So now what?

[Sematary]

The "stay the GOP course" people are waiting for Rand to step up.

Regardless of my opinion of Rand, it's a risky thing to devote 4 years to.

In the first place, it's based on the belief that A: Romney will lose the current election, or B: Rand will be able to defeat an incumbent in the 2016 primary.

The reality is,..the RNC chooses the GOP candidate,..as we've all witnessed during this primary cycle.

It won't choose Rand.

Hopefully, in four years, WE will have the ability to pick Rand - if that is who we choose to support.

 

[Sematary]

My point was how positive the reaction was from the neocons. (not sure if that's a good or bad sign?)

If I start seeing Rush, Hannity, etc... start to side with Rand, I'm going to get WORRIED.

 

[MelissaWV]

So now what?

Now we watch Ron's retirement party

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=hEmDu1AYA4o&newstate=45e24c5449b3bf761e41e0465e235d7e

 

[Mini-Me]

Ron Paul's presidential campaigns are a worthy effort. They succeeded in awakening thousands, and exposed the corruption present in the political parties and media. The strategy to win the election failed, but we continue to gain from it in other ways.

My concern is that our efforts for peaceful revolution have been an irritation for tyranny, but have not stopped or reversed it. Some argue that we expect too much from only 8 years of our movement. However, the majority of people I've spoken with about our Liberty ideals either don't care or oppose them. I have also noticing a sharp increase in Socialist idealogy in the general public that blaims our economic failures on Capitalism. If we can't sway the majority of Americans to our way of thinking, even with Ron Paul's appearances in debates, interviews, and followers reaching out to the general public, with such a positive and rational message, what hope is there for total reform of the political system? Will we always be a loud but ineffective minority?

Not that I'm advocating it (war is a terrible thing), but will the day come where a line is crossed in our liberties where bloodshed becomes the only defense? Or will the system collapse on its own due to economic failure, presenting an opportunity for reform?

I think the important thing to remember is that psychological biases play a role here. Most people are capable of following rational arguments, but ONLY if they're emotionally open to them first. Funny enough, instead of forming and shifting their beliefs based on rational supporting arguments, most people actually form their beliefs first for entirely unrelated emotional and social reasons, then seek out rational supporting arguments to retroactively justify them.

The problem is that people are irrational about politics, and they profoundly tie their own personal identity to their beliefs, and they tie their sense of self-worth to their opinions of their party or government. These emotional biases are extremely difficult to overcome, to the point where the vast majority of people simply cannot be swayed by rational argumentation alone. People also feel strength in numbers and pride from considering themselves "winners," as shown by people who vote for President like it's a horse race. Similarly, most people form and solidify their beliefs based on social cues, and so they won't seriously consider arguments - no matter how rational - coming from some hated and frequently ridiculed "fringe" group or figurehead. They simply shut down or search for any emotionally comforting rebuttal to our arguments, no matter how illogical or superficial, and they seek refuge in knowing their beliefs are popular and shared by a large number of allies.

Smitty posted an interesting link midway through the thread about personality types and intelligence. There are people of all intelligences and personalities all across the political spectrum, but highly intelligent people are strongly libertarian on average, and the [unfortunately uncommon] rational personality types are disproportionately likely to be intellectually gifted. This movement includes people from all over the intelligence and personality spectrum as well, but we have an unusually strong concentration of intuitive thinking types. Kludge conducted personality polls a couple times on the forum, and they showed a large number of INTJ and INTP types. It's common for Internet forums to be disproportionately comprised of I-types, but INTP's and INTJ's? Not so much.

What this shows is that the liberty message - at least as delivered by Ron Paul, in this particular political environment - resonates much more easily with rational types than others. INTP's in particular are thought to be the most self-conscious of their own cognitive and emotional biases on average, which makes it easier to overcome them and judge arguments on their actual merits. (I feel compelled here to go off on a bit of a tangent: The link Smitty posted indicates that INTJ's are statistically the most likely to be gifted, at least as judged by IQ tests. That's a bit strange though, because I read a different study that indicated INTP's were on top, followed by INFP's and then INTJ's. I can't find the study anymore for the life of me, but the data curiously demonstrated that the personality types were neatly ordered - from least likely to most likely to be gifted, after accounting for the prevalence of that type - as: ESFJ, ESTJ, ESFP, ESTP, ISFJ, ISTJ, ISFP, ISTP, ENFJ, ENTJ, ENFP, ENTP, INFJ, INTJ, INFP, INTP. The most interesting thing about the results was that the N/S trait was the most relevant to intelligence across the board, followed by the I/E trait, then the P/J trait, and finally the T/F trait. I originally expected there to be more noise and inconsistency in the results, and I also expected the T/F trait to correlate more strongly with intelligence than the P/J trait, but apparently not. There are tradeoffs with every personality trait though, and every type has strengths and weaknesses. For instance, P types are generally more intelligent than their corresponding J types, but J types are more likely to actually get things done and achieve practical success in life.)

The challenge here is, how do we bring the liberty message to other personality types who are typically dominated more strongly by their biases? I think the key here is that before we can educate everyone, we must first demonstrate that we're "winners." Think back to how the media manipulated people in Iowa: As soon as they talked about Santorum "surging," it magically began to happen. The same thing happened with Huntsman in New Hampshire. Think back also to the difference between 2008 and 2012: What changed, which made so many more people suddenly open to Ron Paul's ideas? From what I can see, this shift happened because McCain not only LOST the election, but he lost badly. This was a huge blow to Republicans who tied their identities to notions of strength and victory, and it shook their self-certainty and arrogance and made them more open than usual to outside influence. By flooding the comment sections of articles and otherwise refusing to sit quietly, we have given our message repeated exposure, so it's gradually managed to reach more people, one by one.

If we can make pro-liberty beliefs popular and emotionally rewarding through social proof, an increasing number of strongly biased people will finally lower their defenses, giving them a rare window of growth where they're actually open to rational argumentation. The more ground we gain and the longer we can hold it, the more people will not only identify but internalize correct logical arguments. Once pro-liberty beliefs become part of their "identity politics," they'll be just as hard to shake as their current irrational beliefs are slow to adapt today.

So, how do we actually show we're winners, when we don't currently have the popular support or resources to win a lot of elections? It seems at first like a "chicken and egg" problem, but this is another reason why I'm so supportive of taking over the GOP: Taking over the state parties and the RNC is something we can do with activists alone, so unlike any other strategy I've heard, a priori popular support is not a prerequisite. Instead, increased popular support will be a likely consequence: By taking over a major party, we will demonstrate that we're "winners." Republicans who follow the herd will suddenly be getting their official platform and marching orders from us instead of the neocons, so whether they consciously realize what we've done or not, they'll come to understand that it's now "okay" and perfectly American to believe in liberty. That alone might not be enough for a massive social awakening, especially in the face of continued media manipulation, but taking over the GOP has another advantage: By coopting one of the institutional pillars of neocon influence, we will not just be popularizing our beliefs by showing we're "winners." We will also be making losers out of the neoconservatives, and neoconservative beliefs (like endless war and indiscriminate killing in foreign countries) will become commensurately less popular and socially acceptable.

Ron Paul has been known to say from time to time, "Liberty is popular!" The more true we make this, the more true it will become. The media is our greatest enemy here, because they have the power to dominate public opinion. I don't know if there's any easy solution for counteracting them, but I do know that it requires us to be loud. We must make our presence known and felt constantly, and we must make our message heard everywhere. The more times people hear it repeated and see that we're "everywhere," the more people will finally open their minds to it.

The "stay the GOP course" people are waiting for Rand to step up.

Regardless of my opinion of Rand, it's a risky thing to devote 4 years to.

In the first place, it's based on the belief that A: Romney will lose the current election, or B: Rand will be able to defeat an incumbent in the 2016 primary.

The reality is,..the RNC chooses the GOP candidate,..as we've all witnessed during this primary cycle.

It won't choose Rand.

If you think the strategy to take over the GOP means, "Take over the GOP by trying to get Rand elected the same way we tried with Ron, then get screwed by the RNC," then you fundamentally misunderstand the strategy. Taking over the GOP means, "Take over the state parties, which will allow us to replace and take over the RNC." Getting rid of them comes first, or every Presidential election will be just like this one and the one in 2008, and we'll continue struggling to fund even a small handful of Congressional liberty candidates. Taking over the state parties alone isn't enough to win elections with liberty candidates, but it will put us in a position to take over the RNC...and the strategy ultimately rests upon throwing the RNC incumbents out into the cold. Thankfully, achieving this is primarily a game of activist numbers, because the rules and laws governing this are a lot less malleable by corrupt incumbents than the rules governing the nomination of political candidates.

IF we have enough activists who follow through with this strategy, we'll not only prevent the current RNC from screwing Rand, but we'll also win the larger battle of acquiring the resources to field a large number of Congressional (and Senatorial) liberty candidates. That is why people in favor of this strategy - like myself - are so vocal against anyone trying to convince other people to "drop the GOP." This strategy can work, but we need concentrated strength in activist numbers ASAP to make it work, or we'll be wasting years and years we might not have left to waste. The clock is always ticking. It's cool for people to be skeptical and go their own way, but we do need the numbers, so we get pretty upset about people who cut our legs out from under us by spending all their energy talking other people out of it. I should clarify that most people critical of the GOP strategy are not like this, either...it's just a couple or a few who have been trying to tear it down nonstop for months (i.e. since long before my most recent gap in posting), and they've been all too successful. This thread has been little more than a giant flame war at times, but it looks like they might finally be willing to give it a rest.

 

[affa]

Grassroots central was designed to be a place where the grassroots could hook up and meet like minded individuals, form little coailitions, and work on activist projects.

See, that's what I mean by divisive. You bold "like-minded" and it makes it sound like anyone who doesn't agree with you isn't like-minded and doesn't deserve to be on these forums. Now, except for the population of trolls, which I do agree exist on here, we're all like-minded. Even if some like Rand and some don't. Even if some plan to vote GJ, some plan to write-in RP, and some plan to abstain. Heck, even if someone votes BO just to spite Romney. Liberty, as you know, means freedom, and that by definition means we're not all going to walk in lock step. Does it hurt us? Sure, it means our numbers for any given project will never be as great, because we're all acting on our own, to some degree. But it's also our greatest strength.

I hear some of you keep saying, basically "oh, stop insulting people who want to work within the GOP"... but you don't realize in your second breath you're insulting everyone who doesn't want to work within the GOP. Meanwhile, people that don't want to work in the GOP generally say some variant of 'It's too corrupt to work' which some of you then take personally, and further insult us, which then keeps the cycle going. Understanding we all have different goals is the first step to realizing that, beyond that, we're all like-minded individuals. You 'fix the GOPers' swelled your ranks dramatically these past 8 years, and many will stay, but to expect everyone to once Ron Paul is no longer a magnet is, well, silly.

No, not necessarily. We're working on getting liberty-minded people elected at all levels of government. The Presidency is certainly the trophy, but at my age even a significant minority in the House and Senate would make my heart sing.

See, that's where I have to politely disagree. I understand why you say that, but I can't register anything in my head as a victory if we're still bombing [insert a small handful of countries here]. Heck, even if we got a liberty minded president in the oval office, that's still a power structure that disturbs me. I'm okay with Ron Paul because he's a paragon of virtue. I'm not okay with... well, pretty much anyone else.

My heart won't sing, not even a little bit, till those bombs stop whistling.

 

[angelatc]

My point was how positive the reaction was from the neocons. (not sure if that's a good or bad sign?)

I think it's a false paradigm. As long as Rand is criticizing Obama's foreign policy, the neocons will smile and nod. But when it becomes the foreign policy of a Republican president, he could see himself ostracized.

I hope he can play it right!

 

[Origanalist]

I think it's a false paradigm. As long as Rand is criticizing Obama's foreign policy, the neocons will smile and nod. But when it becomes the foreign policy of a Republican president, he could see himself ostracized.

I hope he can play it right!

There's no denying that aspect, from both sides. As long as it's their guy slaughtering people, it's unfortunate but neccesary. It's only when the other side does it that it's immoral.

 

[angelatc]

See, that's what I mean by divisive. You bold "like-minded" and it makes it sound like anyone who doesn't agree with you isn't like-minded and doesn't deserve to be on these forums.

You misunderstood what I meant. What I was referring to was the habit of people to invade planning threads (the blimp, the lawsuit, Paulfest, Phone Banks, Sign waves) and moan about how ineffective and terrible the results will be. There are three things there that I didn't think had merit, but you won't find me in their planning threads berating the enthusiastic participants for doing something they wanted to do. (The anarchists were the main instigators last time we went through this. We couldn't have a thread discussing GOTV strategy without a bunch of anarchists flooding the thread to convince us that voting is a total wast of time and effort.)

I make no secret about the fact that I think third parties are useless, liberals are evil and the GOP is the only legitimate chance we have to win elections. Deal with it.

Now, except for the population of trolls, which I do agree exist on here, we're all like-minded. Even if some like Rand and some don't. Even if some plan to vote GJ, some plan to write-in RP, and some plan to abstain. Heck, even if someone votes BO just to spite Romney. Liberty, as you know, means freedom, and that by definition means we're not all going to walk in lock step. Does it hurt us? Sure, it means our numbers for any given project will never be as great, because we're all acting on our own, to some degree. But it's also our greatest strength.

No,, it isn't. Like I said - look what happened when the LP gave money to PaulFest. People here had a major case of the vapors over it.

I hear some of you keep saying, basically "oh, stop insulting people who want to work within the GOP"... but you don't realize in your second breath you're insulting everyone who doesn't want to work within the GOP.

I know exactly what is in my second breath. I don't go out of my way to attack Libertarians, but when they start trying to fool young people into believing that they're effective in any sense of the word at the expense of the movement that Paul himself started, I have a right to point out the fallacy.

Meanwhile, people that don't want to work in the GOP generally say some variant of 'It's too corrupt to work' which some of you then take personally, and further insult us, which then keeps the cycle going. Understanding we all have different goals is the first step to realizing that, beyond that, we're all like-minded individuals. You 'fix the GOPers' swelled your ranks dramatically these past 8 years, and many will stay, but to expect everyone to once Ron Paul is no longer a magnet is, well, silly.

Of course it is. I just wish they'd go quietly. If their goals aren't to use the most effective methods of getting candidates elected, they're no longer relevant.

See, that's where I have to politely disagree. I understand why you say that, but I can't register anything in my head as a victory if we're still bombing [insert a small handful of countries here]. Heck, even if we got a liberty minded president in the oval office, that's still a power structure that disturbs me. I'm okay with Ron Paul because he's a paragon of virtue. I'm not okay with... well, pretty much anyone else.

My heart won't sing, not even a little bit, till those bombs stop whistling.

Paul said his movement was about the message, not the man. If you can't reconcile to that, then your activism probably ends here, because Ron Paul isn't running again.

Good luck getting the wars to end using a complete takeover of government by a third party.

 

[angelatc]

We're all on the same fucking team, team liberty - but to expect us all to take the same path there is both naive and serves only to divide us.

If we're not on the same path, we are divided. Part of us are politically relevant, and the rest aren't.

 

[angelatc]

If I start seeing Rush, Hannity, etc... start to side with Rand, I'm going to get WORRIED.

Eh - they're cheap whores. I've seen O'Reilly transform from the right to the left over the years, and I can only assume it's because it maximizes his ratings. If Hannity et al jump on the bandwagon, that's a good thing. They might not stay on it, but it's a sign that the message is something that the mainstream is at least interested in hearing.