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View Full Version : An Obama supporter waved at me because of my RP bumper stickers




ronpaulitician
12-03-2007, 01:02 AM
Pulling out of the Electronics Boutique (exchanged Assassin's Creed -decent graphics, terrible gameplay- for Splinter Cell: Double Agent -the kind of gameplay I hoped AC would provide- and Madden 2k07 -finally upgraded my NFL2K5) and Quiznos parking lot, three pedestrians were passing in front of my car; two girls and a guy.

One of the girls waved at me. I waved back. She pointed at her shirt. OBAMA! They smiled, I smiled. They passed, and I was able to pull out of the lot, showing them the fully bumper-stickered rear of my car. I wonder what they thought as I pulled away, but I can only imagine it was somewhat positive. I can just imagine their conversation for the next 30 seconds or so, which hopefully went along the lines of "Yeah, he's a Republican, but he's a decent man."

As I thought about it some more, I realized that that was exactly what will be needed to get Paul the victory in the general election: especially the people that are currently promoting their candidates at their hardest need to maintain a more positive than negative opinion of Paul and his policies. To do so, humans being only human and all that, they must also maintain a more positive than negative opinion of Paul's supporters.

Now, I'm not suggesting we water down our views (because that, our ideas and our desire to communicate those ideas to others, is actually what this movement, represented by Paul, stands for) but there is very little to gain from antagonizing other Americans. Sure, they may still think the war in Iraq is a good thing. Well, hate to bring it to you, but so did I at some point in time. Some may think the war on drugs is a good thing. Again, at one point, so did I. I used to think government could do things more efficiently than individuals. I used to doubt the power of the free market. Mainly because of my interaction with people both opposed and supportive of the views I held, I slowly changed my mind on these issues, and many others.

To be honest, though, if I was still in the mindset I was in years ago, an encounter with a Paul supporter would not necessarily leave me with a positive opinion. That's not necessarily an indictment of Paul supporters, but more so an indictment of the me I was then. It's hard to let go of ideas one has developed and held onto for a long time.

The best thing to do for us is to just plant the seeds, and to learn to agree to disagree more often. For the more I believe in this movement, the more I believe that we will be able to convince Paul to run as an independent or third party candidate. "I have no intention" is political speech for "I haven't ruled it out." If we can help Paul do well in the early GOP primaries, and continue to support him no matter the results of those early primaries, we've got a real shot at unleashing the potential we all see in these United States.

I'm going to make an effort to really focus on agreeing to disagree with people who do not (yet) support Paul.

Indy Vidual
12-03-2007, 01:08 AM
We are gaining respect in many places :)