Politics is not the answer.

[PAF]

Waking the People up is.

That is why I asked Todd to make "What if the American people learn the truth" (RP) t-shirts. These will be worn at the Constitution Event for the various groups from PA and Ohio and the community at large to see.

Constitution Pig Roast and Picnic Event: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...tember-13-2014

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www.THISTLE-FI.com

[Massachusetts]

You can only educate people so much. Politics is about mobilizing them to do something about it. So I disagree with you that politics is not the answer. Politics is how you take out the trash and replace them with people who obey and respect the Constitution. Politics is not the only answer - it needs to be complimented with education, volunteerism and a change in culture. But staying out of politics completely is a mistake and just makes it more difficult for those of us who know the truth because we have to carry a little more of the load in mobilizing people - and people who do know the truth stand on the sidelines.

[PAF]

You can only educate people so much. Politics is about mobilizing them to do something about it. So I disagree with you that politics is not the answer. Politics is how you take out the trash and replace them with people who obey and respect the Constitution. Politics is not the only answer - it needs to be complimented with education, volunteerism and a change in culture. But staying out of politics completely is a mistake and just makes it more difficult for those of us who know the truth because we have to carry a little more of the load in mobilizing people - and people who do know the truth stand on the sidelines.

Politicians are reflective of the people. Aside from this forum, and perhaps a couple of others, until people - couch-sitting republicans, democrats, indy's and even some libertarians know the truth, none of it really matters, other than voting for your own enslavement.

I never said to stay out of politics completely. I am likely the biggest boots on the ground that you will ever meet :-)

[CaptUSA]

Politicians are reflective of the people.

More and more, the people are a reflection of the media that they have consumed. Whether that be Maury, Dancing with the Stars, or Fox News.

The media is a reflection of the consumer.

The consumer is a reflection of his education.

Today, the education of most Americans is a reflection of the State.

And the circle continues.

It doesn't really matter which arc in the circle you choose to attack - they all need to be dismantled. It requires a paradigm change.

Luckily, we have been presented an opportunity to do that very thing. We have a politician who is within striking distance of the bully pulpit that can shake up the State, rattle the politicians, make the media report in new ways, and can educate a programmed populace to think about things in a new light. So while, politics alone is not the answer, we shouldn't underestimate its importance.



(oh, and if politics was the answer, it'd make me wonder what the $#@! the question was!)

[PAF]

Luckily, we have been presented an opportunity to do that very thing. We have a politician who is within striking distance of the bully pulpit that can shake up the State, rattle the politicians, make the media report in new ways, and can educate a programmed populace to think about things in a new light.

It is called "setting the tone". And I am behind that person 100% :-)

[The Free Hornet]

Great shirt but I do side with Massachusetts' sentiment.

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. ”

― Pericles
www.goodreads.com/quotes/19444-just-because-you-do-not-take-an-interest-in-politics

[Czolgosz]

Violence is a stronger force than either politics or education.

[Rond]

Violence is a stronger force than either politics or education.

I respectfully disagree with that. The Bible says that the weapons of the Spirit of God and His Word are more powerful than the weapons of men.

[idiom]

I respectfully disagree with that. The Bible says that the weapons of the Spirit of God and His Word are more powerful than the weapons of men.

Then it just goes GOD > Weapons > Politics.

The problem is basically that 70%+ of Americans are on the take. They are outright stealing from their neighbors and their children and their grandchildren.

Excellent read, I cannot recommend enough:

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=229385

[Ronin Truth]

Well I never, how could many blood sucking parasites NOT be the answer?

[Rond]

Then it just goes GOD > Weapons > Politics.

No. It means that spiritual (meaning non-physical) weapons of change are more powerful than the violence of men. This is one reason that true Biblical Christianity cannot be politically coercive. It doesn't war with worldly weapons.

[osan]

Waking the People up is [the answer].

I am afraid not. What you suggest here flies in the face of the past 8K years of Empire. It is the unfortunate nature of the human animal that, once corrupted nothing seems to realign him with honor and reason. Life is tough for the vast majority - perhaps even for all, after a fashion - and the perfectly consistent pattern of human proclivity is that once they are afforded some measure of ease and have come to accept it, one has far greater success finding lips on chickens than convincing the man to return to his former condition, which he now views as having been a lesser state. This is readily seen in the workplace where after having been given a raise, not too many people accept cuts back to former levels with any fondness and will often employ the strong arms of organizations such as unions in order to best ensure such lapses into inferior states do not occur.

That is why I asked Todd to make "What if the American people learn the truth" (RP) t-shirts. These will be worn at the Constitution Event for the various groups from PA and Ohio and the community at large to see.

All fine and good, but I suspect that conditions for Joe Meaner are going to have to get a whole lot worse before he will be spurred to "wake up", as you put it. People have been trying to wake the Meaners up forever, but we can keep it more real by just focusing on America since the later 1960s. There have been all manner of efforts to wake people up and they have all failed miserably, save those that informed some of us that we were entitled to free stuff, courtesy of all the suckers who go to work every day. Then again, those were not really campaigns to wake anyone up. If nothing else, they were intended to ensure people slept with their eyes open, if you get my drift.

What if the American people learn the truth, your shirt asks? Nothing. They will continue on as they always have, so long as the barest necessities for everyday living remain even marginally available. The Meaners are far too easily manipulated. They have been bred to so low a level of habit that there is nearly no outrage that would spur them to sense and action. That is just the way things are. It may be so that we do not need the Meaners to right the ship, assuming they remain inert; but will they? I doubt it. Theye would certainly whip them up into a frenzy of fear and I don't think that even if we had as much as 10% of the population ready to fight the good fight that they would be able to prevail over the remaining 90% of frightened and angry Meaners. Let us hope I'm dead wrong on that.

[osan]

And the circle continues.

It doesn't really matter which arc in the circle you choose to attack - they all need to be dismantled. It requires a paradigm change.

And the paradigm in question is exactly that of attitude. As my mind rifles through this Gordian knot of convoluted and mutually reinforcing sources of our overall state of trouble, it becomes clear that we are in a very hopeless situation, all else equal. There is an enormous number of factors acting against the drive of the Few to restore at least something of reasonable liberty in this cesspool of Empire-gone-wholsesale-psycho in which we are trapped.

With each passing day and as the world plumbs ever more deeply the bottomless abyss of raging insanity, it becomes ever more strongly clear to me that in the absence of a significant reset event, hope for a return to rational life is all but vanished. I find it highly unlikely that the entropy of 7++ billion people, the vast and overwhelming majority of whom live in states of profound mental and spiritual breakdown, can be fought successfully by a few tens of millions right-headed people. The obstacle is simply too large to overcome at this point. We cannot go over it, under, around, or through it. We are unable to obliterate it for its sheer size. Therefore, we need some very serious help from God or space aliens, and at this point I don't care which of the two steps up to the plate, just so long as someone with long shanks does because we cannot maintain this status quo for much longer, it seems to me. A global plague knocking down the human numbers by, say, 95+% would likely do the trick, but methinks the reality of such a thing is something around which my tiny mind cannot quite wrap itself.

[osan]

I respectfully disagree with that. The Bible says that the weapons of the Spirit of God and His Word are more powerful than the weapons of men.

Reality has proven the bible dead-wrong on this point. We have thousands of years of history that attests to this with the most starkly unequivocal eloquence of the progressively more savage behavior of the race viewed as a statistical gestalt.

Were your assertion true, there would not be an army of hog-wild rag-heads decapitating their fellow human beings by the tens of thousands. And that is the very least of our problems.

[Rond]

Reality has proven the bible dead-wrong on this point. We have thousands of years of history that attests to this with the most starkly unequivocal eloquence of the progressively more savage behavior of the race viewed as a statistical gestalt.

Were your assertion true, there would not be an army of hog-wild rag-heads decapitating their fellow human beings by the tens of thousands. And that is the very least of our problems.

An army of rag heads, or any army, does not disprove that God is more powerful than earthly force. You are blinded because of your materialism.

All of those princes and tyrants of history will face the Lord who judges the evil of men, and will be brought to nothing. You will face this God too.

[Christian Liberty]

An army of rag heads, or any army, does not disprove that God is more powerful than earthly force. You are blinded because of your materialism.

All of those princes and tyrants of history will face the Lord who judges the evil of men, and will be brought to nothing. You will face this God too.

Can violence ever be useful?

Is violence ever morally justifiable?

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx

[Ronin Truth]

Politics Is a Sociopathic Cult

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer96.html
Butler Shaffer on the prognosis.

[osan]

An army of rag heads, or any army, does not disprove that God is more powerful than earthly force. You are blinded because of your materialism.

May I suggest that you know barely the first thing about me or my state of being.

All of those princes and tyrants of history will face the Lord who judges the evil of men, and will be brought to nothing. You will face this God too.

Maybe. Maybe not. You may believe, but you do not know. What if you are wholly mistaken?

[osan]

Can violence ever be useful?

Can a hammer? Violence is naught but a tool, just as is any other instrument.

The samurai have a saying: "Satsujin ken, katsujin ken". "The sword that takes life, the sword that gives life."

I leave it to you to dope out the meaning. If you have trouble with it, ask and I will clarify, but at least give it a whirl before sending up the white flag.

Is violence ever morally justifiable?

See sentence above.

[TheTexan]

Violence is only justified if you have a badge, or you are a soldier in another country, or in the process of making a more perfect union. Then its ok.

[heavenlyboy34]

Politicians are reflective of the people. Aside from this forum, and perhaps a couple of others, until people - couch-sitting republicans, democrats, indy's and even some libertarians know the truth, none of it really matters, other than voting for your own enslavement.

I never said to stay out of politics completely. I am likely the biggest boots on the ground that you will ever meet :-)

This is ridiculous. It's just an unfounded claim that's been handed down for many moons. The politicians are reflective of themselves and their cronies. For example, congress has been extremely unpopular for a great many election cycles (statistically). Yet, we are led to believe by the intelligentsia, the media, and the professoriate ridiculous pseudo-intellectual poly-sci nonsense about how "The People" (the electorate, more accurately) somehow "are" the government just because voting happens every 2 years.

Don't feel bad, though. A lot of intelligent people have made and continue to make the same mistake-even George Carlin.

[TheTexan]

This is ridiculous. It's just an unfounded claim that's been handed down for many moons. The politicians are reflective of themselves and their cronies. For example, congress has been extremely unpopular for a great many election cycles (statistically). Yet, we are led to believe by the intelligentsia, the media, and the professoriate ridiculous pseudo-intellectual poly-sci nonsense about how "The People" (the electorate, more accurately) somehow "are" the government just because voting happens every 2 years.

Don't feel bad, though. A lot of intelligent people have made and continue to make the same mistake-even George Carlin.

Dont trust the polls. War has been "unpopular" according to polls as well, but clearly war is very popular according to every other piece of available evidence.

Look at what people do, not what they say

[heavenlyboy34]

May I suggest that you know barely the first thing about me or my state of being.



Maybe. Maybe not. You may believe, but you do not know. What if you are wholly mistaken?

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this issue, brother. The Bible offers a complete moral code and philosophy-an epistemology and system of ethics and so on. ("oughts" as well as "is"es) Ideas are powerful. They can have the power to change the world.

[heavenlyboy34]

Dont trust the polls. War has been "unpopular" according to polls as well, but clearly war is very popular according to every other piece of available evidence.

Look at what people do, not what they say

Good point. BUT, I submit to you that that is only because we are at a point in history where the regime runs a "sanitary" war business. Average people can go about their daily business without thinking about the slaughter and injustice going on half a world away. I submit to you that if people had to feel the consequences of war, it would be highly unpopular like it was prior to the modern war industry.

[osan]

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this issue, brother. The Bible offers a complete moral code and philosophy-an epistemology and system of ethics and so on. ("oughts" as well as "is"es) Ideas are powerful. They can have the power to change the world.

I did not question whether the bible had such things, only whether they were correct. Someone made a positive statement about my "materialism" and the resulting "blindness", implying some form of guilt or other flaw/fault. They then went on to claim that "God" will judge them all, further stating that I, too, will face Him. Allow me to point out that none of it was defined. Granted, definition of "God" can be a tall order, but how can we have any idea of that which we speak without a definition, even if only to say that God has none? On that hand, are we then not speaking through our sphincters? How does one speak of that which, if having no definition, we can know next to nothing?

All that philosophizing aside, there remains the problem between epistemology and truth. Note I did not assert the author to have been wrong, but merely and reasonably raised the very real possibility that he was. Faith is not knowledge, save by coincidence. Mostly, faith is just that - pure belief without a more firm basis in the "science" of our senses, and even that can be put up for argument if we wish to go down the rabbit hole deeply enough.

It should be clear that not only could we go on endlessly about this to great depth and breadth, but that all the talk in the world will bring nothing beyond the status of pure speculation. We can prove nothing. We can prove everything. That is the paradoxical nature of what we are as living, conscious, self-aware beings, such as those qualities may exist vis-à-vis how they might; how we see v. how "God" sees.

I, for one, trust my senses to a point. Beyond that I hold always something in reserve, especially where issues of "God" come into play because that almost universally leads to beliefs about what all people should or should not do and it is precisely because of the tenuous nature of our minds and this reality we think we experience that we should learn ourselves away from the brands of foolishness that employ force to convince others to do as we do. That is precisely why I am an ardent adherent to the Golden Rule. It is precisely why the Golden Rule rests in no need of improvement or other alteration. The world of men would do well to learn it and keep it close to their hearts. But mine is the opinion of a minority of not much more than one.

Please pardon me for the digression.

[Ronin Truth]

Dont trust the polls. War has been "unpopular" according to polls as well, but clearly war is very popular according to every other piece of available evidence.

Look at what people do, not what they say

"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg Trials