I like Ron Paul, but he’s not winning (and I don’t believe in the system)

By David McElroy · February 7, 2012

The most common email I get lately is about Ron Paul. This is just a small, edited sample. In some cases, expletives have been deleted, too.

Why do you call yourself a Libertarian when you hate Ron Paul and are trying to stop him from winning????!!!!

I’m not a big-L Libertarian — a member of the Libertarian Party — but I’m generally a small-L libertarian. However, I don’t hate Ron Paul. In fact, I like the guy. (He’s my favorite statist.) As I’ve carefully explained, I admire him and I’d be happy if he won. But he can’t win, for reasons that I’ve also outlined. I don’t know how to be more clear than I’ve been.

This is our last chance to take our country back. Ron Paul has to prevail for liberty to win. Even if he doesn’t, we’re educating people and will win another time.

First, your statement presupposes that there was some golden age of freedom until the nasty progressives took over. (Or maybe the social conservatives are your enemy. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.) The truth is that there was more economic freedom a hundred years ago, for the most part, but there was much less freedom in other areas. In terrible fits and stops, there’s been some progress in the area of social freedom, even if I don’t like the methods used to get here at times. (Ask minority groups how much freedom they had in some places 50 years ago.) We weren’t all free in the past. Not 20 years ago. Not 50 years ago. Not a hundred years ago. There’s nothing to “take back.” We’re shooting for something that hasn’t been done before.

Second, there’s no evidence that people are educated in campaigns, at least not in substantial numbers. You can cite your buddy, Steve, or your friend’s sister’s boyfriend, Jim Bob, maybe. (Or maybe even you.) But if you look at the big picture — the number of people who identify with libertarian positions — it’s not really changing. When I got into libertarians politics more than 20 years ago, we were taught that we could educate people and we’d end up with a libertarian world (or at least enough to win elections). It hasn’t happened, and my campaign experience convinces me that it never will happen in enough numbers to matter. Sorry, but I’m being realistic.

I’m not giving up without a fight and if your such a [adjective deleted] [noun deleted] that you won’t fight with us you don’t deserve [noun deleted].

So if people don’t agree with you about how to fight for freedom, they don’t deserve freedom, huh? What if I think you’re wrong in your approach? Are you saying that I have an obligation to fight the way you want me to? Exactly which version of individual freedom do you believe in, my friend?

I don’t have a responsibility to choose your path, just as you don’t have a responsibility to choose mine. I believe your way — that of electing a new bunch of people to run the machinery of the state — is not only doomed to fail, but it’s immoral as well. The problem with the state isn’t that we don’t have the right people running it. The problem is that it exists and has power to control our lives. So in addition to the fact that I don’t believe Ron Paul has a chance in the world of winning — now or ever — I wouldn’t support the system even if he could win. It would still be a dictatorship of the majority.

Why aren’t you talking about the rampant fraud that’s keeping Ron Paul from winning? First the media did their blackout on him because they were afraid of him winning. When that didn’t work, the people doing the polls tried to control them. The honest ones are the online ones cause they’re harder to control. Everytime there’s a web poll, we win it until they delete our votes. Now there’s vote fraud in Nevada big time and I heard he really won Iowa and that was rigged too. I see it all over Facebook so why aren’t you reporting on this?

Before we can talk about this, you’re going to have to take off the tinfoil hat. Yes, seriously. I know that you’re reading bizarro claims such as the one I saw from a Facebook friend today saying that Paul actually won 71 percent of the Nevada vote, but it’s pure conspiracy-theory nonsense with zero foundation in facts.

I’m not reporting the colorful story you’re laying out because I believe it’s an absolutely delusional story. I’m sure you mean well, but you’re lying to yourself to avoid facing the painful truth that other people don’t want the laws (or lack of laws) that you want.

There hasn’t been a media blackout. Paul has gotten lots of coverage, especially considering how little actual support he has and how little actual chance he has of winning. His followers are rabid and committed, but there just aren’t as many of them as you think there are.

I’ve talked before about why straw polls and web “polls” aren’t really polls, but I doubt you’re going to believe me. Regardless, it’s true. Paul doesn’t have the massive amount of support that you believe based on the self-selecting samples on website “polls.”

Last, I haven’t seen any evidence of voter fraud in this election so far. There might be a little. (There usually is some attempt at fraud in an election, even if it’s small.) But even if we believe your conspiracy theory that there’s a location or two where there’s been massive fraud — which I don’t believe yet — it wouldn’t make a difference.

At some point, you have to quit making up excuses and admit that most other people simply don’t agree with you. They don’t support Paul and they’re not going to. You really need to take off the tinfoil hat and start getting into touch with reality. Conspiracy theories just make it harder to deal with reality.

If you have a question for David, drop him a line at davidmcelroy@mac.com. He can’t promise to answer all questions, but he’ll try. He also can’t promise not to make fun of you if the question is especially funny.

Share on Social Networks

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

Related Posts