Who the heck told you that I'm 25? I was 27 when Ron first declared his candidacy for the 2008 election, and I'm just under 2 months away from hitting 36 years old. I canvassed for Ron in both Pennsylvania (my home state) and also Delaware during my time off from work, and I even had a brief conversation with then Rep. Michael Castle, who was clearly in the tank for McCain but was at least somewhat receptive to some of Paul's points on foreign policy.
From the early days I was always a bit uneasy about stuff like 9/11 truth and some of the other conspiratorial aspects of Ron's support base, not so much because I didn't see it as being possible, but more so because I knew that the average zombie who goes to vote for president every 4 years doesn't want to hear about it, regardless of how much evidence there is in favor of it. So, to answer your question, no I was never a crazed Jacobin, I was actually musing over the idea of punching Luke Rudowski's lights out for that idiotic stunt he pulled with Rand Paul several years back. By the same token, I don't consider myself a Rothbardian (it's impossible to support his ideas and be a Covenanter anyway), nor am I really a full out libertarian, though I support about 75% of their views on economics and most other areas outside of "social issues", but calling myself a "tourist" would be a stretch considering that I've voted for libertarian presidential candidates consistently since 2000, despite being more of a Paleo-conservative.
Who cares who it was, they were wrong apparently.
You seem like a well-educated person. You have a history here and I have no reason to doubt your general political devotion to the cause of liberty.
Let me explain to you why I'm intolerant of even perceived intellectual antagonism to the roots and origin of this movement, and why I spent a good 30 minutes writing that and this.
The way in which man wars with himself has manifested as "right vs left". The right generally are the thugs who claim to care about their property and rights who compensate with an appeal to moral authority, and the left generally are the nerds who claim to care about world peace and progress who compensate with an appeal to intellectualism.
From a collectivist standpoint they are really no different. They are, in general, group thinkers who believe that they are the good guys and the bad guys are either bad or stupid. They are just as similar in their tactics, pride and hatred.
Given that the means violate the professed principles on both sides it's easy to see why the sheep are lost in the woods and have no shepherd. Anyone who truly sides with peace and reason, with a few clicks of the mouse, can see through it all.
Enter Ron Paul.
Why did he appeal to everyone from all sides and yet only a small remnant? Because he encompassed the entire spectrum of what the right and left only pay lip service to. Which means on the one hand, he is everything we want and need, but he's only visible to people actually looking for those things. He is for world peace. He is an intellectual. He oozes moral authority. He understands that a man ought to keep what he earns.
Ron Paul's brand of libertarianism, of liberty, isn't simply political intellectualism. It's the purist form any of us have seen of adherence and exposition of natural law itself, and ultimately God's law. "Libertarian" is just the only box big enough to put it in.
Being that Ron is a lightning rod for this sweet spot, for this remnant, it is quite natural (as a professed Christian surely you understand this) that this base of supporters is chocked full of misfits of all stripes and variety. Truthers, trannies, gays, blacks, whites, liberals, conservatives, intellectuals and certified idiots. God's special people.
Nock will be the first to tell you that you can't manipulate this remnant, in any way shape or form. Trying to "grow" the movement is futile if you lose the message.
But you can certainly scatter them quite easily. You simply have to get people seeing the wrong message in the same place where the right one used to be. That seems to be an ever-increasing problem.
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Now as to my original point on intellectual antagonism, let me clarify.
When you attack the strategy or the group for any other reason than getting away from the message, you yourself are getting away from the message. In fact, strategic (what we're doing or not doing right or wrong) criticism of the base doesn't even make sense. It's like saying, "I would be a better leader, if more of you were better leaders."
Even worse, in my opinion, is to attack the base, of this movement in particular, on grounds that they "have the wrong ideas" or that they are stupid and don't get it or that they are crazy.
Now of course, this has been going on for some time, and certainly isn't unique to this movement, and many who are turned off by such rhetoric have likely left long ago.
This fracturing within the movement is caused by and large by lack of grassroots leadership and intellectual posturing.
"People are sheep. If people weren't so gullible and stupid they would figure this out. Ron Paul gets it but people are too stupid to listen."
That's bad enough, but then the despair turns inward as support begins to wane...
"Pie-in-the-sky Paultards don't seem to get it. Making yourself the laughing stock isn't how you win. You have to play the game. Now that you're interested in politics, pay attention to the people that know how things work."
And on and on it goes.
No leadership, just beratement of the base, usually by unaccountable anonymous blowhards. And not only do we have the general hatefulness for "the stupids" of the world, now being hardcore anti-PC is en vogue. So being generally offensive is considered a virtue because "any titty baby who whines about not feeling comfortable around the spitoon in the hot bar known as RPF, should've never brought their candy ass here in the first place!"
Now I give two shits about what people say on here, honestly. Because without a real strategy for the movement, for the Ron Paul base and the remnant that he awoke, we're all pissing in the wind anyway while the tiny glacier of the R3volution melts from the global warming of the status quo.
I don't care what people have said on these forums and I don't really care what your reputation in the movement is. If we had a viable strategy I wouldn't care if every word myself and others have posted were made public record or deleted for eternity. I would jump right back in and give everyone a new lease to prove that they're still in it to actually do something.
This is why I have such animosity for intellectual antagonism of the base of this movement. "Half the people here are hopeless and lost." What is the point of this rhetoric? They are here at least. I'm not even opposed to moderation of some sort but you can't attack the group without a strategy to back it up. And attacking the base while talking up gradualism is why you got whacked in my previous post. That is straight up armchair intellecutalism that serves no purpose except to take a hair dryer to our tiny glacier.
But like I said, I don't really care what people post. Mostly I chalk a lot of this kind of talk up to unconscious displays of cynicism. If there was a viable strategy a month from now, I'd be hitting you up for help along with other people who think perhaps because we throw back and forth online, I actually have developed some kind of persistent animosity. I haven't.
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People are sheep in general. But only in this modern world does this connotation carry with it a tone of derision and scorn. People are meant to be sheep, that's the way God made most of them. If you have something to say about the sheep, it should be in relation to helping them, not berating them for not being enough like the wolves and shepherds.
The intellect is amoral. This is lost on most intellectuals I've found.
Your ability to memorize things and solve problems is not really related to your moral and spiritual progress through life. The better your brain works, the better you perform economically, that is all. The core of this movement is a moral core, not an intellectual one. "Liberty" is a moral/ethical idea, it is not an intellectual worldview that speaks to "progress" as some on these boards would have us believe. To try to make it an intellectual movement is an attack on the movement. And the remnant will not abide.
So for you, Hells_Unicorn, I would say you are the perfect candidate for someone who should be talking about some real strategies. My query about your "practical ideas" is not rhetorical. But with everyone, not just you, I ask about being a tourist, because the cynicism and time-passing is so prevalent, I question first of all, whether anyone is actually in the mood to even think about doing something.
Now "practically" speaking, there's Rand.
Strategically for "liberty" Rand is a good thing. Strategically for the movement and the remnant I would say Rand is a non-factor. The trojan horse analogy to his campaign I think is right on the money. Certainly the movement should support Rand but Rand has gone off the reservation and off-message many times. He's taken the sin-eater approach in many respects, though as I have pointed out, this still puts him morally well above any rival by several orders of magnitude.
So while "we" should support Rand, Rand does nothing for the strategic considerations of the movement. He is not trying to "take the place" of his father, and ultimately people who think that Ron ever occupied a strategic leadership role are missing the mark. Ron gave us the blueprints, but we're desparately in need of people who know how to read them, and even more desperately in need of people who can build from them.
EDIT: I spent way more than 30 minutes.
Next time you see him, ask him.
