MayTheRonBeWithYou
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This is good to hear!
Have your political beliefs changed?
- Thread starter VoteRonPaul2008
- Start date
This is good to hear!
Mark Rushmore
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stewie3128
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I was a warhawk Libertarian before I started reading RP. Now I seriously question our need for foreign bases. At the same time, though, if the only way things are going to go in the mid-future involves a major American presence internationally, I guess that part of the status quo has to remain as well, otherwise we're simply hobbling ourselves for absolutely no benefit.
The RP ideal world is far, FAR preferable, though.
The RP ideal world is far, FAR preferable, though.
GunnyFreedom
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I've pretty much been politically in lock-step with RP for 20 years, even though I first heard of him in April-May of this year. The only position of his where I differed, is on the Federal Reserve -- and that was only because I "didn't know." From the beginning of my political awareness, I thought leaving the gold standard was stupid. I didn't know why, it was just in my gut.
I was opposed to Iraq from day 1. I told people I was close with about my opposition to Iraq -- "why are we going to invade a country that hasn't attacked us, or anybody asking for our help?" but I wasn't very vocal about it, because I didn't want to be identified with the radical left: "Umm, war is bad, no Iraq, because....umm..guns are bad umkaaay?"
I wasn't opposed to Afghanistan, because I thought the nation itself had something to do with Bin Laden, but I was angered that we went over there without a formal declaration of war.
I registered as an Independent the day I turned 18, because I thought both parties were crap. I've tended to vote Republican in the past because they were stronger on the one right I felt was most under threat -- the Second Amendment. But I have always been independent-minded and would vote D, L, R based on the individual candidate.
Over the last 15 years, (starting with Ruby Ridge and Waco) I have become extremely alarmed about the erosion of civil liberties. Ron Paul is the exact candidate I have been begging and pleading for all this time, and only first heard of him April-May of 2007. I grew up on Robert A Heinlien, and would have been considered a "radical libertarian" pretty much all of my life.
I remember being "wide-eyed in wonder" throughout my formative years in Civics, studying Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, and so on, and horrified at how divorced our current government was from the American ideal, and about the apathy of the American electorate. Then, over the last 4-8 years I myself was becoming insanely apathetic, thinking that no decent candidate could make it through the corrupt system and the ignorant electorate.
I was opposed to Iraq from day 1. I told people I was close with about my opposition to Iraq -- "why are we going to invade a country that hasn't attacked us, or anybody asking for our help?" but I wasn't very vocal about it, because I didn't want to be identified with the radical left: "Umm, war is bad, no Iraq, because....umm..guns are bad umkaaay?"
I wasn't opposed to Afghanistan, because I thought the nation itself had something to do with Bin Laden, but I was angered that we went over there without a formal declaration of war.
I registered as an Independent the day I turned 18, because I thought both parties were crap. I've tended to vote Republican in the past because they were stronger on the one right I felt was most under threat -- the Second Amendment. But I have always been independent-minded and would vote D, L, R based on the individual candidate.
Over the last 15 years, (starting with Ruby Ridge and Waco) I have become extremely alarmed about the erosion of civil liberties. Ron Paul is the exact candidate I have been begging and pleading for all this time, and only first heard of him April-May of 2007. I grew up on Robert A Heinlien, and would have been considered a "radical libertarian" pretty much all of my life.
I remember being "wide-eyed in wonder" throughout my formative years in Civics, studying Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, and so on, and horrified at how divorced our current government was from the American ideal, and about the apathy of the American electorate. Then, over the last 4-8 years I myself was becoming insanely apathetic, thinking that no decent candidate could make it through the corrupt system and the ignorant electorate.
GunnyFreedom
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I have to agree with all of this also. I have always looked at the MSM with a jaundiced eye of suspicion, but never even to a fraction of the extent that I do now. Since I have seen what the MSM has done to RP, it has gone from "grain of salt" to "Oh my f'ing God!"
Before RP I always thought MSM bias was mostly about putting butts in seats and ca$hing in. Now I see direct ideologically motivated bias with pretty much ever story covered.
GunnyFreedom
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+++1
GunnyFreedom
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I've pretty much been politically in lock-step with RP for 20 years, even though I first heard of him in April-May of this year. The only position of his where I differed, is on the Federal Reserve -- and that was only because I "didn't know." From the beginning of my political awareness, I thought leaving the gold standard was stupid. I didn't know why, it was just in my gut.
I was opposed to Iraq from day 1. I told people I was close with about my opposition to Iraq -- "why are we going to invade a country that hasn't attacked us, or anybody asking for our help?" but I wasn't very vocal about it, because I didn't want to be identified with the radical left: "Umm, war is bad, no Iraq, because....umm..guns are bad umkaaay?"
I wasn't opposed to Afghanistan, because I thought the nation itself had something to do with Bin Laden, but I was angered that we went over there without a formal declaration of war.
I registered as an Independent the day I turned 18, because I thought both parties were crap. I've tended to vote Republican in the past because they were stronger on the one right I felt was most under threat -- the Second Amendment. But I have always been independent-minded and would vote D, L, R based on the individual candidate.
Over the last 15 years, (starting with Ruby Ridge and Waco) I have become extremely alarmed about the erosion of civil liberties. Ron Paul is the exact candidate I have been begging and pleading for all this time, and only first heard of him April-May of 2007. I grew up on Robert A Heinlien, and would have been considered a "radical libertarian" pretty much all of my life.
I remember being "wide-eyed in wonder" throughout my formative years in Civics, studying Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, and so on, and horrified at how divorced our current government was from the American ideal, and about the apathy of the American electorate. Then, over the last 4-8 years I myself was becoming insanely apathetic, thinking that no decent candidate could make it through the corrupt system and the ignorant electorate.
Oh yeah, and my view of the MSM has gone from merely suspicious, to considering them outright frauds.
I was opposed to Iraq from day 1. I told people I was close with about my opposition to Iraq -- "why are we going to invade a country that hasn't attacked us, or anybody asking for our help?" but I wasn't very vocal about it, because I didn't want to be identified with the radical left: "Umm, war is bad, no Iraq, because....umm..guns are bad umkaaay?"
I wasn't opposed to Afghanistan, because I thought the nation itself had something to do with Bin Laden, but I was angered that we went over there without a formal declaration of war.
I registered as an Independent the day I turned 18, because I thought both parties were crap. I've tended to vote Republican in the past because they were stronger on the one right I felt was most under threat -- the Second Amendment. But I have always been independent-minded and would vote D, L, R based on the individual candidate.
Over the last 15 years, (starting with Ruby Ridge and Waco) I have become extremely alarmed about the erosion of civil liberties. Ron Paul is the exact candidate I have been begging and pleading for all this time, and only first heard of him April-May of 2007. I grew up on Robert A Heinlien, and would have been considered a "radical libertarian" pretty much all of my life.
I remember being "wide-eyed in wonder" throughout my formative years in Civics, studying Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, and so on, and horrified at how divorced our current government was from the American ideal, and about the apathy of the American electorate. Then, over the last 4-8 years I myself was becoming insanely apathetic, thinking that no decent candidate could make it through the corrupt system and the ignorant electorate.
Oh yeah, and my view of the MSM has gone from merely suspicious, to considering them outright frauds.
RP helped to get me riled up on the income tax, inflation tax issues. When I first heard he wanted to abolish the IRS, I thought it was pretty out there. Now I believe its the only sane answer. Its creating so much discussion, I think we may actually be able to reach a point where the majority consensus is to do just that.
I think in a larger sense he changed my views on the welfare state. We are being taxed and spent into oblivion. Although many issues are important, I think his economic policies will earn him more real votes than any single issue. Its been said before - "Its the economy, stupid". And I think he's rather brilliantly managed to tie his foreign policy solution into his economic solution (stop being world police, save money). It couldn't be simpler or smarter.
I think in a larger sense he changed my views on the welfare state. We are being taxed and spent into oblivion. Although many issues are important, I think his economic policies will earn him more real votes than any single issue. Its been said before - "Its the economy, stupid". And I think he's rather brilliantly managed to tie his foreign policy solution into his economic solution (stop being world police, save money). It couldn't be simpler or smarter.
pickfair
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I had a pretty "standard" Democratic point of view until Dr. Paul came along. I was drawn to his anti-war stance as well, but I really felt like we needed to return to the principles of our Founding Fathers and that's how he converted me. Then I found myself being convinced about most everything else, which is strange because RP's views are conservative in the political spectrum.
CanadiansLoveRonPaul
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Yes they have, more dramatic than I could have ever imagined!
I used to be a die-hard apethetic 'truther'... Ron Paul and indeed this forum helped me to understand that change is possible and that regardless of what happens, or what we perceive happens, we can still band together and make that change...
It's like the Metaphore that's floated around on this forum:
Thousands of spiders can come together to tie up a lion!
It's like the Metaphore that's floated around on this forum:
Thousands of spiders can come together to tie up a lion!
PS: I don't even visit the site that introduced me to Ron Paul anymore! (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com)...
mosquitobite
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I roomed with a guy I called Dad for 18 years who is a fanatical libertarian conservative. I then had 2 semesters with a brilliant econ professor who also leaned libertarian.
I joined a newsletter many years ago (Chuck Muth) who has always quoted Dr Paul frequently (and just recently endorsed him openly). So I've known about and admired Dr Paul for years.
Duckman
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You are definitely correct. I've always suspected that more people are libertarians than people realize, it's just that it takes effort to find this philosophy. I remember directing my girlfriend (now my wife) to read the Libertarian party platform a few years ago (she had always considered herself a liberal with some exceptions) and after she did she called me up to tell me she was shocked there was a political party that took so many positions she could wholeheartedly agree with.
Unfortunately, it took this awful war to bring us to the "right time" for this philosophy. But, I am so happy to see people waking up to the corroded beast that is our federal government and political system. It really makes me feel good for the future to see so many people supporting Ron Paul and finding they agree with the more "esoteric" parts of his philosophy -- because I think it confirms my feeling years ago that these ideas would be popular if only people knew about them.
Not recently
As a small businessman, who pretty much bootstrapped from nothing - doing without personally for decades in order to reinvest - I was *quite* clear that government was mostly a parasite: more the cause of problems than a good solution.
However, when the NASDAQ bubble broke I began searching for answers: what, specifically, had caused it and what was likely coming next. As The Economist magazine concluded around that time, ONLY AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS HAD PROVED RELIABLE AND COMPLETE IN PREDICTING THE BUBBLE. So, I began reading a lot of Austrian economics, and associated literature, which lent me a logical framework and made me even more adamantly anti-government. I realized that government is *intrinsically* poisonous because it is predicated on a poisonous premise: preemptive use of force against non complying individuals. I began comparing the poison of government to the nerve poison of an anesthetic; use only with great reluctance and in minimal quantities.
I underwent a further epiphany after the evasion of Iraq. In the aftermath, as it became clear that our government was operating on false pretenses and that the war, the inflation, and housing bubble, were central planning at its worst - carefully plotted to transfer wealth and power to the self selected elite with the main criteria for inclusion in that elite a willingness to do anything and say anything in pursuit of more power and money.
With those two epiphanies, and the associated learnings of how things worked, it became crystal clear that Clinton and Bush were merely two faces to the same coin and that the artificial entities of "government" and "corporations" had seized control from humans and had come pernicious cancer, feeding off the human race to further their own pseudo life.
The Matrix, interestingly, consolidated the picture further with every new viewing.
That my picture was correct became hard for me to deny as I became increasingly able to predict FUTURE actions of government, sometimes with chilling accuracy and years in advance.
As a small businessman, who pretty much bootstrapped from nothing - doing without personally for decades in order to reinvest - I was *quite* clear that government was mostly a parasite: more the cause of problems than a good solution.
However, when the NASDAQ bubble broke I began searching for answers: what, specifically, had caused it and what was likely coming next. As The Economist magazine concluded around that time, ONLY AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS HAD PROVED RELIABLE AND COMPLETE IN PREDICTING THE BUBBLE. So, I began reading a lot of Austrian economics, and associated literature, which lent me a logical framework and made me even more adamantly anti-government. I realized that government is *intrinsically* poisonous because it is predicated on a poisonous premise: preemptive use of force against non complying individuals. I began comparing the poison of government to the nerve poison of an anesthetic; use only with great reluctance and in minimal quantities.
I underwent a further epiphany after the evasion of Iraq. In the aftermath, as it became clear that our government was operating on false pretenses and that the war, the inflation, and housing bubble, were central planning at its worst - carefully plotted to transfer wealth and power to the self selected elite with the main criteria for inclusion in that elite a willingness to do anything and say anything in pursuit of more power and money.
With those two epiphanies, and the associated learnings of how things worked, it became crystal clear that Clinton and Bush were merely two faces to the same coin and that the artificial entities of "government" and "corporations" had seized control from humans and had come pernicious cancer, feeding off the human race to further their own pseudo life.
The Matrix, interestingly, consolidated the picture further with every new viewing.
That my picture was correct became hard for me to deny as I became increasingly able to predict FUTURE actions of government, sometimes with chilling accuracy and years in advance.
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