Ron Paul has been fighting for the cause of liberty for decades, and has already done more than any man in modern history to rally people to the cause and engage them to educate themselves...and as Walter Block has said, Paul's done more for libertarianism than all of his critics, put together.
One of the best and easiest things to do to aid in this cause is help get him a bigger stage, a stonger microphone, and more respect. And the easiest and most effective way to do this is to have him garner success in this presidential race.
And the fact is, the Republican primary is the de-facto presidential race. Regardless of who the nominee is, Obama is going to have an incredibly tough time winning another election. That is why it is so important that everyone register to vote in your state primary, get all your democrat friends to register Republican for the primary and vote for Ron Paul.
-Go to Phone.RonPaul2012.com and phone bank. This is an easy system that allows you to contact voters in prime states and remind them to participate in their primary/caucus and cast a vote for Ron Paul.
-Donate (even as little as $1.20) at SuperVoterBomb.com and have an AWESOME packet sent out to likely caucus voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. (See Tom Woods' endorsement of the project here.)
-Go to RonPaulBrochure.com and order the awesome brochures (a proven conversion tool) and have them sent to voters in early primary states, or order a batch to hand out yourself!
-Volunteer for the Campaign
-Donate to the Campaign and/or the RevolutionPAC
-Send EVERYONE to WhyRonPaul.com
-Send ALL Democrats to BlueRepublican.org
-Send these articles to everyone (especially Democrats) you know (they are sublime):
Ron Paul, Conservative Champion of Liberalism
If You Love Peace, Become a "Blue Republican" (Just for a Year)
"Blue Republicans": an Idea Whose Time Has Come
(in fact, all of Robin Koener's articles)
-For conservatives who have issues on his foreign policy, send them to:
RevolutionPAC.com/defense
RonPaulRonPaul.com
-Send everyone these videos:
-Give them a DVD (or send them the link)
-Link the campaign website and youtube channel on your own site
-Favorite and share the official campaign ads
-Contact major news networks (you can call them) requesting they have Ron Paul on the air
-Sport campaign gear and Ron Paul swag and other Ron Paul products
This race will be won in the primary...which means the future can be changed for the better, with this primary.
Ron Paul says he's not just trying to win an election, he's trying to change the course of history. I guarantee you, if that man becomes President, that's exactly what would happen. And not because of anything he'll do in government. He won't pass some law that will redefine the political system. He won't eliminate some department that history will call "the repeal that changed everything". He will affect change in the greatest, most important way possible...in the minds of people.
Just imagine 4 whole years of that man talking...with the Presidential Seal hanging behind him. And as if that wasn't enough, times are going to get tougher...probably as tough as they've ever been, relatively. People will be ready, more than ever, to listen. You thought people were scared, hurting, ready for change, and looking for a leader with Obama...just wait.
If that wouldn't change history, nothing would.
Great post. The whole world needs Ron Paul to win this thing. The Revolution is global!
Here's an old classic that still makes a great intro: Ron Paul: A New Hope.
Government Explained 2: The Special Piece of Paper
Law without Government
I don't know if Paul would do well in the long run if he assumed office, but he certainly needs wider support.
Good advice James.
I fully support Ron Paul, but I think the official Ron Paul campaign managers are WEAK and people should donate to the RevolutionPAC instead of them. I think this because of their treatment of Tom Woods. As Woods has written on his blog:
http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/what-ron-paul-should-say/
"...This time, if they can raise the funds to do it again, the finished product needs to be better, and on foreign policy every single home-run argument needs to be touched on.
I would be thrilled to put something like this together, but my nominal presence on Revolution PAC precludes communication with the campaign, and in any event certain people there would allow my participation over their dead bodies...
I can't communicate with [Ron Paul] because of Revolution PAC. But even if I could, it would have to be via back channels. I am persona non grata [an unwelcome person] with the powers that be."
Woods says that eventually all will be revealed.
Rev PAC ads will hit harder than the official campaigns soft ads like the "He Served" one which showed Paul giving medals to some vets that didn't get theirs and was designed to give people warm fuzzies. Woods commented on it saying:
"Someday it would be nice to see a veterans ad in which the veterans speak up for Dr. Paul's foreign policy. No one is going to be tricked into voting for him, and there is an argument to be made for non-interventionism that appeals to conservatives, so it might as well be made."
Graham Wright: Great post. The whole world needs Ron Paul to win this thing. The Revolution is global! Here's an old classic that still makes a great intro: Ron Paul: A New Hope.
I love that one too. Added.
I hope he does well, but I don't know that I am up for feeding the system anymore. Last go around I volunteered and sent out a couple hundred letters and donated money that could have been paying off debt. I don't regret it in the slightest but I'm also demotivated enough that I tend to reserve my efforts for promoting ideals rather than people.
There's a bonus in that since I'm no longer registered to vote I don't get called for jury duty but I digress.
Good luck though.
Couldn't this work out really horribly for libertarianism? Say Paul gets in and lets the "necessary correction" he's been talking about for years take its course. What, then we have a huge collapse (however beneficial it may be in the long term) as soon as a libertarian gets in? People would use that against us for years.
Then again, a term is 4 years, so there'd assumedly be some time for recovery and growth.
I have never heard of this before! Can anyone speculate as to why Woods is unwelcome in the campaign? He is such an intelligent person with a great speaking style that someone like him could really help Paul out with his campaign message. I do wonder who these "powers that be" in Paul's campaign are.
Say Paul gets in and lets the "necessary correction" he's been talking about for years take its course. FDR presided over more than 10 years of hardship, sacrifice and misery. His blunders were regularly called out by the Old Right. The depression did not end until after he was dead. Yet he is revered by history as "the man that got America out of the Great Depression". It's all about public relations.
It's all about public relations.
Good point, but that doesn't make me more optimistic.. Haha..
NonAntiAnarchist: Couldn't this work out really horribly for libertarianism? Say Paul gets in and lets the "necessary correction" he's been talking about for years take its course. What, then we have a huge collapse (however beneficial it may be in the long term) as soon as a libertarian gets in? People would use that against us for years. Then again, a term is 4 years, so there'd assumedly be some time for recovery and growth.
Yes, I've heard this argument before, and my opinion is it's ridiculous. It sounds like the same kind of arguments leftists make in favor of their crappy policies under the premise that "well, things will be so much worse without them"...as in, we should accept and actually promote things that harm us because "the alternative would be worse".
It's almost as if some libertarians are so used to being on the "con" side of every issue, and taking contrarian positions on virtually everything everyone talks about, that they have a need (or at least an inclination) to argue with and dump on everything. And they're so used to this that they have to find a way to do it with everyone...even other libertarians. And of course the easiest way to do that is for these people to join the mainstream statists and attack people for supporting Ron Paul (ironically using a lot of the same tactics).
Whether it's because they care so much about maintaining their "fringe" status and being able to complain and argue with everyone, that they would (at least subconsciously) wish for liberty to not catch on, or because they simply have fallen into the emo game of being against anything that's remotely popular, I can't know for sure. But my guess is there's plenty of both, and more. I spoke on this mutliple times here, as there are (or at least were) plenty of these people in this very forum. (Coincidentally the post linked below was in response to someone asking how they were supposed to support Ron Paul.)
As for the crash and recovery, someone started a thread about that just last week...
Mandatory reading: 1920-21 depression
Ah, JJ, you rascal. I was about to link that thread for purposes of showing that "necessary corrections" can take a short time to occur. I would be much indebted, however, if you could address my questions that I posted there as to critiques on the Austrian viewpoint regarding that recession.
Found this cutie and of course had to let her add her suggestions...
Couldn't this work out really horribly for libertarianism?
Who cares? This is not a popularity contest, it's real life. If, by some miracle, he were to enter the White House, Dr. Paul has my full support to do whatever damage to the label "libertarianism" will be done by ending the Federal Reserve's monetary monopoly and banking cartel, whatever damage will be done by ending the wars and bringing the troops home, whatever damage will be done by repealing the PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act (to start with), whatever damage will be done by shutting down five cabinet-level departments within the Federal Bureaucratic Leech, whatever damage will be done by freezing the budget at 2006 levels, whatever damage will be done by ending the Income Tax. Whatever damage is done to the label "libertarianism" is worth it to end these tyrannies.
This is real life. Those trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve is stealing are not just an unfortunate "blow to liberty", they are the direct cause of the deaths of many Americans (and non-Americans!) who have been robbed of the wealth that is rightly theirs and would have saved their life through paying medical expenses or even food and energy in the case of the very poorest Americans who are hit the hardest by the Inflation Tax. I've heard stealing called "murder by degree" since it is really taking away a person's ability to feed, clothe and shelter himself. By this principle, the magnitude of the Fed's stealing makes it the biggest mass-murderer in human history. And no, that's not hyperbole. Think about it.
Clayton -
We broke 1,000 folks! Woohoo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocqRooE_79Q
Now we're talkin...
I have been using my 87-year old mother as sort of a litmus test as to when the general public may become seriously aware of Ron Paul. She's aware that I am an adviser to the Ron Paul Super PAC and she watches a lot of television, including the debates, but she has never quite noticed Ron Paul. I spoke to her yesterday and the first thing she told me was that she saw Ron Paul interviewed on television that morning. "He sounded good," she said, "especially about bringing the troops home." We know Ron Paul has the young internet crowd, but when the 87 year old crowd is starting to notice, it's clear Ron Paul is beginning to get his message clear across America.
(via Robert Wenzel)
Shared this with a friend who said, "Thanks for making me cry on my lunch break!"
So obviously it's a pretty effective one.
Phone Banking
Oh, dangit, JJ, I didn't see this before I posted it in the November thread.
no worries. I considered putting it there myself...even after I put it here. It's good enough to put in both.
When I first started phone banking I thought, "How does this do anything? I'm asking who they will vote for and why, and clicking their answers into the computer, barely mentioning Ron Paul."
Then I re-watched the video JJ posted where the girls explained that it's mostly about identifying the people in the early primary states who already are Ron Paul supporters. We can then call them and make sure they get out on voting day. This makes a lot of sense.
If you don't donate money to the campaign, you no longer have to feel that twinge of guilt with each passing moneybomb. You can fill the void by donating spare time, by phone banking.
Also, no privacy worries, your call will be masked with a local caller ID.
It's pretty easy, so just sign up and do it. If not, like she said in the vid, you're a punk. :)
You're so awesome.
Figured I'd throw this out there...
I made a couple of tinyurl's for easy sharing...The first post of this this thread is:
tinyurl.com/SupportRonPaul
and the primary election info is:
tinyurl.com/RegisterRepublican
This'll make it easier to spread the info.
http://supervoterbomb.com/
Gotta love top comments:
"Ron Paul is so anti-socialism that my left speaker doesn't work."
^ This project seems made of WIN.
Why anarchy fails
Figured this would fit here. I have somewhat of a homework assignment for some people. On some other forums I frequent, every time Paul comes up, other posters basically bomb the thread with stuff about the newsletter racism controversy. Does anyone have a bunch of links/sources where he's refuting those ideas, or some excerpts from his books/essays where he's writing about racism? I don't have the time at the moment to troll for that stuff myself, or go back through what papers I have on hand. Unfortunately "well if you've actually read lots of Paul's stuff..." isn't a strong arguement without actually linking/providing said materials.
Ron Paul "Government and Racism":
Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals. Racists believe that all individuals who share superficial physical characteristics are alike: as collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups. By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called "diversity" actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist.
The true antidote to racism is liberty. Liberty means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims. Liberty means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence, not skin color, gender, or ethnicity.
Or how about when he addressed it himself for almost 8 minutes...
Or how about any of the other clips where this has been rehashed a thousand times:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ron+paul+on+racism
It's just utter bullshit and shows just how desperate people are, they have to bring up the same damn thing again and again...think of all the energy spent trying to find something to railroad Paul and the best thing anyone has been able to come up with in all this time (30+ years in Congress and three Presidential runs) is a few 15-year-old newsletters that he didn't write, didn't commission, didn't even know about, that sound vaguely racist.
If this is the best all that collective anti-Ron Paul effort can come up with, it should be just one more testament to his impeccable character.
The Austin NAACP President Supports Ron Paul Against Charges of Racism
We are the soldiers for righteousnessAnd we are not sent here by the politicians you drink with - L. Dube, rip
John James - this one deserves to be added to the OP IMO:
Also nice new website: http://www.whyronpaul.com
I thought this was a good summary of responses to typical questions from people learning about RP:
The Case for Ron Paul
In 1964, Barry Goldwater secured the Republican nomination. Goldwater was an "Old Right" conservative not unlike Ron Paul in many of his positions, particularly with respect to foreign policy, domestic government spending and the primacy of State governments over the Federal government.
Lyndon Johnson played off his role as the "hero who stepped in to fill JFK's shoes in the wake of that tragic assassination" and portrayed Goldwater as a wacky, ultra-right maniac, hell-bent on enacting his extreme right-wing ideology at any cost, even the annihilation of America by the Soviets.
Here's one of the most famous attack ads in political history... poli-sci teachers still show it to their students as a specimen of one of the earliest and most stark attack ads in US history:
Does anyone else notice the similarity with the media's constant questioning of Dr. Paul over what he will do if Iran "gets a nuclear weapon"??
Ron Paul vs. Mitt Romney vs. Newt Gingrich on Google Trends. Top graph is internet searchs, bottom graph is media coverage.
Logistic Earth, here's a great article by Justin Raimondo about the racism charges against Ron Paul, focusing specifically on libertarian groups that were trashing him: Why the Beltway Libertarians are Trying to Smear Ron Paul
I was just thinking it's funny Heather posted that Tom Woods video about the SuperVoterBomb when she did...I was actually holding off on it to bump the thread during the day. But it looks like we'll have to wait anyway...they already reached the goal a week or so after Woods announced it...
Share this video:
You Like Ron Paul, Except on Foreign Policy
@bbnet: Someone needs to condense that to a 2 1/2 - 5 min. piece that follows that line of thought through... "So you disagree with Ron Paul on foreign policy... " The narrative could start with the quote from Rick Santorum and then questioning whether it's really true that "they hate us for who we are" by quoting CIA/DoD/etc. documents (do the thing where you zoom in and highlight the sentences in the report as they are read), and then moving on to show Ron Paul quoting the CIA experts on the issue of blowback and how, yes, 9/11 itself is in fact blowback, just like the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis was, and so on.
Then, you could splatter up a global map showing the 900 (I believe at last count) US military installations plotted by location around the world and then showing how drawing down and removing US troops would save us money and reduce resentment of America by showing a stack of saved dollars on one side that increases as the installations are removed off the map and maybe some kind of thermometer showing foreign resentment of the US going down as installations near hotspots are removed.
Here is a four and a half minute version done by the same folks:
URGENT MESSAGE From the Troops
Guy's still doing the good work...
(past Reality Check segments)