By the way, I stood by Rand and supported him, because I had, what I felt, were good enough reasons to believe him to be genuinely libertarian. There was a treasury of letters to the editor, speeches, and statements backing that up, as well as actions such as forming the alternative Ophthalmologist certification association, as well as the long personal family association and unreserved endorsement of Ron Paul. There was a risk, but we will always have that risk, no matter how much and how convincingly the person says they agree with us, as shown in the cases of Linda Smith and Dana Rohrabacher.
Track record is the best indication of what aspirants will actually do, and the best way to assuage concerns. All of you who know him so well should be looking up the ruling record of Mr. Massie to show everyone why we should trust him.
All of this is to say that: I can be convinced. Most of us on the forum can, I think, be convinced. Even low preference guy might come around! But you will have to bring out the evidence. Hey, if Ron Paul were saying the things he was, without his pristine decade-spanning voting record, I'd be happy for the rhetoric spreading the ideas, but I wouldn't believe him. It would sound, frankly, too good to be true. There would be no reason to believe he'd actually follow through with his rhetoric, any more than Reagan did.
What's more: I actually deep down want to be convinced. People in Congress would be a great thing to have. The rEVOLution has proven we can elect Congressmen, and even Senators. We should use that power. But we don't need another 1994 Republican Freshman Class. Those freshman congressmen all ran anti-government, cut-the-spending campaigns, to a man. In Wisconsin, it was Mark Neumann. He was going to Washington to cut, cut, cut. In the end, he compromised, compromised, compromised. He accomplished and stood for nothing that I liked, but Newt and the party leadership was probably very happy with him. We don't need our own version of that junk.
