The worst thing I ever heard from a fellow voter.

[Article V]

He supports Romney..... Why? Is it because Romney is mormon and so are we? Nope. Its because he thinks that you need to exact small changes only. He doesn't believe that substantial change can be made, so we need to "chisel them down" with small changes from people like Romney. You know, the "people with a few things we agree with". He also says that certain things (Election Fraud, Birth Certificates etc.) are "worthless" things to spend your time on. Does anyone else have people like this they talk to? If so, any one have any tips on how to tell them they are stupid, without outright calling them stupid.

The problem with this guy's thinking is that because he knows these people aim only to exact small changes, while they're busy chiseling down one side, they're also building up in another. In other words, while he wants to chisel down big government, another side wants to chisel down the Constitution. These Constitution chiselers are choosing Romney for the same reason he is, and there's zero guarantee that he'll win over them, especially since they have more money, power, and experience in chiseling. As a result, choosing the lesser of two evils has continually and slowly brought us bigger government and more metaphorical "evil" over time.

By going for broke with Ron Paul, he knows the direction government will be going and he'll likely admit, if you propose it, that Ron Paul will not be able to accomplish all at once the substantial changes he wants and so will instead achieve the very "chisel down" effect your friend wants without any of the risk that the chiseling will be done in the wrong direction by the other side.

In other words, if your friend really wants to chisel down big government, his best bet is still Ron Paul. You just have to make him realize it.

 

[Justinfrom1776]

People are staring our future (Greece) in the face and are still oblivious to it.. A wise goat once said "His life is a blur, fuck em'"

 

[Paul Or Nothing II]

I talk with this guy at my church all the time about politics. He is a smart guy, he is a physicist. He learns languages and memorizes things for fun. He swears up and down by the constitution. You think he would support Ron Paul! He supports Romney..... Why? Is it because Romney is mormon and so are we? Nope. Its because he thinks that you need to exact small changes only. He doesn't believe that substantial change can be made, so we need to "chisel them down" with small changes from people like Romney. You know, the "people with a few things we agree with". He also says that certain things (Election Fraud, Birth Certificates etc.) are "worthless" things to spend your time on. Does anyone else have people like this they talk to? If so, any one have any tips on how to tell them they are stupid, without outright calling them stupid.

The time for "small change" has long passed by, now we need someone who can balance the budget immediately or US is on it's way to Greece

And none of the other candidates are talking about WHERE they'll cut, Ron Paul has a fully structured & numbered plan - http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/


And how about showing him something his tiny brain can grasp?

If you want to simplify the debt problem, you could use calculation like this and integrate the cuts which RP proposes:

Call him an idiot and see how mad he gets.

This is what I would NOT recommend, we have to understand that people's minds can't be changed overnight, they need time, we can only TRY (yes, only try) to push them in the right direction & if they don't listen then move on to the next person but calling them names will make them "anti-Paul" & they'll be unlikely to even consider him in the future

 

[fisharmor]

I think RP should go out and buy two fountain pens, a red one and a green one.
He should have a stump speech where he holds them both in front of the crowd, and says
"This red pen is my veto pen. This green pen is my signing pen.
The day I take office, I'm going to freeze the green pen in the middle of a block of ice three feet on a side."

He should start sending a message about how rough it's going to be, and how nobody's getting what they want if he doesn't get what he wants.

 

[Paul Or Nothing II]

I was teaching my 8-year-old sons about NDAA and indefinite detention yesterday, and of course they understood perfectly well that it's wrong to arrest and imprison Americans for as long as the government chooses. My politically apathetic wife gets mad and tells me that they don't understand the context and that what I said isn't really true. I let it go just because I didn't want to start a big fight, but the truth is she has no idea what NDAA even stands for, and I feel that it's my duty to educate my children in areas such as civil liberty ... they certainly won't learn about it in their government school.

Bottom line: It's maddening trying to help others to understand freedom. In my opinion, it means that they don't much care for it.

Just curious, did you marry her before you woke up to liberty or after it? If latter then how did you marry someone who disagrees with you such a fundamental issue? Now, I don't mean to spoil your marriage but I'm just curious because I could never have imagined marrying someone who didn't support liberty

I know the feeling, believe me, trying to convert my gf to RP's message and wake her up to all the corruption, unjust wars, and little by little, the entire history and roots to how it all got this way. I see a lot of apathy in her and frustration in the whole process (which is good, as i can use that to my advantage and i see that has being 1/2 way there already), she says ALL the candidates are crap and may not even vote. She will say good things about Ron here and there, and when i ask why she feels he isnt viable, i get the 'He is too old' response I can easily get her past that thinking soon enough, but sadly, so many voters who like Ron feel that way and it shows in the polls. I know if he was Rand's age he would be over 20% nationally easily. But the fact something so stupid and trivial affects how a person votes is just really pathetic. If the person is the right one for the job, i dont care if hes 178yo.

I'll throw in a few videos

 

[skyorbit]

Reminds me of Ayn RAnd's essay on "anti-ideas"

 

[Narmical]

Virginia is home to an organization called VCDL - the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which is our state pro-gun activist group.
Virginia is also a pretty permissive state when it comes to firearms freedoms. This is VCDL's philosophy:


So there's a real-life example of why your church friend is wrong.

All bills are generally acts of negotiation. You don't start a negotiation by saying "Ok, here's the absolute minimum I can tolerate leaving this negotiation with".
If you're negotiating with four people for a cake, you start by saying "I can't possibly leave this negotiation without seven-eighths of this cake, MINIMUM. By all rights, I should be walking away with the whole frickin' thing, but I recognize there are other people here so the rest of you can fight over that last slice."
And then you get whittled down. To half of it.

If you come out saying "Well, everyone here has a right to this cake and so we should divide it up into quarters", guess what? You're walking away with jack shit.

People who vote for Romney really don't like cake at all. If they liked cake, they'd stop and realize (like us!) that they haven't had a single bite of cake their entire lives - and that guys like Romney keep fucking lying to us just to get elected, saying "This is a team sport! If you just vote for me, I promise to do what I can to get you a bite!"

Politics is not a team sport: it's dog-eat-dog. There's a reason why most states have abysmal gun laws - it's because the other side knows how to negotiate.
"WE'RE COMING FOR ALL OF THEM, AND ARE GOING TO GO DOOR-TO-DOOR."
The correct response is NOT "Oh wait, hang on a sec, let's talk... you can have all the handguns if you just leave us the rifles! Please???"
The correct response is "WE'RE COMING WITH THE REPEAL OF NFA '34 AND A COMPANION BILL THAT PROTECTS PEOPLE WHO KILL LAW ENFORCEMENT COMMITTING VIOLENCE ON THEIR PROPERTY WITHOUT A WARRANT."
Radical measures are only going to be countered with radical measures.

QFT!

let me sumerize, if you deep down in your heart want gradual change, you need to preach radical change, and appear to reluctantly agree on the gradual change.

 

[Johncjackson]

Election fraud and birth certificates are indeed worthless things to spend time on, but he's wrong to support Romney if he thinks incremental change is the way to go. Paul will bring that. Mitt will bring nothing but a continuation of what we currently have.

Agreed.

 

[cdc482]

His sentiments on the birth certificate are understandable, but I don't knwo why he would lump voter fraud with that. He must not realize the extent to which elections are rigged. It can be a major issue in some cases.

 

[otherone]

I talk with this guy at my church all the time about politics. He is a smart guy, he is a physicist.

Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age.
Albert Einstein

 

[mport1]

He also says that certain things (Election Fraud, Birth Certificates etc.) are "worthless" things to spend your time on.

Well, he is definitely right on that point.

 

[jbauer]

Greece, you make it sound like we're heading toward Greece like we're not there yet. We are Greece, we just haven't figured it out yet which is why we haven't taken to the streets yet.

The time for "small change" has long passed by, now we need someone who can balance the budget immediately or US is on it's way to Greece

 

[sailingaway]

Romney isn't even going in the right direction. His budget projects higher than the CURRENT trajectory. And even so he cuts medicare. His priorities are not with what most people want.

 

[liberty2897]

I talk with this guy at my church all the time about politics. He is a smart guy, he is a physicist. He learns languages and memorizes things for fun. He swears up and down by the constitution. You think he would support Ron Paul! He supports Romney..... Why? Is it because Romney is mormon and so are we? Nope. Its because he thinks that you need to exact small changes only. He doesn't believe that substantial change can be made, so we need to "chisel them down" with small changes from people like Romney. You know, the "people with a few things we agree with". He also says that certain things (Election Fraud, Birth Certificates etc.) are "worthless" things to spend your time on. Does anyone else have people like this they talk to? If so, any one have any tips on how to tell them they are stupid, without outright calling them stupid.

How about a car analogy? Don't know why, but engineers and scientists like to use car analogies

The way I see it, our country is now stuck in the big mud hole of tyranny. Normally, you could put the vehicle in forward or reverse (republican / democrat) and move away from the hole one direction or the other. That isn't working for us because we are now stuck. No amount of "small changes" is going to get us unstuck. The only hope we have of getting free is to be towed in the direction of freedom (liberty). Continuing the same old left/right thought process will ensure that we dig ourselves in deeper. Ron Paul is the only one actually offering to hook up the tow line. The best way to fix things would be to get him in office.

The other option is that we can keep screwing around with the status quo until enough people get tired of spinning wheels. Then we can start dismantling the vehicle with torches and grinders until we can move the pieces one by one.

 

[KingNothing]

Greece, you make it sound like we're heading toward Greece like we're not there yet. We are Greece, we just haven't figured it out yet which is why we haven't taken to the streets yet.

We're not Greece. We will never be Greece. We've got a wealth of natural resources, a larger tax base, a more educated workforce, and more capital. Not to mention, we've got a very vocal segment of voters demanding LESS government and more Liberty. Greece has the opposite of that.

 

[Suzu]

I thought I had heard the worst until yesterday. I've been calling voters in my precinct, to ID RP supporters. Many of them want to talk about politics (older folks especially). Then I got one who claimed to be an Obama supporter. His name, believe it or not, is Thomas Woods. I asked him why he likes Obama and if he approved of the NDAA. I was shocked at his reply: "Why should we spend money giving terror suspects a trial. Killing them is cheaper."

 

[jayrehme]

I have the same problem with my girlfriend, she's extremely smart, graduated college with a biology degree when she was 20, yet she loves obama and hates Ron Paul. Her reason is that she LIKES big government. Anytime I bring up politics saying how bad obama and big government is, she just doesn't listen, gets mad, and is hard headed..... so annoying! I guess some people just don't value freedom.... and she gets her news from YAHOO. I tell her how insanely biased it is, but she doesn't care.

 

[Hitman83]

my old boss was like this. he said we cant "swing the pendulum all the way to one side to fast". i asked him why. he didnt really have a good answer.

Someone said this to me and I asked why they assume that it's a pendulum. They didn't have an answer either.

 

[seraphson]

And Albert Einstein favored Socialism. He may be very intelligent but that still doesn't give him an "EZ" pass for politics as well. Besides, Romney isn't "chiseling" shit; in fact he want's a triple sider order of guns with his butter. Perhaps if brainy better understood our debt-based monetary system and uses that as a measuring stick to square up the candidates he'd be enlightened.

 

[Anti Federalist]

I talk with this guy at my church all the time about politics. He is a smart guy, he is a physicist. He learns languages and memorizes things for fun. He swears up and down by the constitution. You think he would support Ron Paul! He supports Romney..... Why? Is it because Romney is mormon and so are we? Nope. Its because he thinks that you need to exact small changes only. He doesn't believe that substantial change can be made, so we need to "chisel them down" with small changes from people like Romney. You know, the "people with a few things we agree with". He also says that certain things (Election Fraud, Birth Certificates etc.) are "worthless" things to spend your time on. Does anyone else have people like this they talk to? If so, any one have any tips on how to tell them they are stupid, without outright calling them stupid.

Not surprising and nothing new.

Most people don't want freedom and most people will not change the institutions to which they are accustomed to, even when those institutions have gone bad.

and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed