion as "withdrawing consent" by washing your hands of literally anything that might have the power to peacefully reduce or dissolve government. Whether before or after collapse, political action is ultimately the ONLY thing that will allow us to push back enough to restrain government; other approaches like agorism help grease the wheels a bit, but as I argued above, literally no other avenue is sufficient without political action, so we'd all better hope it's less futile than you indicate. Quietly disengage if you like, but for all of our sake, please stop trying to convince others to do the same. Or, participate and simply declare that your desire to influence the outcome in no way implies your consent to be ruled by it (unless it's complete voluntaryism). The only people who will even hear your thoughts on consent - or care - are your libertarian friends anyway.

krazy kaju

08-28-2012, 01:02 PM

It will be in MY state.

No One But Paul.

Another wobbly makes his presence known.

Typical anti-intellectual response. Write in Ron Paul and have your vote not counted if you like. Others here are taking a longer term and strategic look at the situation so we can one day field a libertarian candidate like Ron Paul who will take the GOP nomination and then take the country back.

RickyJ

08-28-2012, 01:05 PM

There are some plants here. Romney pays people to support him, he also pays people to disrupt forums. Pay them no mind, they were never Ron Paul supporters to start with.

acptulsa

08-28-2012, 01:05 PM

Typical anti-intellectual response. Write in Ron Paul and have your vote not counted if you like. Others here are taking a longer term and strategic look at the situation so we can one day field a libertarian candidate like Ron Paul who will take the GOP nomination and then take the country back.

And if he, like I, don't see any strategic advantage either in falling in line and doing what our oppressors want or pissing off the people we're trying to win as allies in our cause? Especially since we aren't terribly likely to be able to swing the popular vote? In that case, our best strategic vote is arguably to show everyone that we will stand by our principles and stick to our guns.

Not an anti-intellectual response at all.

libertariantexas

08-28-2012, 01:07 PM

I think Romney might be a tiny bit better than Obama but am voting Johnson now. Well if Romney's lawyers dont get Johnson kicked off the PA ballot. :mad:

I'm voting for Libertarian Gary Johnson as well.

No way in Hell am I voting for a controlling, power mad Nazi like Romney.

NoOneButPaul

08-28-2012, 01:10 PM

Vote for Johnson or write in Ron Paul.

I feel like your crazy if don't write Ron in but different states have different rules.

Mordan

08-28-2012, 01:15 PM

Simply not true -- The Republican (voters) will be up in arms, the dems will not have the votes, only executive orders and waring will ensue. And the masses will awaken with our help.

With Romney -- everything you said is true because the republican voter will go back to never-never-land thus giving free reign to the republican establishment.

+1. my thoughts.

krazy kaju

08-28-2012, 01:17 PM

There are some plants here. Romney pays people to support him, he also pays people to disrupt forums. Pay them no mind, they were never Ron Paul supporters to start with.

Please explain my forum registration date. Or why I was a precinct leader for the Ron Paul Campaign. Or why I'm a coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty.

And if he, like I, don't see any strategic advantage either in falling in line and doing what our oppressors want or pissing off the people we're trying to win as allies in our cause? Especially since we aren't terribly likely to be able to swing the popular vote? In that case, our best strategic vote is arguably to show everyone that we will stand by our principles and stick to our guns.

Not an anti-intellectual response at all.

His response was anti-intellectual - yours wasn't.

This isn't about trying to win the rest of the Party over. It's about making them irrelevant. In 2008, there was an opportunity because there was an unpopular incumbent Republican President and the mainstream GOP had ruined its own brand. We didn't have a chance at winning then because we (our faction of voters) simply didn't exist. BUT Ron Paul made a big splash because his message was different.

Now, in 2012, people are sick and tired of Obama and the Democrats - and that's bolstering ALL Republicans ACROSS THE BOARD. Neocons, moderates, Religious Right, etc. If Obama wins in 2012, what do you think will happen in 2016? The neocons will be even more popular, because they'll be presenting something seen as an alternative to the Democrats. We won't have an experienced candidate to field that year, given Ron Paul's age and the fact that he's retiring and given the fact that Rand Paul will be finishing his FIRST term as a Senator. That will leave us with 4-8 years of a neocon Republican in power and 8-12 years before we can take over the Party and consequently take power.

Our path to victory will be similar to what happened in 2008 - we'll have to face off as a different faction within the GOP opposed to the unpopular incumbent (Romney) and present a different message in order to win the nomination and then win over the American people. In the meantime, we have to focus on taking over our local and state Republican Parties as well as trying to win races big and small so we can develop an experienced cadre of potential libertarian Republican candidates for higher office.

BSU kid

08-28-2012, 01:19 PM

I have learned these past few months, Gary Johnson is not the libertarian saint I thought he was but...seriously if you are going to vote for someone then vote him over Obama.

acptulsa

08-28-2012, 01:20 PM

...and given the fact that Rand Paul will be finishing his FIRST term as a Senator.

If that didn't stop the Democrats from electing a president, why would it stop us?

RickyJ

08-28-2012, 01:20 PM

Please explain my forum registration date. Or why I was a precinct leader for the Ron Paul Campaign. Or why I'm a coordinator for the Campaign for Liberty.

Explain Jesse Benton. You go ahead and vote for Romney, I bet Benton will too. Some plants here in 2008 voted for McCain, were you one of them?

krazy kaju

08-28-2012, 01:25 PM

Explain Jesse Benton.

If anyone is the plant, then it's people like you who are questioning RP's judgment and trying to divide the movement.

You go ahead and vote for Romney, I bet Benton will too. Some plants here in 2008 voted for McCain, were you one of them?

I didn't vote.

If that didn't stop the Democrats from electing a president, why would it stop us?

Let's be honest here - the only reason why Obama won his Party's nomination was the fact that he was a racial minority and that electing him was a historic moment.

Mini-Me

08-28-2012, 01:25 PM

Our path to victory will be similar to what happened in 2008 - we'll have to face off as a different faction within the GOP opposed to the unpopular incumbent (Romney) and present a different message in order to win the nomination and then win over the American people. In the meantime, we have to focus on taking over our local and state Republican Parties as well as trying to win races big and small so we can develop an experienced cadre of potential libertarian Republican candidates for higher office.

I think you have this backwards: We had so much trouble in 2008 because the Republican base was totally asleep. They're all about notions of being strong...being winners. It's only because McCain LOST that they were shaken out of their stupor enough to give us massive gains in 2012, but a Romney victory will convince them it's alright again, and they can keep winning elections without paying any mind to the crazy libertarians.

If Romney wins, there will be no gridlock with Congress, so he will ram through all of the worst parts of the neocon agenda without any friction. If America collapses under Romney, the narrative will be "capitalism is dead forever," and it will be extremely hard to set the record straight. If the country doesn't collapse under Romney, we're looking at 2020 as our earliest serious shot at the Presidency. Even then, that's only if Romney loses in 2016...if he wins, Republicans will still be asleep in 2020, and they'll be about as receptive as they were in 2008. We will only be able to win a Republican Presidential primary on the heels of a Republican loss (and as we learned this year, we'll only win if we've already replaced the RNC). Long story short, a Romney win is literally the worst case scenario.

Here's another thought: If Romney wins and has a friendly Congress, he might also be able to change the laws regarding party politics, which currently protect us from party leaders rigging chairman and RNC member elections the way they're rigging nominations by trampling delegates. Right now, taking over the state parties and RNC is basically a numbers game, and there's little they can do to stop it if we have the activists (unlike what they've done with the nomination process). If Romney changes the laws, all bets are off. He must not be allowed to win the Presidency.

krazy kaju

08-28-2012, 01:34 PM

I think you have this backwards: We had so much trouble in 2008 because the Republican base was totally asleep. They're all about notions of being strong...being winners. It's only because McCain LOST that they were shaken out of their stupor enough to give us massive gains in 2012

Yeah - it shook them out of their stupor enough to support Romney. Pleeeeaaaase. :rolleyes: The massive gains of the Ron Paul movement have been thanks to Ron Paul and his grassroots support (us).

A rising tide lifts all boats - and having the Democrats in control till 2016 will increase the popularity of our brand of Republicanism, but also the brand of the neocons and moderates. My point is that we won't get anywhere till they destroy their own brand - at which point our brand will be seen as a meaningful alternative. In the meantime, we have to focus on other races in order to develop a pool of experienced candidates. Let's start taking back the House and Senate a few races at a time and then let's look toward the White House.

Also - in 2016 I'd love it if Ron Paul ran again, especially as a primary challenge against Romney. He probably won't win but it'll help grow our wing of the Republican Party and prepare us for victory in 2020.

but a Romney victory will convince them it's alright again, and they can keep winning elections without paying any mind to the crazy libertarians.

If they can win elections without our support, then why did every single Republican in the House vote for our Audit the Fed bill? Why did Romney all of a sudden come out in support of auditing the Fed? Why are Fed transparency, internet freedom, and the gold commission being incorporated into the platform? They know they need us.

Let's not give up - let's continue taking over the GOP and developing our brand of Republicanism, so that when the time comes, we'll be ready.

Anti Federalist

08-28-2012, 01:35 PM

NH counts all write in votes.

http://writein2008.blogspot.com.br/search/label/New%20Hampshire

Sorry if I didn't take half a page of brainy text to make that point.

Your point, remains unclear, however.

One of the drawbacks of trying to make every internet post one writes a Socratic high achievement.

His response was anti-intellectual - yours wasn't.

This isn't about trying to win the rest of the Party over. It's about making them irrelevant. In 2008, there was an opportunity because there was an unpopular incumbent Republican President and the mainstream GOP had ruined its own brand. We didn't have a chance at winning then because we (our faction of voters) simply didn't exist. BUT Ron Paul made a big splash because his message was different.

Now, in 2012, people are sick and tired of Obama and the Democrats - and that's bolstering ALL Republicans ACROSS THE BOARD. Neocons, moderates, Religious Right, etc. If Obama wins in 2012, what do you think will happen in 2016? The neocons will be even more popular, because they'll be presenting something seen as an alternative to the Democrats. We won't have an experienced candidate to field that year, given Ron Paul's age and the fact that he's retiring and given the fact that Rand Paul will be finishing his FIRST term as a Senator. That will leave us with 4-8 years of a neocon Republican in power and 8-12 years before we can take over the Party and consequently take power.

Our path to victory will be similar to what happened in 2008 - we'll have to face off as a different faction within the GOP opposed to the unpopular incumbent (Romney) and present a different message in order to win the nomination and then win over the American people. In the meantime, we have to focus on taking over our local and state Republican Parties as well as trying to win races big and small so we can develop an experienced cadre of potential libertarian Republican candidates for higher office.

Anti Federalist

08-28-2012, 01:38 PM

There are some plants here. Romney pays people to support him, he also pays people to disrupt forums. Pay them no mind, they were never Ron Paul supporters to start with.

Could be plants, but could also be wobblies.

I've seen this all before, playing out almost exactly like it did in 2008.

NOBP.

jkob

08-28-2012, 01:40 PM

Not going to vote for Romney or Obama under any circumstances. If I vote at all it will be for Gary Johnson or to write in Ron Paul.

Mini-Me

08-28-2012, 01:41 PM

Yeah - it shook them out of their stupor enough to support Romney. Pleeeeaaaase. :rolleyes: The massive gains of the Ron Paul movement have been thanks to Ron Paul and his grassroots support (us).
Where did the extra votes come from, kaju? They came from people who were jeering at us in 2008, but who humbled themselves enough after a loss to start listening. Our hard support is marginally higher, but it's our soft support that made the real gains. I'm not saying the whole base "woke up." I'm saying that most people have different personality types than us, and there are only short windows of vulnerability where they're open-minded enough to overcome their biases and give rational arguments a fair hearing. That window is NOT when they're in power. Did you see the anti-war left making great strides with Obama in office and a Democratic Congress? No...you don't even hear about them anymore.

A rising tide lifts all boats - and having the Democrats in control till 2016 will increase the popularity of our brand of Republicanism, but also the brand of the neocons and moderates. My point is that we won't get anywhere till they destroy their own brand - at which point our brand will be seen as a meaningful alternative. In the meantime, we have to focus on other races in order to develop a pool of experienced candidates. Let's start taking back the House and Senate a few races at a time and then let's look toward the White House.
Neocons will not destroy their OWN brand in the eyes of the vast majority of Republicans. They didn't with Bush, and Obama hasn't done so with progressives. That's not the way things work. The vast majority of people are completely oblivious to their party's own failings when they're in power. It's only after they lose when they start paying attention to see what's wrong.

Also - in 2016 I'd love it if Ron Paul ran again, especially as a primary challenge against Romney. He probably won't win but it'll help grow our wing of the Republican Party and prepare us for victory in 2020.
Primarying a sitting President is futile, especially considering a Romney win this year will return a dose of pride and arrogance to ordinary GOP'ers.

If they can win elections without our support, then why did every single Republican in the House vote for our Audit the Fed bill? Why did Romney all of a sudden come out in support of auditing the Fed? Why are Fed transparency, internet freedom, and the gold commission being incorporated into the platform? They know they need us.
They ARE at the point where they can't win Presidential elections without our support, which is why they keep trying to woo us. That doesn't mean they'll do anything for us afterwards. Once they're in power, they obviously have no more use for us for four more years, the same way Obama and the Democrats had no more use for the anti-war, anti-police state left. You could say, "Well, then we know they can't be trusted." No, I already know they can't be trusted, and if you don't already know it now - with all this going on at the convention today including missing buses - then I have a bridge to sell you. Our power comes from rejecting their overtures, not bowing to them. If even Ron Paul's hard support on these forums is foolish enough to buy into the promises and empty gestures of establishment politicians, we're doomed.

Let's not give up - let's continue taking over the GOP and developing our brand of Republicanism, so that when the time comes, we'll be ready.
I agree with taking over the GOP. I do not agree with helping Romney in ANY way...and once again, please consider my arguments about what happens if America collapses under Romney.

Brett85

08-28-2012, 02:21 PM

phill4paul

08-28-2012, 02:23 PM

People also haven't seemed to take into consideration that the better Romney does, the better our liberty candidates in the house and Senate will do. The worse Romney does, the worse our candidates in the house and Senate will do. If Romney lost in a landslide defeat, it's likely Justin Amash would lose as well.

Oh, fuck that shit! They can run on their record. Which is what they should be doing anyway. Fuck Rmoney. Fuck supporting the Rethuglican party until they can get their shit together.

Brett85

08-28-2012, 02:26 PM

Oh, fuck that shit! They can run on their record. Which is what they should be doing anyway. Fuck Rmoney. Fuck supporting the Rethuglican party until they can get their shit together.

1) I'm not trying to convince anyone to vote for Romney. I'm voting 3rd party this year.

2) I'm simply saying that it's foolish to openly root for Romney to lose, or to vote for Obama. Whether you want to admit it or not, the worse Romney does in the election, the worse Justin Amash and other liberty candidates will do. When the top of the ticket does worse, the bottom of the ticket does worse as well. That's just common sense.

phill4paul

08-28-2012, 02:32 PM

anaconda

08-28-2012, 02:46 PM

How does that make a stand for liberty and Ron Paul?

It punishes the Republican Party for not incorporating the Ron Paul platform or supporting Ron Paul as a viable candidate.

anaconda

08-28-2012, 02:51 PM

4 more years of Obama is better than 8 more years of his policies.

Strategically, voting for Obama is the optimal strategy for 2016. I realize this is repulsive to many.

Mini-Me

08-28-2012, 02:59 PM

1) I'm not trying to convince anyone to vote for Romney. I'm voting 3rd party this year.

2) I'm simply saying that it's foolish to openly root for Romney to lose, or to vote for Obama. Whether you want to admit it or not, the worse Romney does in the election, the worse Justin Amash and other liberty candidates will do. When the top of the ticket does worse, the bottom of the ticket does worse as well. That's just common sense.

Don't you think you're confusing correlation for causation here? People vote for the top and bottom of the ticket at the same time, and while people who vote against a party's Presidential candidate in any particular election are historically likely to vote a straight ticket against that party, the same logic does not apply to us. My hope is that a critical number of voters will deny Romney victory not because they're liberals or straight party voters (even straight party swing voters), but because they're tired of corrupt establishment politicians. That's why you're voting third party, after all. My hope and tentative belief is that our voting bloc is now large enough to single-handedly spoil any neoconservative Presidential bid from this point forward, thereby preventing a Republican from being in office during a collapse (spun as the "death of capitalism") and forcing Republican voters to be more open to liberty candidates if they ever want to win again.

WesSeid

08-28-2012, 05:03 PM

Writing in Ron Paul won't be a "stand" for anything. Your vote won't be counted.

2. Gary Johnson - If the vote Johnson gets is greater than the differential between the two major candidates, i.e. if Johnson gets 3% while either major party candidate loses by 1% or 2%, then that will send a signal to the politicians of the two major parties that there is a new subset of swing voters out there that they have to appeal to. It'll help encourage future candidates to make their platforms slightly more libertarian by supporting civil liberties and fiscal responsibility.

This.

If you want to have the most impact promoting liberty, I don't see how voting for someone besides Gary Johnson will achieve your goal.

Gary Johnson isn't Ron Paul, but he's pretty darn good. The next four years are going to be hell either way, but 2016 doesn't have to be.

Imagine if the Libertarian Party gets enough votes to be included in future debates. That would lead into more popularity for third parties, more funding for third parties, and it would snowball from there once people see the evil two-headed beast can indeed bleed. And if it bleeds, we can kill it. (Relax, watch-list goons, that's just a line from Predator.)

Ron Paul will not be on the ballot in all 50 states. Gary Johnson will be.

If nothing else, watch Gary Johnson's speech from Paul Fest and then decide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tLN5NBZ5KU

seyferjm

08-28-2012, 05:04 PM

Gary will be at my school Oct. 5th, looking forward to talking with him personally.

Chadd Murray

08-28-2012, 05:10 PM

Bastiat's The Law

08-28-2012, 05:34 PM

I haven't seen anyone say that:confused:

TheTexan

08-28-2012, 05:35 PM

Okay, so the voting machines are rigged. Okay, so Romney's team compromised the central tabulator this time around. However, they can only cheat so much; otherwise, Ron Paul would have lost his Congressional seat long ago

He wasn't a threat until we showed up. There was no need to undermine him back then. He was just a gadfly for most of those years. Once millions of people started supporting him, that quickly changed.

Just because there are setbacks, and just because it's an uphill battle, is not a valid argument for saying it's totally futile. We've barely even begun to try, and I'm constantly hearing crap about how we should simply give up.

Give up? Give up? This fight has barely just begun. We have completed phase 1: the awakening. Politics has served its purpose. We can continue to try to use it to wake up the few left capable of waking up, but for the most part, we have expended the political system's usefulness. We won't get much more out of it.

It's time to start phase 2.

What, do you think the government is going to go away on its own? It won't!

Who said anything about it going away on its own?

I understand you're probably just riding this out and waiting for collapse, but what then? People WILL beg for another government, and likely a more fundamentally compromised one than this. We're not immediately going to go into some voluntaryist paradise from here; that's a lot way off, after the population becomes comfortable enough with years and years of stable minarchy to slowly and methodically dismantle it. Instead, a collapse will bring another state, probably a worse one with "positive rights" codified in its Constitution, unless WE get involved and exert every bit of our influence on its Constitutional Convention.

I couldn't agree more. But you wish to work within the broken system, so that when the system breaks, we're already set up inside the system so that we can convince people to come to our side. However, it's not going to work that way.

What's going to happen, is that when the collapse happens, we're going to point out to them that we saw this coming, explain to them how it happened, and then show them a path to a brighter future. And they're going to tell us to shove that brighter future up our ass, because they want more State. Dr. Paul has predicted nearly everything that has come to pass today, the police state, the economic collapse, the encroachments on our liberty, the endless wars, the insurmountable debt. Noone cares. They want more State, have always wanted more State, and will always want more State. Future generations are not so hopeless, but this current generation absolutely is. They will oppose us. Always.

What does that take? Oh, yeah...political action. Whether you wait for collapse or not, political action is literally unavoidable

Sure. Political action. But that does not necessarily mean that our political actions should be in the framework of their political system. When this collapse happens, we do want to have an infrastructure. But we don't want that infrastructure to be inside of their system. There are simply too many reasons not to do it. They will attempt subterfuge against us, they will undermine us at every turn, and generally just fight us however they can. This makes it very hard for us to organize.

Any "organization" that we attempt to form inside of their system will not work. Because working within the system implies working with Republicans (or Democrats, or any other party), that means we are working with those people. They will be a part of the conversation. This means that every time we try to have meaningful discourse on how to proceed or what should be done, we have to fight off all of those other people who despise liberty and freedom.

The only positive to working within the system is to try to convert new people. And that's a noble pursuit. However, there's not many left to convert. As things get worse, more people will be willing to come to our side, but for now we have reached a ceiling. We can continue to reach out to these people without needing to be inside of their system. If we have our own infrastructure, and as long as we are welcoming to all who want liberty and freedom, as the saying goes - build it, and they will come.

We need to start building our own infrastructure. A political party, if you like. But the purpose is not to win elections. The purpose should be solely to organize like minded individuals. Only with proper organization can we ever hope to achieve anything, and we won't find that organization by trying to "take over the GOP."

The GOP has nothing to offer us anymore. We need to organize ourselves and prepare for the coming collapse. When the system collapses, our infrastructure will be in place, and we'll have much better chances of successfully opposing the rest of the country's desire for tyranny.

Quietly disengage if you like

You like many others are living in a false dichotomy. Refusing to participate in their system is not "giving up." In my book, I call it "just getting started."

WesSeid

08-28-2012, 05:37 PM

I have learned these past few months, Gary Johnson is not the libertarian saint I thought he was but...seriously if you are going to vote for someone then vote him over Obama.

Why do you say that about Johnson?

QuickZ06

08-28-2012, 05:39 PM

Because it is true........

Why do you say that about Johnson?

McChronagle

08-28-2012, 05:39 PM

A vote for Obama is the best strategy for 2016 as much as people don't want to have to do so. The next best strategy is to vote for Gary Johnson and it has the extra benefit of actually voting for a good candidate. The worst strategy is to vote for Romney, since if he wins it will be impossible to put up someone else in 2016 and I worry about the fragility of the liberty movement at this time. Marginally Romney might be slightly better on taxes than Obama, but I don't think it's worth it granted the massive negatives.

peter schiff made a good point yesterday. if romney were to win and a collapse were to happen or if romney failed to improve things and went back on his "promises", rand could stand up and say hey, i worked with you before but you havent done anything. now you have to work with me. if rand were to primary him, it would be a 1 on 1 battle instead of having to share the stage with 9 other candidates. i think too many people are assuming an obama win is the best case scenario if you are just interested in rand winning 2016.

ape

08-28-2012, 05:45 PM

We're screwed either way with Obama or Romney. Might as well vote for Johnson. This country, along with it's mornonic voters and their BS, deserve a collapse. This country had it's chance with RP, twice.

WesSeid

08-28-2012, 05:46 PM

Because it is true........

How about some specifics? If he's that bad, I would think you'd want people not to vote for him, and to do that you should give specific reasons why.

TheBlackPeterSchiff

08-28-2012, 05:47 PM

I guess I just dont care. I have absolutely 0 faith in this system.

CT4Liberty

08-28-2012, 05:53 PM

If it makes you feel good to vote for a candidate that is not on the ballot and will be lumped in as 'SCATTER' with other candidates then you should do that. That is a vote that is essentially the same as staying home and having a steak, which I hear some may do to make them feel better.

Others however believe there is no guarantee we are going to get Rand or some liberty candidate in 2016 if Romney loses. They are already promoting Rubio and Christie as rock stars so he will have quite a bit of competition.

If Obama wins the Overton window will move further in his direction and Conservative-Libertarian like policies will be more unpalatable and extreme to the masses in 4 years. Romney and the party maybe paying lip service to some of our domestic issues as of late which might be meaningless when it comes to action but at least it keeps these issues in the national dialog. An Obama win will be interpreted as the country moving farther to the left.

Voting for Romney maybe like eating a big shit sandwich but I am not going to blast anyone for doing so considering the facts. You are also deluding yourself that there is no difference between Obama and Romney. They are as far away from each other domestically as Ron is from them.

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

You know what would really scare the bejesus out of the establishment.... 15-20% of voters voting for anyone but the R or D on the ticket... I personally dont care who it is, write in Paul (like I probably will) ... vote for Johnson (like I might) ... Constitution Party, Green Party, Socialist Party, whatever you want... but until we can make it known that this may not be a 2 horse race they will continue to pull this stuff.

QuickZ06

08-28-2012, 05:54 PM

How about some specifics? If he's that bad, I would think you'd want people not to vote for him, and to do that you should give specific reasons why.

Try a search on this forum, plenty of threads on this out there. He is against the wars, yet for sending our military to save the "kids" from Kony? And let me remind you Kony's "army" is full of children.

CT4Liberty

08-28-2012, 06:05 PM

I guess I just dont care. I have absolutely 0 faith in this system.

Then we must change the system!!

TheTexan

08-28-2012, 06:11 PM

Then we must change the system!!

replace the system, IMO

heavenlyboy34

08-28-2012, 06:14 PM

replace the system, IMO +rep

CT4Liberty

08-28-2012, 06:22 PM

replace the system, IMO

Semantics... either way, apathy will not change or replace the system

NewFederalist

08-28-2012, 06:41 PM

Well, Romney won fair and square so why would we not support him? ;-(

QuickZ06

08-28-2012, 07:31 PM

Well, Romney won fair and square so why would we not support him? ;-(

Thats a good one, thanks for the last laugh of the night for me.

anaconda

08-28-2012, 08:13 PM

Mini-Me

08-28-2012, 08:49 PM

He wasn't a threat until we showed up. There was no need to undermine him back then. He was just a gadfly for most of those years. Once millions of people started supporting him, that quickly changed.
How did Ron get reelected in 2010 then? How did Justin Amash win? Rand Paul? My point there is that the establishment's ability to cheat is limited. It's there, and they do cheat brazenly, but if you're assuming that trying to prevent a collapse is futile, you're overestimating their degree of control.

Give up? Give up? This fight has barely just begun. We have completed phase 1: the awakening. Politics has served its purpose. We can continue to try to use it to wake up the few left capable of waking up, but for the most part, we have expended the political system's usefulness. We won't get much more out of it.

It's time to start phase 2.

Who said anything about it going away on its own?

I couldn't agree more. But you wish to work within the broken system, so that when the system breaks, we're already set up inside the system so that we can convince people to come to our side. However, it's not going to work that way.

What's going to happen, is that when the collapse happens, we're going to point out to them that we saw this coming, explain to them how it happened, and then show them a path to a brighter future. And they're going to tell us to shove that brighter future up our ass, because they want more State. Dr. Paul has predicted nearly everything that has come to pass today, the police state, the economic collapse, the encroachments on our liberty, the endless wars, the insurmountable debt. Noone cares. They want more State, have always wanted more State, and will always want more State. Future generations are not so hopeless, but this current generation absolutely is. They will oppose us. Always.

Sure. Political action. But that does not necessarily mean that our political actions should be in the framework of their political system. When this collapse happens, we do want to have an infrastructure. But we don't want that infrastructure to be inside of their system. There are simply too many reasons not to do it. They will attempt subterfuge against us, they will undermine us at every turn, and generally just fight us however they can. This makes it very hard for us to organize.

Any "organization" that we attempt to form inside of their system will not work. Because working within the system implies working with Republicans (or Democrats, or any other party), that means we are working with those people. They will be a part of the conversation. This means that every time we try to have meaningful discourse on how to proceed or what should be done, we have to fight off all of those other people who despise liberty and freedom.

The only positive to working within the system is to try to convert new people. And that's a noble pursuit. However, there's not many left to convert. As things get worse, more people will be willing to come to our side, but for now we have reached a ceiling. We can continue to reach out to these people without needing to be inside of their system. If we have our own infrastructure, and as long as we are welcoming to all who want liberty and freedom, as the saying goes - build it, and they will come.

We need to start building our own infrastructure. A political party, if you like. But the purpose is not to win elections. The purpose should be solely to organize like minded individuals. Only with proper organization can we ever hope to achieve anything, and we won't find that organization by trying to "take over the GOP."

The GOP has nothing to offer us anymore. We need to organize ourselves and prepare for the coming collapse. When the system collapses, our infrastructure will be in place, and we'll have much better chances of successfully opposing the rest of the country's desire for tyranny.

You like many others are living in a false dichotomy. Refusing to participate in their system is not "giving up." In my book, I call it "just getting started."

It looks like your core assumption is that political activism has absolutely no chance of working before collapse, because there's no chance on Earth of stopping it now. You could be right of course, and time will tell, but I'd rather try and fail than let your assumption become a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Let it not be said that we did nothing." I can imagine a very different future for us anyway, because the state GOP chairs we've taken over are strong signs that there is indeed a chance...and I think it's definitely worth pursuing.

There is nothing that will change the average person's mind faster than social proof of our ideas being popular and socially acceptable enough to supplant neoconservatism in a major party. That's the real obstacle we face: Even though anyone can internalize rational arguments when they really try, most people don't arrive at their views because of their rationality. That's totally incidental; they form their views for social and emotional reasons. Once more of us begin to understand that, we can start taking advantage of it instead of letting it hinder us so badly.

We already have some degree of organization "outside" the system, including The Libertarian Party, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, etc. Exactly how do you suggest we strengthen that infrastructure to argue our case after collapse (defined by hyperinflation)? Preparing ourselves enough to be the "go-to" people in our communities after a collapse would be fantastic, but we need to keep in mind that the government has "continuity of government" plans that likely include martial law, and it's hard to predict how that might all unfold. What else? How would some other route give us more visibility and credibility (among the masses, not other libertarians and malcontents) than taking over the Republican Party? Note that when the housing market failed and the stock market crashed, people looked to the same old sources of authority who caused the problem for advice on what to do. We facepalmed and banged our heads on walls, but nothing we did could change the simple fact that people are slow to learn from history. Even after a total economic collapse, they will still be hardwired to listen to many of the same institutions that led them to disaster. We should take advantage of this...and why not? In what way would strengthening our "external" organization necessitate ending all efforts to take over the Republican Party and stop a collapse?

TheTexan

08-28-2012, 09:51 PM

It looks like your core assumption is that political activism has absolutely no chance of working before collapse, because there's no chance on Earth of stopping it now. You could be right of course, and time will tell, but I'd rather try and fail than let your assumption become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's a mathematical inevitability.

There is nothing that will change the average person's mind faster than social proof of our ideas being popular and socially acceptable enough to supplant neoconservatism in a major party. That's the real obstacle we face: Even though anyone can internalize rational arguments, most people don't internalize their views because of their rationality. That's totally incidental; they form their views for social and emotional reasons. Once more of us begin to understand that, we can start taking advantage of it instead of letting it hinder us so badly.

I generally agree with this, but many people will oppose this social change with every fiber of their being. Once the social change is established, they will accept it. But those who oppose us outnumber us. For us to succeed, we will need to oppose them with greater unity and strength.

Exactly how do you suggest we strengthen that infrastructure to argue our case after collapse (defined by hyperinflation)?

Argue the case? No... again, that's fruitless. They can't be convinced through any logical or rational means. We will simply need to win against them through sheer willpower. Our delegates that we earned are a good example of this. Considering the minimal amount of popular support we had, we actually gained a lot of delegates. We accomplished that by acting in unison, and with a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears over that period of time. However, and while the delegate game was moderately successful, it was for simply a single election. It's an unsustainable strategy because for that to work over the hundreds of elections required, we would need to continue at that same pace of effort for many, many years. It's not humanly possible, and we're seeing the results of that now.

Not to mention, that if we were to continue to work the political system with the same amount of effort for many years, that would give our opponents time to respond with a greater opposing force. It's simply not possible.

We must avoid at all costs long sustained efforts, because we will lose the war of attrition. Any political coup d'état must be swift and efficient.

In what way would strengthening our "external" organization necessitate ending all efforts to take over the Republican Party and stop a collapse?

That's not necessarily what I mean. I don't think it's necessary to abandon the effort entirely. But I do believe that viewing the takeover of the GOP as a primary objective is, at this point, a futile endeavor that will only leave us tired, wounded, and disorganized when the time comes where we need to be at our best.

Our primary objective at this point should be to surviving the coming storm, and thriving in the post-collapse environment. I believe taking over the GOP does have merit in the context of surviving and thriving in the storm, and that's a debate worth having. But my point is I do not believe our primary objective should be winning elections, not for now, at least.

Above all, we need unity. And that doesn't necessarily mean we need to agree on the same strategy. It just means that we need to view each other respectfully as equals, and keep lines of communication open. Many people are openly hostile to those who are not on board with the GOP strategy, and in some cases, vice versa as well.

TheTexan

08-28-2012, 10:04 PM

WesSeid

08-29-2012, 03:12 AM

Peter Schiff wants me to vote for Obama by betting the U.S. will collapse within the next four years? ehhhh....

If I put that much faith in the U.S. collapsing in the next four years, I think I'll have other things to worry about than trying to get a Republican elected in 2016.

Gary Johnson 2012.

krazy kaju

08-29-2012, 03:33 AM

peter schiff made a good point yesterday. if romney were to win and a collapse were to happen or if romney failed to improve things and went back on his "promises", rand could stand up and say hey, i worked with you before but you havent done anything. now you have to work with me. if rand were to primary him, it would be a 1 on 1 battle instead of having to share the stage with 9 other candidates. i think too many people are assuming an obama win is the best case scenario if you are just interested in rand winning 2016.

Good point. But I doubt any primary challenge to an incumbent President could be successful in this day and age. However, I do think such a primary challenge would be useful as a method for attracting more people to the libertarian wing of the Republican Party.

I believe that the real fight for the future of America is within the Republican Party. The libertarian-conservative wing of the Republican Party needs to take over the Party from the neoconservatives. And the one sure way to defeat the neoconservatives is to let them have a go at governing while we protest loudly and obnoxiously, using all of their failures in order to detract from their ranks while adding to ours. They'll gradually sink themselves, until the only people left carrying the GOP will be the grassroots activists like us.

SilentBull

08-29-2012, 03:43 AM

I'll be voting for Gary Johnson, but I am really concerned about having Obama in office when the economy implodes. Just imagine what his solutions to the problem will be. Price controls and who knows what else.

Mini-Me

08-29-2012, 04:02 AM

It's a mathematical inevitability.
We're getting close to that, but not yet. Collapse, as I would define it - hyperinflation without free market money being legalized and used first - isn't absolutely mathematically necessary until the yearly interest payments on the debt exceed GDP. Ron Paul's budget plan this go-around would have been enough to prevent collapse, and it wasn't even especially extreme. By our standards, it was an eminently moderate compromise. Collapse could still come at any time, even tomorrow, but we still have a while to go before avoiding it is completely mathematically impossible.

I generally agree with this, but many people will oppose this social change with every fiber of their being. Once the social change is established, they will accept it. But those who oppose us outnumber us. For us to succeed, we will need to oppose them with greater unity and strength.

Argue the case? No... again, that's fruitless. They can't be convinced through any logical or rational means. We will simply need to win against them through sheer willpower. Our delegates that we earned are a good example of this. Considering the minimal amount of popular support we had, we actually gained a lot of delegates. We accomplished that by acting in unison, and with a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears over that period of time. However, and while the delegate game was moderately successful, it was for simply a single election. It's an unsustainable strategy because for that to work over the hundreds of elections required, we would need to continue at that same pace of effort for many, many years. It's not humanly possible, and we're seeing the results of that now.

That's why the GOP strategy is not a delegate strategy: It's an activist strategy to take over official GOP positions like committee posts, chairs, and eventually RNC slots. With a major party at our disposal, and our ability to give voters and donors their "straight ticket" slate and marching orders, we'll be able to fund a lot more candidates than we can today, and we'll face a lot less popular opposition. Fox News will also be left floundering, because they won't know who to support or how for a while, which will disrupt the status quo and further signal the turning tide.

Most people don't resist us out of an inherent revulsion, but because they look to others around them for cues about how to act. I DO think this strategy will successfully amplify our message, resources, and support base...after which point we'll be able to win both Presidential elections (delegate energy) and a boatload of Congressional/Senatorial seats, which will further propel us to a critical mass of support. That doesn't mean we'll see even 10% of the population becoming hardcore libertarians in this lifetime, but if we give people the right emotional incentives to identify with us, we could see a shift toward Constitutionalism as the public's "average" viewpoint.

Not to mention, that if we were to continue to work the political system with the same amount of effort for many years, that would give our opponents time to respond with a greater opposing force. It's simply not possible.
How so? Unless we talk ourselves out of getting involved (a mentality I'm trying to fight), they're never going to respond with a greater number of activists than we can muster, and that's what matters for taking over the GOP. As far as the general public is concerned, what more can they do to propagandize them that they aren't doing already? Aside from creating a huge cult of personality like the Kim dynasty has in North Korea - an ideal they won't risk the state's immortality for - they're pretty much doing everything they can think of.

We must avoid at all costs long sustained efforts, because we will lose the war of attrition. Any political coup d'état must be swift and efficient.
By all means, we should prepare for a collapse in advance. We should also shift gears once a collapse occurs toward an all-out-push to become delegates to any Constitutional Convention that might occur...but that's the only swift and efficient coup that could realistically occur, isn't it? In the meantime, it's impossible to take over Congress by blitzkrieg, and even attempting to do so would leave us dead on the side of the road from exhaustion.

I also think it's premature to assume an economic collapse will necessarily entail a collapse of government and a political vacuum: They have "continuity of government" plans, and those could go in any direction. They could go for martial law and seizing world resources by military force, for instance, or they could go for martial law and Communism, or they could monetize the debt and hold onto power for dear life by other means...I really don't know what's going to happen, but it's probably going to be very messy.

That's not necessarily what I mean. I don't think it's necessary to abandon the effort entirely. But I do believe that viewing the takeover of the GOP as a primary objective is, at this point, a futile endeavor that will only leave us tired, wounded, and disorganized when the time comes where we need to be at our best.
A boring meeting a month or so really shouldn't be THAT draining or wounding though...even a feisty meeting wouldn't hurt much. Until we actually take over, that's where our GOP efforts would be most efficient...rather than tirelessly expending ourselves campaigning for a particular candidate.

Our primary objective at this point should be to surviving the coming storm, and thriving in the post-collapse environment. I believe taking over the GOP does have merit in the context of surviving and thriving in the storm, and that's a debate worth having. But my point is I do not believe our primary objective should be winning elections, not for now, at least.
I don't really disagree here, but the GOP strategy isn't exactly about killing ourselves to win elections in the here and now either. Winning seats this year would be nice of course, but we need the party infrastructure first - easily gained just by showing up to an occasional meeting - or we'll keep fighting uphill losing battles like the Ron Paul 2012 campaign.

Above all, we need unity. And that doesn't necessarily mean we need to agree on the same strategy. It just means that we need to view each other respectfully as equals, and keep lines of communication open. Many people are openly hostile to those who are not on board with the GOP strategy, and in some cases, vice versa as well.

I do agree here...but I think it's a serious problem that runs deep.

For starters, in order for this to happen, people need to stop actively sabotaging each other's efforts and making harsh judgments of each other over differences that pale in comparison to our differences next to the real statists. For instance, there are people who crap on the LvMI and LRC's eductional attempts and anarchism, there are people who crap on others who try to document conspiracies and wrongdoing, there are people who crap on Gary Johnson or voting for anyone who isn't 100% principled, there are people who crap on the GOP strategy, there are people who crap on Rand, and there are people who crap on GOTV initiatives and political activism altogether...no matter what someone wants to do, another ally is always there to tear it down. With friends like these, right?

That's easier said than done though. As far as the GOP strategy goes, there's an inherent conflict between "take over the GOP" and "leave the GOP and focus on a third party" strategies. I hold no animosity for people who want to sit out of the whole GOP thing or try to promote third parties, but I feel frustration toward people who constantly berate this promising new strategy and call on everyone to abandon it, especially for our previous third party strategy. Not only does it have a lot more institutional hurdles against it, but it has a much longer track record of failure and a much shorter list of accomplishments to its name after all that time. It's has been tried for 40 years already by the LP alone and longer by others of different political persuasions. There's nothing wrong with continuing to pursue it as time allows, but there are a select few on the board who literally spend all their time here trying to undermine the GOP effort by calling it worthless and convincing others to withdraw from it, like it's their job. It's been the theme of thread after thread recently, much of which is coming from kneejerk emotional reactions, but it's really being promoted by the same old culprits who have been at it for months, seizing any opportunity to bring people further down and draw them away from the effort...an effort which needs some concentrated numbers to work, I must stress. There are a few posters that are excessively destructive, but there's one in particular whose motives I suspect: The poster I'm referring to has repeated the same shallow propaganda for months on end, carefully and consistently ignoring any well-thought and specific arguments about the merits of the GOP strategy vs. their preferred third party strategy. This poster simply pretends those arguments were never written in the first place and repeats their original mantra, thereby hitting the "reset" button on the discussion and moving on to discourage (or egg on) more people with the same emotionally-driven rhetoric. Such blatant intellectual dishonesty combined with such an obvious axe to grind makes it hard for me not to see this particular poster as an intentional saboteur, and it's frustrating seeing them single-handedly do so much damage.

On a related issue, I'm going to go off on a tangent here for the rest of this post. It's going to sound like I'm selling Johnson here, but I really just want to use his candidacy as a foil for my thoughts on the current climate of dogmatism and disrespect:
I know for instance that voting for Gary Johnson goes against your own personal principles. I have no problem with people who can't bring themselves to vote for him. It's cool with me, and I sympathize, and I'm not exactly enthusiastic about him either. At the same time, it galls me when I see people calling each other immoral and statists and possessing no libertarian principles and the like, for merely taking the same pragmatic view that Walter Block (and many other prominent libertarians like Rothbard) has taken toward practically advancing liberty in the real world. (See here for instance: http://lewrockwell.com/block/block204.html) This is personally insulting to me, and it's insulting to others, and it also serves to detriment their chosen efforts to advance liberty in the face of the status quo's nearly unbridled despotism. This deep aversion toward voting for anyone shy of perfection (or sometimes toward voting at all), and all of the "giving/withdrawing consent" arguments, appear to be a conspicuously new phenomenon among libertarians, and I cannot help but think that we have been deliberately manipulated by people who have a good handle on how we think. I'm thinking in particular of the CIA here: It wouldn't take a lot of intervention or repetition for psy-ops to have injected these arguments into our discourse, because we're emotionally predisposed to believe them already (we want to wash our hands of the system).

If a candidate would violate the NAP, voting for them cannot be logically construed as a violation of the NAP itself unless you're intentionally voting for them BECAUSE they're going to violate it (as statists do). Realistically speaking, libertarians vote for candidates with the hope that they'll do no harm at all, even though we realize the outcome is going to be a lot more mixed. Indicating a preference for a particular package deal is a lot different from initiating force, and yet libertarians on this board have enshrined this completely non-essential and pathological absolutism as an indispensable libertarian principle. We've gone from recognizing and preferring an ideal of perfection or near-perfection, to demanding it. This attitude is not even remotely in line with what our own role models and predecessors (e.g. Rothbard) thought, and yet here we are attacking each other's libertarian credibility over it in many cases and demanding that the only moral action is to abstain. Shouldn't this be a red flag that something has gone wrong? It's apparent to me that our own principles have been twisted and distorted into something at odds with the real world today in order to paralyze us, but we've lost too much perspective to recognize it.

When it comes to Johnson in particular, I think a lot of hardcore libertarians today are conflating our emotional revulsion for imperfection with the practical knowledge that a very particular type of compromise has led us to our current situation. The particular kind of compromise that has destroyed us is "lesser of two evils" voting, where partisans have voted for someone who will vigorously work to increase government in one area, just because they pinky swear that they'll decrease it in another area (which rarely happens). Over time, the seesaw action of the two parties has led us toward abject statism. This has led to the fallacious and exaggerated arguments that, "There is no such thing as a good compromise," or, "When you're right, and you compromise, you're wrong."

The idea is that any kind of compromise whatsoever is so morally corrupting that it cannot possibly work, but these arguments overlook the fact that there are different degree of winning and different degrees of losing. Think of Lord of the Rings: Frodo made a choice to take the ring into Mordor and expose himself to its corruption, so he could destroy it. That's one heck of a sacrifice he had to make over the ideal catapult scenario...but the catapult was a pipe dream. His real alternative was letting the Nazgûl come to his house to take the ring, and the world would fall into ruin. Gandalf, wiser than Frodo, refused the ring under any circumstances to avoid becoming corrupted...by doing so, he left the responsibility to someone less qualified. (Paradoxically, he at least had the sense of mind to realize the importance of someone doing it. ;)). The metaphor applies to the liberty movement in a plethora of ways, but right here it applies to abstaining from voting (both in general and in particular elections), and leaving the one ring to all the other voters (a gaggle of orcs) who actively seek to use it and keep it, instead of moving it toward Mount Doom.

If the alternative to a guy like Johnson is letting a complete statist like Obama or Romney completely rape everyone unchallenged (they will anyway since Johnson cannot realistically win, but still), that's a much bigger loss than electing someone who is a compromise between the status quo and what you really want, like Johnson...and it implicitly allows a lot more NAP violations, even if you can technically wash your hands of them. Note that I didn't call Johnson a compromise candidate in and of himself, because that would imply that there's another option in the race who would actually be better for liberty. There's currently not, but if there were, and we were ignoring the best candidate for a more popular one - like the LP has in their primaries of late - that would indeed lead us down the road of self-defeating compromise.

We must always at least aim as high as we possibly can in any given moment...but I also think we should take what we can get whenever we can. It's one thing to believe that any compromise is ethically questionable, but it's logically nonsensical to say that restraining government is somehow so materially different from expanding it that it cannot be done incrementally: Certainly, it's more difficult, especially if we win infrequently enough for our advances to be repeatedly reversed. However, any compromise candidate that genuinely holds out ground and moves the ball in the right direction on every issue - even slower than we'd like - would bring the status quo closer to our true goals, and if we could actually manage to consistently elect people like this, we'd eventually arrive at liberty. Even holding ground without gaining any is preferable to losing more. Practically achieving consistent victory is a ridiculously difficult problem of course, but knowing who to vote for in a particular election is not the kind of problem we should be losing sleep over.

There may be times when the best we can do is so morally repulsive that it would make no practical difference, like a heads-up race between Obama and Romney with no third party candidates...in that case, abstaining or writing someone in is the only course that makes any sense. I do not believe an honest evaluation of Johnson is truly so dismal, but if you search your heart and actually feel that way about him, it's cool. However, I think it would be helpful if you could take a step back and empathize with those of your allies who think differently. To give an example, I know you've been harsh toward rockandrollsouls, and he in turn is unaccepting of an-caps...and what good comes from any of that? You both know deep down that you're allies in the current environment, and you'll likely never be adversaries until the fine day comes when we've already brought government down to a size he's happy with...and that will be a pretty fortunate problem for all of us to have.

Anyway, if you voted for Johnson, the worst case and most likely scenario is that he loses, never gets the chance to violate the NAP, your hands remain clean, and the LP gains an extra point of credibility...not much, but hey. The best case (pipe dream) scenario is that he wins, and the country takes significant steps toward liberty, but you'd have to flagellate yourself every time he violated the NAP, because you've convinced yourself that a vote means "unconditional approval" and that you're responsible for him...when really, you're only responsible for picking the least violent person you could.

Now, here is what I'm getting at:
Despite all the above argumentation, I don't care if you actually vote for Johnson or not. However, it should be very easy to make a mental distinction between actually "approving" of someone like Johnson and merely recognizing him as better in virtually every way than Obomney (and acting accordingly). If you or any of us seriously cannot draw such a distinction, or we cannot conceive of voting in any other light than "legitimizing the system" or "giving a statist approval" or "granting consent," then something has gone dangerously wrong with our mental models. Those are interesting and valid perspectives, but we should be able to recognize that there are equally valid, equally libertarian, and less judgmental ways of looking at the issue as well, which do not unnecessarily impose such demanding restrictions on our options. Once we lose the ability to adopt anything but the most extreme and personally restrictive interpretations we can possibly define for the libertarian ethics of any action, it means our thought patterns have warped themselves into such rigid and coarse-grained absolutes that we can no longer gracefully handle nuance or subjectivity. It's one thing to strive for internal consistency, but I fear that some of us have truly "gone rampant," devolving into unchecked programmatic or formulaic thinking, and it's frankly starting to scare me a bit. It's bad enough that it's happening at all, but we're getting to the point that some of us are demanding this kind of thinking from others and judging them as "unprincipled" otherwise, and it's going to get really ugly if it keeps up.

Similar thought patterns apply to Rand Paul criticism: Most people dislike how he plays politics, but a few seem unable to even allow for the possibility that he's still on our side, and do everything they can to tear him down and antagonize his supporters. This doesn't apply only to an-caps: A number of Ron Paul supporters of all types have recognized the high bar Ron Paul set for not playing politics, then subsequently adopted the more extreme principle that a good person would never play politics under any circumstances. They'll insist on taking the most absolute and pessimistic possible approach toward Rand, like the absurd, "He's no different from the neocons." Confronted with evidence that Ron too played politics at certain times (e.g. the Lamar Smith endorsement), they'll either ignore it, or worse, hold Ron up to an exaggerated and merciless version of the very ideal they originally took from him, when nobody else has ever even come close.

The same black-and-white thinking keeps coming up again and again and causing a huge amount of infighting. Many of us are losing our ability to respect anyone who doesn't think exactly like us. In the case of hardcore libertarians, this often means disrespecting Constitutionalists and paleoconservative allies. Many of them have long been disrespectful toward an-caps, but as of late it seems we're starting more of the fights through our judgmental attitudes. In the case of people disgusted with the GOP, it often means disrespecting people who think working within the party is useful and productive. In the most extreme cases, we're even losing our ability to hold each other to basic libertarian principles without upping the ante and throwing in tons of extraneous principles based on the most pathologically exaggerated ideals we can find, then mercilessly judging each other based on them. It's like we're becoming childish parodies of ourselves, and I don't know what it's going to take for people to step back and reflect.

Oh, man, I'm tired. Forgive me for any misspellings, please...sleep time.

unknown

08-29-2012, 07:42 AM

I'm obviously writing in Ron Paul.

I cant say who would be losing my vote, Obama and Romney are ideologically identical.

gjdavis60

08-29-2012, 08:00 AM

It's a mathematical inevitability.

Argue the case? No... again, that's fruitless. They can't be convinced through any logical or rational means. We will simply need to win against them through sheer willpower. Our delegates that we earned are a good example of this. Considering the minimal amount of popular support we had, we actually gained a lot of delegates. We accomplished that by acting in unison, and with a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears over that period of time. However, and while the delegate game was moderately successful, it was for simply a single election. It's an unsustainable strategy because for that to work over the hundreds of elections required, we would need to continue at that same pace of effort for many, many years. It's not humanly possible, and we're seeing the results of that now.

Not to mention, that if we were to continue to work the political system with the same amount of effort for many years, that would give our opponents time to respond with a greater opposing force. It's simply not possible.

We gained delegates out of proportion to our popular support by exploiting a system that was designed to allow a small number of insiders to control the process. We were able to outnumber the insiders because we were organized and had enthusiasm where they only had apathy. But we have also gained a lot of popular support over the past 8 years. And while our delegates were only relevant to this presidential primary, we have won a number of significant elected offices and taken over a number of state and local Republican Party organizations. These achievements will pay dividends for years to come and reflect the slowly growing public support for our message.

As long as the citizens perceive their standard of living in decline they will be open to new ideas, and I believe we can expect to continue to grow the movement politically with increasing success. If the establishment is successful at re-inflating the bubble and delivering another decade of phony prosperity we will have a much harder time prying minds from conventional assumptions about government and politics. In the current environment our opponents suffer from the distinct disadvantage of owning the policies and programs that have put us in this mess. That is our greatest weapon against them in the battle for popular acceptance.

TheTexan

08-29-2012, 11:00 AM

That's easier said than done though. As far as the GOP strategy goes, there's an inherent conflict between "take over the GOP" and "leave the GOP and focus on a third party" strategies. I hold no animosity for people who want to sit out of the whole GOP thing or try to promote third parties, but I feel frustration toward people who constantly berate this promising new strategy and call on everyone to abandon it, especially for our previous third party strategy. Not only does it have a lot more institutional hurdles against it, but it has a much longer track record of failure and a much shorter list of accomplishments to its name after all that time. It's has been tried for 40 years already by the LP alone and longer by others of different political persuasions. There's nothing wrong with continuing to pursue it as time allows, but there are a select few on the board who literally spend all their time here trying to undermine the GOP effort by calling it worthless and convincing others to withdraw from it, like it's their job. It's been the theme of thread after thread recently, much of which is coming from kneejerk emotional reactions, but it's really being promoted by the same old culprits who have been at it for months, seizing any opportunity to bring people further down and draw them away from the effort...an effort which needs some concentrated numbers to work, I must stress. There are a few posters that are excessively destructive, but there's one in particular whose motives I suspect: The poster I'm referring to has repeated the same shallow propaganda for months on end, carefully and consistently ignoring any well-thought and specific arguments about the merits of the GOP strategy vs. their preferred third party strategy. This poster simply pretends those arguments were never written in the first place and repeats their original mantra, thereby hitting the "reset" button on the discussion and moving on to discourage (or egg on) more people with the same emotionally-driven rhetoric. Such blatant intellectual dishonesty combined with such an obvious axe to grind makes it hard for me not to see this particular poster as an intentional saboteur, and it's frustrating seeing them single-handedly do so much damage.

The problem is, even here, you're displaying a level of "our way or the highway." I understand that the strategy to take over the GOP would be more effective if we were all on board, but we're not. Just as I accept that you will try to convince everyone that is the correct path to take, you have to accept that I will try to convince people that I do not think that is the correct path to take. We both have to accept that we need to let the free market of ideas operate, and we need to do so respectfully.

And actually I don't have any issue with the GOP takeover effort itself, but rather the illusions that those who are for it encourage and allow to persist. Those illusions are that if we just say the right thing in the right way, the GOP will get on board with the message. Another illusion is that if we simply take over the GOP and work hard for many years we can win our freedom back through a vote of congress. I've made well-thought out and specific arguments about how that cannot ever happen. Which, like your well-thought out arguments, people of the opposing opinion tend to ignore.

On a related issue, I'm going to go off on a tangent here for the rest of this post. It's going to sound like I'm selling Johnson here, but I really just want to use his candidacy as a foil for my thoughts on the current climate of dogmatism and disrespect:
I know for instance that voting for Gary Johnson goes against your own personal principles. I have no problem with people who can't bring themselves to vote for him. It's cool with me, and I sympathize, and I'm not exactly enthusiastic about him either. At the same time, it galls me when I see people calling each other immoral and statists and possessing no libertarian principles and the like, for merely taking the same pragmatic view that Walter Block (and many other prominent libertarians like Rothbard) has taken toward practically advancing liberty in the real world. (See here for instance: http://lewrockwell.com/block/block204.html) This is personally insulting to me, and it's insulting to others, and it also serves to detriment their chosen efforts to advance liberty in the face of the status quo's nearly unbridled despotism.

There's a few good reasons for voting for GJ. One, is so that your vote gets counted to send a message against the two party system. Another, is to get him in the debates (though, I personally think he would do more harm than good in the debates). Some bad reasons are to vote for him a lesser of three evils. Another bad reason is to vote for him because he's a good candidate (he's not. he's a joke.).

I obviously do not like GJ. But I try not to criticize people for voting for him, because I usually do not know their reasons. But that does not mean I should not criticize the man. He is a lying panderer with no moral philosophical compass that has no idea the importance of currency freedom and how central that is to freedom as a whole.

With that said, people can vote for who they like. There are legitimate reasons to want to vote for him, even if he is a terrible candidate.

This deep aversion toward voting for anyone shy of perfection (or sometimes toward voting at all), and all of the "giving/withdrawing consent" arguments, appear to be a conspicuously new phenomenon among libertarians, and I cannot help but think that we have been deliberately manipulated by people who have a good handle on how we think. I'm thinking in particular of the CIA here: It wouldn't take a lot of intervention or repetition for psy-ops to have injected these arguments into our discourse, because we're emotionally predisposed to believe them already (we want to wash our hands of the system).

I've actually thought on several occasions the opposite. That the CIA/psy-ops would be trying to drift us towards forgetting who we are and what we stand for. Which is what I've observed over the last year. We're slowly becoming an entirely different movement. One with no spirit or soul, and simply becoming cogs in the Republican machine. And this is destroying our enthusiasm and energy. It is no coincidence that once we started getting in bed with the GOP that this movement began to fracture.

It is entirely possible to take over the GOP without getting in bed with them. But unfortunately, we are getting in bed with them. We have to remember: they are the enemy. They have proven this, time and time again. From the highest levels of leadership, to the individuals of the party, they are our enemy. If you want to take over the GOP in a manner that does not destroy this movement, that's how you should approach it. Take it over.

I'm not against the GOP takeover effort. My single goal here is to break the illusions that the people of this country are on our side. They are not. They are our enemy, and will oppose us at every turn. For this movement to stay intact, and make progress moving forward, we will need to accept this reality.

Mini-Me

08-29-2012, 01:57 PM

The problem is, even here, you're displaying a level of "our way or the highway." I understand that the strategy to take over the GOP would be more effective if we were all on board, but we're not. Just as I accept that you will try to convince everyone that is the correct path to take, you have to accept that I will try to convince people that I do not think that is the correct path to take. We both have to accept that we need to let the free market of ideas operate, and we need to do so respectfully.
I know what you mean about my tone, but I don't mean to imply "our way or the highway" so much as, "There's a difference between people who just don't want to participate themselves, and people who treat sabotaging the effort like it's their job." You're not like that, but you're getting caught in the crossfire, so I think it's difficult for someone in a position like yours to see that someone else might really be trying to sabotage the whole thing.

And actually I don't have any issue with the GOP takeover effort itself, but rather the illusions that those who are for it encourage and allow to persist. Those illusions are that if we just say the right thing in the right way, the GOP will get on board with the message. Another illusion is that if we simply take over the GOP and work hard for many years we can win our freedom back through a vote of congress. I've made well-thought out and specific arguments about how that cannot ever happen. Which, like your well-thought out arguments, people of the opposing opinion tend to ignore.
I don't really think getting the GOP (voters) on board is about saying the right thing in the right way though. I think getting them on board is more about showing the kind of "strength" and social acceptability they want to be associated with in an emotional sense. That's not to say, "Oh, they're all going to flock to us at once like magic," but Ron Paul clearly had a lot more support in 2012 than 2008...and most of this was not hard support woken up by airtight rational arguments and principles, but soft support from Republicans who had finally come around enough on an emotional level to give us a fair hearing. Everyone has their individual threshold for what it will take for them to reassess, and each person who does come over helps shift the social atmosphere in that direction by just as much as well.

I'd be interested in hearing your strongest arguments, btw.

There's a few good reasons for voting for GJ. One, is so that your vote gets counted to send a message against the two party system. Another, is to get him in the debates (though, I personally think he would do more harm than good in the debates). Some bad reasons are to vote for him a lesser of three evils. Another bad reason is to vote for him because he's a good candidate (he's not. he's a joke.).

I obviously do not like GJ. But I try not to criticize people for voting for him, because I usually do not know their reasons. But that does not mean I should not criticize the man. He is a lying panderer with no moral philosophical compass that has no idea the importance of currency freedom and how central that is to freedom as a whole.

With that said, people can vote for who they like. There are legitimate reasons to want to vote for him, even if he is a terrible candidate.
There could be a lot I don't know about the guy, because I've never seen him as a liar. Maybe he is, in which case I'd have to reassess. I know there's controversy over his spending record, but I haven't looked into it myself enough to sort out the facts...mainly because he won't win, so it's not going to matter much. Anyway, it's fair to criticize him for a lot of things, especially his poor understanding of currency, but I don't think it's fair to say someone who isn't a strictly principled libertarian has no moral compass though, if that's what you mean. None of us were born knowing the NAP, but we eventually reached libertarian principles after being guided by our preexisting moral compass. It's pretty annoying that the LP nominee is so utilitarian and doesn't know these things of course, but compared to the guy who is already running the country with an iron fist...

Anyway, don't think I mean to attack you or anything. I'm bothering to bring a lot of this stuff up with you out of the blue, because you're one of the more reasonable people I disagree with on stuff like this. ;)

I've actually thought on several occasions the opposite. That the CIA/psy-ops would be trying to drift us towards forgetting who we are and what we stand for. Which is what I've observed over the last year. We're slowly becoming an entirely different movement. One with no spirit or soul, and simply becoming cogs in the Republican machine. And this is destroying our enthusiasm and energy. It is no coincidence that once we started getting in bed with the GOP that this movement began to fracture.
I strongly disagree: For starters, I've seen a distinct trend over time where people have become stronger and stricter libertarians. Neocon worshippers have become paleocons. Paleocons have become strict Constitutionalists. Strict Constitutionalists have shifted toward stronger libertarian views and become minarchist federalists. Minarchist federalists have become minarchist anti-federalists. How many times have you actually seen individual people go in the opposite direction? The LP's leadership has started faltering - and I think that's a mistake - but on these boards, how many people have you seen loosen the standards they previously held? In addition to the above shifts, libertarians of all types have become an-caps, an-syns, and voluntaryists...and from what I've seen, once you go black, you never go back. ;)

People in general have also become more jaded, more appalled by the establishment, and more committed to seeing it utterly destroyed (regardless of mechanism). The general trend here is very much in the opposite direction from corruption. Is our movement starting to attract people from the "mainstream" who just woke up to the establishment's despotism and want to make a difference, thereby increasing the proportion of newborn paleocons in our presence? Sure, but welcoming an influx of fresh blood doesn't mean we libertarians are losing our way. We're still here, and we know where we stand...and we're having a lot more influence on their worldviews than they're having on ours. Sooner or later a lot of the newbies are likely to follow the same path we did toward a firmer sense of libertarianism, too.

I'm a firm proponent of the GOP strategy here, but could you seriously say that I have no spirit or soul, or that I've forgotten who I am, simply because I want to take the fight to the establishment's doorstep? There is nothing at all about the GOP strategy that's mutually exclusive with libertarian principles, let alone the less strict (but still hard and inviolable) Constitutional principles that a lot of other supporters consider their personal baseline. You say below that you agree it's possible to take over the GOP without getting into bed with them, but there are others who don't, who equate the core of the strategy itself with a one-way trip to corruption...despite the fact that it necessitates no violation of bedrock principles. As I mentioned before, it seems like we're suddenly judging our level of integrity vs. corruption with vague and extraneous new principles that have never been at the core of libertarianism ("never play ball, never compromise in any sense of the word, don't associate yourself with a tainted brand, scowl at anyone who's not one of us so we know you're not in bed with them, keep a three meter perimeter between yourself and anyone corrupt...;" the last two are obvious exaggerations, but it almost feels like we're getting to that point).

There is indeed a minority of people here - a few strongly Republican paleocons from the start - who might be content being cogs in the Republican machine...but do you really think it's fair to judge the spirit of the GOP strategy based on a select few of its adopters, who were never as principled as the rest of us in the first place even before the strategy took full shape? Is it really fair to point at people who have been paleocons all along (or previously neocon worshippers), as evidence that the GOP strategy is changing us? There's at least one guy here (not naming names) who appears to have no standards whatsoever and throws out exaggerated accusations about purity tests against anyone who does. It may be tempting to use him as an example of "what we're becoming," but it's important to remember that every single one of us came into this from a different point on the sliding scale of idealism vs. pragmatism in the first place. You can't effectively judge whether someone has changed or lost their way by how much they've strayed from your principles...only by how much they've strayed from their own.

I don't see the strategy itself as being what's damaging our movement or energy or causing division. Instead, I'm seeing a self-fulfilling prophecy unfold when people insist that's the case. We've always been a diverse group, but the moment we forget that and see one of our allies with fewer principles (but still principles, e.g. Constitutionalism), we're convincing ourselves to agonize over how we're becoming corrupted and losing our soul, and we're letting that biased and erroneous judgment limit our options. The more people repeat the meme, the more it seems to ring true, not because it is, but because we're emotionally susceptible to it. We have serious trust issues, and for good reason, but they've led us to take mental shortcuts toward reasoning about corrupting influences, instead of really thinking them through.

Over time, we've come to a point where anyone who views the GOP strategy with mistrust is tempted to consider people who disagree with them to be morally or ethically corrupted, or to have lost their souls...and so we're dividing not because of the GOP strategy itself, but because we've been led to view each other in such an insulting and judgmental way.

Almost every single one of us here has a number of hard principles we've internalized. Even if we strayed from them, we'd still remember what they were, so we can look back at the mile marker and see how far we've strayed. We each have objective standards to judge and measure ourselves by. For some of us, these standards include the NAP, for some, they include Constitutionalism, etc. Unlike any other movement EVER in the history of civilization, we actually have concrete objective principles that serve as powerful safeguards against corruption, and in the worst case scenario where we actually lost our way, having internalized those principles in the first place means we could easily find our way back with a glance. No one else in history has ever had such an advantage: Without exception, other movements were led by an unchecked sense of utilitarianism that could only be judged subjectively, and so it was easy for corruption to set in and for the goal posts to shift without them ever being aware it happened. It would be a lot more difficult for the same thing to happen to us...especially the hardcore libertarian wing, of which I count myself a member.

The important thing to recognize is that the CIA and psy-ops agents know this: They will try to corrupt us of course as usual, but they know that we're unusually resistant to "Plan A," and so they absolutely need a backup. They know very well that action is necessary to effect change, so they know that if they can't count on corrupting those who act, they have to prevent them from acting in the first place. Usually "Plan B" is "kill them," but that's a little easier said than done in this instance. Instead, I believe that twisting and warping our principles into something self-defeating and disconnected from reality is that backup plan: If the most resistant people to corruption are led to paralysis and inaction, then not only will the movement be deprived of its most passionate and intelligent activists actually doing something, but they'll use their intellect and passions to dissuade others from acting as well. The movement will be stuck between "a rock and a hard place," and the resulting antagonism between the activists and non-activists will lead to the two groups consuming each other.

The establishment works through divide and conquer, and it looks like we're being pitted against each other by two conflicting demands: On one hand, they'll try to corrupt us from one end of the spectrum and demand no standards whatsoever, in the hope we're absorbed by the neocons. On the other hand, they'll try to paralyze us from the other end of the spectrum and demand unnecessarily restrictive and warped views on how we must interpret the absolute symbolism of every action. I consider the latter to be more dangerous for two reasons: First, most of us have an inherent resistance to corruption as stated above (by nature of having objective principles to measure ourselves by), even if there are exceptions. Second, hardcore libertarians do NOT have the same advantage of a natural resistance to the opposite manipulation...instead, we have emotionally hardwired ourselves to openly welcome any possible "tightening" of our standards, no matter where it leads, and regardless of whether it's a logical extension of libertarianism or not. In other words, the establishment is bound to have more success manipulating us into inaction than they'll have manipulating us into corruption...and worse, the people most susceptible to this are often the most intellectually gifted, and so we can use our words to great effect to perpetuate this manipulation. I must stress once again that things like "voting necessarily means consent/approval/legitimizing the system" and "it's impossible to take the system down from the inside" were not perspectives that our role models and libertarian giants subscribed to. Their sudden popularity among our generation of libertarians and the level of conviction behind them is alarming to me to the influence of hostile elements. I know you don't fully buy into those ideas or insist on them, but there are some who do...and I feel like some of us have "gone rampant."

It is entirely possible to take over the GOP without getting in bed with them. But unfortunately, we are getting in bed with them. We have to remember: they are the enemy. They have proven this, time and time again. From the highest levels of leadership, to the individuals of the party, they are our enemy. If you want to take over the GOP in a manner that does not destroy this movement, that's how you should approach it. Take it over.
It goes without saying that a few people will make boneheaded mistakes that look like "getting in bed" with the GOP. Rand has done it, and Justin Amash has done it...but Rand is just the calculating type on an individual level, and Justin Amash has already realized that any level of trust he put into the sociopaths was a mistake. When it comes to waging a war, some of us are fans of Gandhi, some of us are fans of General Sherman (metaphorically speaking), and some of us are fans of Sun Tzu...Rand is obviously a Sun Tzu guy. I don't think anyone's basic inclinations along this line are changing much, and different strategies appeal more to each of us, so I don't think it's fair to assume out of hand that anyone following a more subtle path (like Rand) has genuinely jumped into bed with the enemy, at least not in the sense of being corrupted.

I think it's important to remember that almost all of us have principles, but some of us have different principles: Some of us are hardcore libertarians, some of us are Constitutionalists or anti-federalists, some of us have an additional principle against playing ball, and some of us don't. However, if a particular individual never had a principle against playing ball, it's unfair to use that as a litmus test for whether they've compromised their principles, because they might have a number of rock solid principles without subscribing to your full set.

That said, I absolutely 100% agree that the core of the GOP strategy is about taking it over, full stop. Bring in the numbers, identify our enemies, throw them unceremoniously to the curb, and install ourselves into leadership positions. That doesn't necessarily mean going into your first local meeting ready to rage at everyone though. ;) Friendliness by default is a good strategy, because while the majority of state chairs and important officers are total sociopaths, there are already exceptions who have become our allies in the process and helped us advance (out of a mutual disdain for actual corruption), even when they don't see eye to eye on every issue. After you know who your enemies are and potential allies, and you bring in the numbers to take over...that's when it's time to strike hard.

As said above, there are a number of long-time paleocons that don't approach this as a takeover, and there are a number of people who have always been too trusting, but that didn't come from them being changed by the process. They simply never viewed it as a takeover from the start...but the rest of us do, and we are not going to forget what we set out to do.

I'm not against the GOP takeover effort. My single goal here is to break the illusions that the people of this country are on our side. They are not. They are our enemy, and will oppose us at every turn. For this movement to stay intact, and make progress moving forward, we will need to accept this reality.

Isn't that a very collectivist thing to say though? You and I are both among the "people of this country," and we were not always part of the liberty movement ourselves (unless you were born into it), but someone finally broke through and reached us. The leaders of this country - and the GOP - are total sociopathic narcissists for sure. They've manipulated the people into supporting them and opposing us, but I don't think it's healthy to view the American public as our enemy. That mentality leads to way too much hostility to be useful, and it basically writes off hope for change as a lost cause. Most people are not unreachable...they're just unreachable under the current circumstances. For that matter, surely you have friends and family members who are frustratingly incapable of "getting it," but when push comes to shove, they're still your friends and family, not your enemies. Given the right circumstances, they're going to start listening.

TheTexan

08-29-2012, 05:01 PM

I agree with a lot of what you said, and where I disagree it isn't very important, so I'll keep it short:

Isn't that a very collectivist thing to say though? You and I are both among the "people of this country,"

I don't know about you, but I am no longer a citizen of this country. I was born here, and I live and work here, but I can no longer in good conscience call myself an "American." I am an individual. I'm an individual who is threatened with a gun to fork over my cash, to pay for policies that kill innocent people across the world, to pay for policies that throw innocent people in cages here at home, to pay for policies so that they can monitor every word that I speak, every step that take. I'm being forced at the end of a barrel of a gun to use a specific currency so that the rich can make counterfeits for their own profit, and simultaneously fund all of the above crimes against humanity. The criminals who do this are re-elected year after year, decade after decade. And the "people of this country" have made their voices loud and clear. They support it. 100%.

So, no, to answer your question, I am not a "person of this country." Fuck "this country."

Mini-Me

08-29-2012, 06:00 PM

I agree with a lot of what you said, and where I disagree it isn't very important, so I'll keep it short:

I don't know about you, but I am no longer a citizen of this country. I was born here, and I live and work here, but I can no longer in good conscience call myself an "American." I am an individual. I'm an individual who is threatened with a gun to fork over my cash, to pay for policies that kill innocent people across the world, to pay for policies that throw innocent people in cages here at home, to pay for policies so that they can monitor every word that I speak, every step that take. I'm being forced at the end of a barrel of a gun to use a specific currency so that the rich can make counterfeits for their own profit, and simultaneously fund all of the above crimes against humanity. The criminals who do this are re-elected year after year, decade after decade. And the "people of this country" have made their voices loud and clear. They support it. 100%.

So, no, to answer your question, I am not a "person of this country." Fuck "this country."

I know how you feel, but I think you're missing a contradiction in your post: You say policies are throwing innocent people in cages here at home...and yet you also say the American people are our enemies, who made their voices heard loud and clear that they support all this. It seems you're calling some of the same people enemies and innocent victims of the state in consecutive breaths. I'm not religious, but I'm reminded of Luke 23:34 here: "Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Except for the very few of us born into this movement, we were all in their shoes once...the manipulated people that is, not the corrupt ruling class. I started out as a warmongering neocon who wanted gun control, rejected libertarianism once on my path toward progressivism, and took years more before I finally found my way. How long have you been a libertarian, and how long were you something else? Are all of your loved ones libertarians yet? If not, have they ceased to be your loved ones? People are slow to change, and it's frustrating to those of us who are ahead of the curve...but one by one, individuals are coming around, and our gains will only accelerate as long as we amplify our presence. Don't give up hope in humanity.

Sematary

08-29-2012, 06:16 PM

I agree with a lot of what you said, and where I disagree it isn't very important, so I'll keep it short:

I don't know about you, but I am no longer a citizen of this country. I was born here, and I live and work here, but I can no longer in good conscience call myself an "American." I am an individual. I'm an individual who is threatened with a gun to fork over my cash, to pay for policies that kill innocent people across the world, to pay for policies that throw innocent people in cages here at home, to pay for policies so that they can monitor every word that I speak, every step that take. I'm being forced at the end of a barrel of a gun to use a specific currency so that the rich can make counterfeits for their own profit, and simultaneously fund all of the above crimes against humanity. The criminals who do this are re-elected year after year, decade after decade. And the "people of this country" have made their voices loud and clear. They support it. 100%.

So, no, to answer your question, I am not a "person of this country." Fuck "this country."

I'd like to interject here.
I feel your anger. I really do. I, undoubtedly, am older than you (50 now). The America I grew up in seemed so much different but there has always been the war (pick a war, we're always at war). Then came Nixon, and Carter, and Reagan and Clinton, and the Bushes' and now Obama and things have gotten so much worse. Those pricks (every one of them) have completely subverted this nation. EVERY ONE OF THEM! And the lemmings keep voting back and forth - Republican/Democrat/Republican/Democrat - for some reason expecting a different result. But this is MY country. I hate my government. I LOVE my country. It is MY country and I intend to get it back. I can try without or without you but I would rather have you with me than sitting on the sidelines whining about what a sorry state our nation is in. The choice is yours, of course, but numbers matter and we need to work together.

TheTexan

08-29-2012, 06:18 PM

I know how you feel, but I think you're missing a contradiction in your post: You say policies are throwing innocent people in cages here at home...and yet you also say the American people are our enemies, who made their voices heard loud and clear that they support all this. It seems you're calling some of the same people innocent and our enemies in consecutive breaths.

You're getting into collectivist-semantics. The unfortunate fact is that the vast majority of people do support these policies, and when I say the "people of this country", that's who I'm referring to.

Except for those of us born into this movement, we were all in their shoes once...the manipulated people that is, not the corrupt ruling class. How long have you been a libertarian, and how long were you something else?

Only since 2007. However, I've always been a libertarian at heart even if I didn't know it. When I heard Dr. Paul speak for the first time, I was instantly on board. I wanted to know more. A lot more. I eagerly went down that rabbit hole, and haven't looked back since.

The majority of people though, they resist the message, instead of embracing it.

And the majority of people who resist the message, will never fully adopt our principles. They may like us on a policy-by-policy basis, but will never embrace freedom itself. Some of these people we can drag kicking and screaming to the position of freedom, and it may appear that they are on board, but unfortunately their hearts are still magnetized towards tyranny, and if we release our hand-holding grasp for even briefly, they return to their old ways.

Are all of your loved ones libertarians yet? If not, have they ceased to be your loved ones? People are slow to change, and it's frustrating to people like us who are ahead of the curve...but one by one, individuals are coming around, and our gains will only accelerate as long as we amplify our presence.

I'm a peace-loving person who likes to live and let live, and I'm that way because I was raised that way. So yes, my family are naturally libertarian. Some of my friends certainly are not, though, and I am still their friend. But if I'm honest, I don't value those friendships as much as my friendships with the people who are libertarian. (not talking about politics, just in general)

And I also can say with absolute certainty that my friends who are not libertarian who I've been working hard to convert... all of them would be voting for Dr. Paul if they were to vote (but most of them do not vote, and nor do I pressure them to). But even with that said, they are not, and will never be, libertarian in heart & soul. They, similar to most of the country, like to control and be controlled.

No amount of education can change that. That's simply how they were raised, and I accept that.

TheTexan

08-29-2012, 06:19 PM

sitting on the sidelines.

False dichotomy. Refusing to work within their system is not "sitting on the sidelines."

trey4sports

08-29-2012, 06:22 PM

check my sig

Mini-Me

08-29-2012, 07:30 PM

Only since 2007. However, I've always been a libertarian at heart even if I didn't know it. When I heard Dr. Paul speak for the first time, I was instantly on board. I wanted to know more. A lot more. I eagerly went down that rabbit hole, and haven't looked back since.

The majority of people though, they resist the message, instead of embracing it.

And the majority of people who resist the message, will never fully adopt our principles. They may like us on a policy-by-policy basis, but will never embrace freedom itself. Some of these people we can drag kicking and screaming to the position of freedom, and it may appear that they are on board, but unfortunately their hearts are still magnetized towards tyranny, and if we release our hand-holding grasp for even briefly, they return to their old ways.
I agree that a number of people have a built-in drive toward domination (inclined to mastery rather than inclined to liberty), but I don't think we're outnumbered by them nearly as much as we're simply outnumbered by weaker kindred spirits who form their views from social cues. Once we make it to greater acceptance, I'm not so sure as many people as you suggest are going to return to their old ways...not because they don't have the inherent susceptibility, but because they're also the same kind of people who aren't going to risk social alienation for the sake of their views (like we would), so they'll convince themselves to believe whatever it takes to fit in.

On the subject of resisting the message...I resisted the message. Heh. I rejected libertarianism completely once before, and you know what I did when I heard of Ron Paul in May 2007? I thought he was little more than an honest weirdo and dismissed him. A few months later in November, his growing popularity caused me to give him another look. I determined he was honest enough to persuade, so I decided to start writing him a letter about why he was totally wrong about his economic and monetary views. I worked feverishly on my essay for days and days, doing economic research into Keynesian theory to support my points...until I realized my arguments started to contradict themselves once taken to their logical conclusions. I kept trying to patch them up over and over and over, but they were just totally falling apart, and then I finally had the revelation that he was the only one making logical sense about monetary policy. At that point I started wondering what other views I might be wrong about, gave him a fair hearing, tried to disprove him, and had an internal debate until I forced myself to concede defeat in a number of areas.

I may be naturally inclined to liberty, but my path to libertarianism involved a lot of disbelief and cognitive dissonance, and my intellectually honest half had to drag the rest of me kicking and screaming the whole way. Although I always had some libertarian inclinations (desire to be left alone in general), the totality of libertarian ethical principles didn't fully settle in for longer. Most people are not this rational or willing to resolve their cognitive dissonance the right way...but my point is that I think a lot of people who currently resist are ultimately reachable, even if they aren't ready yet.

I'm a peace-loving person who likes to live and let live, and I'm that way because I was raised that way. So yes, my family are naturally libertarian. Some of my friends certainly are not, though, and I am still their friend. But if I'm honest, I don't value those friendships as much as my friendships with the people who are libertarian. (not talking about politics, just in general)

And I also can say with absolute certainty that my friends who are not libertarian who I've been working hard to convert... all of them would be voting for Dr. Paul if they were to vote (but most of them do not vote, and nor do I pressure them to). But even with that said, they are not, and will never be, libertarian in heart & soul. They, similar to most of the country, like to control and be controlled.

No amount of education can change that. That's simply how they were raised, and I accept that.

My upbringing was...more complicated, but here I am. ;)

PatriotOne

08-29-2012, 07:49 PM

J_White

08-29-2012, 09:45 PM

very confusing issue now.
abstain or write in Paul or GJ ?
GJ would just be a protest vote, so that the vote is counted and if we could give him a spike, we can at least show our strength.
but the thing is, when Romney loses ( I am 99.9% sure of that ) GOP would blame us for his loss and thus they would get another excuse to marginalize any future liberty candidate.

Dogsoldier

08-29-2012, 10:09 PM

WesSeid

08-29-2012, 10:27 PM

but the thing is, when Romney loses ( I am 99.9% sure of that ) GOP would blame us for his loss and thus they would get another excuse to marginalize any future liberty candidate.

They're going to marginalize all future liberty candidates anyway. Look at the rule changes they just pushed through. Ron Paul WAS GOING TO BE NOMINATED, but they changed the rules to require eight states instead of five.

NEPatriot

08-29-2012, 10:35 PM

I agree with some of the above posters that a Romney victory is the worst case scenario for the United States of America and the future existence of liberty here.

I say this fully understanding that Obama's second term, when he no longer needs go before the people ever again for votes, could be very dangerous...

But voting for Obama rather than Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, or sitting this one out, is absolute lunacy, and I don't care how disgusted you are with the Republican establishment. The absolute last thing we need in trying to SURVIVE the next four years is for Obama and his minions in the media to view the election results and walk away thinking he has some kind of MANDATE for radicalism by the American people. DO NOT VOTE FOR OBAMA.

And do not vote for Romney.

Stick to the message, continue to fight the good fight, and reflect on the Founders of our nation.

The best case scenario is that Obama wins his second term of office with the most pathetic voter turn out in American history, sending a clear message to BOTH political parties that the American people are absolutely disgusted with the both of them and not buying their bullshit anymore.
Meanwhile, we prepare for the future with the history of what we know is to come on our side.

Do not contribute to an perceived Obama mandate. While I see a pathetic win by Obama as the best case scenario, I see an Obama "mandate" as the absolute worst.

kahless

08-29-2012, 11:15 PM

"I dont see how anyone who calls themself a Ron Paul supporter could vote for anyone but Gary Johnson"......I KNOW!!!

Thats why I'm so confused by some of you people.

I would bet you 500$ Ron Paul will be voting for Johnson and so will I.

Ron is pro-life so I doubt he will endorse Gary Johnson. I do not think he will endorse anyone this cycle.

Mini-Me

08-29-2012, 11:21 PM

There is one reason, and I mean ONLY ONE REASON to vote for Mitt Romney. If you are REASONABLY CERTAIN you will make an effort to become a delegate in 2016 (for Rand Paul) or vye for a position locally in the GOP. A delegate is going to need that repub street cred as we have seen throughout the caucuses this year.

I'm fairly certain I am going to violently throw up while voting for Mitt, but I am determined to be a delegate in 2016 for Rand.

IMO, anyone who doesn't feel certain they will vye for a delegate/officer position in the GOP should vote for anybody BUT Mitt.

General election votes are anonymous. The Republican Party will never know who you vote for in a general election unless you tell them...or unless you have a very small precinct, and they have the list of voters, and nobody from the precinct votes for Romney at all...but that's unlikely. ;)

CaptainAmerica

08-29-2012, 11:31 PM

old people want their social security heavily guarded at all costs.

WesSeid

08-30-2012, 12:14 AM

Do not contribute to an perceived Obama mandate. While I see a pathetic win by Obama as the best case scenario, I see an Obama "mandate" as the absolute worst.

Well, an Obama mandate would at least mean the big-government Republicans lost SO BADLY that there might be a slight chance they'd run a less-suck candidate next time. (Rand? I do think he will be President some day.)

A thing about Romney is that even on some things I support him on, I see little to no reason to think he'd actually do them.
And he'd probably bomb Iran within a month. ...did you guys see McCain's speech at the convention? man.

There are things I am opposite of Gary Johnson on, but it would take a miracle for him to actually win anyway. But I think pretty much anything that weakens the two-party system and can put a third voice on the delegate stage is overall a good thing.

Fortunately, we all have 2+ months to talk about this stuff and figure out what's best. :D

Dogsoldier

08-30-2012, 12:25 AM

"Ron is pro-life so I doubt he will endorse Gary Johnson. I do not think he will endorse anyone this cycle."

I didnt say endorse I said vote.Abortion is a great wedge issue that they love to use to devide.Then they can do whatever they want.

"sure will fight abortion"as long as you give up your guns,privacy and anything else we can think of.

I hope you don't base how your gonna vote on this 1 issue.Abortion isn't going anywhere I hate to say.Most people believe in some form of abortion its just a fact.

Your not gonna round up 15 million people and throw them in jail for murder sorry.The ship has sailed and its too ingrained in America.

Ron Paul will vote Gary Johnson because he best represents his beliefs and so will I.

Indy Vidual

08-30-2012, 12:29 AM

4 more years of Obama is better than 8 more years of his policies.

+1984