It will be interesting to see how this all plays out - the comparatively small, but significant Ron Paul contingent making the case for true conservatism vs. a GOP establishment that will try to convince the rank-and-file that John McCain is “sufficiently conservative” when no one is buying it. Even neocon dopes like Mark Levin aren’t fully on board with McCain yet.
Will Paul get a speaking role at the convention? I wouldn’t hold my breath but Paul still has enough power, influence and support to be heard in some manner - whether the Republican Party honchos like it or not. Check out this video featuring the one good thing about FOX News, Andrew Napalitano:
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We the People 2.0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjauAv6I-E8
7/12/2008 Be There!
Of course, the Entrenchment Camps of both the Republican and Democratic Parties would always do whatever was necessary to push Dr. Paul as far from center stage as possible, he is, after all, the only candidate that endangers their collective agenda that supports the status quo.
Let’s face it, neither Obama, McCain or Clinton will not change one thing in our government or country in any substantial way. They will make their promises, all empty because their promises are based on false assumptions; they don’t have a clue about the reality this country is facing, particularly concern economic issues, because the base their assumptions on all the wrong foundations. They are answering the wrong questions and, as usual, coming up with the wrong answers.
Ron Paul is the only candidate, and perhaps one of the few in politics, that is asking the right questions and proposing common-sense answers to those all-important questions.
So, once again, the people of this country are poised to elect another President and yet, from all the candidates there is only one that is addressing one of the most pressing issues this country is facing and that is its failing monetary system.
Consider this: a person making $32,000 per year today has the equivalent purchasing power of $5,907.40 in1970 dollars. So, the same person making $15.38 per hour today is equal to making $2.84 per hour in real purchasing power in 1970 dollars. It is not the price of goods and services that have risen, but the purchasing power of our dollar that has been so drastically reduced that it simply does not buy what it once did because it has been debased by the Federal Reserve and our government.
Our standard of living has been effectively reduced through fiat money inflation. It’s your money, your labor and yet we all just stand by and let this government continue to siphon off our prosperity.
Is there any wonder that poverty is becoming rampant? The government has no other choice but enforce minimum wages in order to keep the working poor at some level of subsistence. At the current $5.85 per hour a person has the same 1970 purchasing power of $1.08 per hour, at 40 hours per week that person is effectively making $43.20 per week to make ends meet.
By 2012 we will all look back on 2008 and wonder why this country elected someone other than Ron Paul.
In Liberty,
Republicae
IF, IF, the Ron Paul demonstration turns violent, count on agent provocateurs.
Ron Paul groups are non-violent. Paul is planning to rent some space for his supporters at the convention. We are not violent so the news media needs to be ready to point out the provocateurs.
Ron Paul groups non-violent? Sean Hannity would disagree with that and as much as I loathe Sean, I don’t have an argument against him. Ron Paul groups have already shown they can become violent. Most definitely turn into a lynch mob.
This says little to nothing about Ron Paul or his supporters and more to say about human nature. The more passionate one is about something, anything, the more inclined that person is to adapt a violent mentality. A very complex behavior to separate from.
Sean Hannity got off easy. It’s people like him (and other neocons just like him) that bring hostile responses on themselves. If he (and his fellow neocons) are going to treat Ron Paul and his supporters in a degrading manner, then they should be treated in the same way.
Mr. AV…I would not, by any stretch of the imagination, categorize the tossing of snow balls at someone violent, kids to it all the time, do they not?
Besides, Hannity advocates the use of massive violence in the support of interventionism. If anyone can be accused of violence it would be those who choose to support acts of unjustified war.
If might surprise people to know that this country has intervened in the affairs of over 200 countries in the last 110 years. In fact, it might come as a big surprise to learn that our government has, in one way or another, intervened in the affairs of Iraq for the last 87 years. Now, if the policy of interventionism was effective, or if it provided this country with actual security, don’t you think we would have seen it by now?
Interventionism, as Hannity and others fanatically declare, has caused some of the most horrendous consequences and cost this country and the people of this country so much, not only monetary terms, but in lives that it is absolutely amazing that any rational person could continue to back such a policy.
Now the question is why, why would we intervene in all of these countries if the actual security interests of the United States are not threatened? It is the same old story, nations feeding upon the wealth and resources of other nations. Our interventions throughout the last century have this primary factor in common, the ones who benefit from them are usually not the American People as much as those who seek huge war profits.
Threats are now fabricated, exploited and amplified beyond reality to enjoin the sentiments of the population to support intervention and war, but the costs are much higher than we realize or wish to admit to ourselves. Many of the consequences are not immediate and therein are the real danger, for the fabric of history is changed by our actions and unbeknown to us at the time, our own future is changed in ways we cannot conceive.
World War I is a perfect example of the fabric of history being altered by our intervention into the war. At the time of the entry of the United States, both sides of the conflict we rapidly depleting their resources, drained of their ability to wage war and ready to sue for peace. The war to end all wars could have had a totally different outcome had the United States refrained from listening to our domestic war drummers and those who would eventually benefit from our entry into the conflict. Besides the actual monetary costs of the war, the social cost is hard to comprehend in our present time; whole societal influences were altered beyond recognition. Empires were broken apart, new nations were born from the despair and national influences were morphed into artificial boundaries. The war set the stage for not only the eventual break-up of the British Empire, but the generation of ethnic and religious sectarianism that had been more or less subdued under the old order. Most of the nations within the region were devastated for over a generation and such devastation helped set the stage for the massive struggle called WWII.
We rarely think of the differences in the world had we not been pushed into war by the war propagandist, profiteers and political influence peddlers. If we had not entered the war, both sides would have settled back into a world, while scared, would have been far safer than the one our victory created. Upon our victory, the fabric of history was severely distorted, everything changed and the balance of power shifted enormously. With victory came the end of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires; this led to the formation of entirely new countries throughout Europe and the Middle East. It also marked a great transference of colonies into the hands of other colonialist powers, just as oppressive as the former masters.
With that victory came some of the harshest war reparations visited upon a defeated nation. Germany and its allies became subjugated to the wrath of the victors and under that wrath were sown the seeds of a future dictator who exploited the humiliation of Germany into a cause of extreme nationalistic pride and a taste for revenge.
The stage that Hitler exploited would have never been set had the United States remained neutral, as it should have, during the latter part of the war. The powers involved would have been forced into a peace agreement due to each side’s inability to provide resources to maintain their respective war efforts. The world that was would have slumbered back into its decaying imperialism, eventually giving way to a natural evolution of nationalities and newly formed nations. The artificial borders created in the Middle East by the breakup of the Ottoman Empire would have been less likely to have been the future cause of continual conflict and strife as it is today.
Imagine for instance, for a moment, if you will, the world without Hitler. Certainly, this is pure supposition, but when you consider the possibilities what that the one act of U.S. intervention nearing the end of WWI did and how it drastically altered the weave of history, the conclusion that the world would be a very different place is more than a flight of fancy. As stated earlier, a lonely, dejected artist named Adolf Hitler would have had no fuel for his nationalistic incitements, Germany would have gradually reentered the community of nations and WWI, as we know it, would have never happened. Think of it, the European Jews and all their culture would have continued to flourish; there would have been no concentration camps, no gas chambers and 6 million Jews would have lived to propagate their lineage. The creation of the State of Israel would have never been forcefully imposed upon the Muslim nations of the Middle East and thus the current conflict would not exist in its present form.
The British would have never gained control over vast regions of the Middle East, and the imposition of artificial borders throughout the area would not be the cause of numerous ethnic disturbances over territories. Although the nationalistic fever began to sweep throughout the region during the late 19th Century, that fever was only amplified by the early 20th Century events of WWI.
The Soviet Union would have never had the opportunity to impose the Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe without the events of WWII. The massive arms race, the nuclear threat and cold war would have had no stage on which to form and the incredible waste in manpower and funds would have been averted into more productive avenues. There are enough examples of the unintended consequences of our actions to fill volumes on the subject.
Interventions always have consequences and we rarely have the foresight to determine if those consequences produce far more danger than if the interventions never occur in the first place. The leaders of this country must once again regain the wisdom of the Founders and refrain from the use of intervention an ideological tool. We must come to understand that such interventions have the potential of drastically changing not only the fabric of our history, but also the fabric of our future. It has been proven that we have lacked that wisdom over the decades; it is time to stop the course that leads to dangerous unintentional consequences.
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!”-Barry Goldwater.
It’s not a real revolution if we don’t revolt. Peaceful protest is the way to go - the r3VOLutionaries have enough strength in numbers to make an impression on the convention and to be heard. It only took one thorn to hobble the lion. Go Ron!
Indeed, we have become a land of compliant complacency seeking the general approval of society’s acceptance of collective conformity. I dare say that if the present attitude prevailed in 1776 this country would still be flying the Union Jack. Until We, as a People decide that the ultimate prize is Liberty and that all defense against tyranny is essential to preserve that Liberty then we are doomed to flounder in compliant apathy.
It is far easier to remain silent then to raise our voices in defiant dissent and much more comfortable to remain invisible; it all cost so much less than Liberty actually demands of us.