If You Vote -- It means the politicians have fooled you.

[CaptUSA]

What will happen with the influx of illegal aliens on the government dole are allowed to vote? Will you cry foul then?

Oh, I see. It is the futility that you feel? You will always be outnumbered by those that want to steal the fruits of your labor?

I fail to see how not voting helps this in any way.

[Ronin Truth]

If only Ron Paul had retired in 2008, that would have been so much more effective than starting that silly, toothless "Revolution" that made liberty mainstream.

The Revolution: A Manifesto Hardcover – April 1, 2008

//.

[William Tell]

It's not like Ron Paul if famous because he ran for President and changed peoples minds through political rallies, and debates on Mainstream TV. LOL! No, it's because he has opinions. I mean, libertarianism would be MORE popular if Ron Paul spent his entire life as an OB/GYN, and had opted out of the political system.

[donnay]

Maybe something weird like finding common ground, and organizing to effect good change in every way possible. Might counteract those who find common ground, and organize to effect bad change?

Maybe most real changes, for good and ill, have started as 'political movements' of sorts?
Could be.

William, I appreciate your innocence. I do, I use to think that way. However as years went on I became very cynical about national elections because I saw, with my own eyes, how they are rigged. As long as they have electronic voting (and you know in Texas it is huge), they can rig it any way they want.

[Ronin Truth]

Oh, I see. It is the futility that you feel? You will always be outnumbered by those that want to steal the fruits of your labor?

I fail to see how not voting helps this in any way.

Especially in contrast with how voting always turns out so well. LOL! Spin that wheel again. Place your bets. We'll be sure and tell you when you win.

[donnay]

Oh, I see. It is the futility that you feel? You will always be outnumbered by those that want to steal the fruits of your labor?

I fail to see how not voting helps this in any way.

I withdraw my consent to partake in the corruption. I abstain, for the very reasons I gave above.

[Ronin Truth]

Voting your way to freedom is a lot like screwing your way to virginity.

[William Tell]

William, I appreciate your innocence. I do, I use to think that way. However as years went on I became very cynical about national elections because I saw, with my own eyes, how they are rigged. As long as they have electronic voting (and you know in Texas it is huge), they can rig it any way they want.

The comment you responded to was about the importance of political movements, I was not saying that merely voting makes everything OK.

I do not object to people doing things other than electoral politics to effect change. What I object to, is the notion that not voting is some how some great thing. At best it is neutral. Voting in a good person is definitely a good thing in my opinion.

[heavenlyboy34]

It's not like Ron Paul if famous because he ran for President and changed peoples minds through political rallies, and debates on Mainstream TV. LOL! No, it's because he has opinions. I mean, libertarianism would be MORE popular if Ron Paul spent his entire life as an OB/GYN, and had opted out of the political system.

RP is an exception that proves the rule.

This is the preface to Ron Paul’s Gold, Peace, and Prosperity: The Birth of a New Currency.

Ron Paul is a most unusual politician – in many ways. In the first place, he really knows what he’s talking about. He is not only for the gold standard. He knows why he is for it, and he is familiar with the most advanced and complex economic insights on the true nature of inflation, on how inflation works, and how inflationary credit expansions brings about booms and busts. And yet Ron has the remarkable ability to take these complex and vital insights and to present them in clear, lucid, hard-hitting terms to the non-economist reader. His economics is as sound as a bell.

But, even more important, Ron Paul is an unusual politician because he doesn’t simply pay lip service to moral principles. He believes in moral principles in his mind and heart, and he fights for them passionately and effectively. High on his set of moral principles is the vital importance of individual freedom, of the individual’s natural right to be free of assault and aggression, and of his right to keep the property that he has earned on the free market, and not have it stolen from him by confiscatory taxes and government regulations.

Ron Paul, in short, is that rare American, and still rarer politician, who deeply understands and battles for the principles of liberty that were fought for and established by the Founding Fathers of this country. He understands that sound economics, moral principles, and individual freedom all go together, like a seamless web. They cannot be separated, and they stand or fall together.

Ron Paul understands that all three parts of this system of liberty have been under grave attack for decades, and that the main problem is the federal government itself. The government has systematically eroded and invaded property rights, has piled on ever higher taxes, ever more onerous regulations, and, most sinister because most hidden, has eroded the value of the dollar and of all our savings through inflation. Ron Paul is an unusual politician because he is not content to shrug his shoulders, to "go with the flow," as Californians say, or to go along in order to get along. He is a man of honor as well as a man of principle, and so he has, ever since he got into politics, been doing something about it. He has fought, sometimes single-handedly, for our liberties and for our savings.

Inflation, as Ron Paul points out, is caused by the government’s continual creation of new money, by what amounts to its system of legalized counterfeiting. But, if that is so, why not simply urge the government to stop the creation of money? Why not point out to our rulers the bad consequences of their actions? But Ron Paul realizes that this kind of education, or even pressure, is not going to work by itself. For we are dealing not simply with ignorant or misled people; we are dealing with a pernicious system.

Let us put it this way: give any man or group power, and it will tend to use that power. If the power is inherently abusive, then that power will be abused. Our present system gives to the federal government and its Federal Reserve the unlimited power to counterfeit. The problem is that if the Fed has the power to counterfeit, it will inevitably use that power. Why? Because the power to counterfeit is too tempting. The power to create money means that it is far more tempting to print it than to work for it. It means that the counterfeiter can pay his debts, spend more money, give more money to his friends and associates. In the case of government, the power to counterfeit means that government’s debts can be paid without levying taxes, that government spending can increase, and that political allies can be purchased and maintained.

The power to counterfeit is the power to abuse. It is not enough to urge the government to use it more moderately. The power must be taken away. Counterfeiting is fraud, and no one should have the right to counterfeit, least of all the government, whose record of counterfeiting throughout history is black indeed. Money and banking must be separated from the State, just as Church and State are separated in the American tradition, just as the economy and the State should be separated.

Vital to this necessary reform is the return to a money which is a useful product produced by the free market itself. In every society, people on the market voluntarily arrive at one or two commodities which are the most useful to use as money. For thousands of years, gold has been selected by countless societies as that money. The only alternative to a market commodity-money is what we unfortunately have now: paper tickets issued by the government and called "money." Since the paper tickets – dollars, francs, pounds sterling, or what have you – are issued by the government, the government can issue any amount it arbitrarily chooses. Counterfeiting is built into the system, and hence so is inflation and eventual destruction of the currency.

The only genuine solution to the evil of inflation, then, is to separate money from the State, to make money once again a market commodity instead of a fiat ticket issued by the central government. The dollar must once again be what it was originally until it was, in effect, nationalized. The dollar must once again be simply a name for a unit of weight of gold coin. Only this kind of fundamental reform will cure the ravages of inflation. Because Ron Paul is one of the few men in public life who truly understands the problem and is willing to fight to cure it, it is truly a pleasure for me to write the preface to this booklet.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was the author of Man, Economy, and State, Conceived in Liberty, What Has Government Done to Our Money, For a New Liberty, The Case Against the Fed, and many other books and articles/www.mises.org/mnrbib.asp>. He was also the editor – with Lew Rockwell – of The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, and academic vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

[CaptUSA]

I withdraw my consent to partake in the corruption. I abstain, for the very reasons I gave above.

Does this help in any way? Please convince me that this does anything useful to the cause.

This whole thread is about telling people on a political board that politics is futile and should be avoided and only fools would engage in such practices. I would think the burden of proof would be to explain how the alternative is more likely to bring about a positive result. But no. You would rather dwell in negatives only? You don't think there are political solutions? Fine. But why piss in the Wheaties of those who believe otherwise? To what effect? How is not voting going to work better?

[Ronin Truth]

Does this help in any way? Please convince me that this does anything useful to the cause.

This whole thread is about telling people on a political board that politics is futile and should be avoided and only fools would engage in such practices. I would think the burden of proof would be to explain how the alternative is more likely to bring about a positive result. But no. You would rather dwell in negatives only? You don't think there are political solutions? Fine. But why piss in the Wheaties of those who believe otherwise? To what effect? How is not voting going to work better?

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...62.kADFsSttgbk

[Ronin Truth]

The comment you responded to was about the importance of political movements, I was not saying that merely voting makes everything OK.

I do not object to people doing things other than electoral politics to effect change. What I object to, is the notion that not voting is some how some great thing. At best it is neutral. Voting in a good person is definitely a good thing in my opinion.

Well at least the non-voters are not furthering and therefore tacitly condoning and approving the continued enslavement of our brother and sister Americans.



"We shall get nowhere until we start by recognizing that political behavior is largely non-rational, that the world is suffering from some kind of mental disease which must be diagnosed before it can be cured. " -- George Orwell

[CaptUSA]

Well at least the non-voters are not furthering and therefore tacitly condoning and approving the continued enslavement of our brother and sister Americans.

Give it up. That "tacitly condoning" line is something that is entirely made up. In fact, I could use it in the exact opposite manner. By not voting against their abuses, you are tacitly condoning them.

See how that works?

I am still waiting for you - or anyone - to tell me how NOT voting stands a better chance of changing things. You have the burden of proof to show that not voting is a better means by which to ensure liberty. Go for it.

[William Tell]

Well at least the non-voters are not furthering and therefore tacitly condoning and approving the continued enslavement of our brother and sister Americans.

Bull capitol S with a hit. If Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton are on a ballot, and I vote for Ron Paul. And you don't vote at all, you are going to I'm the one to blame when Hillary destroys your liberties?

[donnay]

Bull capitol S with a hit. If Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton are on a ballot, and I vote for Ron Paul. And you don't vote at all, you are going to I'm the one to blame when Hillary destroys your liberties?

If the powers that be want Hillary, no amount of voting is going to count. But you can be assured they do not want anyone in who thinks for themselves and loves liberty.

[donnay]

Give it up. That "tacitly condoning" line is something that is entirely made up. In fact, I could use it in the exact opposite manner. By not voting against their abuses, you are tacitly condoning them.

See how that works?

I am still waiting for you - or anyone - to tell me how NOT voting stands a better chance of changing things. You have the burden of proof to show that not voting is a better means by which to ensure liberty. Go for it.

And we could use the same analogy: How does voting change things for the better?

Did the Patriot change things for the better?
Did the NDAA change things for the better?
Did the bank bail-outs change things for the better?

Can't you see the deck is stacked against our liberties. You could vote till your blue in the face and nothing is going change the ones who are truly in control of this country. If you think Obama REALLY runs this country then I have a some swampland I can sell you for a really good price.

You need to get out there and change the people's minds. The ones who have been conditioned and born into a system of corruption of which they do not know any better.

[Ronin Truth]

Give it up. That "tacitly condoning" line is something that is entirely made up. In fact, I could use it in the exact opposite manner. By not voting against their abuses, you are tacitly condoning them.

See how that works?

I am still waiting for you - or anyone - to tell me how NOT voting stands a better chance of changing things. You have the burden of proof to show that not voting is a better means by which to ensure liberty. Go for it.

Of course it is, I just made it up. That doesn't make it incorrect nor invalid.

Guess again, the burden of proof is always on the affirmative. Nice try though. Check it out.

No, I don't see how that works. Because it doesn't and it never did and I doubt that it ever will. Six thousand years on the road to no where, on the failed experiment called government. How many chances to succeed should be given to failed experiments?

Thanks for playing!

"When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself." -- Mark Twain

[Ronin Truth]

"Arguing with idiots some voters is like playing chess with a pigeon; no matter how well you play the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board and strut around like he’s victorious."

[CaptUSA]

Of course it is, I just made it up. That doesn't make it incorrect nor invalid.

Guess again, the burden of proof is always on the affirmative. Nice try though. Check it out.

No, I don't see how that works. Because it doesn't and it never did and I doubt that it ever will. Six thousand years on the road to no where, on the failed experiment called government. How many chances to succeed should be given to failed experiments?

Thanks for playing!

"When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself." -- Mark Twain

So that means you have nothing, then? Not voting is no better than voting? Neither produces anything of value? So why the tumult? You're the one who brought it up. But you have nothing? Nothing to show where not voting produces anything more than voting? You are the one affirmatively stating such. I'd like a little evidence.

[Ronin Truth]

So that means you have nothing, then? Not voting is no better than voting? Neither produces anything of value? So why the tumult? You're the one who brought it up. But you have nothing? Nothing to show where not voting produces anything more than voting? You are the one affirmatively stating such. I'd like a little evidence.

You betcha, pige!

http://www.google.com/custom?q=non-v...ewrockwell.com

[CaptUSA]

You betcha, pige!

That was a little too easy to defeat this troll attempt. You would think you might have something... Anything...

[Ronin Truth]

That was a little too easy to defeat this troll attempt. You would think you might have something... Anything...

http://www.google.com/custom?q=non-v...ewrockwell.com

[TheTexan]

Give it up. That "tacitly condoning" line is something that is entirely made up.

Tacitly condoning I don't care one way or the other. I'd better phrase it as "tacitly relying." As long as we rely on the political system to solve our problems, we should be in good shape. It's only when we go outside the realms of normal democratic participation, that I start to get worried. You know what I'm talking about; the "crazy talk." Stockpiling food/ammo, lessening dependence on the state, preparing yourself physically & mentally for the defense of a state/local secession, and other such ridiculous ideas.

As long as our political strategy just relies on voting really, really hard, we will be in A+ shape.

I am still waiting for you - or anyone - to tell me how NOT voting stands a better chance of changing things.

My favorite part about voting, is that feeling of making a difference when you do it. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. The only thing that makes me feel warmer and fuzzier, is volunteering in a campaign for the purpose of electing someone slightly-less-bad than the opponent. That's the best way to operate within the political system, and is therefore a favorite strategy of mine.

[donnay]

Waiting for the bashing of Lew Rockwall...3...2...1...

[Ronin Truth]

Waiting for the bashing of Lew Rockwall...3...2...1...

To which the comeback is: Gee, Ron really likes Lew Rockwell.

[mad cow]

Waiting for the bashing of Lew Rockwall...3...2...1...

Who other than you has even mentioned bashing Lew Rockwell in this thread?

Of course the thread isn't finished yet and there are probably many here who hate his Statist guts for taking an unelected job in D.C.at taxpayer expense as Chief of Staff for one of those disgusting tax-ticks in the House of Representatives.

[Ronin Truth]

Who other than you has even mentioned bashing Lew Rockwell in this thread?

Of course the thread isn't finished yet and there are probably many here who hate his Statist guts for taking an unelected job in D.C.at taxpayer expense as Chief of Staff for one of those disgusting tax-ticks in the House of Representatives.

Gee, Ron really likes Lew Rockwell.

[donnay]

Gee, Ron really likes Lew Rockwell.

That's a great point--I completely forgot about that.

[William Tell]

Waiting for the bashing of Lew Rockwall...3...2...1...

I just happen to agree with Ron Paul here.

“I have many friends in the libertarian movement who look down on those of us who get involved in political activity,”
he acknowledged, but "eventually, if you want to bring about changes … what you have to do is participate in political
action.” -- Ron Paul

[green73]

With millions of clueless voters whose votes count just the same as mine would, I can always find something better and more sensible ways to spend my time, efforts and other resources.

"If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it." -- Mark Twain

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ronin Truth again.

..