Ron Paul and the Agony of Defeat
Will Patriots Ever Learn?
May 29, 2009
Who says "A," must say "B"
V. I. Lenin
Why halt ye between two opinions?
Elijah the prophet
John Pittman Hey
National Secretary
It is the nature of people, that we gravitate toward the enjoyable activities and shirk the hard ones.
Watch the game or clean out the garage - which will it be? The answer to that domestic question explains why the television ratings for sports programs are so high, and garages across the nation remain death traps.
Nowhere is this behavior pattern more frustrating than to those of us who have committed ourselves to building a strong America First Party to restore the Constitution and take back our freedom. Building a party is hard work, and it is made all the harder by the fact that, for too many patriots, there are plenty of fun activities they’d rather engage in.
All too many patriotic citizens would rather recline in their easy chairs and read a good expose, or watch C-SPAN, or attend a social event with political overtones -- in fact, they’d rather do anything other than the hard work it takes to build a successful political party. Naturally, they deceive themselves into the belief that what they most enjoy doing just happens to be the most effective use of their time and resources to advance the cause of liberty.
One thing we patriots have to resist with every fiber of our being is the tendency to opt for the fun, feel-good -- but ultimately useless -- activities which distract from our mission, while titillating us and providing the false satisfaction that "I accomplished something for the cause today." Having a good time and enjoying oneself doesn't necessarily help our cause.
Ron Paul's Race: the Best Example
The Ron Paul race for the Republican nomination for President may be the best example in fifty years of this phenomenon: an exercise in futility and self-delusion, masquerading as a "good fight for the cause" that was a great deal of fun and accomplished nothing.
Meanwhile, the cause of building a strong patriotic party languished, because too many people who ought to know better were drawn away from the hard work to watch the three-ring circus down the road.
Ron Paul is a patriot who loves his country. He is right on almost all the issues. But he’s dead wrong about staying and fighting in the Republican Party, and he needs to shake the dust off his feet and leave it now.
Ron Paul is a patriot who loves his country. He is right on almost all the issues. But he’s dead wrong about staying and fighting in the Republican Party...
The arguments that were raised for a Ron Paul candidacy are easily dismissed. Some might argue that his campaign was the only method of getting a Constitutionalist on the ballot. They are doubly wrong. He never had a chance at the nomination, because the voters in Republican primaries oppose his views. Not only so, but they express derision and contempt for his views.
Furthermore, there were far easier ways to get Ron Paul on the ballot. He could have easily obtained the Libertarian Party’s nomination had he so wished. The LP is on the ballot in 46 states already.
Some argue, in desperation, that Ron Paul was our only chance, but they are wrong as well. Ron Paul was never a chance in 2008.
Perhaps one of the most difficult truths of life to grasp is this: just because there is a problem, a severe problem, a problem that appears to engulf and destroy everything, doesn't mean that there is also a ready salvation at hand. If there is a salvation for our country (and of that we cannot be entirely confident), it is one that requires blood, toil, tears, and sweat, and many, many years of hard work. It was delusional to believe that a Ron Paul 2008 candidacy was that salvation, and it was counterproductive for patriotic Americans to tear off in pursuit of that delusion.
The Republican Party "Take-over" Delusion
Some Paul supporters nursed the belief that they could somehow "take over" the local and state Republican organizations and seize the nomination by stealth.
They didn’t count on the Republican officials cheating and breaking the rules to thwart their efforts. I even received calls from people wanting to know how they could use the party rules to take over state conventions. I told them that the rules don’t matter to Republicans.
They follow their leader, George Bush, in that regard. While engaging in criminal acts of lawlessness, he repudiated the rule of law and the Constitution, so why shouldn’t lower-level party officials behave likewise? As in cases of Presidential misconduct, the courts almost never step in to make party officials follow party rules.
The last time a real hostile take-over of a party took place was Goldwater in 1964. See what the Republican Party did to him? He didn't even carry a majority of Republican votes in the general election. Those of us who tried to work in the Reform Party with Pat Buchanan learned the hard way: it only takes a determined minority to wreck a party’s efforts. Parties must be broadly unified in order to achieve success, and a highly factionalized take-over spells doom at election time.
The Real Reason Ron Paul Lost
There is also to be considered what is perhaps the darkest and most disturbing reason the Ron Paul effort was doomed: had he won the Republican nomination, it would have been tantamount to the members and elected officials of the Party admitting their blood-guiltiness in the matter of the invasion of Iraq.
Implicitly (but almost never explicitly), Paul was accusing the Republican Party and its leader the President of mass murder. That is why Giuliani roached up like he did during the debates whenever Paul discussed Iraq.
Some argue, in desperation, that Ron Paul was our only chance, but they are wrong as well. Ron Paul was never a chance in 2008.
A Ron Paul nomination would have meant the repudiation of all the Party’s moralistic excuses and outright lies to justify killing in cold blood upwards of a million innocent people in the Republican war. If for no other reason, that is why Republican Party members could never support Ron Paul in sufficient numbers.
The Bitter Fruit of Republican Party Activism
Some might argue that, if they accomplish nothing else, Republican campaigns such as Paul’s create new activists. In reality, they also have a debilitating effect upon supporters and volunteers. It happens over and over: people follow a guy like Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan and pour their hearts and souls into it, only to have them crushed. Then they go into deep depression as they contemplate how very, very bad off the country is, and that all that work and support didn’t and couldn't make a difference.
The experience sours them to ever trying again. It raises false hopes, only to dash them into pieces. For example, there are many people who were enthusiastic supporters of Goldwater in 1964, who were so crushed by that Republican betrayal that they never took any active role in conservative politics again.
Paul never had a prayer of gaining the nomination for one simple reason: Republican Party members do not agree with his principles or his policies. And since it is primarily Republicans who decide who their nominee will be, Paul never even got close to winning a single primary or caucus.
He didn’t lose because he was cheated, or because the Republican voters didn’t know where he stood. He lost because Republicans hate his ideas.
The Republican Party: America's Enemy
It’s time we took off the rose-colored glasses when it comes to honestly assessing the Republican Party. It is the party of empire and bloody wars of aggression. It is the party of big government and big spending. It is the party of free trade and globalist economics. These are the values that warm the hearts of the rank and file membership of the Republican Party.
It’s time we took off the rose-colored glasses when it comes to honestly assessing the Republican Party. It is the party of empire and bloody wars of aggression. It is the party of big government and big spending. It is the party of free trade and globalist economics. These are the values that warm the hearts of the rank and file membership of the Republican Party. They voted against Ron Paul as their nominee because he opposes all they hold dear.
They voted against Ron Paul as their nominee because he opposes all they hold dear. He sought to tear down all the hard work they have put into building their globalist, elitist, warmongering, leviathan-state-loving political machine.
It cannot be reformed -- just ask Pat Buchanan. It cannot be hijacked to advance the cause of liberty -- ask Barry Goldwater.
The Need for the America First Party
That is why many of us left that party to form the America First Party -- because we concluded that the Republican Party could not be used as a vehicle to save our country.
But as long as people can be deceived into believing that there is still hope for our country in the Republican Party, they will stay in that party and will continue to exhaust their time and resources on that hopeless quest.
This is the fundamental problem with the Ron Paul candidacy: it never had a chance, but it reinforced the delusion that the Republican Party might be saved.
The Author's Prediction Beforehand
The logic against rushing out and joining up with the Ron Paul campaign was easy to see. Way back in March 2007, I published the following argument against getting behind Paul’s quest for the Republican nomination. It has never been refuted.
1. The Country is rapidly disintegrating.
2. The Republican Party (and the Democrat Party) cannot be reformed, saved, or in any way contribute to the salvation of our country.
3. The Republican Party is by far a larger threat to the country than any other party, because it provides a sham solution, holding out hope to many patriots and concerned citizens, while deluding, co-opting, and suffocating all legitimate attempts to bring correction. It is what some call "false opposition."
4. As long as the Republican Party is seen as a "conservative" party that supports the constitution and stands for good, the country cannot be saved, and a viable constitutionalist third party cannot rise.
5. Therefore, the Republican Party must be destroyed if America is to be saved.
6. Anything that props up the Republican Party, helps get Republicans elected, or contributes to the illusion that the Republican Party provides a shred of hope for the country, is in actuality helping destroy America.
7. Any candidate who runs as a constitutionalist or patriot in the Republican Party is, by propping up that party and encouraging a lingering hope in it, helping to destroy America.
8. Ron Paul is helping to destroy America by running as a Republican and getting elected to Congress as a Republican. He does more harm to the country by propping up the party than any good he does with his vote in the House.
9. People who vote for Republicans are helping destroy America, no matter what their reason....
I reached this sobering conclusion: Ron Paul is helping destroy America by running as a Republican because by so doing he supports the Republican Party and gives hundreds of thousands of patriots a lingering hope for salvation through the Republican Party.
Regarding this question, I wrote almost two years ago:
If Paul wins the nomination, I believe that we should dissolve the America First Party, because our premise - that the Republican Party cannot be the basis for the saving of this country - will have been proven wrong.
If Paul wins the Republican nomination, then all of us who left the Republican Party because we believed it was unsalvageable will be shown to have been wrong, and everything we did since 2000 was just a big waste of time. We should have been working to reform the Republican Party, if it proves to have been possible.
But come Republican convention time, I know that my assessment - that the Republican Party must be destroyed if America is to be saved - will be borne out.
Anybody who believes that the Republican Party is more likely to be used to save America than the America First Party should quit the AFP and join the Republican Party. Contrariwise, those who believe that we have a better shot in the AFP than in the Republican Party ought to walk away from Ron Paul and get to work building our party.
What doesn’t make any sense is those individuals with a foot in both camps, those who swing back and forth, constantly running over to the dark side to participate in Republican primary fights such as Ron Paul’s, then slinking away when their delusions are dashed again.
This phenomenon, of people wanting to jump off a difficult but necessary long-term strategy to try out a short term solution, is a common malady of the human race. We're always looking for short-cuts. No matter how rational our long-term strategy is, if somebody comes along with a "quick fix" it will attract people in the short term - and incidentally undermine the critical long-term efforts.
Now, if you still believe that the Republican Party can be saved, I can’t help you. By all means follow your conscience and stay in and fight. But if your eyes have been opened to the truth about the Republican Party, then get out of the Republican Party and come help us build an alternative home for patriots and constitutionalists.
Patriots, Make Up Your Minds!
Almost three thousand years ago, the prophet Elijah exhorted the people to make up their minds about what course they would follow. "Why halt ye between two opinions?" he demanded.
Patriots either need to surrender the cause entirely, or shed their sentimentalism, their delusions, their laziness, and their self-indulgence and get to work building a party that can take back their country.
Patriots either need to surrender the cause entirely, or shed their sentimentalism, their delusions, their laziness, and their self-indulgence and get to work building a party that can take back their country.
Soon it will be too late -- and no amount of regret for all the time and resources squandered on the Republican Party will avail us anything then.
