Yes to Dr. No?

I really haven’t taken the time to verify everything I’ve read about Dr. No.  But I’ve met him several times – even went to his birthday party a couple of years ago – and, full disclosure, he sent me money for a political campaign.  I am very highly biased in favor of this man’s integrity and purpose.  So, I’m just posting something here that somebody sent me.  I believe (but don’t know for certain) that it’s all true:

In his high school years Ron Paul became the 220-yard dash state champion, he played football and baseball, and was student council president. An injury ended Ron’s career in sports, but he still managed to become the only Congressman in history to knock the ball out of the park in the Congressional Baseball Game.

He began working at his father’s dairy at age five, and later delivered newspapers and became a milkman upon reaching driving age. He paid for his first year at Gettysburg College with saved lemonade-sale and lawn-mowing money. In the later college years he started delivering mail and also managed the college coffee shop called “The Bullet Hole”. He earned a medical degree from Duke, became a “career obstretrician” and delivered over 4000 babies. In his practice, he refused Medicare and Medicaid payments, instead treating the poor at a discount rate or for free.

Ron Paul’s been married to his spouse Carol for over 50 years. He has 5 children, all of whom believe in him and support him.

He is a Southern Baptist and a Christian of deep faith, but never uses his religion in political fights.

Ron Paul is the only veteran in the race and he served part of his time close to the Afghani-Pakistani border back in the 60s. He gets three times as much donations from active military duty personnel as all other republican candidates combined, and 10 times the amount the next candidate, Romney, gets. That’s because Ron Paul is the one who wants to use the military with a clear goal – to defend the country. This means that if necessary he would send the troops to war, fight it, win it and get the troops back home. Other candidates want to continue the policy of sending the troops to wars without specific goal, nation-building missions without end, where soldiers risk their lives and they don’t know what for. Soldiers want to know that what they’re doing makes sense and they believe Ron Paul is the one who will not put them into fight without good reason.

Ron Paul entered politics not for personal gain, but because he was worried about wrong economic policies Washington was pursuing. He wanted to stop the out-of-control growth of the federal government. He opted out of the lucrative congressional pension plan and over the years returned over (…) million dollars from his budget to help pay off the national debt.

He is known to be incorruptible and the lobbyists don’t even bother to go to him. They know he will follow the Constitution and not what they tell him.

Ron Paul is the only Congressman in the last 20 years with a 100% Constitutional voting record. How is it possible? Simple. Before he decides on a bill, he always checks if it’s allowed by the Constitution. If it’s not, he votes against it.

He has always stood on principle, regardless of the political winds. He gave his support to Ronald Reagan long before it was popular, when Reagan was still sidelined and mocked by the establishment in 1976.

While the top campaign contributors of all other candidates are Wall Street and big corporations, Ron Paul gets almost all of his support from ordinary people who give him 50 or 100 bucks at a time.

Ron Paul is the only candidate with a deep and proven understanding of economics and monetary policy, far beyond the talking points other candidates use.

He’s been the only politician in Washington to predict the housing bubble, suspected it was coming in 2001 and was certain of it in 2003. You can check his old writings and congressional testimonies if you don’t believe it. He almost single-handedly raised public awareness about the Federal Reserve Bank, the institution which used to operate entirely in the shadows for decades. He is the only candidate with the knowledge needed to reform the banking sector and resurrect the economy after the financial crisis.

Thanks to an audit that Ron Paul pushed through Congress, we learned that the Federal Reserve had been bailing out foreign banks to the tune of 5 trillion dollars, and had given 30 billion to Qaddafi’s Bank of Libya, when Qaddafi was still in power. Ron Paul is the only candidate in the race, who has opposed the bailouts from the beginning and has never flip-flopped on the issue.

Ron Paul is the only candidate in the race who offers a plan to cut spending. None of the other candidates wants to cut any spending, what they’re talking about is cutting the proposed increases. Instead of raising spending by 500 billion they want to raise it by 400 billion, and they call it a cut. All other candidates guarantee that America will have a debt crisis like the bankrupt welfare states in Europe and the Social Security and Defense budgets will have to be slashed in a chaotic manner.

The establishment in Washington already discussed plans to take over the people’s pension funds to pay for the government spending. Ron Paul will avoid this by cutting wasteful and unnecessary government spending in a sensible fashion, so that people’s IRAs, the Social Security fund, and Defense of the Homeland are not sacrificed.

The health care system in the United States is costly and often ineffective. Instead of fixing it, president Bush added to the costs by introducing the prescription drug program and president Obama introduced the Mandated Insurance, taking control over medical expenses further away from the patients. All that the other Republican candidates are capable of is repealing Obamacare. Ron Paul has a plan to empower the people to take control of their money, bring the competition back into health care and restore the doctor-patient relationship.

Ron Paul’s health care plan provides the employees with the same tax deductions that today apply only to employer-provided insurance. It empowers the people to take full control over their health care money themselves. Everyone will be allowed to put together an individual medical plan that best suits one’s needs. Ron Paul will allow the people to purchase insurance over state lines, ending the local insurance monopolies and bringing prices down. The excessive restrictions put on the medical personnel by lobbyists will be undone, and the nurses will once again be able to perform easier procedures, bringing the costs down. A tax credit will encourage doctors to provide services charitably to the poor. Finally, the out-of-control legal liabilities which force hospitals to spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year on unnecessary procedures in fear of the lawsuits, will be in most cases eliminated and replaced with the medical insurance contracts. Allowing the hospitals not to perform unnecessary procedures will bring down the cost of health care by additional 3000 dollars per household every year.

Health insurance is now 1/4 of the whole worker’s compensation. Lower costs of health insurance will bring down the cost of work and employers will be able to hire a lot more people. With health care costs reduced, the people will have more money left to spend and invest. Ron Paul’s health care plan alone would be enough to kick-start the economy.

The other politicians constantly invoke fear: fear of global warming, fear of people having guns. They need it to grow the size and power of the government, because the scared population is more likely to give away their rights and their money. Ron Paul has been a staunch defender of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, fighting to protect the 2nd amendment, to protect the right to privacy, to protect the right to a fair trial.

Ron Paul’s opponents scare the people with a nuclear bomb being smuggled to the USA and exploding in one of the American cities, yet none of them has any plans to secure the American border. If some ordinary criminals can smuggle weapons and drugs through the border, the terrorists could do the same with the bomb, if they had one. Ron Paul understands that the leaky borders are a great threat to national security. He will save money on fruitless nation-building in the Middle East and use it to protect the borders and expand the Coast Guard, to insure that no terrorist can infiltrate the United States either by land or by sea. Ron Paul is the only candidate with a serious plan to make America substantially safer, by protecting the border, concentrating the defense forces that have been spread thin, and avoiding a financial debacle.

Ron Paul is the only candidate with enough conviction, knowledge and integrity to shape the course of events in these difficult times. None of his corporate-funded opponents has a credible plan to reform the banking system, avoid a debt crisis and secure the entitlements for the people that have paid into them all their life. None of these establishment candidates is willing to put the rule of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights first, like Ron Paul does. Every one of his opponents supported the bailouts. None of them has a plan to secure the border. None of them has a plan to fix the health care system.

The opponents of Ron Paul are not going to challenge the status quo on the issues that matter. They are guaranteed to go with the tide, bringing the country closer to national bankruptcy and endangering the accomplishments of generations of hard-working Americans. Learn about Ron Paul, search the Internet, ask your children to find more information about him for you, and you will see that he’s the best candidate for President America has had in a long time. You have a choice, your actions matter. Register to vote in the state Republican primary, become a delegate to the caucus, choose Ron Paul and help restore the American Republic.

RON PAUL 2012

Ron Paul is totally different from any of his opponents and most other politicians. Compare and contrast and you’ll see that every time he’s different, it’s for the better. Hire a friendly show host or someone alike who can pump up the crowd with a speech. Distribute the message in print so that the rally attendees take it home. Attach it to the Super Brochure mailings. Spread it. Do something with it. Ron Paul’s ideas are great, but their greatness can be recognized a hundred times better when compared to the others’.

The community needs to spread this. I don’t know who would reject this reasoning. Someone with better writing skills could rewrite it more eloquently. Ultimately I wish we will create a polished text similar in content to the one presented and make it into a pdf file that anyone could download, print in large amount (even at home) and distribute. What do you think?

Please VOTE UP & COMMENT.

Nice link about Ron’s life: http://streetsmartdirect.com/ronpaul.html

You say you want a Revolution?

It’s a little disturbing that one of the most common web searches bringing people to this blog is, “Give me hope, please.”  But what really worries me is how many people are typing, “violence” and “revolution,” to end up here.

My fellow Americans, what are you thinking of? 

What is violence going to accomplish that your votes did not?  You got what you voted for.  You want something else?

What?!?

I have nothing to say to “centrists.”  These human dandelion seeds have no senses, apparently; and just float the prevailing wind.  I wish I did have words that’d shake them down.  But I’ve never had any luck with people who think it’s reasonable to split the difference between Hitler and Stalin. 

And true socialist/authoritarians are twisted, ruthless monsters who know that their violence and oppression is self-serving to the elite group to which they feel they belong.  They probably know what I’d like to say to them, but they’d happily have it tortured out of me anyway.

However, most people of the so-called “left” are not those socialists, and they’re not hopelessly foolish.  They don’t understand that politics/government is violence, so they simply don’t know that they are invoking, promoting and unleashing violence upon their fellows. 

The multiply-pierced, tattooed but still smiling Obama fan you see at Whole Foods really does want a peaceful society; he just hasn’t thought any more deeply about politics and market economics than he thought about that ring in his nose.  He doesn’t know that his free-love-and-world-peace dreams drag us all into Stalinist nightmares.  But so far, I’ve found it rewarding to talk to these people. 

Sadly, most of the so-called “right” are much more difficult to work with.  Perhaps they’re worse in hypocrisy and idolatry, and thus inoculated and steeled against reason.  So while many righties seem to pray to God, they put their hands on their hearts and promise to obey a symbol  instead (really; think about that). 

While the word “constitution” invokes wonderful, abstract imagery to them (Norman Rockwell paintings, Bob Hope, and of course, flags), they have no idea what the constitution is for, let alone what it really says.  Just like the lefties, they advocate bigger, costlier, more intrusive government – but they deny it!  They’re just as opposed to individual liberty – but they deny it!   They tear up the constitutions and stomp on them  – but they deny it!  

Frankly, I’d rather hang out at Whole Foods than listen to self-righteous ignorami spouting off about the “coming revolution,” or even secession.  Far-Righties are maybe not as bad as centrists, but their rising mood of undirected, goal-free violence is certainly not helpful. 

What do they suppose a revolution is going to do if they don’t even VOTE for what they say they want?  And what would secession accomplish if it creates only a self-deluded clone of our current mess?

After years of trying to find ten Republicans who know what it is that they want, I’m hard pressed to see any difference between the “right” and the “left” other than the aforementioned tattoos, piercings…and the type and degree of hypocrisy. 

Well, actually, I like Whole Foods.  The one near my work in Houston has a great selection of Belgian beers.  The GOP has nothing like it.

Of course, now that they’ve given up their catbird seat, and there’s no expectation of them actually doing anything substantial, the GOP talks (almost) like Ron Paul. 

But when they held the reins of power, they did only evil, and then chose John McCain to lead them into more of the same. 

They had a chance – a very good, record-breaking, youth-energizing chance – to set things right according to the words they speak from their mouths.  But their voting arms, inexcusably, chose otherwise.

And now they complain?  Inexcuseable.  Shameful. 

Even so, I think we’re seeing that even Republicans can come to their senses in sufficient numbers to shake the centrism tree.  The so-called “Tea Parties” may exemplify this.

We all know we have enemies and problems.  But the question in battle is never so much what to attack, as what to defend.

What do you want?  Please don’t say you want “American Exceptionalism” unless you can explain to even yourself what that really means.  

How do you want to live?  Please don’t tell me “with American Values.”  We’ve all seen plenty of American Values, and I think that’s why we’re all so hopeless, disgusted, and crying for revolution.

On these pages I’ve said that I want my rules written down, and that’s true.  I don’t think we can live in peace without some hard and fast rules.

Good fences make good neighbors.

But if I were to paint my picture of The Good Life, here’s what it’d look like:

1. Citizens can do whatever they want to do as long as they don’t harm anybody else, or take what’s not theirs.
2. We’d have no more government than necessary to maintain #1.
3. We write this down in plain speech and call it law.
4. We invite others around the world to emulate our success, but otherwise leave them the heck alone.

So caveat emptor would replace the FDA, FTC, FDIC, FCC and a zillion other F’agencies.  Common sense, competition, voluntary associations, charity and free market options galore replace union/corporate monstrosities, Medicare, Social Security, lobbyists, regulations, litigation and price controls.  And because of the preceding, you get to keep what you earn, buy what you like (smoke it if you’re fool enough – and as long as you don’t blow it in my face), and live however and with whomever you want…as long as you leave others, and their stuff, alone.

That’s all.

Is that really so bad?  Could you live with that?

Because you know that the alternative plan is not working, right?

Andy goes to the Lone Star State

¡Ya salgo para Houston!

Well, I never wanted to leave my Freedom Farm, but God has other things in mind for me.  As I can no longer stay in Indiana, I’ve flipped a coin (one with a secession-leaning state on either side).  So life is taking me and my little family to Houston, and the thing for me to do, is embrace it.

So, I’m renting the farm out – one trillion-fillion Federal Reserve dollars per month, Or Best Offer.  Actually, it’d be dirt cheap to the right person; I’m just trying to minimize my losses.  We’ll auction off a lot of stuff we’ve accumulated over the years.  We’ll sell all the animals we can sell, and then probably donate Doofus to science.* 

Anyway, we’ll sell down to our clothes and Bibles and head to the land of Ron Paul.

In some ways, nothing will change.  I’ll still be able to walk anywhere without being recognized.  I’ll still be toward the bottom of the peon, political-outsider, tax-serf class. 

Oh, and I’m still not giving up on Rule Of Law under existing constitutions, as written.

But some things will change a great deal.  I will miss all the friends I’ve made in Indiana.  I’ve made some very, very good friendships.  I hope y’all stay in touch.  Or maybe join me for the secession.  I don’t know if we’ll ever find a church like Bloomington RP, but I’m entrusting that one to God. 

I need to make a special thank you and farewell to the Indiana Libertarians.  I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the convention this past weekend to accept the award you’d generously bestowed.  I will miss you all a great deal.  But more importantly, I’m not quitting – I’m only changing tactics and locations in the ongoing quest for Liberty and Justice for All.

While Southern Indiana summers are hot and humid, Houston does get even hotter.  And we’ve had remarkably few hurricanes in Indiana…  Yikes.  I will greatly miss the quiet, verdant beauty of our Freedom Farm…

Of course there’s Dr. No.  And I’ve been very encouraged by what I’ve seen of the Oath Keepers’ Texas connection.  I’m hoping that, while I’ll not run for public office again, I’ll be more effective, and in a better context, in my struggles for right and truth.

Doggone it; I’ve been a Hoosier (whatever that means) for over a half-century.  I don’t know how I’ll do in cowboy boots.

Please pray for me.

Oh, and if you’d like a Doofus, let me know…

 

*About Doofus – My son Hark was the one who first discovered that the so-called “puppy” we saved from destruction was no puppy at all.  He is actually a “pliffle” – a coarse lampoon of the noble canis lupus familiaris known as Man’s Best Friend.  This species of perdition, callus doofus dammitis, may look something like a dog, but unlike any dog that ever lived, he’s completely useless, annoying, unbelievably persistant and …sticky.   Yes, he’s affectionate, but you’d rather the pliffle just go away…

The media were right to dismiss our “Tea Parties”

I shouldn’t say “I told you so.”  So I’ll just say, instead, that being right has never done me any good at all.  In fact, it’s been a costly annoyance to both me, and to all my loved ones.  Being right is no advantage in the voting booth; it seems absolutely detrimental in electoral politics.  It’s no advantage in any way I can think of.  And it’s downright dangerous to be right when the government and its media are wrong.

I hope, in fact, that I’m desperately, completely and astoundingly wrong about what’s coming next.  I pray that I am very, very wrong.

So I’ll not say “I told you so” about all the warnings, predictions, admonitions and sermons I’ve written, spoken and kinetically harangued upon my friends in the ongoing battle for liberty and justice.  No, I will restrain myself by means of superhuman humility and magnanimous spirit…

But we should admit that the media got it right.  They have correctly portrayed the “tea party” hubbub, and the liberty movement in general as undirected, vague, and ultimately, pointless blather.

It pains me to say so, but my allies in liberty and justice are not just wasting their own time and money.  Rather they are destroying our combined credibility.  They discredit truth, and are, in effect, stealing from us all by spoiling the opportunity for those who’d do the right thing.

What is the right thing?  I’ve said it many times on these pages, but maybe it’s just too simple to comprehend.  Maybe it’s too basic to seem like a clever tactic or even a pragmatic first step.

We all have to agree to what it is that we want.  And there is only one thing that I am aware of that all of us actually want…Rule of Law under existing state and federal constitutions as written.

We’re out of time for all this fooling around.  We must stop thinking of tactics and games.  We must stop thinking of others as our enemies when we need no enemy other than ourselves.  We will never convince others of anything as long as we are ourselves such doddering fools that we can’t articulate for the media just what the heck it is that we want.

Before I go and say again what it is that we should be doing, here’s the setup:

“The media” are not anything other than people.  While these particular people tend very strongly toward soviet-style authoritarianism, it’s not their ideology that causes us problems.  It’s the usual human laziness, mental weakness and idolatry that plagues us all.  Like us, they worship celebrities and disparage those who attempt to become one, and fall back to earth.  They kick such people.  Trust me. 

They love excitement, but see it in all the wrong places (sports, celebrities…and weather).  And like the rest of us, it takes the firm administration of a baseball bat to make them change their ways. 

So when you get a microphone in your face, “the media” will try to label you as quickly and dismissively as possible.  If you offer ten minutes of Patrick Henry-like rhetorical brilliance, they’ll air the one point at which you stumble and say, “ummm…”  If you speak convincingly about something they don’t understand or don’t like (Rule of Law under existing constitutions as written), and offer, for example, income tax, you’ll be dismissed as a “tax protester,” and nobody will ever hear what you said about the constitutions, or the sweetness of politics on a leash.

This last point is my whole point.

We must, immediately and without any waffling, converge on a single message and deliver it without any side trips, divergence, hesitancy or missteps.  We must simply, firmly, passionately yet reasonably present the demand that politicians, policemen and soldiers keep their oaths to the laws that protect us from them.  They must obey the written constitutions, as written.  No “interpretation” from the bench, no caveats, provisos, ifs, ands or buts.

You must not protest government spending, taxation, or even overt oppression.  Do not mention Ron Paul, though this is his cause too.  Don’t talk about central banking or “The Fed.”  You must not write letters, campaign or speak to neighbors about the myriad symptoms presented by our collective social disease.  We must address only the disease.  Quit nibbling at branches; it’s time to strike the root.

What’s the root that we can all agree upon?

The existing state and federal constitutions are still the best, most practical, most proven, most fair and just social contracts ever signed into law.  So let’s agree that these are exactly, and only, what we want.

We have easy communication now.  We can still move freely.

Do not assume that this will last much longer.  And most definitely do not assume that a “revolution” will get you what you want if you can’t even agree now what it is that you hope to accomplish with violence.  The hour is late, and our side is losing.  Your choice is not up to your enemies.  It’s all up to you.  Personally.  Right now.

Indiana Greenbacks? Liberty Dollars? …Why not?

I almost always agree with Ron Paul.  Excepting his commitment to the GOP (I tried it once), I could be his understudy.  His travails against central banking, in keen particular, are right on the …er …money. 

Article 11, Section 3 of the Indiana Constitution says this:

If the General Assembly shall enact a general banking law, such law shall provide for the registry and countersigning, by an officer of State, of all paper credit designed to be circulated as money; and ample collateral security, readily convertible into specie, for the redemption of the same in gold or silver, shall be required; which collateral security shall be under the control of the proper officer or officers of State.

I’d love to see a debt-free currency issued in competition/ replacement of Federal Reserve Notes.  …Did you notice our constitution’s gold/silver valuation requirement?  Very nice. 

As Governor I would insist upon citizens’ right to barter using whatever unit of barter it chooses (such as the “Liberty Dollar” which, in 2007, was illegally stolen in Indiana by our “federal” government agents).

What’s the choice here?

A good part of any “major” party (meaning “entrenched and corrupt”) campaign is hurling and repulsing the attack that “corporate money” or “out of state contributors” have bought off the candidate.  Fair enough; we all know the problem of money in politics.  Yet politicians know that’s what we vote for, so they take the money and run anyway.  And sure enough, we vote for them anyway.

OK, that’s what we want, apparently.  We do vote for it over and over and over and over….

But especially irritating to me personally, is when journalists hurl the “not enough money to be competitive” grenade.  So a good part of any “third party” campaign is wasted trying to gain the imprimatur of legitimacy offered by all that we hate about politics. 

We try to tell voters we “mean to win” when elections aren’t even about candidates; they’re about voters.  We try to raise money in order to get the “free media” exposure obtained by attaching corrupting strings to the candidate.  We try to become, in other words, just like the fancy pants parties so that we’ll be treated to the same respect and electoral success as those evil monstrosities.

What in the world is that all about?  Are we to feign upset about the obscene, corrupting money in campaigns, and then wallow in it, and point to the pathetic challengers who “can’t raise enough money?”  Are we to demand a truly level playing field …in which all campaigns are corrupt from the start?

Or, could we perhaps undergo the long-due epiphany that the playing field is not at all level, and that the candidates who should enjoy the greatest advantage are those without strings attached, who stand for something, and who are actually candidates for public service, not Caesars in waiting.

Remember, the corporate giants who contribute to Big Party campaigns expect, and get, special deals for their investments.  Ordinary folks who contribute to Big Party campaigns probably don’t know how much of their tax money already goes to these parties, and have believed what they’ve been told about “reality,” “pragmatism” and their “wasted vote.”

Who, on the other hand, is willing to pay for a level playing field?  Who will reach into their own wallets and/or time to do what is right, as opposed to “playing the game?”

In all the years I’ve been watching, I’ve seen only one candidate who is worth more than a puddle of spit raise “enough money to be competitive,” and that is Ron Paul.  In my lifetime (50 years and counting), he’s the first guy to actually stand for something and raise huge stacks of cash.

It could be that others, like me, are just lousy at fundraising.  OK, that’s a distinct possibility.

But if people who stand for constitutions possess an unfortunate, perhaps genetic inability to raise money, what would you rather have?  An evil dictator who knows how to campaign, or a great public servant who just can’t put on a show like that?  Would you prefer a great politician/ bad candidate, or a great candidate/ deadly politician? 

Well, think about an analog in any other area of life.  If you need a delicate, life-saving surgery, would you prefer a skilled surgeon who may have a speech impediment, but has a brilliant surgucal success record; or would you choose a handsome actor who can’t hold a scalpel, but delivers inspiring lines with poise and pathos?

Is this really that hard?

Once again, the choice is yours.

 

 

What about the GOP? What about Odds? Don’t you want to WIN?

Through the upcoming campaign I’ll frequently be asked such questions.  My inclination will be to throw rotten eggs at whoever asks.  But since I do not wish to carry rotten eggs wherever I go, and since I really do understand how we have collectively fallen into a game-show/Las Vegas political stupor and helplessness, I must swallow my disgust, and answer:

 

1. Loyalty to entrenched, powerful political parties is not admirable.  It is destructive.  Be loyal to principles instead; particularly the ones proven to work (Rule of Law, Free Market economics, property ownership).
2. Elections are about voters’ choices, not about the candidates or their parties.  Let’s talk about what the choices are, not just about the candidates’ strategies, money pots and yard signs.
3. We’re facing dark, dangerous times.  Let’s be serious in the voting booth, OK?

 

And then let’s focus on just the GOP for a moment.  The party never was what most people think it was.  It is, of course, the original “tree hugging liberal” party. 

The National Park system was started by Teddy Roosevelt, and the EPA was created by Nixon.  TR also gave us anti-corporate “trust busting” and income tax while setting us up for the Federal Reserve Bank, while Nixon gave us wage/price controls.  Much of the New Deal was actually started by Hoover, who FDR called a socialist; and Eisenhower spent more money after WWII than during its peak.  And let’s not even talk about George Bush.

The GOP never was as conservative as the “solid south” or “men in sheets” Democratic Party.  “Real Republicans” like Robert Taft, Barry Goldwater and of course Ron Paul have always been marginalized by the “Mainstream Republicans” like Gerald Ford and George Bush Sr.  

 

In Indiana we have a smart, relatively conservative and well-intended Republican Governor who has given us more taxation and spending (expanding entitlements to even new healthcare and college subsidies) than did any preceding Democrats.  And I think he’s one of the best Republican politicians!

 

Ambassador, candidate and pundit Alan Keyes recently said that the “Republican Party has come to a dark and confused place.”  So he quit the GOP and joined the Constitution Party (which is not on the ballot in Indiana).  Former Georgia congressman Bob Barr left the Republican Party for the Libertarian Party (which does have ballot access all across the country).  Many celebrities, even major media journalists, have left their former fancy party allegiances behind for a new dedication to principle…and what actually works.

 

This is good news.  And not a minute too soon. 

The bad news is that, I fear, most Republicans, even as disgusted as they are with their own party, will nevertheless remain loyal to it and thus do harm to us all.

 

Oh, don’t blather on about fixing what’s broken in that party.  I tried the “change from within” thing, and found it to be a baseless, mad illusion.  No change ever happens from within.  Especially from within such a corrupt deceit as the GOP.

 

Don’t misunderstand.  I know and love many Republicans.  I greatly admire what Ron Paul is attempting to do within the GOP.  I sent him money (I almost never do that) and I will of course vote for him in the primary. 

 

That is, after all, the only primary election vote that could accomplish anything useful. 

 

Dr. Paul’s delegates and supporters can at least attempt to reshape the GOP into something better.  I do support that cause.  But I do not fool myself about the likelihood of success.

 

People may think I’m a dreamer to run as a Libertarian.  But who’s really the dreamer? 

 

I know that all change comes from the Davids who fight Goliath (see my article here; requires a free signup); not from some change of heart in Goliath himself.  And history demonstrates well that those who vote for the entrenched powers hurt themselves.  …Fatally.

 

My dear Republican/Democrat friends, you have been betrayed over and over again.  At what point will you quit dreaming and do what needs to be done?

 

I no longer need to explain why I’m running outside the corrupt, entrenched powers.  The real question is: how can you excuse voting for those corrupt, entrenched powers again?  The question isn’t, “Horning, what are you doing?”  The question is, just what are you doing to set things right?

 

There is reason to hope.  I’ve seen it in the Paul campaign, and I’ve seen it in the faces of those disgusted and enraged into action.  I’ve seen it in last summer’s tax protests, and, ironically, I see it in the trouble that’s about to be heaped upon taxpayers this coming summer.

 

My fellow Hoosiers, Americans and human beings, we have been bestowed with many wonderful advantages.  Chief among these in this nation must be the laws that protect us from our politicians.  It’s time we dust them off and insist, without equivocation, that it’s time they are obeyed, as written.

 

Don’t apply party labels to this.  Don’t attach any flag motifs.  Don’t make this an abstraction. 

Make it a demand and make it now.

Bad History + Status Quo = Bad Future

 If history demonstrates anything, it’s that politics has always been our deadliest abstraction. Your neighbor by himself can, at most, steal a few things or even kill a few people before somebody with a gun stops him. But call that same person a “politician” or a “king,” and he or she can, with our collective allegiance and in the name of the greater good, take everything, kill millions, oppress, enslave and wage war. Not only do these people often get away with it, but those not caught or killed in the midst of their evil are typically called heroes.

And history shows that politicians invoke such terror by an invariably repetitious, astoundingly simple modus operandi: they break laws, both written and moral – and they do it precisely to the degree and duration that we let them get away with it.

I’ll skip citing examples since I’m sure you can think of plenty from Nero to Stalin to George W Bush. George Orwell stated the obvious when he said that political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” What’s hard to understand is why we keep falling for it.

The question at hand, now very pressing, is what do we do with our lawbreaking politicians? The answer is, typically, that we do nothing, and reap horrific consequences.

I’m not happy with that answer, yet I’ve had little luck trying to get people motivated to even ASK politicians for Rule of Law instead of Rule of Tyrants.

Remember, words like “holocaust” do not apply to even your worst neighbors. But such catastrophes are always on the To Do list of a politician, and apparently never foreseen by citizens.

…Or is there more hope than I’d imagined?

I never expected Ron Paul would connect to so many people with his “out of touch” message of liberty. I never expected a “throwback” or “fringe” candidate could raise so much money and cause so much excitement among so many. Of course I’m maddened that he’s treated so unfairly by both the media and his own party. But I had expected his candidacy to fizzle and disappear long ago under the combination of corrupt power and citizen stupor.

Are people waking up? Is now the time to reignite the torch of liberty?

I don’t know. But I don’t want to squander the opportunity, if it exists.

It’s getting awfully late in the 2008 election cycle, but since we currently have nobody at all even running for the constitutional office of Indiana Governor, there’s nothing for me to do but run for that office myself, right? 

I’m not fooling myself or anyone else. My chances don’t depend upon me, they depend upon voters. I’ve already thrown myself against that so-far intransigent brick wall many times, yet I’ll never again stoop to “pragmatic” pandering through “mainstream” electioneering (e.g., running as a Republican). That has never worked for any good purpose, and has always been a tool of evil.

So I’ll not sacrifice my job or anyone else’s job/sanity/health. I’ll delegate an awful lot (even public appearances, speaking, etc.) to others. If we can’t find enough people to spread that load, then we’ll have no shot on Election Day anyway, right?

We’ll play no games but we’ll have fun and do good work on behalf of liberty and justice. Who, among you who have an obvious interest in governed government, will join me?

Please send me your contact info, and we’ll get started. We can’t start too soon.  

“Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” - Frederick Douglass 

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” -Benjamin Franklin 

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” -Edward Abbey

“Give me Liberty, or give me my Money Back!” –me

 

Enough talk…

This is my final blog.  Not that I spent much time on blogging (or that I was particularly good at it), but I will not blog anymore.  I will not read blogs anymore.  In fact, I wish you wouldn’t either. 

It’s time to act.

What more do we need to say, hear or read?

Our founders bequeathed us peace and freedom by way of liberty and justice for all; and we’ve thrown it all away.  All of it.

It is gone and the illusion that’s left is fading fast.

If you want back what is ours by law, it’s time to act.  If you and your neighbors don’t want it back enough to act, then it’s time to go the way of all foolish nations and learn to live oppressed.  That is what’s coming, you know.

If I’m to write anything more in this space, it will be to announce actions.

 

We need to demand that our politicians stay on their side of the fence, obey their laws, keep their leash on themselves – and off of us.  We need our politicians to obey written constitutions as written, and we can’t expect them to do that without our incessant, urgent and forceful action.

And don’t think that Ron Paul is going to save us either.  If we don’t get off our duffs and do something, then even President Paul’s victory would result in only another assassinated president.

No more talk.  You don’t need any more information than you’ve already got in your tax bill, and in any history book ever written.

There.  I’ve said my bit.  I’m going to go and do something now.  If you’d like to join me, let me know.

Pray without ceasing…

Maybe I’m just burnt out.  But I am weary-sick and grievous sore of going through one campaign season after another without any collective discernment or even discussion of right from wrong, success from failure…or truth, from the more common lies. 

We’ve been talking Las Vegas odds and Fortune 500 money, as usual, without ever seriously discriminating the true differences between candidates and the government they’d embody.  We’ve allowed the pundits to ask their stale, dryly stupid questions, and we’ve bought the resulting media blather about likely match-ups and political strategy on Election Day.  We have never (most of us, anyway) questioned the proper role of government, how much is too much, is war really so great, and just who are these Federal Reserve Bankers, anyway?

Damn us all as fools; this is no game. 

Those who don’t see what’s coming and vote anyway, are fools drawing the rest of us into a fatal vortex of complacency.

But then, if you’re reading this page, I’m guessing that you, like me, are equally disgusted by our antics, yet are praying on hope.

I really do hope. 

I hope that we’ll straighten our heads before next November, when the fate of the world (really) is determined.

With the brilliant exception in Ron Paul’s amazing campaign, my hope seems unfounded.  With what I know of the GOP, it seems too much to hope that the best candidate could win in such a horribly corrupt power structure.  With what I think I know of third parties and voters’ reaction to them, it seems too much to hope that third party candidates could get our attention at last.  It seems too much, in other words, to hope that God will save us from ourselves when we have shown so little interest in Him.

If you’ve a mind to, I hope you’ll join me in prayer that a sufficient number of Americans would:

• Take more interest in our future than in football.
• Push aside the silly pundits who spew irrelevance and demand real information.
• Treat our right to vote as a critical and dangerous responsibility; giving it all the attention this life and death function deserves.
• Understand that voting is just a tiny part of our citizenship and accountability to our neighbors.

Of course, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). 

Let us pray.