Its raining mea culpa in liberty land.

[dusman]

I appreciate what your saying Dusman and I was not really complaining before. It's just pretty obvious to me why everyone came out of the woodwork yesterday for Rand and I think it's a good thing and involved more of what I'm asking for. What amazes me is why somebody would climb up on a high horse and attack people for showing up, or in my case just posting more. I like where Rand is going, and that's why I piped up. Eleganz I don't believe Cruz, but it does seem like he brought up the Fed more in debates and other public specticles more then Rand was. I reserve the right to be wrong, don't crucify me for it please. I do have a life and I had not seen that recent clip, but that's exactly the point he needs to be piping up about it and other injustices a lot more. The more the better and I do think this outpouring of support on the forums is a result of stuffing the right content into 90 second sound bytes and that's great! Though I love Ron's quote "truth is treason in the empire of lies" I would like to optimistically believe that people like the truth, certainly among his base as you can see. People are more fed up with the establishment line then ever.

I'm definitely excited to see some old faces coming back around. That's all we could hope for.

If you haven't caught onto Ted Cruz.. he's a hardcore leech at the moment. Rand came out saying you should be able to fill out your taxes on a postcard and the next debate Cruz comes out and says the same thing. If you review the past 2-3 debates, Cruz makes a point to interject himself right after Paul on anything he says.. moving the conversation either left or right of Rand depending on which he feels is more appealing to the GOP.

Cruz is clever.. he identifies that talking about the Federal Reserve is a unique position.. and he's ramped up his rhetoric the past few weeks.

What I expect is that he'll make a mistake doing that and make some statement he is naive on or has to back-peddle due to prior votes or talking points. We can only hope anyways.

 

[afwjam]

You originally responded to my question (you know after I made sure it was attack-free) with a question and I answered you.

You have not given one single example of how the positions Rand took last night during the debate were not communicated in the past.

Your going t have to figure it out, because otherwise you have an unexplained phenomena on your hands.


Good to see everyone again, welcome back, I think.

 

[afwjam]

I'm definitely excited to see some old faces coming back around. That's all we could hope for.

If you haven't caught onto Ted Cruz.. he's a hardcore leech at the moment. Rand came out saying you should be able to fill out your taxes on a postcard and the next debate Cruz comes out and says the same thing. If you review the past 2-3 debates, Cruz makes a point to interject himself right after Paul on anything he says.. moving the conversation either left or right of Rand depending on which he feels is more appealing to the GOP.

Cruz is clever.. he identifies that talking about the Federal Reserve is a unique position.. and he's ramped up his rhetoric the past few weeks.

What I expect is that he'll make a mistake doing that and make some statement he is naive on or has to back-peddle due to prior votes or talking points. We can only hope anyways.

I have observed this and Rand is successfully countering lately and fixing his communication problem thank god. He needs to just continue talking the truth.

 

[eleganz]

Your going t have to figure it out, because otherwise you have an unexplained phenomena on your hands.


Good to see everyone again, welcome back, I think.

If you can't follow the conversations that I am having with others, you can choose to not hit reply.

Instead of responding to posts that I wrote to others, it would make a lot more sense to respond to those that I wrote to you. Like this one, that you conveniently ignored after your crazy post about how Rand isn't talking about the Fed, at least not as much as the Cruzer.

If you don't believe anything Cruz says, why did you use him as a comparison saying it seemed he talked about the FED more than Rand? Are you contradicting yourself?

You know, I was trying to be reasonable and left the rest of your post out of my quote on purpose and I didn't respond to it since I didn't want to take it to "that level". You asked why Rand is not talking about the FED and you were answered.

If you don't want the answer, don't ask the question.

 

[afwjam]

Go read what I wrote.

Eleganz I'm out. We have both been here for a while and I have appreciated your work as I hope you mine. I've never judged you as daft, maybe a little over zealous. You seem to be unable to understand something that's obvious, if you don't want us here just say so, but we are going to come in all shapes sizes and beliefs.

 

[cajuncocoa]

You originally responded to my question (you know after I made sure it was attack-free) with a question and I answered you.

You have not given one single example of how the positions Rand took last night during the debate were not communicated in the past.

*sigh*

I don't think you're comprehending what I'm saying to you.

It's not that he has never communicated those things in the past. Surely he must have. That's not the point. The point is, he spent the past 2-3 years trying to cozy up to the GOP establishment, people who were never going to vote for him, people who would always choose Cruz or Rubio over him...he tried very hard to distance himself from his father and his father's supporters. (Example: that time he said ""I'm not advocating everyone go out and run around with no clothes on and smoke pot...I'm not a libertarian. I'm a libertarian Republican. I'm a constitutional conservative.") There were people on this site celebrating the fact that he was taking that approach. We've seen how well that worked out.

The establishment never wanted anything to do with him.

 

[TheTexan]

Guys, and gals, the important thing here is, now, Rand has a chance

 

[cajuncocoa]

Guys, and gals, the important thing here is, now, Rand has a chance

You would think that would be enough for some people...but instead, they insist that we drag up every negative thing from the past that Rand has said that upset us in the first place.

Can't we just be happy that he's back on track now, instead of looking for things to argue about?

 

[eleganz]

It's not that he has never communicated those things in the past. Surely he must have.

And thats the point I was trying to make, nothing else.

The things people got excited about last night wasn't exactly the rhetoric, it was the fact that Rand got attention for it. Everything he said last night he's said in one way or another in the past. You guys got excited that he received positive attention for his words by "winning". When Rand's debate performances don't get traction, you're not excited and its not worth mentioning or remembering.

Thanks for clarifying!

 

[The Rebel Poet]

6?

somebody had to be the smartass.

Wait, are we using a single poll or an aggregate? There are also polls that release numbers with decimal points. If we're using an aggregate or a decimal-placed poll, 5.1 is good enough.

 

[dusman]

*sigh*

I don't think you're comprehending what I'm saying to you.

It's not that he has never communicated those things in the past. Surely he must have. That's not the point. The point is, he spent the past 2-3 years trying to cozy up to the GOP establishment, people who were never going to vote for him, people who would always choose Cruz or Rubio over him...he tried very hard to distance himself from his father and his father's supporters. (Example: that time he said ""I'm not advocating everyone go out and run around with no clothes on and smoke pot...I'm not a libertarian. I'm a libertarian Republican. I'm a constitutional conservative.") There were people on this site celebrating the fact that he was taking that approach. We've seen how well that worked out.

The establishment never wanted anything to do with him.

Yeah, well it seems it is premature to decide who will vote for who. We won't see how this works out for another 6-7 years. We are just all so very impatient.

Rand has proven to be a much better politician than Ron was. Some in this movement are going to call that a dozen different negative things (even a deal breaker) and others will find it as a positive. To me, this has always been a game of inches.. so I like the "moderate" libertarian approach in 2016. People will of course say because he hasn't stayed lock-step with his father's positions that he has purposely distanced himself. I disagree. Some of the movement may choose to abandon Rand, because his focus isn't on us but on those not yet courted. I think it's clear his aim is shifting the degree of libertarianism in the GOP base at a practical level. I'm fine with that. I don't think some in the movement can accept that Rand isn't directing his courting at us like Ron was. Each person here has a choice to move on, but I don't personally need Rand to inspire me or be Ron Paul 2.0. I'm hoping those that did move on, may reconsider things along those lines.

I look at it like this... Ron inspired us and desired for us to be the "intellectual leaders" of the movement. Rand is there to inspire your typical GOP voter to take libertarian/conservative ideas more seriously and discover they might just be a little bit more libertarian than they first realized. I'd take 25 million libertarian-leaning republicans over 2-3 million intellectually pure libertarians any day of the week... but that's just me. Intellectual purity is a discussion 20-30 years from now when we are picking our flavor of libertarian from the debate stage.

The R3VOLution has always been a war for minds. Nothing has changed, except we aren't young pupils anymore. We are the experienced contingent in 2016 with 8 years as a grassroots movement on the ground. We should start acting like it.

 

[fr33]

In the last day there have been many :

"Oops I was wrong, Rand proved himself"

"Rand did better because he became more libertarian and didn't appease the establishment"

"The campaign is being run much better now"

"Campaign finally knows what they're doing"

"Rand finally did something about his low poll numbers"

"I admit I was wrong about Rand"

yada yada yada


The campaign didn't do anything and Rand didn't change, he has always been the same. The only ones changing are those that RAN when the town was attacked and RAN BACK when the alcohol flowed.

You're changing...not Rand, its only because of the timing during the debate and certain favorable conditions that allowed him to differentiate himself. Every campaign walks in with certain strategies, some get the opportunity to say what they want and get the reaction they want and some don't. It doesn't mean their campaigns are bad or don't know what they are doing. Rand or his campaign didn't just turn on a switch from establishment pussy to libertarian boss (like many appear to believe).

So anyway, today is a good day for the liberty movement. Everyone will cheerlead and be happy and give a ton of +reps, pat each other on the back, share articles and donate but what happens the next time if the town wall goes down? Will you run or will you stand?

He's only recently started saying no boots on the ground in the middle east. Just months ago he wanted boots on the ground in fucking Afghanistan. I wouldn't point this out except for you trying to be a gloating piece of shit.

 

[The Rebel Poet]

Nows not the time for finger pointing, nows the time to rally around Rand. He had a great performance and will probably get more supporters out of it. Let's not ostracize but come together for liberty

 

[eleganz]

He's only recently started saying no boots on the ground in the middle east. Just months ago he wanted boots on the ground in fucking Afghanistan. I wouldn't point this out except for you trying to be a gloating piece of shit.

Does that (you better source it) have anything to do with peoples excitement from last night's debate? at all? Do you not understand the context of this thread?

 

[cajuncocoa]

And thats the point I was trying to make, nothing else.

The things people got excited about last night wasn't exactly the rhetoric, it was the fact that Rand got attention for it. Everything he said last night he's said in one way or another in the past. You guys got excited that he received positive attention for his words by "winning". When Rand's debate performances don't get traction, you're not excited and its not worth mentioning or remembering.

Thanks for clarifying!

Yeah, but the bigger point is all the stuff he said in between that took him OFF track. That's what you refuse to understand here. That Rand may have said these things 5 years ago, and believed them all along is all well and good, but he was also saying some things (see fr33's post #72) that caused his father's libertarian base to shake our heads. I hope last night is a sign that he's stopped pandering to people who will never vote for him.

 

[dusman]

I don't know, but Carlton with his nerd dance just proves there is hope for humanity and liberty.

 

[r3volution 3.0]

Carlton needs to close his blinds, folks keep taking video of him doing his dance.

...I'm happy too, but geez, have some decently man.

 

[dusman]

Carlton needs to close his blinds, folks keep taking video of him doing his dance.

...I'm happy too, but geez, have some decently man.

Well, with that yellow bow tie.. I'm convinced Carlton was always a Libertarian.

 

[The Rebel Poet]

He's only recently started saying no boots on the ground in the middle east. Just months ago he wanted boots on the ground in fucking Afghanistan. I wouldn't point this out except for you trying to be a gloating piece of shit.

Did you really just type that? I could find you quotes from 2013 and 2014 and likely long before that where he said no boots on the ground, but you have the internet at your fingertips. As for his "support" for boots on the ground he has said only two things in favor:
1) he refuses to rule out pretty much any strategies -boots included- when asked about hypothetical conflicts
2) for any of the specific, real, ongoing conflicts he was asked about he has said repeatedly, "they should be Arab boots."

 

[jmdrake]

You know, eleganz.....it might be a good idea right about now to stop attacking the few of us who are still here, supporting Rand. I didn't say he was a "failure," but he hasn't been doing as well in the polls as we would have wanted. After last night he has a chance to (maybe) resurrect his campaign. There's a reason for this: last night, his message was different. He returned to his roots, as has been mentioned in this thread. That may be hard for you to hear, but it's the truth.

QFT. Seriously this is like football fans saying "We're not going to win unless our team starts running the ball more" the team starts running the ball more, they get a win, then one fan says "See? Y'all were wrong for saying they need to run the ball more."